Hi,
Thanks,
Koenig
See if this Tuning Guide from FM6 helps, and ask for tips in the Tuner’s Garage forum.
You’re also going to want to get a feel for what each of those things in the Tuning Guide tell you. After you’ve read it and got a good understanding, dedicate some time to taking your favorite car to a track and find out what each set-up change directly feels like.
Spend a lap or 2 feeling the car out with no changes. Then, change ONE and only ONE setting to an extreme (i.e. bump stiffness full soft) and take it for a lap to feel what it does. Then put it to the other extreme and take it for another lap.
Do this process for all the changeable tuning settings in the car and then start to adjust for what you want. This process may be tedious with no game reward, but the knowledge you get between this and the Tuning Guide will make setting up cars and last minute changes a breeze.
I highly suggest anyone who is a tuning beginner to give this process a go, and I still do this every now and then for a tuning refreshment; especially in a car I haven’t driven yet.
By doing this, you may also find out a particular set-up that you like better or makes you faster than what you think you like.
Kudos to you for actually giving it a go instead of going the easy route like everyone else. I’ll give a brief overview of each aspect:
Tire pressure: Doesn’t really do much. Higher pressure tires should get up to heat faster but on most tracks it makes no difference. Leave this section alone.
Gearing: Lower settings makes the ratio longer, gives more top speed. Increasing them makes the ratio shorter, gives more acceleration.
Camber: Affects cornering ability. You generally want more front camber than rear, and always negative.
Toe: Affects steering response. Negative makes it slower to change direction, positive makes it faster.
Caster: Multiplies the affects of camber and toe.
Anti-roll bars: Determines car stiffness when rotating through a corner. Stiffer will make the car understeer more and have more stability, softer will do the opposite.
Springs: Determines how the car shifts weight while cornering. These are the most complicated and it’s difficult to explain in a short sentence, but mess around with it to see how it affects your particular car.
Damping/Bump: Affects how fast the car will shift weight in a corner. Stiffer creates more oversteer, softer creates understeer.
Brake distribution: sends more braking power to the front or rear. Sending it to the rear creates oversteer while braking, to the front does the opposite.
Brake pressure: Essentially, changes the brake input from your trigger/pedal. Increasing it will cause the car to brake harder at lower input, softer does the opposite.
Differential: The most important thing. Affects how the car distributes power to the wheels when decelerating into a corner and accelerating out of it. Increasing acceleration will make the car oversteer more out of a corner, decreasing it makes it understeer more. Decreasing the deceleration will make the car oversteer more going into a corner, increasing it makes it understeer.
Mess around with each setting to see the effects yourself. Generally, drive the car stock first and see if it needs more oversteer or understeer, and then tune accordingly.
Thank you.
A lot of excellent information in the three previous comments. Tuning can make a huge difference in your ability to run consistent times.
The brief overview above is a start for understanding what each tuneabke part affects and how it affects it.
With that information you can take a car into test drive and begin changing settings to see how the changes feel and how they affect your ability to control the car. I agree that it’s best to play around with the each setting for a while, without changing any other settings.
Once you have a feel for it all, use the Tuning Guide provided in the comment above to really begin to understand each aspect of tuning.
Beware. It can become addicting. When you start shaving seconds off your lap times, you might find yourself spending more time tuning and less time driving. It’s not a bad thing. Enjoy.
ive been tuning through horizon 2-3 and now Motorsport 7 and i can say this is very true, i definitely spend more time tuning than i do racing. theres something so calming and satisfying about it. though it can be extremely agitating at times.
I usually just set up the car with the tuning calculator for a baseline and edit what’s needed.
Just google forza tuning calculator and try it out.
Hi,
Thanks again,
Koenig
One other thing to add to all the good info above would be to find a track that you like, know very well, and can be extremely consistent on ( Lap Time ) wise. By doing this you can dial in a car much quicker and end up with better results. I am not saying one track fits all tuning situations, but over time if you have 3 to 5 different tracks that you can be consistent on you will pretty much have all bases covered.
If you are new to tuning a good first track to learn to tune on is Lime Rock Full. With this track you can learn a lot about what may or may not need tuning on your car. It is a very short track, but the first couple of turns can tell you a lot about the cars suspension characteristics, plus with it being short you can see results relatively quickly even with slow cars.
The most important thing is to find a track that you can be consistent on before attempting any in depth tuning adjustments. That way you can definitely see your results in your lap times.
I ran across an excellent Youtube channel called SafeisFast. It is presented by Honda. They have a lot of videos going over the basics of how spring, areo, shocks and ride height affect a car. They also have a lot of videos covering over under steer, braking, turning and just about everything else. They have a lot of interviews from a lot of current pro drivers from a lot of different series.
When you make adjustments remember to note the previous setting so you can go back to it if your adjustment takes you the wrong way. Only adjust one or two things at a time and remember to save a decent base setup once you create it. From this base you can adjust for different tracks. As it happens, for many homologation events tuning isnt as important as in previous releases as there are far fewer tunable parts available but this can make your choice of available upgrades very important.
H