In Search of Gran Touring Zen

[Golyadkin]

Not new to the series but newer to the tuning circles of Gran Turismo, I decided today is the time to start a new sort of tuning house thread here in the GTPlanet GT6 tuning forum. Of course, if this thread seems out of place, I'm sure the moderators/super GTPlanet users will let me know and respond accordingly. Here is what I hope for this thread:

Vision​

To ceaselessly search for those moments of driving bliss whereby the screech of tire, the threat of lost grip, and the rhythm of the music meet in balance and then somehow cancel each other out. I want to develop, uncover, and create these moments of driving bliss: Gran Turismo ZEN. In order to do this, I seek input/feedback from the Gran Turismo community for their tuning prowess, various music tastes and exposure, and as a sounding board and meeting place for like-minded tuners and testers.

Mission​

To create a space in which like-minded tuners and testers can share their moments of driving zen and tips for achieving these (or Nirvana?). These can include moments when a new technique (tuning or driving technique) changed the way we drive/tune. These can include moments when a tuner/driver had spent hours working on a particular chassis to achieve a desired effect, and then a fitting song played that inspired or described the process of what s/he was fully immersed in doing.

Thread Guidelines (Loose)​

Things to post:

• a complete tuning set-up that provided you a moment of driving zen (pics suggested, not required)
  
• a comment on a tune found anywhere (one of your own or someone else's. Please give credit)
• a suggested piece of music (track, album, artist, genre, etc.) for a particular car or car with tuning set-up
• a request for a fitting song, given a particular tuning set-up (or vice-verse)
  
• feedback on any of the above

To get things started, I post the story that kicked off my inspiration for this thread as the second post.

Thanks for reading and contributing. I have found a lot of brilliant, curious things in these forums, and I'm confident this thread will be a source of more.

 

[Golyadkin]

To help flesh out my vision and mission for this thread, I share a story about tuning in Gran Turismo 6. Many of us have experienced frustrations with each iteration of the GT series. We come to the table with various goals for our tuning efforts, nonetheless sometimes we look for a challenge, something new. I decided I would hop back into the Audi R8 LMS that comes as a gift (Driving Missions/Stars Earned/Gold License tests, etc.). I knew that this car had some finicky tendencies and that there are more than murmurs around these boards about the mind-boggling ("broken"?) handling of mid-engine, rear-wheel drive cars in the game. I decided I would give a whirl to the first couple of tunes I discovered through GTPlanet search. I tried Ridox's Replica Garage tune for this vehicle first. To see it yourself, click here. I think the LSD tuning alone blew my mind during my first drives at Ascari. Why had I not thought to leave the pre-load (initial setting) on the LSD high? How could flipping the numbers of the LSD (high-accel, low-decel flipped to low-accel/high-decel) never been something I had played around with? My response to this tune is posted here. In some ways the car would still bite you, but there was a moment of revelation here, and I thought it was worth noting. I hope that you have something to share in this vein of experience.

 

[Golyadkin]

My first tune with suggested music:

RUF CTR "Yellow Bird" '87

PP: 577
Max. Power: 642 HP
Weight: 1,090 kg
Front / Rear Weight Dist.: 41:59
Power-to-Weight Ratio: 1.69 kg/HP

GT Auto
oil change
chassis rigidity increase
paint body: Magmarot (Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG (R230) '02)
change wheels: Inch Up: 1 --> Classic Wire Knock-off 2Bar
Aero: default ("Parts for this car cannot be changed.")

