since I love building and testing cars in Forza I did so for every car that starts in S1 and for a few lower/higher class cars tuned/detuned to S900.
All tests were done on my self-created track “Forest Run” which was built with the intention to provide an average of the road tracks in the game.
It might slightly favour acceleration over handling but in general it provides reliable results. Only cars with very little power or extreme drag values aren’t represented accurately (X-Bow GT4 for example).
Especially for the strongest cars I ran multiple builds to determine which works best here. Also keep in mind the recorded times are flying laps, so you can lower the RWD builds by 1-2.5 seconds in comparison to the AWD ones for Sprints or overall race time.
Suggested cars for road racing are marked green, suggested winter cars are marked blue.
As with all testing that is done by humans, there will be variables. I tried to eliminate as many as possible.
The results show that the overall balancing for S900 is quite good with a few exceptions at the bottom and the top.
The Monaco KC is broken with this build in Rivals, the EB110 SS too strong for an AWD car.
Many of the post-release added modern Supercars are poorly balanced in the PI system and suffer from not enough room for building. They desperately need a class that is limited to ~PI 950. Too highly rated for S1, not competitive in S2.
Cars like the Challenger Demon or Zenvo are simply way too overrated by the PI system.
I decided to post the top cars here via a picture. Every car can be looked at through the linked spreadsheet.
I may be missing them on the list but the TVR Tuscan and RX7 Spirit might be worth a run. Won’t be challenging right at the top but should be reasonably competitive.
When I compared, it was so much slower that you’re better off using a different car instead.
Rayne: the 2006 Audi RS4 is one of the fastest S1 cars I’ve tested on Lakehurst Forest Sprint, but it also needs MC. Over a second quicker than the CC8S, for example.
Thanks. I actually did this test a while ago because the difference in pace seems tremendous while driving. From what I remember it achieved a 5:48 without MC and that’s a flying lap. The difference from a standing start is even more extreme. I have to agree with Bree there: if you don’t use MC for the Bugatti other cars like the '05 GT will be superior.
@Jezza: I’m not an expert in blueprints either and thought every single created one will automatically be shared. Have to look into this when I’m at the game again.
The '05 GT time was done with race tires, yes. Have to look into this too because currently I’m unsing a RWD race tires, race weight reduction Racing V12 build which was only 0.4 seconds slower and don’t know if I saved the listed build. If not, shouldn’t be hard to recreate though.
Will share the Sagaris FE. It’s with the Speed 12 swap and some weird PI calculation regarding the camshaft upgrade. Meaning every other engine upgrade pushes it over PI 900 while providing less power. For some reason the camshaft upgrade greatly reduces the PI with the Sports gearbox and makes it possible (stock gearbox PI 909, Sports PI 900, Race PI 909). Makes no sense but as long as it works
Is your track available for others Rayne? Have to confess I thought all created tracks were shared but I could only see your Forest Run course as a 2 lap A class option. Apologies - I don’t use community tracks often, so I may be missing something really obvious!
Also, would you be willing to share the Sagaris FE and GT05 tunes? I’m curious to try the Sagaris and I’ve never found a race tyres version of the GT05 I like (I’m assuming from your comment that the one you used to set the time is race tyres). No worries if not.
Vulcan FE is not possible to downgrade to S900. It’s only eligible for S2 998.
The reason the MC12 FE is below the MC12 lies in the fact that you have to downgrade the MC12 FE from far in S2 by using Offroad tires and there is no room to improve the power/weight ratio.
It is by far the most superior S900 handling car with good top speed in the snow though. A car whose chassis isn’t really meant for S900. It’s way too advanced.
It is one of the best S2 998 road cars but that list isn’t finished yet. Will come soon though.
It’s harder than you might think to make a perfectly balanced test track, working with existing roads and start points. And they get too long when you start worrying about accurately representing every niche car (extreme momentum, extreme speed, etc). All the good cars S1 I know are up at the top and in about the order I would expect so to me that’s a strong indication that this track does the job.
I spend a lot of time testing RWD cars and I’m glad to see them represented on this list, especially so high up. I do a lot of A class, but have moved on to S1 recently and have been suspecting they are technically faster than AWD cars in S1. And not just outrageous power build rivals queen type cars either, but cars that stand to gain a reasonable amount of power or grip from the PI they save by not swapping. A lot of times they are, or are at least very competitive. They just have the dang EB110 to contend with–there’s always one in every class.
