Hi, I’m new to tuning for the most part (besides Forza Horizon 2, but I heard the mechanics in 2 aren’t very realistic) and I’ve been trying to tune the first car I got, the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T. I’m very aware of throttle control, and I’m not trying to make this a drag car, but even with trying to control the throttle I’m having some difficulty with losing grip/spinning out at corners. I’ll happily post my tuning, but I’m just looking for some advice without resorting to downloading a tune.
That’s pretty vague… We would need to know what class you are tuning for, whether you are doing any swaps, etc.
The advice for building/tuning a nice B-class muscle car and the advice for building/tuning a V12-swapped AWD S1 class muscle car would be very different.
Three basic tips are:
-Remember that the game chooses/upgrades your opponents to what you build, so outside of some seasonal events with requirements and team adventures, upgrading your car gives you basically no performance advantage relative to your opponents (remember upgrading improperly can hurt your performance though). That means you can upgrade it almost however you want to make it nice to drive and you don’t have to worry about maximizing performance. Once you figure out the game and get used to things, then you can start building more for performance later.
-Don’t over-tire the car. Tires are expensive PI-wise, meaning that you can be very down on power if you put too much tire. That doesn’t mean don’t put tires on it, just don’t go overboard… With some time, you will figure out the thresholds. Definitely do not throw race tires on everything.
-Tuning is/can be important, but the build is more important initially. Since power is cheap PI-wise, it’s easy to end up with a lot of power in this game. Take all the engine upgrades off it, then slowly add them back until you find a level you are comfortable/happy with before you worry about tweaking individual tune settings.
5 Likes
Like he said, that’s pretty vague, but also nothing he offered is really applicable to your issue, so, I’ll have a go:
The first thing you’ll want to do, especially with older cars like that, is look at the tires. Generally anything from the 1980s or earlier, will be riding on some low-grip “old car” tires, wich cars like the Charger getting some of the lowest-grip tires the game has. Like he said, tires cost a lot of PI, but you will almost never be effective on those stock 1960s bias ply tires, so, in your case, you’ll need one of those better tire compounds. (the vintage race compound sort of bridges the gap, you get a very hard tire with not much lateral grip, but they are much grippier than the stock vintage tires and are more for fun and aesthetics)
Second with these old cars is brakes, you’re going to want to use either the sport or race brakes because anything less retains the drum brakes on the rear.
You will need to do suspension work but nothing you can do there will solve the issue I am assuming you’re having, most important thing there is to try and keep the front/rear balance on every adjustable part roughly in sync, because by moving that balance forward or back (across all parts) you can easily and quickly change the handling of your car in an obvious way
Next, you’ll want to have a look at your differential. If you’re using an adjustable differential, try lowering the settings by probably a lot of it’s defaulted to 75/75 (I’d start with 45% accel and 15% decel)
Finally, though this comes first in the tuning menu, I’d have a look at your gearing. If you’re finding yourself spinning at low speeds in low gears, try making those gears taller
4 Likes
Not much to do when it comes to chassis. Those cars feel like jelly no matter how you tune them. Mustang GT feels less… But it’s the lightest of the bunch.
American cars are mostly undertired when it comes to tire compound. Last week we had a Buick GNX seasonal in which stock compound was required since anything higher would bump you out of C600. But, even with 265 in the front and 295 in the rear, I was having much difficulty controlling the car. Braking distances, even with Race brakes, were terrible. I usually run the GNX at either B700 or A800 so this was a much different experience.
Horizon’s rule is the same as reality: the more you lean towards looks, the more you hurt performance and vice-versa. Sometimes they coincide, albeit rarely. A good example are wheels, many of which are heavy and might hurt performance.
But generally, for muscle cars, Race parts in the handling department are mandatory, except for tires, which for B700 should be Street and maybe Sport in rare situations. I’d also run Street stiffening to prevent excessive wheelspin. Weight reduction is probably most useful in muscle cars due to how powerful their engines are in stock form. For B700, a Street gearbox is useful, but the Charger will need Sport due to low engine speeds. If it helps, Cragars, American Racing, Mickey Thompson and Weld wheels usually lower weight, so you gain a little from dressing up your car.
I love muscle cars in FH4, due to most of them feeling at home in B class with proper tires. In FH3, B700 still mandated the use of the horrible bias ply stock tires. Also, in FH4 you have Vintage compound for the looks (PI is mostly equivalent to Street).
For A800 and higher you’ll need to swap the engine in most cars (except Hemis and possibly other big blocks) and add better tires accordingly, perhaps aero as well.
