nomis3613
Premium
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EDIT: newer, betterer guide for FR and MR online here: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?p=7408428#post7408428
DIY TUNING GUIDE FOR GT5
Hi, here is my step-by-step guide for people wanting to start making their own tunes from scratch. I have specifically tested in GT5 most of the points mentioned, so rest assured its not blindly based on real-life theory or what worked in previous games. Some parts of it present a very simplified view (for example the sections on dampers and camber, also I have taken a conservative approach to avoid the current confusion about whether front/rear ride height is backwards), but it will definitely get you going in the right direction.
This method is designed for offline mode. As for online, it will allow you to get the car feeling how you like. However, it will may not produce the fastest tune possible, due to the different physics online.
--------------------------
STEP 0: RAMBLE
This method aims to find the best handling setup for a car, not only in front to rear balance, but also in maximising grip for all situations by trying to avoid "2 wrongs make a right".
Tuning is an iterative process, so there is no correct order. Change only one setting at a time and always check that the change has had the desired effect. Try to focus on the questions in each section, and ignore the rest of the handling characteristics. But there are times you will need to a) fix something drastically wrong before you can continue tuning (eg add rear downforce if the car is totally unstable at high speed) or b) go back and tweak a previous setting because you have changed something else which has a related effect (eg LSD setting can have a huge effect on handling, so you may need to change some things once the LSD is adjusted). So feel free to jump around the steps, but I believe this order is a good starting point.
-------------------------------
STEP 1: INITIAL SETTINGS
These starting settings are not design to be a good" tune for a car, but they are designed to help you feel the tendencies of a car, so that you can make a better tune in the end. Reset all settings to default, then make these changes:
spring rate: 1/2 of the default settings
ride height : 0 / 0
dampers ext: 3 / 3
dampers comp: 3 / 3
anti-roll: 1 / 1
camber: 1.5 / 1.0
toe: 0.0 / 0.0
LSD: 5 (all)
brakes: 3 / 3
driving aids: all 0, except ABS 1
downforce: minimum
Finally, go into the ballast setting (in Body/Chassis). You want the car to have 50/50 balance*. If the front is higher, set the weight location to 50, then increase the weight until the balance becomes 50/50. If the rear is higher set the weight location to -50, then increase the weight until the balance becomes 50/50.
* As you become a more experienced tuner, you might have moral objection to "sanitising" every car by making it 50/50 (by hanging lead weights off the tailpipe!). But while you're learning, using 50/50 weight is a good way to avoid confusing tuning situations.
-------------------------------
STEP 2: FRONT SPRING/ANTI-ROLL
Edit 17/6/11: The paragraph below doesn't seem to work any more. I will try to update this soon, in the meantime, skip this step.
Drive a few laps and ignore all other handling effects (there will probably be wheelspin... well get to that later...) except for how well the car turns at the at the start of the corner (known as turn-in). In other words, does it turn sharply to follow your steering input, or is it mushy and slow to react? If the latter, increase front spring rate or front anti-roll until you are happy with the turn-in.
How do you choose whether to increase the springs or anti-roll? Well, the springs will reduce the nose diving downwards under brakes, so if this is a problem for you, stiffen the springs. On the other hand, the anti-roll will keep the car soft for jumps, so increase anti-roll if this is important. Otherwise, it's a matter of driver preference, so play around and see what you prefer.
-------------------------------
STEP 3: OVERALL STIFFNESS
If the handling in general feels too sharp and twitchy or the car gets upset over bumps, lower both front and rear spring rate by 30% each time, until you are happy with the feel of the springs.
If the handling feels too unresponsive and mushy, increase both front and rear spring rate by 30% each time until you are happy with the feel of the springs.
Or, like Step 2, you could increase the anti-roll instead. The choice between spring and anti-roll for overall stiffness is the same as Step 2, except higher spring rates overall will also reduce the nose lifting as you accelerate.
(To help you get a feel for the effect of spring stiffness on handling (it can be hard to tell on very smooth tracks with sweeping corners), the beginner AMG challenges at Nurburgring (in the Merc 300SL) are great examples of how a car feels with very soft suspension.)
-------------------------------
STEP 4: GEARING
Gearing is hard to explain, so I'll just describe a shortcut method which usually gives ok gear ratios:
- decide what maximum speed you want (remembering that higher max speed = less acceleration).
- move the highest gear ratio (5th or 6th) slider all the way to the right
- then adjust the final drive until this speed is achieved at maximum revs in top gear (by testing on the track, often the top speed number in the gear settings is wrong)
- set 1st and 2nd gears all the way left, then space out 3rd, 4th and 5th gears evenly in between.