Car Settings
Tires: sports soft or racing hard
Suspension: Height-Adjustable, Fully Customizable Suspension
Ride Height: 89 / 89
Spring Rate: 8.80 / 14.77
Dampers (Comp): 5 / 5
Dampers (Ext): 5 / 4
Anti-Roll Bars: 5 / 3
Camber (-): 2.0 / 1.1
Toe Angle: 0.00 / 0.15

Brakes: Racing Brakes
Brake balance: 7 / 5

Transmission: Fully Customizable Dog-Clutch Transmission
1. Set final gear to 5.500
2. Set max. Speed (Auto Set) to 137 mph
3. Set individual gears as follows:
1st - 2.668
2nd - 1.801
3rd - 1.364
4th - 1.102
5th - 0.928
6th - 0.806
4. Set Final Gear to 3.175 (this is all that needs adjustment course by course)

Drivetrain
Fully Customizable Mechanical Limited Slip Differential
Settings: 6 / 40 / 27
Triple-Plate Clutch Kit

Power
Power Limiter: 100%
Engine Tuning: Stage 3
all else default

Body
Ballast Weight: 26 kg
Ballast Position: 50% (fully rear)
Weight Reduction: Stage 3
Hood: Carbon Hood (Body Color)

Notes on driving/tune:
Of course this car is notorious for its beastliness. I like to think of it as a "groomed beast." It's a chassis and engine set-up that a driver must learn to collaborate with, not try to force to her/his will. It is still German even after going through the hands of RUF. (Golyadkin's tuning influence is American, fyi.) I picture it, like it or not, with perfectly quaffed hair - something parted on the side that keeps too much composure in the elements. The kind of do that holds even in the wind. The lightest driving inputs possible are key here. This thing lives to turn. It feels blissful going around the sweeping 100mph-ish corners of Apricot Hill. Throw it at a corner with a bit too much speed and you CAN save it form oversteer. HOLD THAT WHEEL STRAIGHT and feel the bulbous butt of this thing try to grab tarmac. Which brings me to my moment of GT bliss for today...

Combine this tune with Wilco's "I'm A Wheel" (from the album A Ghost Is Born or a live version like Kicking Television's) on Apricot Hill in the IA-event 15 minute races. Taking a tuned car into a race-car world? Oh yeah. Downforce is a hindrance when you want to fly.

Edited (25 March 2014) for added sanity (ie. adjusted spring rates and lowered the whole thing after more testing in the IA: GT300 Championship series).

 

[FussyFez]

I love this concept.


I have one. I'll post it later when I get a chance.

It involves the Nordschleife, and a German touring car.


I wasn't listening to music when I first found this combination, but I'd probably be listening to some Spor or Noisia etc.

The car sounds pretty good tbh, so I'd recommend listening to it scream, and hearing the tyres squirming around, rather than ruining the experience with music.

 

[Frisky]

This is a great idea, sometimes words can't convey things that you experience in GT6. When the music, car, and track all work together, they can create spine-tingling moments. I'm definitely bookmarking this thread 👍

 

[Golyadkin]

Thanks for the initial feedback, FussyFez and Frisky! I am hoping to get a few more instances of GT driving zen posted while also soliciting suggestions for tunes/music, etc. I think my first order of business is listening to some Spor and Noisia - neither of these artists/groups have I heard.

Vague ideas which I may or may not pursue:

• Something American that can be beautifully drifted to the original heavy metal band Led Zeppelin.
• Something nostalgic that can be bought and tuned on the cheap - particularly for the early stages of the single-player career mode.
• Something with four-wheel drive that helps recreate my recent driving forays in very snowy Northern Vermont. I have already briefly tested every Subaru wagon in GT6, since I noticed that this car (of any era) is the lingua franca of Vermont car owners.
• Parsing my music into genres and deciding which car is best fit to the mood(s) that each genre evokes from listening.

Please feel free to share your moments of zen and suggestions for achieving it - even if it's a link to someone else's tune or just a favorite track for inspiration.

@FuzzyFez, No music is often the best recipe for true driving focus, so true.

Right now, I want to give this week's Tune of the Week a whirl: Clueless Over the Hill Outlaws' Lotus Elise '96 (comfort soft)...

