So after playing FH3 for a while, I’ve noticed how I could translate a lot out of the game into written technique, the aim I have for this post is to give people some insight on Racing, people who may know little or a lot, but whom also feel they might learn anything new from any scrap of theoretical knowledge. I’ve seen a lot of “I’ve done this” or “I race on the hardest setting” but usually explain themselves full of bigotry. ‘no offense’
So let’s start getting to the point, those who don’t want a lengthy read, might as well move on, your potential loss though. I didn’t come here to explain something in 5 minutes, I came here to explain something in depth as properly as possible, to those who do actually have an interest to see if they can learn something.
Those who are experienced, I’d love to learn anything new myself, learning to be quicker is always appreciated. Just keep in mind I’ll be talking from scratch basic, as if you didn’t know a thing, simply because there are those who don’t.
The guide; Realistically, will be down to experience, trial and error. Unless you do something, then you’ll never know truly… My competence to the guide is a background in racing on games is about 20 years, played most major and a few minor racing games, arcade, sim, offroad, street. Also have in real life, raced motorbikes (not professionally), have a full driving license with other tutoring on two separate forms of advanced driving and a fair amount of researched interests on the arts gone into controlling a race vehicle, both mechanically and mentally.
I by no means claim I’m a professional, nor do I know the depths of theoretical engineering, but I’ve been asked to write my variation of this, so I plucked all my knowledge on it together and have attempted to give a personal experience and theoretical run through on how I tune and race, while trying my best to explain what goes into these things.
So going back to the game, I hope those reading have some more confidence in what I’ll say, though I will be honest enough to admit if something is wrong. Been playing since FM2, absolutely love tuning and would like to try and explain as much as I can about racing and tuning to anybody interested.
The way I’ll do it is via two examples on FH3 and a reference to the German Nordschleife Track - Those being the open tune and the track/street race called Goliath. Those that are wondering, it is going to be about high-speed racing to the likes of X class, seeing as anything slower falls into many principles anyway, it’s more the practical methods that’d change instead. So how I’ll go about explaining everything that can be pretty hard to put into words is by starting with my personal process towards the car being stock into something tuned and race ready.
Also please heed notice that all my readings of weight and force are done in Imperial and not metric. A solution would be to either convert my numbers to metric or change the settings temporarily to understand.
Let’s imagine we got our Ford GT 2017 HE, all stock, we want it to be good enough to race Goliath, against unbeatable, not only win but be ahead of the pack in 1st for most of the lap including finishing 1st. - Any lap.
Upgrades: Engine swap to 6.5L V12 with Twin Turbo. And upgrade the engine components to max, even the Intercooler (for now) - It’s useful to know it’s max power output, a.k.a the HorsePower and Torque.
Keep it in RearWheelDrive - I do this on the purpose of lateral G Force, the more G’s you pull at a higher speed, then the more your car is going to successfully turn corners. AllWheelDrive is great for launch/Drag racing, but when you’re turning a corner, in AWD, you’re going to have 4 wheels producing outputted torque as all 4 wheels are driven, when cornering that becomes a problem. to explain why that becomes a problem is to explain how RearWD allows the car to turn better.
With two wheels being driven from the back/rear of the car, means you have half the traction ability of a AWD, if the missing half of traction is to the front wheels then a lower amount of surface friction occurs, friction is what gives rubber it’s grip - until too hot. Alongside friction, you also have weight transfer from the RearWheelDriven Torque that allows the vehicle to shift it’s weight into the two turning (front) tyre’s better. - If all wheels are being driven by Torque then the car is going to want to go straight more than turn.
The thing you want to look for is high rear wheel grip (85% - 100%) and medium grip to the front (65% - 95% or above peak grip to about 105% - 115%) Going into those specifics will depend on the car, it’s suspension tuning and weight distribution. For the Ford GT 2017 HE, I find it can take about 115% on the front tyres and ‘just’ comfortably about manage stability in a realistic sense, not a ‘one-off corner’ aspect.
Back to upgrades, the tyre’s should all be as wide as possible. Racing compound and the lightest rims available, my personal choice is the Trackstar 4’s by TSW. Rim size left at 20inch’s/stock.
The wider the tyre, the more of a rubber surface is provided to the road/track, enabling more surface to be traveled per rotation of the wheel. Having lighter rim’s enables the car to be lighter in whole, I’ve established a personal preference to an ideal weight for a car, this seems to be in the 2000ib’s - 2999ib’s for Forza but that might be down to racing style. Too little weight leaves a car more unstable, too much weight leaves a car ‘too stable’ in the sense of response and understeer, sometimes the opposite being too much weight just throws your car sideways. What this usually boils down to is the position of the Engine, the Differential and Torque. Having a car with a frontal engine will give a better stability with weight transfer, but a lower front end response time. What that would translate to is a slower corner entry but a more comfortable mid-corner, But if too much torque is applied then it will turn into oversteer more sooner than if the engine is in the middle of the car. Having a middle centered engine will be the mid ground of all but, compared to front and rear, it makes a difference. In the rear, on a RWD will mean a more stable launch, as the transfer of weight will require more ‘umpth’ in the rear, at the cost of a lighter front. If the front is too light then the car will want to spin out more at the rear, too much on the front and it wont turn soon enough/properly.
