With Horizon 5 now available I finally found the time to update my in-depth Horizon 4 Tuning Guide with all the changes that I discovered so far in Horizon 5.
Contents
Part 1 - Horizon Tuning Basics
Understanding car types, body types and chassis types.
Part 2 - General Tuning
Setting up cars to work good on all track surfaces.
Part 3 - Road Tuning
Setting up cars to work best for road and street racing.
Part 4 - Off-road Tuning
Setting up cars to work best for dirt and cross country racing.
Part 5 - Grip and Speed Tuning
Setting up cars to work best on grip or speed oriented tracks.
Part 6 - Season and Weather Tuning
Setting up cars to work best in specific seasons and weather conditions.
Part 7 - Balance and Stiffness Tuning
Coming soon
Appendix A - Car List
Coming soon
Appendix B - Track List
Coming soon
The Tuning Guide can be read here .
Enjoy!
Fifty
3 Likes
I’ve updated Part 1 - Road Tuning and Part 5 - Season and Weather Tuning with regards to tire and season tuning that differs from Horizon 4.
TLDR
Tires
Due to Horizon 5 takes place in much warmer region than Horizon 4 tire pressures generally need to be increased by 3 psi as compared to Horizon 4 for best performance. This is also the reason why you see much higher default tire pressures in Horizon 5 than in Horizon 4.
Also it seems I missed the fact that off-road tires generally require much lower tire pressures than street, sport or race compounds for best performance. This also applies to snow and vintage race tires but to a smaller degree.
Seasons
Seasons in Horizon 5 work a little bit different from seasons in Horizon 4. Now Spring is the hottest season and Autumn is the coldest season as opposed to Summer and Winter in Horizon 4.
The mapping is as following:
Spring (H5) = Summer (H4)
Summer (H5) = Autumn (H4)
Autumn (H5) = Winter (H4)
Winter (H5) = Spring (H4)
3 Likes
I’ve updated Part 1 - Horizon Tuning Basics and Part 2 - Road Tuning with regard to electric vehicles.
TLDR
Cars with electric engines have inherently more vehicle weight concentrated in the center of the car due to the significantly weighty battery pack being usually located in the middle bottom of the car making them more prone to understeer than gasoline cars.
Therefore (much like mid and rear engine cars) electric cars require a slight oversteer setup with more camber and reverse ARB and spring setup to combat inherent understeer in combination with higher rear rebound, higher front bump and lower diff for stabilizing the car on corner entry for best performance.
2 Likes
As it seems I overcomplicated things when it comes to mid and rear engine tuning and AWD / FWD tuning.
Mid and rear engine cars in fact don’t require any different tuning than front engine cars. The fact that they have more weight distributed towards the rear of the car can be solely covered by weight distribution tuning wise. Same applies to EVs.
While AWD and FWD do require different ARB and spring tuning than RWD cars (and diff of course), they don’t require different tire pressure, alignment, damper and brake tuning.
I’ve removed the corresponding sections in Part 1 - Horizon Tuning Basics and Part 2 - Road Tuning. With the good side effect that the tuning guide has become a fair bit smaller 
.
1 Like
I’ve updated Part 1 - Horizon Tuning Basics and Part 2 - Road Tuning with regard to open wheel cars and rally cars. I also cleaned up and simplified some parts in Part 1.
TLDR
Open Wheel Cars
Tuning for open wheel cars is less complex than I originally thought. In essence open wheel cars require lower rear camber and a more open diff than regular road cars.
Rally Cars
I didn’t pay much attention to rally cars in the past and basically treated them like sports cars. However as it turns out rally cars have much more in common with off-road cars, meaning they require lower differential tuning and more braking force on the front than regular road cars. In fact Rally Cars are a car type on it’s own which is now correctly reflected in the tuning guide.
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I’ve updated the tuning guide about a whole new topic that has been introduced with Horizon 5: Chassis Types.
A cars chassis type is determined by the installed tire compound. There are four basic chassis types supported in Horizon 5:
- Road Chassis (stock, street, sport, semi race slicks, race slicks, snow and vintage race tires)
- Off-road Chassis (off-road, rally, off-road race and vintage rally tires)
- Drift Chassis (drift tires)
- Drag Chassis (drag tires)
The basic premise is that when you change a cars chassis type by upgrading to certain tire compounds you have to take into account the changed chassis behavior on the road when tuning.
