So I’m trying to tune a vehicle for every class. Anyone have any ideas for a good Class A and Class B vehicles/tunes that has actual traction? Since adding tires seems to keep sending everything into the S1 Class. I know speed and grip can’t always coexist but there has to be a balance, right? Maybe through some suspension or tires? I’m not asking for tuning advice as this is not the proper place for that. I’m just annoyed at trying to figure out this game’s class system.
I had another question but have now realized it is a question better suited for the Tuner Garage. I’ll ask it anyway but if no one responds to it, then that’s fine. When going through your car list, do you tune every vehicle and does that always mean replacing the stock engine? I ask this because even though all the HP can be nice in some cars, I do also appreciate the car’s sounds and the variety of the stock vs example, all my rods having a 6.2L. Which sounds nice but can be weird when my GTO Judge and BRZ can sound the same lol
It doesn’t always mean swapping engines, usually in D & C you can get away with boosted stock engines, but getting into B and A, will usually benefit from a swap, as power to weight ratios are better, and depending on the track, sometimes more power is good, sometimes, not. Usually what I’ll do is upgrade width of the tires all the
way around, before anything. Then race/rally suspension, brakes, sways, and race trans. Add power, then do things to shave weight and reduce shift times. But that’s me. I’ll usually go for a Lil more handling than power on my builds, sometimes it’s a good balance, sometimes power is sacrificed to corner better, as I can usually out corner ai so I’ll give up straight line speed for being able to corner like it’s on rails and use that speed carried through the corner to keep my momentum for the straights. If that makes sense? I don’t always awd drive swap either at least for career, online it’s almost a must have, but I really prefer a well balance rwd car that puts power down as I can squeeze in more power than if I had awd, your launches will be slower, but easily made up for in straights and corners. Hope that helps a lil.
For me its trial and error, in A class I have a couple of cars I like to drive both RWD and AWD. AWD in A is a toss up for me between Mustang HE RWD, and the berlinetta lusso or 250 gto AWD. The dart and 04 civic are also contenders on my A list but it really depends on your driving style. I Aim for 6-7 in handling with as much HP I can fit in the class I’m aiming for and tune from there, sometimes it goes smoothly and other times it remains a work in progress for quite some time.
I don’t tune every vehicle, but if I see something interesting going through my list Id tune it up and work on it just out of curiosity. As far as swapping out engines and upgrades in general, for me personally it depends on what I’m trying to achieve with that specific vehicle. I have cars that Ive literally purchased every upgrade just trying to figure out what combo works best for a given task…and yes the fact that so many cars sound so similar is weird.
I think my biggest issue is trying to maximize handling/power in an A class vehicle because any worthwhile upgrades send the vehicle into S1 class.
I see people with 800-1,000HP tunes in the storefront but they’re all over the place thus trading control for power. I don’t even see how that’s even possible unless they’re tweaking or hacking their tunes but that’s not my point. I want to find a balance of both power and handling because I race online often and while the S and X are alright, I like to race lower classes, too. I keep alot of my cars upgraded stock engines to prevent them from sounding the same. Plus, I don’t want every car to drive like a Lambo. I just want a hot rod to feel and sound like one. Same with my tuners, etc.
Yeah, I was thinking a 70-80’s Toyota for this. Potentially, something like the 240 SX if I can get the suspension to my liking. Perhaps if I can trade weight for speed then handling will be easier since there would be less “car” to have fight against. Especially through concurrent bends and corners.
A well-tuned AWD powertrain can go a long way toward making up not being able to take on stickier tires. If you’re not keen on adding it to a FWD/RWD vehicle, find something with standard AWD that you can stand to run that is minimally in the bottom half of the class you’re building it for. One class or more down would be better still, the reason being that you have more PI margin to play with. That said, the further down your starting car is from the class you intend to max out at, the more likely it is that you may need an engine swap to help cover said margin. Some stock engines, particularly in classic cars, just don’t have enough upside to get the job done in terms of PI margin or power (the V8s in the '40-'50s Ford and Mercury cars put out ~500 hp with race components and forced induction IIRC). Others aren’t the most efficient route to more power (low-displacement, forced induction engines can be relatively powerful, yet can also become boat anchors once you start upgrading the blower(s) and its related accessories). Those are the two instances in which I can imagine an engine swap making sense.
I regularly run in A-class and am currently using a Volvo S60 making mid-600 hp on the stock engine with stock tires. I’m regularly out-dragged, but barring an exceptional build/tune and/or driver, I’m fighting for leads and often run away on tighter circuits like Archway and Rolling Meadows. And I’m only just now coming up on what I consider to be the baseline tune for this build.
I was thinking 600’s would be a good medium for an A class car. I didn’t think about the AWD dynamic though. That makes alot of sense. I don’t typically drag race much since people don’t believe in doing that in rods anymore - just hyper cars and such.
As someone mentioned above, I also can typically gain ground through corners and get left on straightaways. Cornering seems to be more effective of the two anyway.
I by far prefer superior cornering too, but the simple fact of the matter is that there aren’t an abundance of courses that will let it be continually advantageous. So many have enough relatively easy corners along with a long, straight sprint to the finish to allow a power build to stay in striking distance. So you have to concede some of that PI you would have thrown at handling in earlier Forzas to power so that you don’t get completely decimated on the straights.
That and you won’t need quite as much power to get up to speed. I implied something similar to someone else a few days ago under the same general premise; the vintage sports car builds I’ve encountered have been fast and nimble. Had some fun, if far from victorious runs against some once we broke away from the kamikaze passing amongst the ‘slammed on dubs’ rally rockets and the badly tuned V12/AWD muscle cars.
