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I started to mess around with tuning since Forza 4 and i also race primarily in B class.
This guide is 90% of the way i tune with some very slight variations.

Very good write up.

Cheers

Edited by user Monday, August 22, 2016 12:57:39 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks Maxisone.

Now you made me curious: what are the 10% that are different? :-)

Your Damping and your Diff

For me setting overall damping is to ensure grip and stability for road types undulations and maintaining grip on kerbs and at the crest of hills. After that .. I adjust front and rear bump/rebound to adjust oversteer or understeer corner entry/exit tendencies.

Damping for me separates a good tune from a great tune. Ridiculous amounts of time can be gained from working kerbs and if your car cannot handle kerbs (either flying off the high kerbs or slipping off the rumble strips) you are losing seconds on some tracks.


I will use Diff accell for adjusting how much power is put down to ensure optimum traction for corner exit and I will use decel for obtaining the most optimum corner entry speed in slow corners and for ensuring that the vehicle predictably corrects its tracking if I lift or bleed a little speed if my car is understeering a little when I am aiming for the apex in the corner.

I do not use accell to help power my way around a corner (post apex) in an understeering car. That to me indicates a poorly tuned car. I want to confidently get the car to the apex and start unwinding the steering lock (without much correction) and applying as much power as possible without losing precious tenths from wheelspin at every single corner. The tenths people lose at corner exit from every corner massively adds up over the length of the entire track.


But if the way you tune those components works for you then I have no problem with that. :)

Cheers

Edited by user Friday, August 26, 2016 11:34:32 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Reworked Ride Height. Added suggested Diff ranges.

Edited by user Monday, August 29, 2016 12:45:06 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hi Maxisone,

Thanks for elaborating.

Damping

To be honest I don't tune specifically for kerbs, from my experience kerbs are usually on places where you don't accelerate really (corner entry, apex, corner exit), if you have to accelerate there on occasion of course you have to be gentle but most of the times it comes down to able to coast over them without hassle. A lot of people also claim that a reasonably high ride height is also important for running kerbs, I personally don't have that experience either as most of the time I run minimum ride height without problems.

I do agree that damping separates a good from a great tune though. The main difference between us is that you obviously tune specifically for tracks while I always aim for a general purpose tune and I've yet to see a track specific tune that is faster than my general purpose approach.

You say: choose the right damping for the track (and car)
I say: choose the right damping for the car no matter what track

Again I don't believe in track specific tunes, only in track specific builds.

Diff

My main observation is that the relation between accel and decel together with the dampers and alignment (mainly caster) define the cars corner entry and exit behaviour. So whenever you change accel or decel you will change corner entry and exit behaviour as well. While it is common sense that the decel mainly affects corner entry changing the accel also affects corner entry subtlety as raising the accel will create a little more corner entry resistance (understeer) while lowering accel will decrease corner entry resistance (oversteer).

Also optimum corner exit traction is influenced by other factors such as rear bump and rear spring rate. From my experience you can run all of the cars with surprisingly similar Diff that only varies slightly around the 70/35 mark. If you experience on-throttle oversteer on corner exit then the Diff is most probably not the problem. And sometimes if the car is really high powered you just have to be gently on the throttle, if you lower accel (or rear bump / springs) you will create other problems.

Edited by user Monday, August 29, 2016 12:14:48 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I agree the dampers are key to a really good tune, but its not just about how it takes kerbs or sticks to the ground in corners. Damper settings are essential for finding the correct balance between under and oversteer through different phases of a corner. The best balanced cars are tuned with the dampers, using the diff to do this is inhibiting the overall performance of the car.

I didn't say use the Diff for dial out over- and understeer. I just stated that the diff has an influence on corner over- and understeer - thus I use it for fine tuning corner entry / exit.

The main factor for corner entry / exit are dampers. Influencing factors are caster and diff (provided springs and ARBs are reasonably set).

There is a magic point for each car with the right combination of dampers, caster and diff. You will know when you hit that point, it's just the feeling that it can't get any better :-)

Edited by user Monday, August 29, 2016 1:30:51 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Just to be clear

I don't tune for tracks, My cars are built for for track types (Handling/Balanced/Speed). I don't think I said anything in my post that indicated I tune for specific tracks. Not sure how you got to that conclusion.

