My apologies if this has already been addressed. Tried searching and found nothing.
I have been running some laps lately and have noticed that i am experiencing understeer through turns based off of my gear choice. Say i am taking a long sweeper at 80 mph in 4th gear. I am close to my rev limit and i am able to hold the turn. Next lap i take the same turn in 5th at 80 mph and it seems to want to understeer. My question is whether the gearing can have an effect on the balance through a turn taken at the same speed in one gear vs another?
Yes.
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Short, simple and correct 
Your ideal situation is to use the highest gear you can. Based on what you’ve said it would take more time to shift into 5th from 4th than to be in 5th on exit already. Lower gears give you more response but too low is slow.
Depends. The understeering in higher gears seems to be a compromise for game pads with so little way of steering tolerance. Yesterday I got my Thrustmaster TX and now oversteering is a problem when coming out of a curve with the same settings and some cars are tending to get out of control. But I can steer in curves as I like, not depending of the gear. In Horizon 2 I think, I have a pretty advantage with the wheel. In Forza 5 the disadvantages are at best in balance and I need new tunings.
Yes, its likely caused by ur diffs increase your accel and this should go away, however the rear may get happy.
Yup, something I noticed across many versions of Forza, other games and real world driving. At least in my mind the answer is in the available traction to the rear tires. At lower rpm either on throttle or off, you are using some of the tires available traction for either acceleration or deceleration and thus have less for lateral. If you can just roll the corner with no throttle input and no engine braking it should feel the same regardless of gear and rpm. Found it is another good way to get the rear back in line if it starts to step out by clicking up a gear, especially coming out of a corner where a split second later you would be upshifting anyway.
Umm, just read back what I wrote. What I meant to say was at higher rpm you are usually producing more power on throttle or more engine braking from off throttle and that is why you have less available traction in the rear tires for lateral while cornering. So, higher gear = lower rpm = more rear lateral grip = rear more planted. Too planted in the rear = understeer. Anytime somebody smart wants to chime in and correct me or back me up with facts, have at it.