RWD in FH4?

Forza Horizon Legacy Horizon FH4 Discussion
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So rear-wheel drive is something I usually avoid in FH4 because traction control barely works. But with the release of Forza Motorsport 6 with Games With Gold the other day I’ve been using RWD for a change.

While I find the handling of cars soooo much nicer (and less like driving a brick) in the Forza Horizon series, the RWD cars in FM6 are surprisingly easy to drive! You can actually accelerate hard and keep the car pointing in a straight line. That is with traction control enabled, but nothing else.

So my question is, what happened to RWD in FH4?! Seems like a wasted opportunity having to convert most cars to AWD.

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My RWD Supra in fm6 is not easy to drive at all. But it also has a turbo the size of a dying star so…

But anyways. I can’t really comment on traction control much since I don’t use it (I turned it off asap in fm6 the other day, it kept slowing me down way to much).

With RWD in horizon or Motorsport I think the two biggest/easiest things are just paying attention to the differential and your throttle input. If you upgrade the diff, the default setting is terrible on most cars. And a lot of cars have meh to bad stock diff settings.

TLDR you don’t always NEED to AWD swap; often RWD or fwd is as good or better if driven and tuned right.

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I have some RWDs that have done ok online. Crown Victoria in A, Ford GT '05 in S1, GT-R LM FE in S2.

There are a few I haven’t been able to tune. The 1969 Fairlady Z, Abarth Spider, and 2005 MX-5 in A. The MX-5 has been difficult in S1 class too. The standard GT-R LM (A class) has an impossibly low center of gravity. Won’t transfer enough weight to the rear tires to grip at low speeds. A few Ferraris suffer similarly.

The most frustrating has to be the 2016 GT3 RS. There’s a rule I’ve found that seems to apply universally in Horizon–if the front tire section width is more than the rear, relative to the weight distribution, it’s going to oversteer uncontrollably at low to mid speeds. The max rear tire width on the GT3 is 345mm. Weight distribution as RWD in S2 is 40% front. 345/6*4=230. The minimum (stock) front tire width is 265mm. You can tell just by the lateral G estimations. Going from stock (265mm) to 285mm on my current build adds nothing to the 60mph lateral prediction and 0.01 to the 120mph.

Between the gamepad steering and the way the tires are (multiple aspects, width to grip correlation being one), RWD is often unduly painful. Sometimes running softer rear springs helps keep the rear in check. Sometimes balanced springs are easier to read the rear with, easier to not overdrive. If a RWD build gains 15 to 20 PI from AWD swapping, it has a good chance of needing care and a good tune, but showing measurable performance gains through faster sections over an AWD equivalent, particularly if it has aero.

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FH4 only cares about making it easy to drift

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Below S class on roads I generally don’t have a problem with RWD without traction control. In S class, I’m usually okay with it if I turn on traction control. Before FM5 I avoided RWD like the plague. From FM5 onward I’ve frequently found many classics enjoyable to drive as RWD. I think I’ve run into more exceptions in FH4. There’s been some mid-engine cars that just feel weird.

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I feel the same, though I would say a lot of S1 configurations are still able to handle well from launch, and in a few rare cases even at X class RWD can be pleasant (like the Mosler tune I made).

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In S2 class in FH4, forget it. One mistake and you lose too much time catching up, by accelerating slow enough as to not spin out.

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I don’t use driving assists, drive on Pro difficulty and find RWD’s really fun in FH4.

I mostly play on lower class cars, D and C but have one Porsche 911 (930) tuned to lower A-class which is really different than '95 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, which is very different to Ferrari 512 TR. There’s Lotus Elise Series 1 Sport 190 which is really fun and so on.

On S1 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is enjoying challenge, but in stock more fun on free roam than races, when Ferrari F40 and F50 are very easy to drive. Mercedes-AMG GT R is quite easy to manage from modern ones.

Can’t say about S2 but in general imo RWD’s are just fine in FH4.

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RWD and FWD is good in FH4 and can be very competitive in lower classes. You just gotta get the tune right.

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RWD is fine in Horizon. But AWD is better for PvP so everyone swaps to that. Given how short the races are, factor in freeroam and ramming, RWD is just more trouble than it’s worth.

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In FH4, AWD definitely has the acceleration and grip advantage, and the understeer can be mostly tuned out. It makes RWD pointless in this game.

Whereas with FM6, RWD is competitive - and surprisingly easier to use than in FH4.

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If you try rivals, you’ll find it’s actually RWD that is totally OP much of the time, and AWD cars can’t come close.

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FM6, assuming it’s the same as FM7, arbitrarily buffs AWD PI above it’s true performance. The PI in Horizon 4 doesn’t lie. The grip, the performance potential it’s real in RWD (most of the time–wide rear tires or rear aero only break the calculation for AWDs). The gamepad steering is what lets them down. It’s ham-fisted nature suits FWD and most AWDs well. When it comes to RWD, the requisite sensitivity and willingness to drive by the edge of rear grip on exit (how it’s done in real life) is completely absent.

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I’m never gonna be the fastest and I’m cool with that. Frees me up to play the game the way that’s the most enjoyable to me, which means I spend most of my time in lower class to maybe S1, RWD cars. I actually leave stock drive train in D class and sometimes C, FWD or RWD.

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