Getting Started
For beginners or people looking for a step in the right direction, this may be of some use. I will outline some advice I have gathers through tuning and advice passed to me.
Once you pick the car you want to tune/are trying to tune:
Generally a good starting spot is to get a basic setup for the suspension based on FF, AWD, or FR/MR/RR. Next I move on to the transmission and good a nice good transmission flip. If you don't know what that is look at the first post on how to setup transmission. You are not looking for a perfect transmission yet, just one that will be nice and smooth to get the suspension to within 95% of what the car needs. Now we move back to the suspension and test different components one by one. This works better using a black screen launch and the car in auto to ensure consistency. Once the suspension is right where you want it, work on ballast and aerodynamics if needed. Lastly, we get the transmission fixed and the car should be ready to go.
Suspension
These are good starts but do not apply to all cars
FF
Ride Height: Min/Max
Springs: Min/Max
Camber: 0.0/5.0
Toe: 0.0/-1.00
AWD
Ride Height: Min/Max
Springs: Max/Max
Camber: 0.0/0.0
Toe: 0.0/0.0
FR/MR/RR
Ride Height: Min/Max
Springs: Max/Min
Camber: 5.0/0.0
Toe: -1.00/0.0
Transmission
There is a lot that could be said here, but here are some quick notes:
1) If you can get the last gear to reach max HP as you cross the line, that is best. That way you aren't giving up power as you finish and are still pulling.
2) Redline is not the perfect shift point for all cars, but it is more consistent. Some cars drop 500 RPM on shifting and others 800 RPM, it's car dependent.
3) Try to keep you car in the highest possible average power. For sake of explaining consider a car that has peak HP that is symmetrical at 7500 RPM. If the car drops 500 RPM you would want to shift at 7750 RPM, 500/2=250+7500=7750 RPM.
4) You don't need to use every gear, some cars have to much torque to launch in first gear.
5) Simplified: Torque=Launch/Acceleration Horsepower=Top Speed/Pull
6) The lower you can get the final gear, the better.
This image will help you understand what it means when I say for example 3 of 10 for the transmission.
Ever wonder why you get beat even though you flipped your transmission nicely? Well here is an example that might help you. A transmission with a 2.000 final and top speed of 160 is faster than a transmission with a 2.345 final and top speed of 160. It makes a big difference, especially the higher final you end up with, example 2.000 > 2.100 > 2.200 > and so on.
This is by no means meant to replace the Drag Tuning Bible. I encourage you to read it. All this is, is practically cliff notes. If there is something you feel I should add/change, message me.
Now onto the tunes...