Tuning 101

Hey everyone! I thought it might be time to share some of the knowledge I’ve gained in the areas of tuning, setups, and racing. I have been tuning since Forza 2 and racing since the first need for speed on the orginal playstation. Currently own a competition orange 2015 mustang GT(Track pack) with 500hp and love watching all diferent types of racing on motortrend on demand.

I will start by telling you setup is key to having the best lap times and not every car needs aero. Its always good to have a few cars with better top speed and few with great handling depending on which track forza sends your way. On my favorite cars and cars that everyone else seems to like, I tend to make 2 or 3 setups, tune them and record the lap times then pick the best one and share it.

Top speed is important but not as important as handling, acceleration, and braking on most tracks. When you look at a cars stats think about them this way.

Top speed- better acceleration at high speeds and best for high speed tracks like Watkins Glen.

Acceleration- best for tracks with lots of turns, with short straights because you will reach a higher speed then other cars on most straights. May lose grip on corner exit

Handling- cornering speed! Which means less braking and can help out alot with cars with lower accleration because your exit speed out of a corner is higher. handling DOES NOT MEAN grip or car control. Low handling is pretty much the same as god awful UNDERSTEER. Low handling means more braking, slow cornering speeds and gives you less ability to pass in the braking zone.

Braking- the ability to brake later and harder before a turn giving you that extra second of accleration while other cars have already lifted off the throttle. The best time to pass an opponent is in the braking zone.

Downforce- stability at high speeds, more grip, better braking, faster accleration at low speeds because tires won’t brreak traction as quickly if at all. Downforce is one of the most important aspects of racing, fast lap times and control

Rear engine cars or cars with a Front weight% under 48% means you will most likey experience lift-off oversteer. Ferraris and other high end super cars seem to be affected the most by this. Simply let off the gas sooner before a turn or slower to avoid sliding into a turn and losing speed and increasing lap times. Lower your rear rebound damping in small increments to help battle against lift off oversteer.

Finally, drifting/oversteer is fun, looks awesome and hell, it even smells good but, if you dont have grip on your drive wheels you won’t be winning many races. As soon as a tire starts to spin imagine all of your accleration leaking out of that tire. Your tires will also heat up beyond optimal temperature meaning you wont have the grip you need to accelerate hard out of a turn. “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” isnt some meaningless saying…

I use physics equations for a base tune and then fine tune each car. Sometimes I make an aero and non areo tune so you have a choice on which setup you’d like to run. Even if you dont intend to download a tune made by me, it would still bennefit you to search for my name then, follow me so you can see what my setup weighs and how much power its putting out. If you download and install a tune then, remove it you can a see what parts I’ve installed. Now your half way to a good tune.

50-60% of my races usually put me in the top 200 on the leaderboards but the reason for that is the time I’ve put into tuning my cars. I have nearly half of the cars in forza 7 tuned at the moment and plan to tune all of them at some point. Ive even tuned the suvs and major micros which was not fun at all to be honest. Best tunes are in the following divsions
Sport Touring
Sport Touring Icons
Sport GT
Sport GT Icons
Hyper Car
Super Car
Forza GT

At this point I will wait for your questions and answer them as they come in or you can message me on xbox live. I look forward to helping in anyway I can. If you’d like a specific car tuned let me know. If you download a tune and have problems with it I don’t mind tuning it to your style of driving. As always thank you for downloading!

Gamertag - M240B CombatVet

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To mitigate possible discouragement felt by anyone feeling intimidated by the subject, it’s not really necessary to use physics equations to tune your cars. Most cars do not require massive adjustments off of the base Forza starts you at, although some vehicles are just difficult and need big changes.

No it’s not necessary! I guess you could use the forza 6 tuning app and get terrible tunes if you’d like. Not to mention forza uses the same horrible base tune on almost all the cars. The higher PI cars have another tune and that ones a little better but still not good. The balance between front and rear is small even when a cars is way above or below 50% front to rear weight. Almost ever car with a stock tune has lift off oversteer and every awd car understeers untill you tune them the right way. Hopefully forza will decide on a better way to tune their cars and change the ridiculous restrictions they have in the current game. Maybe they will decide to actually make the game better instead of worse in #8.

I get base tunes with math equations using a personal calculator then I fine tune them for multiple laps. I tune all cars in the same division on the same track and record lap times. Thanks SGT I’m sure your lack of front line combat helps in this situation lol

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I’m not sure why you’re lashing out at me, all I’ve suggested is that a person new to tuning should not be intimidated if they don’t have a system for generating a base tune. People should feel encouraged to dig in and just try stuff out.

In my experience, people who claim to have seen combat so enthusiastically tend to greatly overstate the intensity of their experience. Like the Vietnam veteran at the VA that never fired a rifle in anger talking down at amputees that caught an IED while on convoy in Iraq.

Regarding my professional experiences: if were going to open up and share, it wouldn’t be with someone who has spoken to me in the way that you have. That said, if you’re experiencing lasting issues related to any specific trauma endured while serving, I’m happy to help direct you to some resources which may help.

Hi thanks for posting. What do you think are the biggest bang for the buck tuning areas to first adjust?

So far I’ve been keeping it pretty simple:

  • tire pressure (use telemetry to get them stable at around 32 psi)
  • brake balance, if it’s rear engine like a Porsche, move balance towards the front
  • ride height, as low as you can go without bottoming out suspension

M240B thanks for the advice. I’m an experienced tuner myself but I like to hear other people’s approach on the subtle art of performance tuning.

Come up with a base tune for fwd, rwd , mid engine and awd.

Adjust by feeling once you get use to tune a car and as per track.

Tire pressure
Gear ratios
Diff
Suspension
Arb’s
Dampers
Aero
Camber

Come back to dampers and gear ratio if needed