If a gear is causing wheelspin at low revs, then the ratio can be moved left without reducing acceleration, this will allow the other gears to be spaced closer together for better acceleration. For each track, the gears which are used most should be spaced as tightly as possible. For example if a track mostly uses 3rd and 4th gears: set 3rd as far left as possible and 4th as far to the right. Often 1st gear is only used for standing starts, because it just results in wheelspin for slow corners.
-------------------------------
STEP 5: FRONT TOE
In a RWD car, if the car understeers as you accelerate out of the corner (called exit understeer"), reduce the front toe (ie use negative numbers).
In a FWD drive car, it is better to leave front toe at 0.0 (because it helps reduce wheelspin). Dont worry, you will get another chance to fix the exit understeer later. If wheelspin isnt a problem, though, feel free to try the RWD method even for an FWD car.
-------------------------------
STEP 6: DAMPERS
It is interesting to note that experienced tuners don't even agree whether higher values are stiffer or softer. To me, this says that the effect of dampers is either unpredictable or very subtle. All I can suggest is try increasing all dampers to 8 and see how you like it. You might also like to try different combinations of front/rear/bound/rebound. Experiment to find what you like!
-------------------------------
STEP 7: LSD
If the inside driven wheel is turning red when exiting slow corners, increase LSD Accel. Beware that having the outside wheel turn red first often makes the car harder to control, so you might like to set the LSD to slightly favour turning the inside wheel red.
If you have an MR or RR car that is unstable (tries to spin out) when you lift the throttle (this is called lift-off oversteer), increase LSD Braking to improve stability.
LSD Initial has a bad reputation for creating understeer, but it can often be useful. LSD Initial is often useful in MR and RR cars to make the car less twitchy. Also, in any type of car LSD Initial smooths out the grip though a corner. So instead of having lots of grip, then very little, then lots again, increased LSD Initial means you will have a decent amount of grip throughout the corner. This "smoothing" car feel like understeer, but that's just an illusion. Too much LSD Initial, though, will cause understeer, so increase it 5 at a time until the handling smooths out.
-------------------------------
STEP 8: REAR TOE
Finally you get to fix the mid-corner understeer or oversteer that youve been trying to ignore through the previous tests! Perhaps you are wondering why I left this so late? It is because I believe it is better to iron out the specific handling problems before messing with overall balance. Otherwise you will be compromising the overall balance to fix" a very specific situation (such as entry oversteer or exit understeer).
If you have adjustable downforce, ignore high speed corners (you will fix that using downforce afterwards), just focus on low and medium speed corners.
If you dont have adjustable downforce, then usually a car will want to understeer at high speed. But if you tune this out without downforce then you will probably find that low speed handling is too oversteery, so you need to find a balance.
For FWD: If your car understeers, use negative rear toe. Dont be afraid, use as much as you like until you are happy with the balance! If your car oversteers (very rare), use positive rear toe.
For RWD: If you have oversteer* or lots of wheelspin, add positive toe. If your car understeers, use negative (but beware that negative toe increases the amount of wheelspin).
* if positive rear toe is not enough to fix the oversteer, try these in order: adding rear downforce, higher front damper bound and rebound, reducing front ride height and reducing front camber.
You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned stiffening springs, dampers or anti-roll to fix balance (ie cure under/oversteer). This is because the effect of these settings on balance depends on the situation. Sometimes a stiffer front will increase understeer, sometimes it will reduce it. Aghhh! (this leads to a lot of vehement threads on GT Planet about whether settings are backwards!!) Eventually you'll want to use these settings to tweak balance, but at the start it's very confusing. Even when using suspension stiffness to fine tune the balance on a car, I avoid changing the ratio of front to rear spring stiffness. This ratio is fundamental to a cars handling, if you change it a lot of other settings will need to change to suit the new springs. Tuning balance using ride height and anti-roll bars gives less side effects than using springs.
-------------------------------
STEP 9: BRAKES
For this, you want to concentrate on what happens as you release the brakes while turning. Brake balance will fine tune the handling while braking, however the changes are small (for example brake bias alone is not enough to spin a car, if you are spinning under brakes the car is generally unstable). More front brake increases stability but makes the car harder to turn while braking; more rear brake allows you to adjust your line better while braking but can cause the rear to slide.
Anyway, find a tight corner after a long straight, hit the brakes, then start turning, once the wheel is fully turned, let go of the brakes and...
If the car dives turns in a lot better when you release the brakes, then increase the rear brake strength.
