Does upgrading differential impair car performance?

I remember seeing a thread years ago re the Ferrari 599 GTO in Forza 4. I was learning about differentials, and saw that sliding the differential setting to the left helped make it easier to control.

However, someone on the thread indicated that there should be no need for a differential - that the differential will “cripple the cars potential”. That learning better throttle control was a more appropriate approach.

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to cite the thread (it was on a different board) - but am happy to do so if it’s allowed.

Is there any merit to this in general? Is there any merit to it for Horizon 2, or Forza 5?

All this time, and I still think of that thread anytime I lower the accel setting for a differential in tuning. Why would someone make this claim? Is there any validity to it?

It’s bunkum. You can always improve a car’s performance by tweaking the differential. Being able to adjust decel alone justifies the entry price.

What entry price? In both FM5 and FH2 the only cost of the differential is in credits. It does not change the PI, it does not change the weigh or balance. It is basically a free upgradeable component for 2,200 Cr.

Just remember when tuning anything, garbage in, garbage out.

Upgrading the differential may help or hurt cars in the original Horizon or FH2 on the 360 because you can not tune them.

In FH2 on the One or FM5 adding a diff can help when tuned right.

The only way the original comment might be true is if people are saying that to go too low on accel can cause issues in fast speed turns and therefore you should look to throttle control as an option before reducing accell diff settings.

Yeah I think its false information. Sure, setting the diff wrong could make the car worse if its not done correctly (although this is all subjective and depends on how you drive) but in many cases the default settings are rubbish and the race diff adds no PI so is one of the few parts that should go on every single build. The only merit I see in the original post would be the importance of throttle control, but why cant you have both? if you have good throttle control and can also tune your diff and find the right balance between the two then you will have a car that is easier to drive but still more than capable in a competitive sense.

What is the behavior with no differential upgrade? Does it depend on the car?

It can depend on the car and it can depend on the drivetrain and even the position of the motor.

I find stock diffs on rwd cars to be understeery off gas and oversteery on gas.

So, this would translate to a diff setting that is too far left on the Acceleration, and too far left on the Deceleration? If so, could it be reasonable to conclude that perhaps a car with no differential upgrade is simply set to 0 accel / 0 decel?

No too far right on both.

You can see what the stock diffs are by going to the differential screen in tuning before upgrading it and assuming you have noit swapped the drivetrain yet.

The stock differential setting for most RWD cars that do not come with a tune from the factory is 75/75.

Unlike F4 and F5 the Horizon franchise is more of an arcade racer. From what little I did play of Horizon you don’t need to do much tuning for handling because it’s so unrealistically high in the first place.

It is possible to beat AI in anything. Online you can do pretty well in anything too. And B Wald does well without tuning although he does think about his builds as far as I know.

However if you want to get the very best out of the cars, including but not limited to, competiing in rivals there is a bunch of time to be had from tuning for handling. And yes that can mean both building with handling parts and then tuning it correctly.

Tuning the differential helps your car so much that some people think its cheating. Ever hear of the differential glitch? When you put it on an otherwise stock car it doesnt add any pp and therefore people think your trying to pull one over on them, when in fact alls your trying to do is tame a car. Usually its the first upgrade i do, and it ends up improvong the car so much i leave the car alone after that.

I was commenting on this sentence.

I would assume people would only conclude someone is cheating if it made them faster not if it made the car more enjoyable to drive.

I would suggest the diff does not make much of a difference to laptimes. Yes it helps but not the seconds needed before someone will claim cheating is involved.

Maybe not on the leaderboards, but most people online aren’t looking at those.

Imagine if you make a change to the dif that makes the car much easier to handle on throttle and with the gas down hard and someone in Online RT does not. If you gain even a quarter second on them in every corner, by the time you’re done with a race that had 40 corners you’re ten seconds ahead of them.

That said, most people online have this approach:

I had better go out and tweak my diff to gain the 10 seconds I need online then :wink:

You know what I meant. I typed up an actual explanation that had some insight but my cat backed up the browser and I don’t want to retype it again right now. I might after work if the discussion hasn’t ended.

hehehe Kitty strikes again!

Not you, but yes.

I was something along the lines of the ability to tweak a differential may not make a huge difference on your lap time or performance, it is nice. The bigger performance benefit is the presence of an adjustable diff as compared to an open diff. If LSD did not make a difference why would manufacturer’s use them? Or something like that.

It’s not going to shave ten seconds off of Eddie’s lap time, or off the time of someone who doesn’t understand how to use throttle control, take a good racing line, and the such. But, it can make a difference to the performance, feel, and character of a car.

Ok ill let you get your last words in… im not gonna xplain myself to u as i was talking to the op anyway. But that is why these forums die. For every person that posts something their is another that cant wait to pick his post apart.

To the op, it wouldnt be called a glitch if it wasnt helpful.