Drivetrain Swaps: Yay or Nay?

  • Thread starter Luminis
  • 50 comments
  • 4,279 views
Luminis

Luminis

9,295
Germany
Duisburg
I've recently been playing around with the drivetrain swaps available in FM4 and it started to get me thinking. On the one hand, it allows me to create some cars that, I think, would've been great to have in real life. Namely, rear wheel driven Honda Civics, for example.

On the other hand, I guess that there are a lot of people who're a bit more of a purist than me. I could imagine, for example, that, if you're a big Honda fan, a rear wheel driven Civic would be more like an abomination than an awesome little car.

So, what do you guys think? Is stuff like that something you like, or something you would prefer to not be available?

I guess it's obvious which side I'm on :D I love my RWD Civics.
 
I voted nay. I'm not a big fan of the swaps. That's how oddball cars dominate leaderboards. An old muscle car with AWD. Really?
 
It depends on the car. AWD Viper? No thanks, silly. AWD Challenger. At first glance, same answer... but that platform did have an AWD option.

I realize why they can't do it (modelling issues), but I wish we had MR swaps. I've been trying to make a Del Sol LM of sorts and FR just isn't the same. Or I could have the Honda version of a Clio V6 with a Civic hatch and an NSX engine. I like my front-drive, naturally aspirated Type-R's, but I also enjoy some crazy frankensteins occasionally.

AWD swaps, I do less often - so far with a Fiesta, Mini, and Yaris, all with intentions of turning them into WRC-like cars (the first two not being much of a stretch).
 
Short of putting Veyron engines into silly cars I'm not at all against them. Real fun can come from swapping. The RS4 engine with race mods into the RS2 made it a much more enjoyable car for me than the stock 5-pot turbo as I heart N/A cars.
 
Hell yeah! My dream Civic build in real life would include a RWD swap in a '99-'00 EK. Better yet just move the engine and transaxle and make it a MR hatch.
I converted in-game Civic to RWD. It handles like garbage so I had to add a ton of negative camber to compensate for all of the understeer. Would make a sick drifting car.
 
I think they went overboard again with how many cars can be converted to AWD. I have no problem with AWD to RWD conversions, that's really simple to do for most cars. But then being able to make what seems to be half of the RWD cars to be AWD is stupid. If the platform had AWD in some form, sure, go for it. But a lot of it is ridiculous and like someone said, led to the leaderboard dominating Vipers in FM3.

And then it seems they really cut out a lot of really viable engine swaps. The AW11 MR2 has no engine swaps for example. Even though people swap damn near anything into them, including both newer MR2 engines. I was looking forward to a 2ZZ swap from a Celica or even the 3SGTE. And the newer American cars seem to only have one or sometimes two swaps. '70 GTO can have the G8 GXP's 6.2, same for the Solstice. Looks like it got tightened up to specifically Pontiac engines in that case instead of having the LS7 available in FM3. Its odd how those things might be limited by licensing issues but nobody has a problem letting their car become RWD or AWD.
 
I love the ability to swap drivetrains in Forza. Its what really sets this game series apart from other games. And EVERYTHING is possible in real life when it comes to swapping parts from one car to the next.
 
Way too many candidates for AWD-ification, as others have said. And of course, oversights in engine selection (like Eric mentioned with the MR2). But I appreciate the tweaks to the PI system they've made. If there's any semblance of the advantage AWD cars had in FM3, I haven't noticed it. And the PI boost is large enough now that more than once I've opted for the stock drivetrain when I intended to add AWD to a car.

The swaps really add a lot to the game. In FM3 two of my more interesting cars were a RWD Prelude and AWD 4G-powered FTO. In FM4 I can use my E30 M3 for pretty much everything.
 
CAMAROBOY69
I love the ability to swap drivetrains in Forza. Its what really sets this game series apart from other games. And EVERYTHING is possible in real life when it comes to swapping parts from one car to the next.
Click to expand...

I could not have said it better myself ;)
 
Yay from me as well.

I usually only do the realistic swaps(AWD to RWD etc.) but occasionally it's just good fun to make a really fast car with the AWD swap.

On the other side though, I feel it should still be a bigger PI boost and cost a little more.
 
This reminds me. I was messing with one of the really fast race cars, I think maybe the Mercedes CLK and to my surprised it has an AWD conversion AND engine conversion.
 
On the AWD swaps:

Personally, I only use those when I really want to get rid of FWD and the car has no toher options but to go AWD, which is the case with the different Volkswagen, for example. Primarily because I don't really like the driving feel of most AWD cars, as it usually does create some inherent understeer that can hardly be tuned away. RWD cars just feel a decent bit better, to me. Although, there are, of course, some nice feeling AWD cars.

However, from what I've seen so far, I haven't noticed any major advantage that AWD cars have, neither swapped ones nor cars that come with AWD from the factory. After driving some of the cars that were indeed a bit on the overpowered side in FM3, the Skyline GT-R R34, for example, or the Subaru 22B, I have, in fact, the feeling that AWD cars are a tad underpowered. This is probably hard to believe, considering that most of us are still somewhat traumatized by FM3. This isn't to say that there are no super fast AWD cars out there, just as there were super fast RWD cars in FM3.