If the car lurches into understeer shortly after releasing the brakes (or if the rear is sliding under brakes), then increase the front brake strength.
-------------------------------
STEP 10: DOWNFORCE
Now that the handling is balanced, the downforce is the last thing to tune (to avoid 2 wrongs make a right tuning between suspension and downforce).
Set the front downforce to maximum and the rear to halfway. If the car understeers (especially at higher speeds), reduce the rear downforce. If the car oversteers (especially at higher speeds), increase the rear downforce. If the downforce has reduced the top speed too much, reduce the front downforce and repeat the tuning of the rear downforce.
-------------------------------
STEP 11: CHASSIS STIFFENING (PERHAPS)
If you're struggling to get a car to handle nicely, give the Chassis Stiffening a try (the catch is you can't remove it if you don't like it). Sometimes it can cure nasty handling traits (such as inconsistent mid-corner grip).
Chassis Stiffening has got a bad name in the past for "increasing understeer", but the understeer can often be tuned out with other settings and sometimes there is no other way to remove the nasty handling traits.
-------------------------------
STEP 12: TYRE HEAT
Tyre heat has a big effect on how your car handles, so always watch the tyre temperature indicators when you are tuning. Wait until the tyres are warmed up (white instead of dark blue) before you start judging the handling.
When a tyre goes red, you are losing grip. If you cannot avoid the tyres going red, try to make the left and right tyres go red evenly. There are many reasons for a tyre going red. Experiment with springs, dampers, anti-roll bars, camber, toe, brake strength and LSD Acceleration to reduce tyres going red.
-------------------------------
STEP 13: TYRE WEAR
I haven't really studied tyre wear much (cos it is very time consuming!), here's some food for thought about tyre wear though.
- The easiest way to reduce tyre wear is to drive slower! Ok, that's stating the obvious, but in my opinion there are only small gains in tyre life to be had from tuning (unless something is very wrong to start with).
- It is more important that the tyres wear evenly than how much they wear. There's no point having rear tyres that last 10 laps if you have to pit every 5 to fix the understeer caused by worn-out fronts. When the front tyres are turning red, it means they are wearing quicker, so try one of these:
- less camber
- reduce brake strength
- traction control
- tune the LSD so both tyres heat evenly
- reduce downforce
- experiment with spring/damper/anti-roll settings
Hope this helps! I'm keen to hear any questions or comments you have.
DIY TUNING GUIDE FOR GT5
Hi, here is my step-by-step guide for people wanting to start making their own tunes from scratch. I have specifically tested in GT5 most of the points mentioned, so rest assured its not blindly based on real-life theory or what worked in previous games. Some parts of it present a very simplified view (for example the sections on dampers and camber, also I have taken a conservative approach to avoid the current confusion about whether front/rear ride height is backwards), but it will definitely get you going in the right direction.
This method is designed for offline mode. As for online, it will allow you to get the car feeling how you like. However, it will may not produce the fastest tune possible, due to the different physics online.
--------------------------
STEP 0: RAMBLE
This method aims to find the best handling setup for a car, not only in front to rear balance, but also in maximising grip for all situations by trying to avoid "2 wrongs make a right".
Tuning is an iterative process, so there is no correct order. Change only one setting at a time and always check that the change has had the desired effect. Try to focus on the questions in each section, and ignore the rest of the handling characteristics. But there are times you will need to a) fix something drastically wrong before you can continue tuning (eg add rear downforce if the car is totally unstable at high speed) or b) go back and tweak a previous setting because you have changed something else which has a related effect (eg LSD setting can have a huge effect on handling, so you may need to change some things once the LSD is adjusted). So feel free to jump around the steps, but I believe this order is a good starting point.
-------------------------------
STEP 1: INITIAL SETTINGS
These starting settings are not design to be a good" tune for a car, but they are designed to help you feel the tendencies of a car, so that you can make a better tune in the end. Reset all settings to default, then make these changes:
spring rate: 1/2 of the default settings
ride height : 0 / 0
dampers ext: 3 / 3
dampers comp: 3 / 3
anti-roll: 1 / 1
camber: 1.5 / 1.0
toe: 0.0 / 0.0
LSD: 5 (all)
brakes: 3 / 3
driving aids: all 0, except ABS 1
downforce: minimum
Finally, go into the ballast setting (in Body/Chassis). You want the car to have 50/50 balance*. If the front is higher, set the weight location to 50, then increase the weight until the balance becomes 50/50. If the rear is higher set the weight location to -50, then increase the weight until the balance becomes 50/50.