2 Likes
I’m tuning for an A class Charger right now.
Here’s my list of specs:
6.2L V8 DSC
RWD (in my opinion, making it all wheel drive ruins the point of muscle cars)
Race intake, race fuel system, race ignition, race exhaust, race cams, race valves, race engine block, race pistons, stock supercharger(s), stock intercooler, stock oil/cooling, race flywheel.
Race brakes, race springs, race antiroll bars (both), race roll cage, no weight reduction.
Race clutch, race transmission, race driveline, race differential.
Vintage race tire compound, 275/55R14 Front tires, 315/50R14 Rear tires, Cragar’s street lock D window rims, longest rear track width.
Race front bumper, stock wing, and changed the hood.
Car stats:
Power: 898hp
Torque: 778 ft-lb
Weight: 3,511 lb
Front: 52%
Displacement: 6,500
My problem is that when I turn a corner the car really likes to fish tail, and is there something I’m missing in tuning for alignment or springs to help prevent that from happening? Is the engine pushing out too much power for the tire compound I’m using?
1 Like
You can tweak the suspension and lsd for more grip, but it won’t be a big difference and will cause understeer.
Try slapping a wing on the back and max downforce out, I’d be surprised if that doesn’t greatly improve it.
Upgrading tires and reducing weight kill your speed in this game, outside of X class, I rarely reduce weight on anything under 4,000lbs, and I only upgrade tires when I absolutely have to, especially on muscle cars.
p.s.
Lose the roll cage, there’s a reason it usually lowers PI, and I haven’t found a car yet that really sees a noticeable benefit, unless the car is a hot mess.
Besides that I do want to thank you guys for the other tips.
1 Like
Is there no option to increase the front track width on that Charger? I could be wrong, but a narrow front and wide rear seems like it would be better for straight line drag racing but unstable for turns.
At least in my taste you use too mutch power on that tire compound, im not very good making or driving rwd cars but i would make a-class rwd charger this way:
Stock engine (personal taste i like using stock engine)
569hp
569 ft-lb
2833lb
So biggest differences other than engine is that i use race weight reduction, i dont have roll cage, sport tires and max wide rear tires and forza rear wing. and even without fine tuning that is allready pretty easy car to take corners. I test same setup than you use and i was over 1,5s slower around bamburg circuit. With your setup gets mutch higher top speed but it dont feel good in corners.
2 Likes
If you’re trying to keep it close to stock, the top upgrades/tunes I would do:
- upgrade to 6 speed gearbox.
- weight reduction
- tire upgrade
- lower your final drive ratio so you’re not spinning in the first couple gears.
Only costs a couple thousand and you’ve got some 500hp, light car with good grip.
1 Like
I find that tuning any car in the game is really based on your driving style. You can download a tune,but if you drive differently, the vehicle will behave differently.
If you are not the best driver, like me, and struggle with RWD the most muscle cars will be a problem without the conversion. I’m trying to get better at RWD but struggle with the tuning myself. I do notice that tightening up the back end helps control it better, but you risk more oversteer in the process. My tuning can take hours or even days since I tune both in freeroam and test drives in actual race scenarios.
Basically, you need to drive it to the edge of it’s performance and even push it over the edge to see how the weight balance is effected in different corners.
Every vehicle will be different due to weight, one thing that seems to be overlooked a lot based on the way I see some vehicles in the game wobble around and smash off the walls.
Springs and anti-roll bars are where you should focus most on the muscle cars, controlling the weight is the key to controlling the car.
I’ll change a few things and see what I can do. I’ll let you guys know how it feels.
The Charger is a long car and this makes its weight distribution one of the best among muscle cars. Yes, even with the gargantuan Hemi in the front! The game reflects this by giving the Charger more grip compared to Chevelle and other cars in its class. That being said, 6.2L V8 DSC on Vintage Race tires is too much engine for the compound. Like I said before, if using this compound you need to run this car at B700 at the most.
Another problem with the Charger is that, no matter how much power you add, its brick-like aerodynamics will severely impact its top end, even more so when running the 426 Hemi. This was a car built to own the 1/4 strip, where top speed is never attained, so lightweight and acceleration is more important than outright power. Ironically, for this car I’d actually go with a grip setup like V12 SprungBoss said rather than a power one. PTG Jamie also has a tune that demonstrates a good example of a grip-tuned A800 Charger.
However, I think the 6.2L V8 DSC could be viable in A class as a speed car, if nothing else. A class’ top speed ceiling isn’t very high and the Charger can handle the torque on the right tires.
Thanks for all the tips. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured it out now 