 

[Golyadkin]

An homage to a tuning powerhouse in the GTPlanet Tuning Forums: Clueless, Over the Hill Outlaws

Do check out the tune linked here for the Lotus Elise of the 1996 variety. It certainly drives like no other Elise you've played around in before. The mega ballast has something to do with it, but sometimes you have to think back to Levar Burton a la Reading Rainbow and remind yourself, "You don't have to take my word for it."

Track / Event / Music suggestions:

• Nurburgring (the course for which she was tuned)
• Circuito de Rome (ever notice the cranes around the track? The clouds never change...)
• Events - single-player National B Compact Car Championship
• Music - "Baby's Arms" - Kurt Vile (album: Smoke Ring for My Halo) While driving this stablest of all Elises, I was reminded of the things the lyrics here mention.
  
• Music - "Take Me to the River" - Talking Heads ("Drop me in the water")
  
• Interior view (also Pause menu --> Quick Options --> Race Info Display --> Off)
• Listening (not music) - NPR's Radiolab episode "Dark Side of the Earth" (Inspired by both the meme above AND the color I chose for my Elise: Deep Black)
  
  

 

[Golyadkin]

An American Composer Cooks Spaghetti Westerns​

It's now time for the next mention of virtual driving zen. This one comes courtesy the Ferrari 365 GTB4 '71 and American composer John Zorn. For reasons that are immediately obvious once one drives it, this vehicle deserves mention for the spirited, well-balanced drive right out of the box. I tinkered around at Monte Carlo for over 90 minutes with various suspension, break balance, and limited-slip differential tweaks, and I found that nothing - keeping the Sports Hard tires constant - could improve the overall feel (and lap times!) of this automobile. Originally, I fell in love during some testing in search of the fastest completely default vehicle under 500pp at Deep Forest Raceway. My affection for the way it drives and sounds is undiminished. After tinkering for a while using the National A "Festival Italia: Race 3" at Cote d'Azur, I switched back to default settings (except I left ABS at 0), and I pulled my best lap time of the day - a 1:47.264". If you do not yet own one, please stop reading and spend the 550,000 credits required.

​

Suggested music: John Zorn's album of scrambled Spaghetti Western soundscapes The Big Gundown. This album is just right for the drive. Quotes of old classics. Familiar chunks of sound that give you deja vu. Soaring feelings of warmth and, perfect for those moments of having gone past your tires' limit, those shrill, distant women shrieks (seriously, listen to the album). A weird listen for a beautifully interesting drive. You will not be disappointed, and NO TUNING REQUIRED. I recommend leaving it stock. If anything, try it without ABS and TCS (even if these are not your usual habits). If you're one to rely on the driving aids, THIS is the car to play around with those switched off. Think Miata meets TVR Tamora. Then add beautiful sound. No oil change (keeps it sub-500pp).

As far as aesthetics go, I went with:

• Paint: Deep Ocean
• Wheels: Inch Up 2: RAYS RE30 (color: BMW's Jerez Schwarz Metallic)

The inclusion of this car in GT6 reminds me once again that BBC's Top Gear has a significant influence on Kaz/Polyphony Digital. In this instance, I'm very happy that Richard Hammond's coverage of this particular vehicle lead to our being able to toy around with it in the world of Gran Turismo.

The following image provides a suggestion for the next installment. Perhaps I will keep with the theme of listening to remixes while piloting Italian-made classics.

 

[SolidSnake7735]

An interesting concept, I like it. Gonna be keeping my eye on this thread.

 

[Golyadkin]

Zen while "grinding"?​

There have occurred moments of zen to be shared that I have been lax to report. Most recently, I want to give a nod to some of the aspects of GT that grinders in the series are very familiar with. I want to spotlight one vehicle and one race series in this installment. The race series is the one that I find myself falling back on to quickly boost my credits: Red Bull X Challenge - Red Bull X2014 Standard Championship. The car in today's shared zen is the PDI creation of the Ford GT: Ford GT LM Spec II Test Car.

​

First, the series I rely on for amassing credits quickly without a lot of joy ('grinding'): the Standard Red Bull X2014 Championship. What to listen to in order to ease the banality of grinding?