* As you become a more experienced tuner, you might have moral objection to "sanitising" every car by making it 50/50 (by hanging lead weights off the tailpipe!). But while you're learning, using 50/50 weight is a good way to avoid confusing tuning situations.
-------------------------------
STEP 2: FRONT SPRING/ANTI-ROLL
Edit 17/6/11: The paragraph below doesn't seem to work any more. I will try to update this soon, in the meantime, skip this step.
Drive a few laps and ignore all other handling effects (there will probably be wheelspin... well get to that later...) except for how well the car turns at the at the start of the corner (known as turn-in). In other words, does it turn sharply to follow your steering input, or is it mushy and slow to react? If the latter, increase front spring rate or front anti-roll until you are happy with the turn-in.
How do you choose whether to increase the springs or anti-roll? Well, the springs will reduce the nose diving downwards under brakes, so if this is a problem for you, stiffen the springs. On the other hand, the anti-roll will keep the car soft for jumps, so increase anti-roll if this is important. Otherwise, it's a matter of driver preference, so play around and see what you prefer.
-------------------------------
STEP 3: OVERALL STIFFNESS
If the handling in general feels too sharp and twitchy or the car gets upset over bumps, lower both front and rear spring rate by 30% each time, until you are happy with the feel of the springs.
If the handling feels too unresponsive and mushy, increase both front and rear spring rate by 30% each time until you are happy with the feel of the springs.
Or, like Step 2, you could increase the anti-roll instead. The choice between spring and anti-roll for overall stiffness is the same as Step 2, except higher spring rates overall will also reduce the nose lifting as you accelerate.
(To help you get a feel for the effect of spring stiffness on handling (it can be hard to tell on very smooth tracks with sweeping corners), the beginner AMG challenges at Nurburgring (in the Merc 300SL) are great examples of how a car feels with very soft suspension.)
-------------------------------
STEP 4: GEARING
Gearing is hard to explain, so I'll just describe a shortcut method which usually gives ok gear ratios:
- decide what maximum speed you want (remembering that higher max speed = less acceleration).
- move the highest gear ratio (5th or 6th) slider all the way to the right
- then adjust the final drive until this speed is achieved at maximum revs in top gear (by testing on the track, often the top speed number in the gear settings is wrong)
- set 1st and 2nd gears all the way left, then space out 3rd, 4th and 5th gears evenly in between.
If a gear is causing wheelspin at low revs, then the ratio can be moved left without reducing acceleration, this will allow the other gears to be spaced closer together for better acceleration. For each track, the gears which are used most should be spaced as tightly as possible. For example if a track mostly uses 3rd and 4th gears: set 3rd as far left as possible and 4th as far to the right. Often 1st gear is only used for standing starts, because it just results in wheelspin for slow corners.
-------------------------------
STEP 5: FRONT TOE
In a RWD car, if the car understeers as you accelerate out of the corner (called exit understeer"), reduce the front toe (ie use negative numbers).
In a FWD drive car, it is better to leave front toe at 0.0 (because it helps reduce wheelspin). Dont worry, you will get another chance to fix the exit understeer later. If wheelspin isnt a problem, though, feel free to try the RWD method even for an FWD car.
-------------------------------
STEP 6: DAMPERS
It is interesting to note that experienced tuners don't even agree whether higher values are stiffer or softer. To me, this says that the effect of dampers is either unpredictable or very subtle. All I can suggest is try increasing all dampers to 8 and see how you like it. You might also like to try different combinations of front/rear/bound/rebound. Experiment to find what you like!
-------------------------------
STEP 7: LSD
If the inside driven wheel is turning red when exiting slow corners, increase LSD Accel. Beware that having the outside wheel turn red first often makes the car harder to control, so you might like to set the LSD to slightly favour turning the inside wheel red.
If you have an MR or RR car that is unstable (tries to spin out) when you lift the throttle (this is called lift-off oversteer), increase LSD Braking to improve stability.
LSD Initial has a bad reputation for creating understeer, but it can often be useful. LSD Initial is often useful in MR and RR cars to make the car less twitchy. Also, in any type of car LSD Initial smooths out the grip though a corner. So instead of having lots of grip, then very little, then lots again, increased LSD Initial means you will have a decent amount of grip throughout the corner. This "smoothing" car feel like understeer, but that's just an illusion. Too much LSD Initial, though, will cause understeer, so increase it 5 at a time until the handling smooths out.
-------------------------------
STEP 8: REAR TOE
Finally you get to fix the mid-corner understeer or oversteer that youve been trying to ignore through the previous tests! Perhaps you are wondering why I left this so late? It is because I believe it is better to iron out the specific handling problems before messing with overall balance. Otherwise you will be compromising the overall balance to fix" a very specific situation (such as entry oversteer or exit understeer).
