so just as in real life, not every car handles to its potential off of the showroom floor? but perhaps I am being too kind to T10 ;^)
oh and, the guide you asked 'bout is at the top of the FM4 “tuners lounge” sub-forum to this one. perhaps best described as the tweek and test drive approach.
I drive the 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth in the Virtual Motorsport Classics series and have fun with it every week racing against faster cars that don’t handle too great on shorter tracks with more corners. The car is built to A class PI577. It is fun to drive is the reason I use it.
I use the MS Force Feedbck racing wheel
I start with the FTC Calculator tune and then tweak the brakes and other settings for each track.
I use the hood view and I don’t notice the right hand drive while racing.
a guy messaged me some basic allegthrims bad sp i know. and it seems to be working. could post the forumla’s here.
Found it, thank you.
The first time I said “left hand drive” above I meant right hand drive. Does it bug anybody else in here to use right hand drive cars in the game when you’re used to left hand?
maybe you should try hood or bumper cam view? …view off of the front of the car, from outside without the dash/steering wheel.
RHD cars. Yeah it occasionally bugs me a little bit, but I get over it in half a lap usually. so all in all, I doesn’t bother me too much.
About tuning calculators. I have been gifted few cars which are straight out of the calculator, and at best I can get cars feeling so much better when I make them myself. And those who know me, well they can prove that I’m fairly fast, even with the weirdest cars.
But I’d like to point one thing that might have been forgotten when you are searching those ultimate laptimes.
It’s not the car of you choice, It’s not the parts used to create that build, It’s not the the tune. It is the driver.
If the driver needs practice, it really doesn’t matter does he drive built but untuned car, or LB topping ultra high tuned machine. The laptime will be bad.
And if the driver uses the excuse of “bad tune”, he will not get any better ever.
Sometime ago, I posted laptime on 440 on autocross LB, using just some car that I happened to found in my garage. I know that there is people down to 7000 place who have really built a car for that event and really tried to get a good time, so I wouldn’t call that 440 too bad time. How ever, when I was searching what tune I really used I came in to conclusion that it was actually built to race in high speed tracks.
High speed tracks and autocross are two completely different things. and the car I used, Well looking at it, at shouldn’t be able to top 7000 even nearly. The difference was in driver. Not in the car, Not in the tune, it was in THE DRIVER.
Yeah, I should probably learn how to take corners better. I don’t always know the best way to do it. And then knowing what gear to be in, how fast etc etc. It can be kind of a lot to figure out. So far when I practice with a car I’ve always been using one track because I’m getting to know it well and it gives me a good baseline. But it doesn’t help me with the other tracks. LOL. Plus I still don’t know the best way to get around that one track. I see that little indicator of how good you take a corner and I think I’ve only gotten a 4 a few times. It’s usually 2 or 3 and sometimes 1.
But I will say this, it’s evident that some cars just take corners a lot easier than others. And cars with less power are easier to drive initially. Just not fast. I just did some hotlaps with that Ferrari GTO, the one with the 4 square headlights down low and I got pretty good times. But one thing I figured out is there are many times where just giving it full throttle can spin the tires it has so much power. So I had to use a little less power or I’d be off the course in no time. On the straights I could hammer down. I got a 2:39 at road america. I still didn’t touch my time with a corvette gran sport though. I feel like I’m not doing well with the corvette, but I get my best times with it. Now if I could get smoother with it.
That is one thing, I remember reading a book by Vic Elford and he was saying you shouldn’t just jam down on the gas. Because the acceleration has a tenancy to be linear when you just put it to the floor. Whereas if you increase the throttle with the power band for that gear, it will increase exponentially if you do it right. And then it’s also more smooth. If that makes any sense. Or maybe that’s all craziness.
Yeah, that’s a cool car. That one handles really good in stock form. It makes driving easy. IMHO. It stops really quickly and corners well.
I don’t really like the idea of hood view because I like the simulation feel. But then the a pillar wouldn’t be in the view. Sometimes in any car it gets in the way of your view at a corner. But that’s how it would be in real life too. Kind of.
I downloaded Forza Tuning Labs’ FTC and its pretty in-depth but I was expecting something different. Its a very nice tool and its amazing to see everything all on one layout, but I will continue my tunes in-house myself.
I have had the FM3 Tuning Calculator available on my webpage for some time now. It can be used through the browser and has all the options and annotations from the original sheet. It is showing it’s age now that we are on FM5 but it still works the same and gets you close to the vehicle dynamic you wish. Here is the link: FM3TC
I checked out your website with the FM3 Tuning Calculator and it looks good.
How about updating your website with the latest version of the Forza 4 FTC?
There have been several changes in the FM4 FTC.
This would help the people that don’t have MS Excel.
If you have absolutely no clue what you’re doing, then I suppose a calculator can put you in the right direction. However, learning to tune for yourself will benefit you much more. I’ve never encountered a tuning calculator that I’ve liked, nor have I encountered one that can make me faster than I am in my own tunes. In fact, they usually put me about a second or so slower even when pushed to the limit. I don’t know of one top leaderboard time that was set with a calculator tune… The calculator doesn’t know how you drive, so you have to make adjustments - usually so many that the tune doesn’t even resemble what the calculator spit out. That’s just my two cents, but if it works for you, and you don’t want to take a few minutes to learn what settings do, then use it if you like!
WELL SAID!
I agree with Juggernaut and BULIN. While the tuning calculator MIGHT make the car more driveable for you, it also might not. learning at least the basics of tuning will go a long way to how the car handles and how you drive. Worms tuning guide is a must have in my opinion, even if you get the calculator. Honestly, once you get started and see how your changes affect things, you wont want to stop.
edit: Sorry I didn’t even notice how old this post was, my bad
I think that for those who are experienced racers, who HAVE a particular driving style, tuning calcs have a VERY good chance of completely missing the mark. However, I don’t believe that any of the tuning calculators are actually intended for those who have a feel… no, who KNOW how they want their car to handle/perform. you guys who are that competent already have a system for how you go about tuning your cars for you and your driving style. These calcs ARE meant for the huddled masses (read: the guys floundering in the online lobby never getting a win and wondering how in the hell that first place dude just finished 4,000ft ahead of them). It’s intended for those folks who do not have a particular driving style. For myself, like many youngun’s, I used to consider myself a pretty good driver. Raced a couple few times at SCCA events and placed pretty decently. I can also consistently set a top 1% time on most any track. However, after gaining both years and some maturity, and after racing a “few” times online, and after realizing that 1% of 1 million still leaves 10,000 people who are progressively much better than I am, and those are just the clean laps.
I’ve realized that I don’t consciously have a driving style. So my perspective on it is, if the tuning calculator can provide a stable car that gets all it’s tire temps pretty dang close, then I’ll learn how to drive the car and develop a driving style based on how it’s setup. I’ve gotten to the point where I can, after some effort, consistently set a leaderboard time typically in the top 2 to 3000 of the leaderboard. (Please don’t hear me as boasting, it’s just a personal metric I keep for myself).
I had a long response all typed up on my phone, but it locked up and I lost all that I had started to say… good thing too, because I hadn’t noticed the age of the post either.
However, if someone finds this time capsule and has questions about Forza Tuning Labs calculator, please don’t hesitate to message me with your questions. Their site gets VERY little activity, and their facebook page doesn’t allow for posts to the SlaveMunkey… only responses to his posts. The last one was posted in June.