I slapped together an engine-swapped Volvo 1800ES this morning that is hopelessly outgunned in B-class, but has me hopeful in the sense that getting the handling together was the easy part. I like its balance with the BMW straight six, so my vintage loonicorn project will likely be the Volvo 124 GT. The only question is whether I want to work with the Rally 1.4T or boost the BMW straight-six. . .
An AWD/V12 hot rod is the bane of my automotive existence…
As I said in another post, I’m glad developers listened and gave people more tuning options. Horizon 3 is my first in the series so I have no previous experience to compare to. I will say, however, that the idea of a hyper car engine in a hot rod makes my brain numb to think about. I just try to approach it for what it is, a video game, and leave it at that.
On topic, I think I’m going to go with the 240SX after a bit of testing. It’s quick, corners well, and a pretty easy tune. It gets a little slippery and wants to drift at times with just stock tires but I’m going to meddle around with the suspension and PSI to find a good balance.
I managed to tune a 740hp 240SX for A Class. Still a little slick on the stock tires but races well overall.
I also managed a 70’s Datsun 700 tune for B Class. Not that it will get much time online since no one races B but should be good for Blizzard Mountain lol
Did you choose to go AWD with either or were you successful in making them manageable with RWD? And did you engine swap?
I actually engine-swapped my Volvo V60, turned the wick up to to 1,005 hp, and ran a few S1 championships this morning. Managed some strong 2nd places and was hunting down the leader at Maroondah Dam until I had snap oversteer on the downward run onto the wooden bridge.
Snap oversteer. . .in an AWD station wagon with sport compound tires. XD
Finished 4th, but decided to ‘retire’ the build not long afterward. It could be further refined, and S1 does go a long way towards equalizing builds, but I wasn’t a fan of when the race craft got bad at those speeds.
I had to go AWD which makes the slick stock tires a little more manageable. The car is a natural drifter by design so RWD makes the car wants to drift the whole race. I have been tinkering with a '77 Vantage so that could be a possible replacement if Ken Block can’t keep his nose out of my tuning lol
I can’t use the Datsun on BM because the snow tires makes it a S1 from B Class so back to the drawing board for that one lol
The Lancia 037 is another pretty good A class car, I think. You can get 9.5 acceleration with over 500 hp in a very light car and still have 6.8 - 6.9 handling with AWD, and is probably one of the better choices to try to make RWD work as it’s a naturally good handling car. I haven’t fine-tuned it and taken it to the leaderboards yet, but the numbers are some of the strongest I’ve seen. It should be good in S1 class, too. I have four versions I’m looking foward to driving.
I was apart of an A-class lobby that was destroyed by a 037 a few days ago. One of the courses was the Maroondah Dam Sprint, which is very kind to the chiefly rocket rally builds that were present. Yet from the word go, the Lancia was all like:
I don’t remember the margin to second, but it was one of the more dominant performances I’ve seen of a build. I think you’ll do extremely well with it when you get it sorted.
I’ve had some success with that on relatively modern cars, not so much for those that ran bias ply tires in their heyday. It’s one of the reasons I give the current PI system a five-facepalm rating; if you choose to turn up the power wick on a vintage car, you either have to either upgrade the tires or adopt AWD in order to keep it drivable. . .at least online. One of my personal peeves is someone who can’t hold a line because they’re running 900 horsepower through a tire that was overmatched about 400 horsepower ago.
I also suggest either a rally/offroad build or incorporating some rally elements into an all-arounder. Many rally rockeeters seem to assume that because they have an Evo or Impreza, they’ll be fine on mixed surface courses. Won three out of four with a 123GT, and the only elements I think stood out were that it had rally tires and extra travel from the rally suspension. I’ve barely begun tweaking the thing and it ‘only’ makes 500 hp. . .
Throwing on wider tires can help with handling and doesn’t cost as much PI. The problem with this game is that the PI for tyre upgrades is so big that it leaves a massive gap between racing vs drivatars, against racing online. There will always be a difference, but with this particular game in the franchise it’s massively different. You also never know what kind of group you’ll end up in online. Those who’ve stuck with power builds, or those who build more balanced cars. Because for this game “balanced” cars are massively underpowered for the most part. So no one answer is going to help you.
Your best bet is probably to build TWO cars for each class. One pocket rocket, and one more rounded build.
Interestingly enough, I picked up a 037 the other day because I thought it would make a cool “Power Wheels” Batmobile lol. I have it tuned or but only minimally driven it. I’ll have to get it out for some runs today.
As I have previously stated, I have no previous Forza experience so getting used to this PI system has been…interesting to say the least. I don’t understand how a grossly underpowered car with good grip can be perceived as balanced. As a long time engine mechanic, I know you have to trade. As power goes up handling decreases and vice versa. Unless I want to turn my '65 GTO into a '12 Aston Martin, it’s a struggle find a balance in this game. Which brings me to the next valid point brought up.
This is my first time playing a game where a solid offline build can be burnt online. I haven’t played many racing games since the old school racing days but I’ve played enough games over the years where this mechanic still applies. It’s interesting that they would allow such a wide gap between the two when obviously realism is highlighted all over this game.
The insanity of trying to race other people online in their overpowered tunes is frustrating and hilarious at the same time. To watch them eat it into trees or play ping pong off the walls (and all the other racers) never ceases to make my day lol
Ah well, I guess I’ll just keep tinkering. That’s the name of the game, right guys? Thanks everyone for their input. It’s always appreciated.
Thanks everyone for their input. It’s always appreciated.