Seeing a lot the same engine swaps atop the list highlights another flaw in the PI system. Modern engines, especially those with forced induction, are so often duds in the PI system. It overrates torque and a broad powerband such that engines without those can be built with more power for the same PI for a net advantage. Kind of a bummer that how a very big factor in how competitive your favorite car is depends on what engine swap options the devs (almost arbitrarily) decided on.
The 08 Viper and AR 4C are quite significantly lower in Rayne’s list than my S1 list which was based on Derwent Reservoir, where both are top 10. That may be because he has better tunes for other cars though and, bar a couple of exceptions, I only used AWD (and a lot of them are quite close in both lists).
The 92 NSX was also top of my times for that course (to the extent I’ve had circa 200 attempts to beat it in the EB110 and still can’t do it clean) and generally is very high up the S1 leaderboards but I note both Rayne, and Grandma Driving in his list, have it a lot lower.
And thanks Rayne for your reply above. I’ve finally got around to claiming my prizes from Ranked for last month, so conveniently have gained a spare Sagaris FE to use when the tune is shared.
Derwent Reservoir is a Sprint, so except for the Monaco, the Sagaris and maybe the CC8S all RWD would most likely fall below the '92 NSX. Also most of the RWD cars above the NSX are only there because they are RWD. They can’t go this pace as AWD or would simply be impossible to build (Speed 12, Lykan). Stuff like the Donkervoort, 512 S, the Sagaris FE or Bone Shaker would be in the 925-960 PI range when swapped to AWD in their current status.
Unfortunately it’s probably impossible to create a track which weighs all characteristics equally. The 4C, ‘08 ACR or BAC lack a bit of top speed here but given their characteristics they placed themself very well. Both Lotus’ (2-Eleven, 3-Eleven) for example that don’t have better handling than the Mono are a lot worse. I think for the general potential of a car the list is useful.
Oh, completely agree and, of course, there are always going to be differences by track. If we did the same list for Ambleside or Horizon Festival Circuits then the Lotus Elevens would suddenly be much more attractive! They were just the cars that jumped out at me as possibly being slightly better on a number of standard tracks than might appear from the list.
Cheers for sharing the TVR tune Rayne. Feels like an interesting project for me to perfect my TCS-less driving! From my one drive with it, I’d say it needs MC to be fully effective though - seems a noticeable lag in gear changes in manual but possibly that’s present in MC as well?
Updated the OP with the S2 998 list.
Finally found the motivation to go through most of the S2 cars again and build them with the most recent tuning knowledge for pure performance.
Some observations:
If the car has the Racing V12 engine swap, pick it. The 7.2L Racing V8 is somewhat competitive to it but normally the Racing V12 has the edge due to the lower weight and nearly optimal power graph.
If the Vulcan engine had an aspiration upgrade it would be on par or even surpass the Racing V12. There is no difference between a Vulcan with the Racing V12 and its stock engine.
Only cars with race aero are really competitive. Aside from the beefed up FE and PO versions no car can compete with the race aero cars (the Sesto at 16th is the first AWD car without race aero).
Hypercars have a great balance within their own class but are way off the pace of the high-end S2 cars.
From my testing the best snow car is the Diablo GTR with Offroads, weight reduction & the Racing V12. It is also the only car which managed the fastest time with Offroads. Simply because Race tires, weight reduction and Racing V12 isn’t possible. The Elise GT1 snow build was ~ 5 seconds slower (5:16ish).
The I.D. R can’t be accurately tested on normal tracks because it’s too niche. That’s why I excluded it.
The Atom & Rimac are by far the worst S2 cars the game offers.
Interesting list Rayne. Thanks for sharing . For what it’s worth, the two cars that seem to be most competitive to the Diablo in snow (based on ranked races) are the Speed 12 and the King Cobra - obviously both on power courses. I’ve not seen anyone use the Ferrari in my recollection so that would be intriguing to try.
well done!
. For what it’s worth, the two cars that seem to be most competitive to the Diablo in snow (based on ranked races) are the Speed 12 and the King Cobra - obviously both on power courses. I’ve not seen anyone use the Ferrari in my recollection so that would be intriguing to try.