• Oscar Peterson Trio's album Encore at the Blue Note.

This way you get a new cut at each of the five races. Once your rhythm on course has been established (probably long ago), you can start to listen for the story of the solos. Who are their characters and what are they feeling? You can hear the musicians singing along with their solos - something that annoyed me at first, but then I began to wonder how the whole improvisation thing works for players who've dedicated their lives to playing professionally. I imagine the instrument's separation from its jazzer blurs, and its sounds just extend as a new, comfortable range of sounds available for expression of the player's voice. In the same way that all the focus on suspension tuning and where the weight of a particular chassis needs to be for tight turns, the finest nuances in steering input and light braking (or brief coasting) have the desired effects to shave tenths of seconds in the Standard Red Bull X2014. I have recently played with a more aggressive line, with great results, through the high speed chicanes at Silverstone Raceway before the long straight. Driving this formula inspired dream car requires focus, but it leads to boredom without some music balanced against the engine's turbo whines. I have found that Racing Softs with TCS at 0 keeps the focus the best. Let the credits accrue.

Second, I want to recognize a car that frustrated me with clunkiness and very unsmooth transitions from straightline speed to cornering and back to straights in its standard form: the Ford GT (of the 2006 variety). I played around for hours a few months ago with suspension and limited slip differential tweaks to get this behemoth to dance through corners with little little to nothing to show for my efforts. I admit I haven't systematically compared others' tuning of the vehicle (in any of its versions - LM Spec II, factory spec, etc.), so there are surely some fruits from their work I've ignored.

Where is the zen here? The thing looks good. Its sounds seem right, clean and deep like far away, huge booms heard in nature. There always seem to be tiny improvements to one's commanding it through courses, too. I have played around with Exeter GT's tuning and found it very satisfying. I think his LSD settings lead to great stability and increase confidence when slamming on the gas during corner exit. Corners that involve a drop in elevation during/at end of corner make you want to be back on the throttle early to help the ass of the car around and settled as quickly as possible. With its ridiculous torque figures, the PDI Spec II Test Car gets great smoothness for cornering and reapplied throttle from downforce which seems to smooth over any jagged edges. Once you've taken it around the mid speed corners at the top of Spa in both its forms - the factory model versus the PDI edition - you'll see where the racing spec improvements make all the difference. Hard to get out of this thing, once you start to see where you can really groove through 85 mph+ corners. What music for tweaking the settings on your Spec II Test Car? I liked

• Tortoise's album Millions Now Living Will Die.

It always seemed like the group was going to bust out into a different direction but consistently kept their cool, maintaining the groove instead. This calm despite expectations of breaking the rear loose is consistent with the PDI tuned version of the Ford GT.

Wheels on the PDI Ford GT: Inch Up: 1 RAYS RE30 painted Pearlescent "Pearl White"
Brake calipers Metallic "Arancia Metallic Orange"
Tuning: The only tuning tweaks I made to the Exeter tune was increased stiffness (12.10 or greater) on the front springs. With the stiffer front springs, it seemed to feel smoother under heavy braking, entering corners, and just a little more predictable under all driving conditions.

 

[Dan]

I'm liking this thread concept already. I'm going to keep following it and maybe post one of my moments.

 

[Golyadkin]

Time for another installment of In Search of Gran Touring Zen. I think pictures will be soon to follow, but due to my long absence from these halls, I will have to refresh myself of how to post stable images. I already see that at least one of my earlier pics in this thread has a broken link symbol in its stead, and the pics I have managed to post now seem to double as portals to every GT6 pic I have ever put on Flickr. A link to the page best describing stable image posting in GTPlanet would be greatly appreciated.