I just think that, across the board, AWD cars are a lot less favoured by the PI system than they used to be. It might, of course, just be my personal preference and the fact that I usually am able to handle RWD cars better. On the other hand, most RWD cars seemed to beat the competition in World Tour Mode a lot easier than an AWD car of the same PI.

I actually found the RWD-swapped FWD cars to be some of the fastest cars I had in my garage. The '97 Civic Type R seems pretty darn fast in C-Class, and I haven't even gotten around to apllying a proper tuning setup, nor a very good build. Same with the Mugen Civic Type R 3D in B-Class. Those things are complete beasts...

This isn't to say that the FWD to RWD cconversion will be the next big thing or take the same place the AWD swaps had in FM3, but it does make me think that we do not have to worried about AWD swaps on most cars. On the odd one, sure, but I guess the same could be said about RWD swaps...
 
Are swaps free with high manufacturer affinity? If so, then perhaps this isn't necessarily a good thing.
 
Luminis
I actually found the RWD-swapped FWD cars to be some of the fastest cars I had in my garage. The '97 Civic Type R seems pretty darn fast in C-Class, and I haven't even gotten around to apllying a proper tuning setup, nor a very good build. Same with the Mugen Civic Type R 3D in B-Class. Those things are complete beasts...

This isn't to say that the FWD to RWD cconversion will be the next big thing or take the same place the AWD swaps had in FM3, but it does make me think that we do not have to worried about AWD swaps on most cars. On the odd one, sure, but I guess the same could be said about RWD swaps...
Click to expand...
Speaking of RWD swaps, I've read complaints that under the new PI system, RWD cars are simply "the new AWD" with an unfair advantage. Rather silly if you ask me, considering RWD's theoretical and practical advantages (courtesy of the laws of physics) and that many Xbox Live players can barely drive FWD cars already.

I would agree that there seems to be some balance issues here and there in the PI system, but I think it's specific to certain cars, not drivetrain types.
 
Wolfe
Speaking of RWD swaps, I've read complaints that under the new PI system, RWD cars are simply "the new AWD" with an unfair advantage. Rather silly if you ask me, considering RWD's theoretical and practical advantages (courtesy of the laws of physics) and that many Xbox Live players can barely drive FWD cars already.
Click to expand...
It's actually exactly what I've been noticing, just to a much smaller extend than what happened with the AWD cars in FM3. The gap, luckily, isn't as big. As for the advantages RWD has in real life, that is what the PI system is supposed to balance, anyways. The same argument has been made in favor of AWD when FM3 was around, but at the end of the day, if there's a notable difference between two builds of the same car, both at the same PI just with different drivetrain swaps, similar weight and so on, then something isn't right.

And from what I've seen, I wouldn't be suprised if you could get rid of the added weight from a FWD to RWD conversion and basically get the better drivetrain layout into your car, for free.

I guess it's just that there are a lot of people that like RWD more than FWD and AWD, so there aren't as many people annoyed by the issue. If it proves to be one, of course. Not that much evidence just yet.
Wolfe
I would agree that there seems to be some balance issues here and there in the PI system, but I think it's specific to certain cars, not drivetrain types.
Click to expand...
There are issues with certain cars, definitely. The Dodge Dart springs to mind, for example. The way RWD swaps work, though, makes me a little nervous. When I swapped my Civic, the weight would go up by ~300lbs, but the PI dropped so significantly that it would've been very easy to compensate for the added weight just by throwing mods on it.

I guess I'll check how a FWD one would end up when I get home from work.
 
why dont we be scientific and just test it out? Lets try the 06 civic si stock and rwd converted with original pi and find a balance track to test it say suzuka? Same tire same suspension same tranny but weigh and basic engine mod allowed (except displacement and cam etc which changes the hp/torque balance.)

heres mh rwd tune: street exhaust,,race flywheel, sport drive line and sport weight reduction = 371pi.
Stats comparison：
rwd/fwd
5.2/5.1
4.9/4.8
6.0/5.9
6.3/6.1
4.7/4.6

Suzuka time comparison:
rwd: 2：35.0
fwd: 2：35.6

so in both comparison rwd swap has an advantage, it's around 0.25 sec per minute and worth about 8pi.

so while there is an advantage it is much smaller than awd swap in forza3 which gives 1.5 to 2 sec per minute.
 
RWD is a BETTER drivetrain than 4WD if you can drive it, The issue I had in FM3 was that 4WD was so superior and took no skill.

In FM4 a RWD car takes skill to drive and is better, An unskilled driver cannot make a RWD sing like a skilled one can and to me that is fair as it separates the skilled from the unskilled.

Another opinion I have though is that FWD is the superior drivetrain in B class and below, A good example of this is the '97 Civic or the Renault Clio. The civic dominates online racing and every time I've seen a clio it too has won the race.
 

Latest Posts

Back