I was hoping someone could give me a general rule-of-thumb as far as what to set tire pressures at for different types of cars, if there is any. I’d suppose that most cars will have their own sweet spots, but what’s a good place to start. In game it says, and I can’t remember if it’s front or rear, that you want to set one closer to peak presure. I’ve never understood if that means peak pressure for cold or hot tires, or even what number peak presure actually is. And how does that change when going from rwd to fwd to awd and does engine position effect it as well?
I can drive a good tune very well, but I’ve never been a gearhead or even known much about the mechanics of cars, so sometimes tuning can look like Ancient Greek to me (and I’m not an Ancient Greek) but I’d prefer to be able to build my own competitive tunes.
If anyone has the time, any help in layman’s terms would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
28/28 is normally ideal to get a good drive on most drive types then sometimes 27.5/28 etc this is cold temps where we set in tuning
You could download one of the top tunes for whatever build you’re going for. Then check the tire pressure that the tune is set to and possibly learn that way.
Some of the leaderboard tunes I’ve seen use ~30 psi. It depends on car, track and conditions.
First off it depends on what youre tuning the car for. Drag,drift, auto x,etc and since everycar is different the only real way to dial in tire pressure is to check telemetry (hit down on the dpad) and watch your tire pressure.
For drifting I dont like my tires to go over 32psi when hot or ill get to much oversteer, so for this ill watch how high the psi gets by the end of a lap or two and adjust as I go. In the end my front psi was 25.5 and 21 in the rear. Tire size, wheel size, and overall weight change the way tires heat up so try every size and see what you like.
I think you really have to just mess around with it, preferably after you tune the rest of the car imo. I know in RWD (I only tune RWD so I don’t know if it’s the same for the rest) increasing the front pressure or decreasing the rear makes understeer. You would probably get better answers in the Tuners section of the forum though.
Indeed you have to fiddle which is why everything is set to 30 to start. Lowering the pressure at one end of the car is typically done to try and increase grip at that end for balance sakes but it can reduce response. So you don’t usually want extremes anywhere. It also seems that somewhat lower tyre pressures all round e.g 26PSI (in the game at least) tend to work best on the lighter cars for me.
Really though the main thing you should take away IMO is use the tyres pressures tweaking lightly in the game to balance the car’s handling front to rear a little better to your liking, not to drastically alter it. For that, look elsewhere in the setup.
With a street car with street tires, if it weighs less than 3000 pounds, I like to start at 28.5. If it weighs more than 3000 pounds I drop it down to 28.0. I add 2.0 to it for rain tracks. With the same car but with race tires I take off 1.0. I have found that when the tires are warmed up they seem to perform best when they are just under 32.0. That is for street cars. Actual race cars can be even more fiddly, so that you might get best traction at 34.5 warmed up or as low as 30.0 warmed. Then there is certain tracks that you need to lower the front tire pressure because all the heavy breaking. That is especially true for heavy cars.
After 2-3 laps I want the tires to be at 30 psi so I start at 28,5 cold .
Seems to me that the old 32psi when the tires are fully heated from FM2 & FM3 also works in FM6. I strictly do circuit racing, so I’m not sure about drifting or drag racing. Just do a couple laps and look at the telemetry.
Are the tire pressures really that significant in this? They don’t seem to have as much affect as they do in Project CARS. I’ll happily set tire pressures on an F1 car in that under 20 psi like a real F1 car would. Doesn’t seem to make that much difference in this.
Yes tire pressure makes a difference, like you said “not as much as Project Cars”, but yes they do. Best way to see this difference is to run two extremes such as 40 psi and 20 psi running at least two laps on these extremes. Then run at least two laps with tires set at 27.5 to 28.5 psi and notice how well behaved the tires are. This understanding helps tremendously when tuning cars and you can use this method with all of your tuning aspect not just tires. This is how I have been able to tune such cars as the Mercedes 300SL and Ferrari 458 by seeing what throws it completely off and what completely helps it become the fastest tune in its division. Hope this helps and enjoy!
P.S. I also have a very well writen guide in the Tuning Section on how to tune each aspect of your car and I explain how to tune your tires.
So it makes a difference then just not particularly realistically. I say that because it seems to me that all cars regardless of what they are seem to perform best at around the 28 - 30 psi mark. Except maybe the E23 F1 which seems to work well at around 26. That way higher than it should be though really.
Fully warm tires should be at about 33psi front and rear. So starting pressure can be anywhere from 28~30 psi.
If you like softer rides and more compliance, target 32psi WARM.
If you like faster response, target 34psi WARM.
Type and weight of cars do not seem to matter much in FM. For eg. ultra light Lotus 49 F1 is still very happy at 33psi warm. Real life cold tire pressure for this car was 15~20psi range.
The OP asked for a rule of thumb and everybody has gone way over the top. Higher pressure more responsive, bot don’t go extreme just .5 at a time and retry. On some cars it does make a lot of difference. There are other things to consider, length of race ,wear etc. But this is the simple rule.
It varies by car wight and class as well as the track and conditions. I’ve run as low as 22.5 f/r on R class and been on the first page/top 10 of the Elite League. For instance, in this week’s league I have an RX-7 tune that runs 26.5 on most circuits and 23.5 for Brands Hatch in the rain. But tire pressure is only a fraction of the equation to getting a car to behave. Springs, rebound, compression, sway bars, horsepower and brake bias all play into how a car reacts as it makes its way around the track. Also, your assists will vary the behavior of the car. A car tune for no assists will s^ck if you drive with assists.