When it comes to road tuning chassis tuning is actually a little bit more complex because now also the different road chassis types need to be considered:
- Street Chassis (stock and street tires)
- Sport Chassis (sport tires)
- Semi Race Chassis (semi race slicks)
- Race Chassis (race slicks)
- Snow Chassis (snow tires)
- Vintage Race Chassis (vintage race tires)
This also forced me to restructure the tuning guide and introduce a new Part 2 - General Tuning part along with Part 3 - Road Tuning and Part 4 - Off-road Tuning.
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I’ve updated now also Part 4 - Off-road Tuning with regard to chassis types.
TLDR
Cars with road, drift or drag tires generally require additional chassis tuning when tuning for dirt or cross country since their chassis is intended for road and not for off-road racing.
1 Like
I’ve made a couple of edits to various parts of the tuning guide, short summary below.
Low Power Cars (Part 2)
Low power cars (<400hp) require 15% lower rear downforce for best performance.
Rally Suspension for Road Racing (Part 3)
When using rally or off-road suspension for road racing you can use the same suspension tuning (alignment, springs, dampers) as for race suspension. However caster, ride height, brake balance and diff require different tuning.
Race Suspension for Off-road Racing (Part 4)
When using race suspension for dirt or cross country racing you can use the same suspension tuning (alignment, springs, dampers) as for rally / off-road suspension. However caster, ride height, brake balance and diff require different tuning.
Off-road Chassis Tuning for Road Cars (Part 4)
Additional chassis tuning for dirt and cross country is also required when road cars are equipped with rally or off-road race tires.
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I’ve updated Part 1 - Horizon Tuning Basics and Part 3 - Road Tuning with regard to rally chassis.
TLDR
Rally chassis are a special kind of off-road chassis that occur when you AWD swap in combination with fitting rally tires (either stock or via upgrades).
For off-road tuning rally chassis can be treated as off-road chassis, however for road tuning rally chassis require different tuning than off-road chassis for best performance. Rally chassis require understeer tire and alignment tuning (like off-road chassis) to stabilize the car on corner entry and oversteer ARB and spring tuning complemented by higher rear rebound and front bump (like drift chassis) for improved cornering.
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I’ve updated Part 3 - Road Tuning and Part 4 - Off-road Tuning with regard to chassis reinforcement.
TLDR
Road Tuning: Cars with Road Chassis and Chassis Reinforcement
Cars with road chassis and an installed chassis reinforcement other than Street chassis reinforcement require additional over- or understeer tuning depending on installed chassis reinforcement. Cars with no chassis reinforcement installed require understeer tuning while cars with Sport or Race chassis reinforcement require oversteer tuning for best performance.
Off-road Tuning: Cars with Off-road / Rally Chassis and Chassis Reinforcement
Cars with off-road or rally chassis and an installed chassis reinforcement upgrade require additional oversteer tuning depending on installed chassis reinforcement. The higher the installed chassis reinforcement upgrade is the more oversteer tuning is required for best performance.
Note: Take into account that many cars come with stock Street (only Sport or Race chassis reinforcement available), Sport (only Race chassis reinforcement available) or Race chassis reinforcement (no chassis reinforcement available) installed.
I’ve updated Part 2 - General Tuning and Part 4 - Off-road Tuning with regard to damper tuning.
TLDR
I’v rewritten the chapter Dampers in Part 2 - General Tuning that now describes damper tuning as a 3-step process:
- Set front bump according to cars minimum bump stiffness and front weight
- Set front rebound according to front bump and cars overall damping stiffness
- Set rear rebound and bump according to front rebound and bump and relation of front and rear spring rates
Also rally and off-road suspensions need higher rebound than race suspension to keep cars planted during cornering.
I also edited chapter Dampers in Part 4 - Off-road Tuning:
For cross country dampers need additional rear rebound, in case of off-road suspension also additional rear bump to keep the cars better planted during cornering.
I also corrected rebound and bump offsets for rally and off-road suspensions for both dirt and cross country.