I know what you might be thinking as you read the title of this thread - there's no way this guy actually made decent money using the Custom Races, right? Throughout the GT community, their payouts have been mocked and derided ever since the game's launch, and even now they remain a laughing stock for all who have played GT7. But I'm here to tell you... there is a little-known way to cheat the system, and actually make some decent bank from Custom Races.
Disclaimer - this "exploit" is entirely reliant on a few select engine swaps, so if you're missing those, you're pretty much out of luck. Here are a few of the cars that are viable for this trick:
- Abarth 595 with K20 swap
- Willys Jeep with Hellcat swap
- Volkswagen 1200 or SambaBus with M64/03 swap
The reason these vehicles are suitable is because the game bases the payout of Custom Races on your vehicle's
stock PP, which flies completely out of the window once engine swaps get involved. You may have noticed that when applying the Random grid option, the game fills the grid with cars of a similar level to a
stock version of the car you're driving, even if you've upgraded it to its utmost limits - the same system applies to the payouts as well.
As for your car's tune, you'll need a setup that is both fast on straights, and stable in corners. This trick is mainly focused on oval tracks, such as Route X, Daytona and Northern Isle (Daytona provides the best results), so make sure your tune is capable of taking on banked turns. For reference, here is the tune I use for my Abarth:
View attachment 1247965
View attachment 1247966
Once you've got your car swapped and kitted out, you're gonna need to get out your Tomahawk X (if you've got one; if you don't, just grab one for a million - you'll be making it back soon enough anyway), which naturally provides the highest payout, being the highest-PP opponent possible. You'll need to apply the following tune to it:
View attachment 1247967
View attachment 1247968
This tune utterly destroys the Tomahawk's speed and handling potential, thus rendering it an ineffective opponent. Next, go to Daytona Tri-Oval, and begin creating a Custom Race.
In the settings screen, the only settings you'll need to adjust are those that affect your money-making potential. These are as follows:
Race Type - Lap
No. of Laps - Anything below 26 (as that is where diminishing returns start to kick in)
No. of Cars - 20
Starting Grid - 20
Start Type - Rolling Start (gets you up to speed quicker)
Boost - Off
Nitrous Usage Time Multiplier - 10.0x
Rival Difficulty - Professional Level
Next, go to your grid settings, and fill the grid with your newly neutered Tomahawks. Once all this is done, you're pretty much ready to race!
Simply make sure you avoid hitting any opponents (wallriding is fine) and you should be good to go. With each lap averaging around 44-45 seconds in the Abarth, and each lap awarding 7,936 credits (11,904 with the clean race bonus) I managed to make over 950,000 credits per hour.
Of course, this still pales in comparison to the payouts of the Big Four, but for a Custom Race? Utterly unprecedented. I look forward to seeing how some of you may optimise this grind even further, and perhaps even write a script for it!
