Summary: Lotus Evora S is too slow to be truly competitive in the Sports Icon / Ultimate Sport Machine series and is just a horrendous driving experience (unless you really like kitty litter) with a wheel. Please try tune which allows, I think, the car to be very drivable with a wheel. I can get to at least 3rd and advance with this tune. Tune is called: Race660NoDF some details about how I got there below.
I’m not a good driver. I’m just not. I enjoy trying to improve my lap times and racing with some friends every now and then. Recently I started working through the career. Mainly to unlock the showcases but I started to really enjoy the career mode.
Problem is I use a wheel and I can’t use the controller. If you’ve been ignoring the wheel threads just know the summary is: The cars are darn near impossible to keep on the asphalt and I have no idea what “simulation” means because I’ve never driven a car so loose with so little feedback IRL. OK great… moving on…
I made it through Super Street SpoCom without much fuss and a simple tune. Onto Sports Icons and Ultimate Sports Machines where I promptly selected the Lotus Evora S to buy. BAD IDEA!
The Lotus Evora S is slow compared to the other cars in this series. I mean really slow. Like Sunday drive through the park slow. The only way to win anything with this car is to essentially build enough gap in the corners that when you’re napping on the straights with your foot to the floor and the entire field is coming up behind you, at what appears to be ludicrous speed, your gap is wide enough to make it to the next corner before being overtaken. OK, got it. Fine. Fast through the corners and BAM I’m off in the kitty litter again. No chance of recovery and no feedback because, well, see previous note on wheel problems. Also, did I mention bumping another car generally sends you spinning out of control as well? So, slow perfect corners, don’t touch another of the 23 other cars on the track, and evasive maneuvers in the straights because everyone else has a higher top speed. Yeah, right, I’m just not that good.
OK, next hurdle. When you buy a car in career the car, apparently, comes already tuned? I did not know this. So there I was, sitting in an underivable car with my wheel looking at the leader boards of PI 660 cars and my Evora sitting at 659. How am I going to get 1 PI and solve my handing/wheel problem? Answer: I’m not.
Out of pure frustration I finally went into tune and realized I can strip every single bit of “mod” off that car (set things to the toolbox) to give me enough PI headroom where I could focus just on handing. Up first was brakes. Not necessarily because the Evora needs more brake but simply because upgraded brakes gives you access to brake bias. Brake bias appears to be the core element of not being able to handle the the car with a wheel (in my opinion/experience). So I fixed that. I fixed a handful of other things as well and, you know what? The Evora stayed on the asphalt! Oh my gosh the car is drivable! But more importantly the car won’t spin-out like it’s driving on spare tires. Let me repeat that: I get oversteer feedback and I’m able to correct it without spinning out of control. Like Magic (like a real car)!
Only problem is all that grip made the car even slower. Not to fear though because the night races in Sports Icons have short straights. Took some practice but made it through. Now onto Daybreak series. New problem. With the long straights at Bathurst my Evora tune wasn’t going to let me win. I can keep the car on the road but I’m just too darn slow in the straights. Slow slow slow. After much tweaking I was able to remove just enough grip to keep enough speed in the straights and I wan’t seeing the whole field pass me. And, again after much practice, I put together 3 good laps and was able to move on. Yeah, go me!
Anyway, sorry for the very long story but I truly think the “stock” cars in Forza are underivable with a wheel. They all need a “wheel” tune. If you’re frustrated with the wheel please try my tune and let me know what you think. I believe it makes a huge difference and actually makes the game fun; because I’m competitive! If it’s worthless no big deal. If it truly makes a difference I’ll do a video so you can see exactly where all the tune settings are and you can build/adjust it yourself. The same sort of adjustments and settings appear to fix every car; just need tweaking so you don’t loose too much top speed. Or, at least, the handful of cars I’ve tuned I’ve been able to “fix”. I’m using the Evora as the example because the car just feels like it is at such a disadvantage is this series. If a tune can make it competitive with a wheel I’m pretty sure every car can be fixed in a similar way.
I race with no assists, sim steering, cosmetic damage, the braking line, automatic shifting, and the affinity 25 grip mod. Deadzones are 0-100 on everything. Vibration and FFB? I don’t think it makes any difference once you keep the car on the asphalt. DOR? Whatever feels good to you. For the Evora I’m using 540. Other cars I use 900. It all depends on the car and how quickly I can get the wheel around. Remember, I drive one handed, so my ability to turn the wheel is different than yours. I have a TX base, GT wheel, with the Pro peddles.
Tune is called Race660NoDF which means downforce is set to 0. Why 0? Because I needed maximum straight-line speed to win at Bathurst. I use different settings based upon the track.
OK, thanks for reading and trying the tune. If you have other suggestions please share. Let me know what you think and especially if you’re using a wheel. Since I’m tuning in response to poor wheel behavior I didn’t put this in “tune” forum. Really this is more to fix the wheel than to make the car faster.