Traction Control changes Top Speed

I've only noticed this with the Sunburst, but I'll start double checking other vehicles. So far this only happens when running an engine mod, problem is I've got so many installed I'm not sure which one this is, but it enables a 5.0 liter engine for the Sunburst, so if you can name it I'll post it to that mod specific forum per the rules. Running the 5.0 engine with all the upgrades, I can attain a top speed just shy of 270 MPH before the piston rings and other failures start to occur. However, if I cycle through the traction control settings, I can get a top speed of around 285, with much quick acceleration, without an engine penalty (nothing breaks or overheats etc). Not a big deal really, in fact it's kind of neat if you wan't to hit the highest speed possible without a penalty. Just thought I'd bring this to light.

 

Traction control cuts power. This isn't unrealistic

 

Traction control limits wheelspin, without it you might get more acceleration if Traction control limits wheelspin too much.

Actually it is wheel slip, there is not much wheelspin with traction control enabled.

Anyway at higher speed aerodynamic lift can reduce grip, then traction control starts kicking in and car accelerates slower, alternatively at slower speed traction control might be too aggressively cutting in and you can't get all grip of tires used up.

At least with K-series vanilla traction control is reducing acceleration a lot with some stock configs too.

 

You can see this happening in game if you have the speed and airspeed apps open. I think at higher speeds I've had the airspeed by 20MPH over the speed of the wheels.

 

That is weird, I wonder how reliable these apps are at measuring speed. I got same speed with and without ESC/TC enabled, but how air speed is greater than wheelspeed is too complex for me to understand.

 

airspeed measures your car's speed through the world. wheel speed is simply calculated using engine rpm, gear ratios, and tire diameter. since tires expand at higher speeds, the speedometer is off by some margin, just like if you put larger tires on your vehicle in real life without recalibrating the speedometer.

 

Hmm, I kinda knew that, except my brain refused to function, thankfully there are many better brains around

 

Similar thing happens on RC cars. Can't seem to embed a video with timestamp but skip to 1:10

 

Yeah, also with dragsters, for some reason my brain just decided not to work, but then again it has been doing a lot of that after last seizure.