In the last post we mentioned the new engine heat simulation and that it will change some of your driving habits. Here is some more information about what it is, what it simulates and how it will change your driving style.

The vast majority of racing cars do what is called the "fan delete mod (FDM)". It means that they physically remove the fan that keeps radiators cool when the car is stopped with the engine running, or simply moving at a very low speed. The thought behind FDM is that a racing car is always running fast, or at least most of the time and a fan in front of the radiator would only block the air passage. Also the fan is usually connected to the engine with a belt in order to operate and this means it drains some power from the engine itself when is used. Finally, the weight of the belt, fan and plastics that are needed in order to make it operate, can be eliminated. So by eliminating the fan, we achieve the following results:

So it seems a win win situation, but is it really? Well of course if normal cars have a fan, it must be there for a reason. Indeed, whenever the car is stopped and the engine is running, the heat generated can't be dissipated fast enough without a fan. Same issue for when the engine is working on high rpms but the actual car speed is low (i.e. in a 1st gear corner). It is clear that in those conditions there is a high risk of overheating the engine. It isn't surprising then that on most of the historic cars manuals and homologation papers that our team researchers have found, there are plenty of warnings regarding the engine speed limit on lower revs. As an example, the Lotus Elan homologation paper, clearly states that the safe revs are 7000r.p.m. but only 6500r.p.m on first and second gear.

Is all this simulated in our mod?
You bet it is! On the second release, all our cars have completely different engine heating simulation. Now the most important value to look after is the engine oil temperature. Water temperature is also important, but it is a bit more stable than oil.
Optimum oil temperature is now set at around 95°C (203°F) and contrary to our 1st release, with the new one you will see the gauges writings, raising quite fast on similar temps. You can push the oil temp up to 100 or even something more, but be carefull because prolonged usage of the engine at such high temperatures, will definitely harm its reliability. On top of that, if the oil temp goes way up, you are risking an instant engine failure.
Racing your car you will notice how the engine oil constantly moves now, changing values, depending on how you use your engine and where you are on the track. It is also much much more sensitive in regards to ambient temperature, so you also have to think about that too.
So here are some advice that will help to keep your engine healthy and cool... sort of.

• Always check ambient temperature before entering the track.
• Don't start your engine while waiting on the start line. Wait till everybody else has joined the track.
• Don't wait in the pits with your engine on.
• Don't push the engine to it's limits on low gears (i.e. 1st, 2nd). You can do so in higher gears when the air cooling is plenty.
• Change gear just 200-300rpms lower than max revs will be usually more than enough to cool your car down. When it is cooled, you can try to attack again.
• Don't downshift like an "animal" on braking points! :) First brake, then, when the revs are low, start downshifting. If you keep downshift as soon as you brake and keep your revs high, your oil temperature will definitely go up.

Don't get paranoid about it. It might seem difficult at first, but soon you will realise that it doesn't make your laptimes any slower. It will just make you more aware of the meccanical components of your car and it will make your races even more interesting.

We hope you will enjoy this new feature of our mod and we think it greatly enchances the simulation immersion. Next post... brakes!

Yes we know that you have probably already played the 1st release cars to death. You have probably done thousands of km, tenths of setups and know well that the brakes are weak, the big americans cars are, understeery pigs, not so agile as you would have liked and that all the cars have various types of Dunlop tires.

Well think again as for the 2nd release we have worked hard to improve even more the authenticity of all the cars, including the 60 Turismo. Some small changes to the tires physics, make the cars even more communicative and fun to drive. Our beta testers report better feedback and an even higher grip impressions. Contrary to this, lap times are a bit slower, making the sim even more realistic and closer to real cars lap times.

The 3D models of the cars have also received modifications. Gone are now the modern rollbars, fire extinguishers and modern bucket seats. On their place you will find authentic historic seats, rollbars for the cars that where equipped with one and of course, no fire extinguishers.

Sounds have been optimized even more, with various subtle changes that increase immersion and authenticity. There is not much I can say now, you have to hear them and judge for yourself. What I can say though is that we also have now a new brake physics model and new engine heating model too. The changes make the driving experience much much more realistic than before and also more challenging. You will be forced to change your driving style depending on the atmospheric conditions and you will find yourself taking a look at the water and oil temps much more now. Being this a quite important novelty, we prefer explaining in one of the next blog entries. Stay tuned ;)

...nothing to see here. Oh wait, actually there is something to see here!

The GTL Workshop team, decided to publish this development blog about our mod Power&Glory. As you probably know, we are working hard to finish the 2nd release of our mod that will include the Gran Turismo cars of the 60s. This means that once the mod will be finished, you will be able to drive cars like the agile Lotus Elans, the gorgeous  Jaguar E-types, the leggendary Ferraris 250SWB and 275GTB, the Ferraris worst nightmare Ford GT40s, muscle cars like the AC Cobras and Corvettes and much much more.

Following our first release paradigm, we are not stopping on a single model creation, but we will provide lot's of variations for every single model that we recreate.As a matter of fact we have being almost obsessive on the amount of details that we have insert on this new release. This is the main reason of the development blog. As work continues we have realized that quite some people didn't actually understood the changes and attention to detail on the cars of our first release of the mod.

With the 2nd release rapidly approaching publication time, we understand that you are all eager to drive the cars and not waste spent time on reading the manual or forums. This development blog will try to showcase the changes we have done to all the GTLegends models that we have used as a starting point, explaining technical data and choices of the era, even more types of tires and specific history of every car recreated, plus the occasional anecdotes from our dev forums.

 Hope you will enjoy the ride.

 The GTL Workshop mod team.