How feasible are the upgrades that you can do to cars in game in real life? I try to drive the cars in a way that you could actually get them IRL if you wanted to so had always left all cars stock except for some tire upgrades that I verified are available in real life or modifying cars to match their GT3 variants IRL.
If you come to put a statement this or this modification is not possible, you will always find someone to say the opposite. I would say that they made some choices that are related to some algorithm securing the performance of car into some boundaries (not always 100% efficient as we all know). If you want to be sure, you will have to do that investigation yourself.
1 Like
Well, I have seen a 5.7L V8 (LS swap) RX-7, so I just assume everything is possible now to be on the safe side…
The upgrades by and large are not particularly authentic.
Engine swaps are kind of all over the place, with some cars being artificially limited to small engines like the turbo rally swap despite plenty of RL swaps with larger engines (nearly the entire hot hatch class for example), and other cars having massive engines available that wouldn’t fit IRL without MAJOR structural modifications.
Engine power limits are suspect as well, Forza puts a relatively low artificial cap on how much power most of the engines can produce when fully upgraded.
Don’t even get started on the AWD swaps, 90% of the cars that allow for the swap don’t physically have room for an AWD system. This is the least realistic upgrade for most vehicles.
It sounds like what you’re doing is a good approach. Generally I avoid conversions unless there’s RL evidence that the conversion is actually feasible and works well.
3 Likes
Depends, so will break it into sections.
Tires/wheels/brakes, very much for the most part 100% realistic, although actual performance achieved from such changes not so likely to match what the game might suggest.
Suspension/steering, changing to meet street and sport pretty much realistic, as most suspensions can be tweaked, really depends if aftermarket parts exist or not. Changing to race/rally and especially drift, will very much depend on the car, and just how much custom work you want to do to said car. How easy it is to get race or rally type suspensions will have a lot to do with what the factory offered, cars built in factory with rally or race in mind will be easier to adapt than those only intended as daily drivers, drift is different, as there is no factory released ‘drift’ cars, all work on drift likely requires custom fabrication. Added note, the range of settings for suspension in the game, i.e. sliding scale, is not realistic, it is more ‘a’ or ‘aa’ or ‘aaa’, not somewhere in between.
Gearbox/clutch/differential, like suspension above, is there parts for the car you can buy, or must everything be custom fabricated? Still, most is certainly possible. Gearboxes also have a lot to do with the engine, so…
Engine swapping. Very much depends on the car, also very much depends how realistic the options Forza gives you are. V8’s, in most cases, yes, if you have the cash, you can do it easily enough, even in cars where it seems not realistic (not sure the game offers these, not checked) - V8s in to 60’s Minis, V8s into original Beetles and tiny Fiats. this has all been done in RL. When we move onto V10, and V12, I would say provided the car has the actual room, and you have the actual cash, it is realistic, but been able to V12 swap everything under the sun, not at all realistic.
Engine upgrades, yes for the most part, again depending on car and engine, either buy off the shelf or will all need to be custom made.
Turbo/twin turbo/supercharging - realistic depending on engine, more realistic in engine swap cases, as here in real life we would be talking an engine made, or fitted with such as standard.
Aero, I say yes, performance would be very much about what the car is, and how it performs without aero, and what aero could realistically do to help - extreme example, a van with aero would handle better certainly, but will never handle so well as to be better at cornering than a sports car.
Driveline swaps - 100% the most unrealistic upgrade offered in the game - for most cars in the game, this would just not be feasible at any level, they don’t have the room for the required components, and making room wold be impossible - looking at you Peel P50. Considering the game does not allow, or make changes to engine position when driveline swaps are made, make this even more unrealistic, changing a rear engined car to mid or front engine or a front engine to mid actually make the idea more realistic, as it represents the changes you would need for some cars. While it can be done if room allows, we are taking major changes to the structure of the car, even going so far as to be basically building a new car under the sheet metal of the desired car, in short an old Ferrari with AWD is not so much a Ferrari any more as it is a custom chassis with the old Ferrari’s carcass fitted over it . FWD to RWD, or RWD to FWD, equally difficult and not realistic in most cases (for the times when Forza does offer it). On a different note, taking a car from AWD or 4WD to rear wheel drive, should be easy enough in most cases, especially when you are taking offroad type cars.
hope that helps
2 Likes
Anything is possible if you have the bank roll, and the know how. Wanna slap a 6.5L V12 into a Ford Escort, how much money, time, and knowledge do you have?
Not really? It’s important to realize upgrading a car in Forza belies any sense of the difficulty, time, or effort involved. A few clicks in Forza could easily be months or even a years worth of work. For example doing a transmission swap in Forza takes 2 seconds and is a go to mod, but swapping in a race transmission in real life is expensive, time consuming, and something you’d probably do only to a dedicated track car. In Forza I can swap in a 500hp twin turbo and don’t have to worry about any cooling because I don’t have to worry about blowing the engine when cooling is a top priority for any high horse power build.
I will always stand by that drive train swaps in this game are borderline pure fantasy and completely out of place. The V12 AWD meta is garbage but I blame that on the developers allowing it in the first place and the atrocious multiplayer of FH4 that people feel to play the meta to win.
Of course upgrades are done instantly, no decent game is going to make you wait beyond loading screens to upgrade your car.
Where did I ever say the game should make you wait for upgrades? Learn to read.
Makes me wonder what people are doing wrong when they make these super powered builds that always overheat.
What strategy do manufacturers use to keep their 1,200-1,700 HP cars running fine in the heat? Bugattis, Koenigsegg, SSC, etc.
If you’re replicating their power, why not replicate their cooling system. You’d think that would be cheaper than power anyway.
Ah, “realism.”
This is a game where a FWD '65 Mini Cooper S can overtake a 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor racing up the side of a mountain at an 85% angle, where farm tractors and tiny clown cars > half of the in-game vehicles collectively, and where cars made of LEGO bricks can be seen in any starting grid… so I’m not sure how much good sparring over “realism” will do you when it’s based in a world of fun house physics.
Just enjoy the game for what it is. But, if it’s ‘realism’ you really want, start rolling with Damage/Tire Wear on Simulation from here on out. 
+1
It’s very good combination for this game and push it to the completely different level.
1 Like
It would be kind of an interesting game mechanic to have vehicle upgrades take a somewhat realistic amount of time. Could integrate nicely with a race calendar where it takes X number of days to build a car up.
I would also like to see some part upgrades be prerequisites for others, i.e. beyond a certain point the cooling and chassis stiffening upgrades become mandatory before the game will allow for the top tier power upgrades to simulate the fact that most countries and race events require modified cars to be inspected to confirm that they’re actually safe to drive.
More realistic vehicle damage would be interesting as well, especially with the ability to blow an engine and such during a race.
I go with the majority opinion here.
Anything technically is possible given a large enough budget and team of engineers.
But, to preserve the original car, you basically want to treat everything under the Cog icon as suspect.
Most suspect are drive-train swaps as the work required to execute these is basically a rebuild of the car.
Next are the engine swaps: To be realistic you would prefer to stick to engine swaps where the before and after are about the same size, otherwise you are implying a lot of work in the engine bay.
As for everything else, go wild. Forza’s strange analogue spring settings are a bit freeform. Typically one buys sets of e.g. Einbach/your preferred brand 250 or 150 lbf.in springs. rather than dialing in 137.5 or whatever your tuning calculator told you.