guide to creating a GT5 tune from scratch

[JrDarknes]

Sticky please.

This helps me a lot now with my garage

 

[ima]

this guide is awesome, im really new into this and it helpes a lot, thanks!

 

[Cooldude3007]

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 it’s 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
Drive a few laps and ignore all other handling effects (there will probably be wheelspin... we’ll 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: BRAKES
If the car is unstable (eg tries to spin) during braking, increase the front brake strength.
If the car understeers (refuses to turn) during braking, increase the rear brake strength. But don't set rear more than 3 above front, weird stuff will happen and you might end up creating more understeer.

-------------------------------
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). Don’t worry, you will get another chance to fix the exit understeer later. If wheelspin isn’t a problem, though, feel free to try the RWD method even for an FWD car.

-------------------------------
STEP 6: DAMPERS
Dampers are very much a matter of driver preference (including whether they have an effect at all...). 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 you’ve 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 don’t 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. Don’t 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 dampers and anti-roll bars gives less side effects than using springs.

-------------------------------
STEP 9: 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 10: 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 11: 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 12: 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.

Hey You Have Done A Very Good Job and it nust of taken a while to write.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[nomis3613]

Hi Parksideu, ima and Chris,
Thanks heaps for your kind words.

Hi JrDarknes,
Thanks for the kudos! I appreciate the thought but I'm not fussed about stickying. It already appears in this sticky thread (which I think is a fantastic way to catalogue the GT Planet tuning knowledge), so I consider it "partially stickied" already!

+1 - I personally only make brake bias adjustments to deal with wheel lock issues. I also feel that using the brake bias to deal with understeer issues amounts to a bandaid for a suspension/LSD setup issue.

Yeah, also it isn't as reliable as I make out (eg sometimes too much rear brakes causes understeer). Thanks for pointing that out, I'll see if I can make that section more accurate (the challenge will be to not make it too complex and confusing).

 

[CSLACR]

Hi Parksideu, ima and Chris,
Thanks heaps for your kind words.

Hi JrDarknes,
Thanks for the kudos! I appreciate the thought but I'm not fussed about stickying. It already appears in this sticky thread (which I think is a fantastic way to catalogue the GT Planet tuning knowledge), so I consider it "partially stickied" already!


Yeah, also it isn't as reliable as I make out (eg sometimes too much rear brakes causes understeer). Thanks for pointing that out, I'll see if I can make that section more accurate (the challenge will be to not make it too complex and confusing).

Never saw this till today, I've been thinking of adding something like this by myself for my garage. 👍

I see the method you start for springs, and I have something you just may want to try.
Base it on weight distribution, so if weight is 60/40, (you can still start close to the middle if you like) 6.0/4.0, or 9.0/6.0 or 12.0/8.0
If you want to increase from 12.3/11.1, add 1.2 to front, 1.1 to rear, etc.

It works very well for me quite often. 👍

 

[BiLL10NA1R3]

Thank you very much! This is exactly what I have been looking for!

 

[nomis3613]

I see the method you start for springs, and I have something you just may want to try.
Base it on weight distribution, so if weight is 60/40, (you can still start close to the middle if you like)

Yeah, that bit was written before we could see the weight distribution, so it needs updating.

Thank you very much! This is exactly what I have been looking for!

You're welcome, glad it helps.

 

[Vol Jbolaz]

I'm going through this guide with the S15 Silvia. This is the first car that I'm seriously tuning. I'm not done, yet, but some comments that may have been addressed already:

• This method doesn't describe "grip circle" method for brakes. So I didn't adjust the brakes. Honestly, the car seems to behave under braking. That may change as I get further along.
• This method didn't explain what should be affected by dampers. I played with them a bit, but I kept the front and rear together. I'm sure if I spent more hours, I'd find that I like the front and rear different. But I don't know what to expect when I change that value. So I'm guessing as to what the behavior change is. All I know for certain is I like the extension relatively high. I get more oversteer if I raise the compression as high.
• This method doesn't talk about removing the ballast. Though, I may find I like it, and I may do a weight reduction just to get it back to my PP target.

 

[nomis3613]

Hi,
Actually the grip circle method is described here:

Sometimes the "grip circle" method below works...

If the car is unstable (eg tries to spin) during braking, increase the front brake strength.

If the car understeers (refuses to turn) during braking, increase the rear brake strength.

Yeah, dampers are very complex and very much a matter of personal preference. So much so that there is debate about whether higher or lower rebound values are stiffer! The settings are similar to springs in that they can affect under/oversteer, grip over bumps and body movement. There's some great threads in the stickies to help you find what works for you.

If you like to use less ballast, just start with that and the the method will still work. As a general tip for weight distribution, a front heavy car (eg 60/40) will have more understeer, while rear heavy means it will be harder to control when it starts to oversteer.

 

[Vol Jbolaz]

Ah, I didn't understand that. Well, like I said, it has been nice so far under braking.

And so far, this method has been helpful. I'm testing on a couple different tracks to isolate different behaviors, but I set a bench mark time at Tsukuba (since it is relatively short and I'm relatively consistent there). I put power mods on the car to get it up to 450 PP. I set a time again. It was faster, as expected.

I then added the ballast and have started tuning the suspension and transmission. I haven't finished with the suspension and I haven't touched the LSD, and even with the ballast, the car is faster still. I take that as a good sign that I'm moving in the right direction.

Thanks.

 

[TRFZF]

I like to make money while testing... So, right now you can go to the online supercar festival , run 8 laps at Tsukuba . Ok, so there are other cars in the way to throw off your testing... but hey, if your getting your 200% bonus winnings, you can easily make $200K or so while your testing for 7 minutes or so.

Ah, I didn't understand that. Well, like I said, it has been nice so far under braking.