The platform and handling is fully upgraded besides the roll cage. Simply because in the game, you’re given more gravity and less friction penalty than in real life, alongside several other minor physics. So adding more uneeded weight and rigidity is pointless, as well as knowing that when you land on your roof in the game, the car is still going to be no different to before - realistically. In other cars that need more rigidity/stiffer chassis, a roll cage works quite well.
Gearing is all Race, the Differential is two-way. Lastly the Aero is both adjustable/race spoiler and bumper. In this game, with endless amounts of camber and bumps in the road, a differential is a must. If you want to corner faster then you want the racing aero.
Now the fun part… - Testing it all out, seeing the performance and ability. I’ll be talking from a Xbox One Controller perspective, seeing as it’s pretty simple to transfer the perspective to a steering wheel. I generally have certain presets for tuning, I’ve based these on learnt methods from past tuning.
Always will the tyre PSi going to front and rear be 28.5 PSi. Why I do that is to allow more contact to the road while allowing less pressure to be heated up. I’ve heard Formula 1 use “surprisingly low” tyre pressures, I don’t have any idea where or what, but you seem to get a rigid enough tyre with enough response to be able to work off from that amount of Pressure. Though let’s also consider how most everyday road tyre’s require 30 - 45 PS (give or take)i. To race on a much lower PSi on slick tyre’s is quite a feat, so it’s a realistic guess. - I could be wrong, seeing as this is also a preference matter, others may prefer to start at 32.5 for instance. What’s important here is to establish methods in what you do.
The Gearing, extend final drive until conceivable top speed. Re-order individual gears from the result, the Ford GT 2017 HE is 7-speed so 7 gears to work with. You should be seeing a Top Speed of roughly 267 - 270mph or 429km/h - 438km/h. - Individual gearing will become a personal preference, be it wide/long gears or short/close gears. The shorter, the more acceleration. I personally prefer long gears, simply as it enables more physical control to be inputted within each gear duration. If too short then your concentration will go more into gearing than actual vehicle control.
Mainly the first two or three gears will be very long. For this car I started my FinalDrive ratio at 3.87, then as time went on tuning I had brought it down to 3.59. 1st gear is 2.09. 2nd gear is 1.30. 3rd is 1.09. 4th is 0.97. 5th is 0.88. 6th is 0.80 and 7th being 0.73.
So I’ve started long/wide and gotten shorter as I’ve gone through the range of gears to try and get a balance of both wide gearing and short gearing. 5th into 6th is about as close as it gets.
There is a reason for long gears at the start, which is that it spreads out the power of transmission gone into the 1st gear. 1st reaches into 90mph. What it does in application is slows down how much goes into first gear, instead it’s like being Stopped still and trying to launch in 3rd gear. It has to take more time to rotate, causing less rotational power into the wheels. Great for reducing the level of wheelspin upon launch and heavy accelerating in 1st gear, with this car being RWD, you need all the usable traction you can get, if you’re launching a car and the wheels just spin you into persistent oversteer then there’s simply too much Torque going into it, lengthening the gear reduces that. Considering this Ford GT has a Torque level of 1,087 ft-ib then it’s going to spin the wheels are a incredibly fast rate. Another method is the reduce the PSi in either the front or rear tyres to allow for more response as the rubber will not be so firm against it’s part of road. Adjusting your differential will also work, though will require balancing to the amount of input going into accelerating - As in, having Right Trigger slammed in full, hoping for the best probably wont help you see much balance going into the function of a differential. Some also might say you don’t need such long 1st and 2nd gears and they may be right, but it’s simply preference as I prefer using the power-band when I’m already in motion with optimum tyre temp. In simple terms the power-band for acceleration is would be what peak grip is to tyre’s, - peak torque and horsepower per gear.
– Other factors will be ride height, rim size and tyre width. Why this is so is because a higher ride height on the rear, for a RWD will drive more into the front, as you can imagine a "" slope is going to push more into the downward+forwards direction. If it’s a “/” slope, being the front higher than the rear, then more traction will be provided by the front, by cornering will become an issue as you’re creating more of a lifting force, think of it as a fighter jet that you never want it to take off, but to ‘gun it’ down any and every road. If your car starts getting lift to it then it’s going to want to go upwards. If it’s an equal height then it’s aerodynamic resistance is going to cut through the air evenly. If your front height is low and the rear is high, then more downforce will be generated, if this was real life, then there’d be a much greater barrier in the amount of downforce generated. But in FH3 you have all the gravity you need, so all it causes is a responsive input with turning, smoother acceleration but as you turn at quicker and quicker speeds, the force of air resistance will be greater with a car pushing itself sideways at a downward angle than it would evenly. - Though this can be inferred/negated somewhat by setting up your front suspension to be softer and the rear suspension to be stiffer, though you’re also going to start costing yourself in stability.
