as I’m fascinated with in how many ways people successfully tune their cars in Forza I thought a little poll might be enlightening.
Simple question:
What is your basic tuning premise, i.e. what tuning parameters do you set always in the same way and that will never change during the tuning process? Or to put in another way, something where you would say “I always set,”.
Here is mine:
I always set tire pressure depending on tire compound (28 stock/street, 28.5 sport, 29 race).
I always set brakes to 48% distribution and 125% brake pressure.
That’s it, everything else I need to figure out in the tuning process.
Set downforce to maximum. This seems to be best almost regardless - I don’t really race on ovals or the Old Mulsanne circuit, so cornering grip is more important. This rule applies to anything road-legal (don’t have the Caparo T1 - that might be an exception) and almost all race cars. Even the E23 benefits from max downforce unless tyre wear is a problem or the straights are really long.
Change the gears. In general, I make 1st gear longer (lower number) and the highest gear considerably shorteer (higher number). I make the ratios considerably closer towards the top. My reasoning is that having a 250mph top speed isn’t useful if you’ll never be able to reach it…
I can’t think of anything set in stone for a final tune. Tyre pressures and brake pressure /balance tend to vary less than most other things.
When I start testing a build on a car I set pressures to 29 for stock/street and 28 for sport/race. I tune the gears/final drive approximately on sport/race transmissions as this can affect the behaviour of the car.
In the lower classes which I generally tune for I will eliminate downforce from the Forza aero or leave 75 on the front if I’m doing a grip tune which will likely finish with 75-100 on the front.
I will usually set the brake balance to 48 and pressure to 130/140 or higher for a speed build.
I might mess with the differential a bit as well - the decel to 10 or 16 and the accel at 36,68 or 90.
Then i usually do a few laps around Hockenheim GP to get a feel for the car and to find out whether I can make it competitive in class or in to a car I would like to race.
OK, a quick question. I notice in the above posts, they all seem to suggest a 48% brake balance. Does that suggest that the balance is inverted again??
Nothing is set in stone, but I usually start with.
Relatively soft suspension “About 3rd of the bar” from left and front bit stiffer, and adjust from there. (althuogh I’ve been experimenting with stiffer setups lately)
Relatively high rebound 8-10 and relatively soft bump 2.5 and adjust from there
Diff on 65/15 on RWD 65/0 on FWD 60/0 70/20 60% on AWD and adjust from there
Camber on 1.2 and 0.8 and adjust from there
Caster depending on wheelbase / drivetrain 3.8-7 (Short/FWD/AWD - Long RWD)
Suspension often 2 clicks from the lowest unless the car has very high ground clearance to begin with
When going track spesific, or mid engine (which for me is very rare) just about nothing of this holds when the car might end up being notably stiffer or softer higer or lower.
Normally i make no adjustments right off the bat, depending on car, powertrain, track and if the tune and build is private or for the masses.
After ten laps (depending of track) i start with soft rollbars and somewhat stiffer springs with mid to high bump with low rebound, moving to ride hight, aero, tires and diff settings.
I have a basic tune I use based mostly on real-world experience, but I’ve noticed that completely unrealistic things like rear brake bias and huge amounts of front toe-out are more competitive in this game, so I don’t spend much time on tuning. It’s apparently a hunt-and-peck process at the pointy end of the grid and I’d rather not waste the time.
That said, I always buy a race gearbox so I can change all the gear ratios (aiming for a fairly generic close-ratio setup and using final drive to adjust), I never touch tire pressure because the differences are negligible at best, I’ll generally lower the car to 2 clicks from bottom, I’ve found most of the “race” springs are far too stiff out of the box, and my diff usually ends up in the 60-80/10-15% range for accel/decel. I add maybe 2-2.5º negative camber in the front and recently discovered negative camber in the rear acts like incorrect spring rate or sway bar rate (that was a confusing process…) so I leave it at 0 now. I also leave brake pressure at 100% so I don’t have to tune every car I drive for it to make sense.
Terrible idea unless stock gearing is really odd (really long or short gears) or not enough gears (some cars top out too quickly).
You’re better off saving the PI for handling or power upgrades depending on what kind of tracks the car is to be used on. For many cars the stock gearing or near stock gearing from street gearbox is quite good.
In addition close-ratio gearing is terrible for most v8 powered cars. Pretty easy to accidently tune out acceleration provided by the motor’s low end torque. Probably why a lot of people suck in the Dodge Dart. They are clueless when to shift.