For me as sk15kev stated .. I set my damping for not only grip but also and corner exit entry. I don't think I said anything new. Your following post I am completely aware of and factor those issues accordingly and yes ... I do know how to accelerate out of corners with all vehicle types.

I however do not subscribe to coasting on kerbs in an acceleration zone or braking zone. If my car cant handle what is thrown at it (within reason) something is wrong. Too much laptime would be left on the table for that not to be a concern.


Now ill just ease myself out of this discussion ... Again good write up... and I'm sure it works for you but there are variations to how we do things to probably arrive at the same result.

Edited by user Wednesday, August 31, 2016 7:46:39 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks for clarification!

Cheers mate, no offense was intended of course from my side.

Fifty

- Caster and ARBs sections updated for muscle cars
- Series tire compound explained in Tires section

Edited by user Monday, September 12, 2016 6:55:17 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I plan to make few older RWD rally cars. I plan to make them low powered (D/C/B/A).
Can I get any help/tips?

Sure

This old discussion, but I have actually flipped my car completely over have too low ride setting. YAS, Bugatti, COTA all come to mind of curbs that will completely stop your in its tracks.

But what about tracks like rio. Isn't better to have slightly higher rise (more wheel travel) to deal with bumps?

Also I have found slamming the frontend and jacking up the rear will provide higher top speeds and help with acceleration on the more extreme builds

Optimal ride height is almost independent from track and has nothing to do with curbs. The only exception so far for me is Watkins Glen with its sweeping fast corners where sometimes more ride height than usual gives faster times. Let me explain.

Higher ride height works as an additional stabilizing factor like aero and allows you to brake and turn faster. However raising ride height also raises the center of mass which hurts turning. So there is a sweet spot for each car which I call optimal ride height.

In general for older cars the optimal ride height is higher than for modern cars and for race cars the optimal ride height is lower than for street cars.

Ranges:
Older cars: 4-8 inch (race --> street)
Modern cars 2-5 inch (race --> street)

So in your example it depends if you are talking about an old or modern car and if it is a street or race car. E,g, if it's a modern street car and the minimum ride height is above 5 inch there is no need to raise the ride height any further.

Edited by user Tuesday, December 20, 2016 4:14:38 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Ride Height updated in guide.

Great writeup and mean no disrespect.
I pretty much thrown real world logic out the window.
Which I feel most of these guide don't completely translate, especially more technical principles. Kinda what swerve was saying about silly setting.

I normal just set my cars to just about the lowest seting, until I run into an issue.

Edited by user Sunday, December 18, 2016 5:48:54 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Fair enough.

I'm just saying sometimes higher ride height gives you (drastically) faster lap times.

Edited by user Sunday, December 18, 2016 5:51:01 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Question for you. Why can F1 car 1.8 inches off the ground go over a curb but my trueno 6.0 inches up stop dead?

Are you sure the ride height is the problem and not too low springs or bump?

Added FWD and GP cars, fixed ride height range for modern cars, added caster range for gp cars

Assuming you can fit race springs, this is the key in making no aero power tunes great.

The dragster stance as I like to call it works wonders on select tracks.

It is problematic on other tracks. It doesn't hurt turn so much as it effects mid corner grip. The rear end jack up creates too much rear rigidity that the car starts to understeer because the rear doesn't want to do what the front of the car is doing...turning. It also doesn't respond well to bumpy surfaces.

Basically if you can't diamond the corners, you'll have issues. I'm looking at you buggati circuit. Grrrr.

As I said the sweet spot for ride height aka optimal ride height is generally the fastest no matter which track or if you run aero or not. Only exception for me so far is Watkins Glen for some cars.

After the 51 miles of lemen's tuning contests, where we had to tune a car for old lemen's and bugatti circut, I found the same thing swerve did. The car better dragster stances for old lemen's but struggle to run on bugatti without lifting the frontend. We ended with a comprised hight between the two tracks.

Edited by user Thursday, December 22, 2016 9:18:33 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

What car was it?

I had an amx, swerve ran a holden 350.