If you have adjustable downforce, ignore high speed corners (you will fix that using downforce afterwards), just focus on low and medium speed corners.
If you dont have adjustable downforce, then usually a car will want to understeer at high speed. But if you tune this out without downforce then you will probably find that low speed handling is too oversteery, so you need to find a balance.
For FWD: If your car understeers, use negative rear toe. Dont be afraid, use as much as you like until you are happy with the balance! If your car oversteers (very rare), use positive rear toe.
For RWD: If you have oversteer* or lots of wheelspin, add positive toe. If your car understeers, use negative (but beware that negative toe increases the amount of wheelspin).
* if positive rear toe is not enough to fix the oversteer, try these in order: adding rear downforce, higher front damper bound and rebound, reducing front ride height and reducing front camber.
You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned stiffening springs, dampers or anti-roll to fix balance (ie cure under/oversteer). This is because the effect of these settings on balance depends on the situation. Sometimes a stiffer front will increase understeer, sometimes it will reduce it. Aghhh! (this leads to a lot of vehement threads on GT Planet about whether settings are backwards!!) Eventually you'll want to use these settings to tweak balance, but at the start it's very confusing. Even when using suspension stiffness to fine tune the balance on a car, I avoid changing the ratio of front to rear spring stiffness. This ratio is fundamental to a cars handling, if you change it a lot of other settings will need to change to suit the new springs. Tuning balance using ride height and anti-roll bars gives less side effects than using springs.
-------------------------------
STEP 9: BRAKES
For this, you want to concentrate on what happens as you release the brakes while turning. Brake balance will fine tune the handling while braking, however the changes are small (for example brake bias alone is not enough to spin a car, if you are spinning under brakes the car is generally unstable). More front brake increases stability but makes the car harder to turn while braking; more rear brake allows you to adjust your line better while braking but can cause the rear to slide.
Anyway, find a tight corner after a long straight, hit the brakes, then start turning, once the wheel is fully turned, let go of the brakes and...
If the car dives turns in a lot better when you release the brakes, then increase the rear brake strength.
If the car lurches into understeer shortly after releasing the brakes (or if the rear is sliding under brakes), then increase the front brake strength.
-------------------------------
STEP 10: DOWNFORCE
Now that the handling is balanced, the downforce is the last thing to tune (to avoid 2 wrongs make a right tuning between suspension and downforce).
Set the front downforce to maximum and the rear to halfway. If the car understeers (especially at higher speeds), reduce the rear downforce. If the car oversteers (especially at higher speeds), increase the rear downforce. If the downforce has reduced the top speed too much, reduce the front downforce and repeat the tuning of the rear downforce.
-------------------------------
STEP 11: CHASSIS STIFFENING (PERHAPS)
If you're struggling to get a car to handle nicely, give the Chassis Stiffening a try (the catch is you can't remove it if you don't like it). Sometimes it can cure nasty handling traits (such as inconsistent mid-corner grip).
Chassis Stiffening has got a bad name in the past for "increasing understeer", but the understeer can often be tuned out with other settings and sometimes there is no other way to remove the nasty handling traits.
-------------------------------
STEP 12: TYRE HEAT
Tyre heat has a big effect on how your car handles, so always watch the tyre temperature indicators when you are tuning. Wait until the tyres are warmed up (white instead of dark blue) before you start judging the handling.
When a tyre goes red, you are losing grip. If you cannot avoid the tyres going red, try to make the left and right tyres go red evenly. There are many reasons for a tyre going red. Experiment with springs, dampers, anti-roll bars, camber, toe, brake strength and LSD Acceleration to reduce tyres going red.
-------------------------------
STEP 13: TYRE WEAR
I haven't really studied tyre wear much (cos it is very time consuming!), here's some food for thought about tyre wear though.
- The easiest way to reduce tyre wear is to drive slower! Ok, that's stating the obvious, but in my opinion there are only small gains in tyre life to be had from tuning (unless something is very wrong to start with).
- It is more important that the tyres wear evenly than how much they wear. There's no point having rear tyres that last 10 laps if you have to pit every 5 to fix the understeer caused by worn-out fronts. When the front tyres are turning red, it means they are wearing quicker, so try one of these:
- less camber
- reduce brake strength
- traction control
- tune the LSD so both tyres heat evenly
- reduce downforce
- experiment with spring/damper/anti-roll settings
Hope this helps! I'm keen to hear any questions or comments you have.
Last edited:
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