What racing boils down to is Pace. Forget trying to be the quickest solo corner taker going because, then you come into a race situation and forget how to take corner 4 coming out of corner 3 too fast and it will be your own demise, you’ll get fed up and be a noob, trolling those who are racing a better pace. In racing you have to think about the corner/bend coming up after the corner you’re about to take, because within that regard, you need can adjust yourself to exit out in a proper enough fashion to take the next corner just as good. I mean some people might race ‘corner by corner’ and it works fine, but realistically I would advise strongly against it. Input to your vehicle should be very limited, only the most input should be used when either Braking, Accelerating or Oversteer. on straights, in between corner 1 & corner 2 (so to say) it should be minimal, the more you put into steering, the more you’re preventing the full power to drive the car forwards. Tapping on the steering to straighten the skewing is 0.5mph/0.5kmh less than getting your exiting correct. - But don’t think too much about it, it’s easier to take a corner too fast, to then find out what the speed is for the corner, then it’s so much easier to know what to do around the speed of corner, you’re suddenly not overthinking when trying to race.
What matters is knowing your own ability. It’s easier to look at lap times while dividing the race circuit into 4 sectors (mentally), start by learning which parts of a track you’re better at then the other parts. For example Nurburgring Nordschleife, the carousel turn and that general area, including the second and most sharpest hair-pin is a tricky part for me which causes a slower amount of pace, but going through the multiple bends in the last quarter, leading to the minor jump leading into a hard right, I feel I go through quicker than most because I prefer taking those types of corners. Also my suspension is usually better set-up for sweeping bends. But translating those two differences enables me to know that it’s an even outcome for me, knowing that if I feel I missed two apex’s in my bad sectors, then I’m going to make up for it in the other sectors. - The moral I’m explaining is this enables me to remain less pressured at my own mistakes, when up against others or time trialing. If you feel more pressured, then your mind will start clamming up about useless crap you don’t need to worry about, when you start becoming aware of your mistakes too much, you end up throwing yourself into the grass, missing your apex, fish-tailing and then wanting to launch your controller into the mistake… I’ve been there and we want to nip it in the bud before it can even be considered. Especially if Mr. Calm has just accidentally caught you on his front left during the high-speed overtake and all you want to do I feel like he caused the mistake.
I never learnt anything by blaming others, learnt a lot about blaming myself, because then I could try to fix my mistakes. I can’t fix other people’s.
So we’ve established traction, pace and the importance of accepting our own mistakes, hopefully.
Where thing’s start to matter is when it comes to reaction, I’m sure it’s pretty obvious so we’ll break that down, by understanding when to react is the worthwhile part. Once we know when, then we can look at 'how to improve the worthwhile part.
Reaction clearly will boil down to concentration vs distractions. The more willing and focused, then the better chance you have… Just like anything in life right? The best time to react to cornering is the very last moment the road seems straight. On a basic view. Simply because the vehicle has to first take your input and secondly manage that input into the intention you’re placing into the steering. Dynamics will have to change, air resistance - lift vs downforce, weight and gravity, traction vs friction, Rotation speed of the gear you’re in and the rotation of the wheel’s. Bigger wheels will take longer to turn a whole 360 degree’s, but vs response, it can be a quicker option. The Lateral G force you’re pulling by turning at a high speed, due to the weight transfer.
- These are all things you will feel through the vibrations on the controller/tactile feedback of the vehicle. To me, it’s the beauty of these games is how you can see what really goes into the game, to work with or against the physics rather transparently and in reflection to real life application. But importantly it’s how to read the game telemetry and to get anything back from it realistically.
- This means that ideally your placement upon entry should be farthest away from the corner as possible. Let’s say it’s a right hander, you want to already be on the far left side, ready to poke to the right, then instantly after ‘poking right’ take the full hard right. Once that’s natural then the next method becomes more useful;
There are ways to utilize all this further. When turning and maintaining a corner, it’s effective more so to repeat to the action as you turn. As in you steer left, keep quickly bumping your left turn: left - straight - left - straight. I mean rapidly. You’ll hear ‘tap tap tap tap’ from the left joystick hitting it’s side, if you want to correct oversteer in a straight line then you tap left from right, rapidly(But that also depends on how far into oversteer for that to work.) Minor oversteer or acceleration oversteer is corrected by quick left right left right or left left right, etc, etc. All depends how the weight is shifting via the feedback. The same applies to real life, you’ll see most professionals apply this, most drag racers apply this and even drifters to prepare for corner entry, but in the opposite way, bearing more than enough each direction to create a minor fish tail. Just remember though that all cars are different.