And so far, this method has been helpful. I'm testing on a couple different tracks to isolate different behaviors, but I set a bench mark time at Tsukuba (since it is relatively short and I'm relatively consistent there). I put power mods on the car to get it up to 450 PP. I set a time again. It was faster, as expected.

I then added the ballast and have started tuning the suspension and transmission. I haven't finished with the suspension and I haven't touched the LSD, and even with the ballast, the car is faster still. I take that as a good sign that I'm moving in the right direction.

Thanks.

 

[Vol Jbolaz]

I like to make money while testing... So, right now you can go to the online supercar festival , run 8 laps at Tsukuba . Ok, so there are other cars in the way to throw off your testing... but hey, if your getting your 200% bonus winnings, you can easily make $200K or so while your testing for 7 minutes or so.

Not a bad idea, but with the 20M Cr. cap, I can only have but so much money. I also don't know if the seasonal physics matches A-Spec or online. I do all of my testing (and racing) in an online lobby.

 

[ChaosStar79]

This is a very nice guide! Thanks for typing and posting this.

 

[ckmario]

This helps so much. I am gonna use it for my new racecar so i can do some enduro.

 

[nomis3613]

Hi ChaosStar79 and ckmario,
Thanks for the kudos.

ckmario, hope your tune works out well, let me know if you need help. Just so you know, Karelian Motor Works will build a tune if you do a thorough review of one of our tunes.

 

[ckmario]

I am working on a Chevy Minalto with your theories. I am also gonna use this for tuning garahe of my own, compleat customz.

 

[orrigan]

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 it’s 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
Drive a few laps and ignore all other handling effects (there will probably be wheelspin... we’ll 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: BRAKES
Unfortunately, tuning the handling under brakes is a black art involving brake strength, LSD decel, dampers and other settings. Sometimes the "grip circle" method below works, so try that first. But sometimes other effects are dominant, so if the method below doesn't work*, try the complete opposite. Strange, but true!

If the car is unstable (eg tries to spin) during braking, increase the front brake strength.

If the car understeers (refuses to turn) during braking, increase the rear brake strength. But don't set rear more than 3 above front, weird stuff will happen and you might end up creating more understeer.

* for example, sometimes the increased weight transfer caused by higher front strength cures braking understeer. And sometimes extra rear braking force actually stabilises the car, therefore reducing oversteer

-------------------------------
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). Don’t worry, you will get another chance to fix the exit understeer later. If wheelspin isn’t a problem, though, feel free to try the RWD method even for an FWD car.

-------------------------------
STEP 6: DAMPERS
Dampers are very much a matter of driver preference (including whether they have an effect at all...). 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 you’ve 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 don’t 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. Don’t 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 dampers and anti-roll bars gives less side effects than using springs.

-------------------------------
STEP 9: 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 10: 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 11: 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 12: 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.

Thanks will try it out

 

[Sharkiex]

Sorry but how about ride height?

 

[nomis3613]

Hi Sharkiex,
My method just has 0 / 0 ride height.

Ride height can be used for tuning very well, but the effect depends on the situation (and just as variable are GTP members' passionate opinions on how it works...so posting a ride height theory is usually an open invitation to have the thread go down the toilet as it turns into yet another ride height rant session- in particular, don't mention "backwards"!!!) So if you're interested in knowing more about ride height, do a search for the many epic threads on it here in the tuning section.

Good luck with your tuning.

 

[ckmario]

I decided a 969HP and 850KG. Car is a good fuel efficient and tire efficient so i tuned my clio renaultsport and easily won(probably because it's so light)
gonna post it my garage

 

[GaMeKoP]

great thread nomis3613 - i am going to try this out!! I am no tuner at all, and always look for tunes on this site but the problem is sometimes they dont work for me or, i cant find a tune for a car i wana drive and have to use other cars. Will DEF be giving this a try!

 

[Madbeater]

Just what i have been looking for
Thank you 👍

 

[Blaze_409]

One thing though. For the initial settings where it says reduece the spring rate to half of the default values what if the springs dont go that low. So say default was 12.5 14.8 but the lowest values i can get front and rear are 8.8 10.4.

 

[nomis3613]

Thanks ckmario, Madbeater and GaMeKop.

One thing though. For the initial settings where it says reduece the spring rate to half of the default values what if the springs dont go that low. So say default was 12.5 14.8 but the lowest values i can get front and rear are 8.8 10.4.

Ahhhh... in that case, go 75% of the default values. Just curious, what car is it?

 

[88GTA]

Great write up. Thanks.

 

[carracerptp]

I will try theses tips.
Thanks 👍

 

[smuffyatfcp]

Hi.
The guide is great and im slowly getting faster.
My question is how do i get the outside wheel to not turn red when cornering. Im tuning a ff Mazda Atenza. You mentioned something about the inside wheel by increasing the acceleration, so do you increase initial torque to even this out.

 

[nomis3613]

Hi Smuffy,
Thanks for the kudos. Heating the tyres evenly when cornering is tricky- there's no universal answer. I've found experimenting with the front springs and camber can help.

Do you have tyre wear on? If not, I wouldn't worry about the heat too much. Although theoretically it's better to have even heating, I haven't noticed it actually being faster.

Cheers,
Simon

 

[Tiagodh]

Thank you very much! I've been looking for a thread like this for a while and it's very hard to find tunes for stock cars. I'll be trying this tutorial as soon as I can! I'll let you know if i have any questions.
I also read another post you did (I think) and I have a question. Does the ride height affect the overall grip of the car? And is the tyre pressure monitor in GT5 usefull to tuning?

 

[PaulinhoBoni]

Thank you nomis3613, this helped me to improve my setup's!!!