I know I’m late to the party here but given all the free time I have on my hands for obvious reasons, I’ve been tuning a bunch of cars and normally I have always changed just the final drive slider when it came to tuning but with a couple cars(cant recall specifically) that I made significantly quicker than the QuickTune app that I use just as a base to save time bcuz I would spend am embarrassing amount of time testing and tuning without a starting point. Anyway what’s everyone’s method and opinion on optimizing each gear just for a balanced feeling gearing(I’m not drag racing or anything like that but still like my cars to a little more quick than speedy) There’s been a few times that I just can’t see why Quicktunes suggests certain final drives ratios bcuz theres almost always significantly quicker ones that don’t miss out on much on the top end but Ill get stuck on checking each gear to as close to perfect stat wise which takes an enormous amount of time and obviously it’s not all that necessary to be that picky. I just wanna felt more confident that my gearing isn’t way off from where it should be in general if that’s makes any sense? Probably not but I’m posting this anyways. Lol thanks I’m sure this topics been beaten to death more than a few times but I’ll be on here all day just looking thru posts so I’d appreciate any advice or guidance that save me from having to do that. And sorry for the length just didn’t want to annoyingly vague.
More paragraphs please, not possible to read it.
Open Telemetry Panel, there are a bunch of Meters. You need the RPM and the Torque. Now look closely at which point your Car starts to produce the most Torque at a specific RPM. Afterwards look at the point where your Torque starts to decrease and thats your RPM Range ( From, To ).
Your First Gear should start at the RPM with Highest RPM and move up Gear by Gear. Do it and try to set your Gears between this RPM Range with most Torque.
Try to hold your Final Drive not to short or to long, find the best point between Acceleration and Top Speed. You will see, some People get there Final Drive up to like 230 mph or so but not think about the maximal HP and Power of their Cars which mostly not even reach this kind of Speed. So be realistic.
Tip : If you dont use it already , set your Setting to manual Transmission and shift up to 4th or 3th Gear, now accelerate from cold start. Its a bit easier to find this Range.
Simplest thing to do is to go to one end of the very long highway.
Start by setting the final drive so that the last gear line just goes through the upper right corner.
Then, in manual (obviously), starting in first gear and without changing gears, perform some launches and adjust 1st up and down until its not bogging down on launch, and its not bouncing off the rev limiter. Once you have found the acceptable point, move onto second gear and check the transition from 1st to second: As 1st redlines and you switch gears, does it drop into 2nd where you can feel good acceleration. Once you are happy with 1st to 2nd, you can move to 2nd to 3rd.
It helps, for each of the gears, and car classes, to have an idea of what speeds you want each gear to be tuned for as well as in a race you will start thinking of corners as “a 3rd gear corner” or “a 2nd gear corner”, and you want to try and tune your gearbox so that you don’t have unnecessary gear-changes mid-corner.
You can fine tune each gear later but to start off with the standard 6 speed.
3.00
2.00
1.50
1.20
1.00
0.85
Then adjust the final drive so 6th gear tops out on the edge of the graph.
I use the graph on the tuning screen, and adjust the gears so the changes are consistent. I don’t like surprise gear changes like in the impala SS from 96 where first and second are short and third takes you completely out of the power band. In general I like 1500 rpm drops between gears, it keeps the car in the top range of the revs where most hp is generated. But in general I make sure the gears are nice and consistent then play with the final gear ratio until I reach the highest top speed with best 0-60 and 0-100 times.
There’s cars like Subaru and Mustang Cobra which die early in the powerband, the game maps their redline wrong, especially the Mustang. The tachometer in the Fox Body, Hemi Cuda and Trans Am GTA has yellow and red zones, you’re supposed to shift a little after entering yellow for better speed, but the game only takes the red into account in the HUD. Japanese turbo cars don’t have this “yellow zone” but the engine will still lose steam before reaching redline whether it’s a Skyline, Supra or WRX.
This means having your last gear at the edge of the graph is not always beneficial. You have shorter gearing, which helps you accelerate faster, but at higher speeds you have lower power at rpm and the same air resistance to overcome, which makes the car hit a wall. In 3rd and beyond you should already shift at lower rpm for optimal acceleration.
I only drive automatics so I simply set the final drive ratio to a little bit higher than the top speed I need on the “specific” track. I have never adjusted gears manually. Yes… I do experience dead zones, or gears with no power, but a quick pop of the e-brake generally gives me one downshift.
If my car has tons of horsepower (like 1000), I adjust the FDR to make the top gear reach the edge of the graph.