To explain why this is done about quick fine steering inputs, it’s down to that as a rubber tyre moves forwards, the friction/grip is where it should be. When you suddenly turn this rubber tyre left or right, the rubber will start to bend, while under heat, it will bend more. Bent rubber on a tyre is no good to race, it’s in fact causing more resistance against the road surface, especially if camber is involved (chances are, it is), with an inner, outer and middle part of the tyre, different parts will be at different levels of contact. Secondly your anti roll bars may be too stiff at the front to ‘sweep’ long enough, instead just rock. What gives the tyre more grip is those very repeated inputs to allow the tyre to transfer more straight line grip back into cornering force and weight transfer.This is how to take corners quicker without losing as much peak grip.
Everything should be fluent. If you got a nice vehicle in real life, worth thousands and thousands, you wouldn’t be quickly deciding to ‘rag the hell out of it’ hammering in the gear box and suspension, you’d be heightening the chances of killing yourself… To maintain control of anything, you need to operate everything smoothly, not roughly. If your partner likes it rough then that’s a different matter… Braking and accelerating smoothly, like shooting gun’s, you squeeze the trigger, not yank/pull it like it’s your last 1st set of teeth. You’ll see your vehicle respond ten times better. Racing/Driving roughly leads to mistakes. Smooth = calm & finesse. This allows you to control more of what goes on with your vehicle during a corner, taking yourself off the throttle can make the difference in messing up and a close call, instead of simply panic braking. It will, make the difference in regaining control from oversteer and also in corner entry itself, as pumping the throttle in RWD will allow better response and turning force. Pumping the brake will allow for a quicker stoppage without spinning out from locking the brakes. Holding the Right Trigger slightly in makes launching more easier vs Torque oversteer, also for corner taking, allows a maintained speed through a corner, as in some cases accelerating would cause an oversteer, so not driving even more torque or even possibly boost, keeps adequate grip.This is also something I can talk from real life experience, I’ve learnt the hard way from slipping the back tyre of my second motorbike enough times in wet conditions to understand that not braking or throwing weight and instead just taking gas off the throttle works much better between landing on my ass and continuing in riding. This moral is due to locking the tyre too much into stoppage or over spinning it, quickly becomes a uncontrollable matter, which takes needed experience on how to regain control. Having a go at drifting is a good way to experience what inputs you can make when oversteering.
Going back to the Ford GT on Goliath; As also with using manual gearing, when you are about to enter a easier corner, after the narrow braking, try changing up a gear, this gives a tiny pause in the torque and engine as the gear has disengaged to change into the next, it allows the car to brace into a turn better while giving you plenty of drive as you exit through the rest of the new gear. Depending on the car, you may find braking to the bottom of a gear instead of the top will suit your preference of racing.
In the context I’m referring to; It would be a turn less than or around 45 degree’s, FH3/Goliath is racked with these - You’ll come swinging out of a bend, hard acceleration, down a straight to have to take a fast & hard adjustment left or right. Chances are, being too quick, having to brake resulting in roughly the gold zone, but leaving chance to strongly accelerate into these as the rpm has lowered, providing a better amount of traction. I mean being specific this is about the Ford GT 2017, on FH3, a car which has a wide enough power band to cope with changing up a gear during a corner. Other cars do simply have not enough horsepower & torque to cope with that, instead will just become extremely sluggish. High powered cars wont really see that issue as much as the tendency would be from hard braking into a 90 degree corner at 70mph would become a issue more of throttle control into oversteer, typically applying to the more shorter geared setups involving high torque output.
But it’s also important not to disregard other types of corners here {coughs while looking around}. There are a number of sharper corners requiring more braking, in this circumstance, being about mid-way into the gear will give enough choice on how you want to control the vehicle. After the braking zone, properly done would be to have the throttle open enough to maintain the speed you’ve braked to ( right trigger pressed part-way in), this allows for more stability in the actual action of taking the corner. Once 50% - 80% through the corner - depending on the type of corner, will be the importance to see is the exit and it’s following straight/following area, that is when more acceleration is applied, as less turning input is required. - Providing you’re not met with another turn, straight after exiting, as if it were a chicane or similar, in which case, thinking always 1 corner ahead is useful.
For most other cars, it’s important to have a higher rpm than a lower rpm to utilize the power band and also to maintain adequate friction on the tyres, falling into the usage of tyre pressure, camber and suspension, and about everything else in the vehicle. In my opinion; With racing on a game, it’s more suitable to have everything as close to it’s physical limit as possible whilst ensuring control and stability. The result in my experience is that it makes the level of skill more difficult, but allows for more pace to be invoked mid-race.
- Continued next post -