Educate yourself some
Forza U
Making Forza Motorsports understandable as 1-2-3
PSI:
In Forza your tire pounds per square inch (PSI) dictates how much grip your car has
with the road. Increasing the amount of PSI in the front makes the car feel more responsive but at
the same time you start losing traction after a while.
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Let’s break it down by racing discipline:
Drifting:
Peak grip for drifting is around 32 PSI, to achieve that in game you’ll want to mess
with different PSI settings and after a few minutes check your telemetry. Start with 27 PSI in the
front and 25 in the rear as a starting point and change the values as needed. Your PSI level should
stay in the 32 PSI range constantly while drifting.
Circuit :
PSI don’t change as drastically in circuit racing as in drifting in Forza but
that’s up to you and your preferences. Most cars as a foundation I give 26 PSI in both the front and
the rear and that generally does it. It provides the car with good grip before the tires heat up and
when they do it’s easy to feel the car turning in quicker.
Drag:
Generally between 32 – 34 psi in the front and rear will do you good as a solid baseline.
Rally:
Generally between 27 – 29 in both the front and the rear will get you started for right
now.
Tune Settings
Gearing:
There are no set numbers to gear your transmission, this totally depends on the type on engine
and car you chose. Driving around and feeling which gears need to fixed is up to the driver to
figure out.
When changing values you don’t need to make drastic changes, just sliding the slider 2
or 3 clicks will be enough to test any changes you want to do to certain gears.
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Alignment:
When turning the weight of the car will for the tires and without adding camber can severlly
effect the performance of a car. The following is a poorly drawn diagram of what you don’t want
happening:
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Camber :
0 Camber |_|-------------|_| <--- those are the tires
Positive Camber \_\--------------/_/ <---- Front tires = Not good
You want your car to have negative camber to be able to adjust for the weight for the car and at
the same time have full contact with the surface of the road throughout the turn.
Negative Camber /_/--------------\_\ <---- Good
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Toe:​
The following diagram is from the perspective of you above the car looking down on the tires:
*0 Front Toe |_| |_|<- front tires
|_| |_| <- rear tires
*Positive Toe \_\ /_/ <- front tires
|_| |_| <-rear tires
*Negative Toe /_/ \_\ <- front tires
|_| |_| <- rear tires
Toe takes a bigger in role in drifting than in circuit racing because the amount of toe in the front
allows you to get more angle during a drift. In circuit racing there’s generally no focus on toe and
a total preference if you want to run tow or not.
Anti-Roll Bars:
Reading the general description on the side of each menu they help you understand what happens when you stiffen or soften both the front and rear. Reading these will help you fine tune your suspension and make it feel the way you want it to.
Springs:
General preference depending if you want more brake force in the front or rear of your car.
There are no set values for the brakes as they vary from driver to driver so this will take a lot of
testing and using the brakes.
Rebound Stiffness:
If there is not effect damping on the rebound, the wheel will quickly return through the static level and start to bump again, with the bouncing effect unsettling the suspension with little control. Any race car which intends to ride the curbs on apexes, watch out- the compressed wheel could jump of the curb in extreme instances of rebound setting being too low.
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If there is too much rebound stiffness, then the wheel could hold longer in the wheel arch then needed, effectively losing contact with the road as the force to push the wheel back down is slower to respond to the changing surface levels.
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To Much Rebound Setting:
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Wheel can not keep up with road surface changes
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Inside cornering wheel could be pulled of road by shock
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Car could become jacked down in long corners (lowered ride height)
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Too Little Rebound Setting:
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Car will oscillate after bumps (bounce along the road)
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Hard to put down power.
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Bump Stiffness:
If there isn't enough damping then the cycle begins again until the car returns to the original ride height, with a bouncing motion to the car. Another trait of under damping is that loads go into tire and suspension relatively slowly, this combined with the bouncing effect means a constant varying download force on tires.
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If there is too much damping, then it is effectively like running no suspension and any upward motion will be transmitted directly to the chassis. Over damping will result in a increase in the loads acting on the suspension and the tires. The handling will feel very harsh and hard, this will effect street driving in terms of comfort levels, this might not be desired for a daily driver.
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To Much Bump Setting:
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Initial bump reaction harsh
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Slow chassis roll
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Car may jack up in long corners (higher ride height)
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Too Little Bump Setting:
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Soft bump reaction
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Car prone to dive or squats, lots of longitudinal weight transfer
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Lots of car roll, inside front on turn in and outside rear on exit could fall over
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Brakes:
General preference depending if you want more brake force in the front or rear of your car.
There are no set values for the brakes as they vary from driver to driver so this will take a lot of
testing and using the brakes.
Drive train:
It depends on the traction and power of a vehicle, weight distribution, etc. If the rear diff is at
a higher percentage, the rate that each wheel spins is closer, if you go around a corner and put
down the power, you’re more likely to oversteer and spin out with higher diff setting, the less the
percentage, the less both wheels will spin together causing a car to go sideways.
The lower the setting will cause one wheel to spin while the other maintains traction, keeping the rear end from kicking out sideways, this also causes more wheel spin for one wheel, while not having as much traction under acceleration on a straight.