This installment goes entirely to the RUF RGT '00. Readers may notice my proclivity here: I have a weak spot for often driving near-500 PP cars -- cars, that is, that roll off the lot just under or right at 500PP. Mainly I'm thinking of the Ferrari above and the earlier tuned Porsche, the Yellow Bird (default PPs are 496 and 526 respectively, also weights are 1,200 kg and 1,150 kg).
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="" title="RUF RGT &#x27;00 warm"><img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7046/27687437296_a10095696b_o.jpg" width="3840" height="2160" alt="RUF RGT &#x27;00 warm"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Why and how does this car deliver a zen driving experience?

The why it delivers I have never considered. I've merely always appreciated that it does what it does.

The how of its delivering zen I think I have begun to have insight on. First, it is beautifully lightweight. The one that I have been driving - more like balleting - through the Seasonal Events of the moment is fitted with Comfort Softs (due to Seasonal Event stipulations), ideally NO OIL CHANGE (though I realized it too late in its break-in period), and, sure, a matte but still pastel paint coat. Does the color give this car a zen driving experience? That's a stretch, but some bits of replay you cannot skip in GT6, so... might as well appreciate whatever short glimpses you can grab of this engineering wonder.

Generally, I do not rely on the Red Bull events for credits anymore. My efforts for grinding - if that's even what it is now - are aimed at the Seasonal tasks, which, with the daily log-in bonuses get pretty up there. I really just need places to burn credits that happen to be vastly accruing to the max 50 mil, and the Seasonal events are the only ones that are remotely interesting against the AI. When will PD farm out its AI efforts? Anyone read about the AlphaGo that is whooping up on the world's best human Go players? Bring just a few drops of that networked AI over to my home PlayStation, please.

RGT is a horrible name for it. Or maybe it fits. I just wish the sound of "RGT" had as much fluidity as the handling of what it refers to does. RGT: Returning to Gran Turismo

RUF RGT '00
- a Golyadkin Zen Tune -
​

Well I think I must post the tune here, even though there is not much to report. In general, I use the same settings for either comfort soft tires or the sports hard compound. This car, particularly with the rougher, poorer handling tires in this month's Seasonals, lacks little in the handling department. This means all the fun tweaks, even the minute ones, I usually indulge in on my drives are eschewed in this edition. Perhaps, this car ought to receive special accolade due to its zen-out-of-the-box status. I've said too much. The Daytona above already saw some of this sort of babble. I am using DS3 these days (for quick jump into the game during my daughter's naps) with the following driving options: Manual trans., Comfort Softs F and R, Driving Line off, Blind Spot indicator On, Traction Control off, Active Steering off, ASM Off, ABS 1, SRF off, Controller Steering Sensitivity 7 (most sensitive), FF Max T 10, FF Sens 10.
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="" title="RUF RGT &#x27;00 close"><img src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7424/27687430166_c03a17b68b_o.jpg" width="1920" height="1080" alt="RUF RGT &#x27;00 close"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Tires: Comfort Soft

Suspension:
FC Custom Kit
Ride Height: 80 / 90
Spring Rate: 5.4 / 10.10
Dampers (Compression): 2 / 3
Dampers (extension): 2 / 3
Anti-Roll Bars: 3 / 2
Camber Angle (-): 1.1 / 0.5
Toe Angle -0.05 / 0.10

Racing Brakes: 5 / 5

Transmission: FC Transmission
1. Reset to Default (AFTER installing all other engine parts)
2. Final Gear to highest number (5.000 in this instance)
3. Max. Speed (Auto Set) to lowest number (137 mph here)
4. Now individual gears to match mine:
1st: 3.340
2nd: 2.155
3rd: 1.609
4th: 1.280
5th: 1.062
6th: 0.898
5. Final Gear to track necessities (here I've got mine at 2.992...)

Drivetrain
Differential standard (which in the default gray color shows as 7 / 30 / 15)
Clutch: Triple-Plate
Drive Shaft: N/A

Power
Power Limiter: 90.3% (keep in mind I accidentally oil changed mine)
Everything else standard (comes with semi-racing exhaust by default/least PP exhaust available here)

Body
Downforce: 0 / 0

Ballast Weight: 25 kg
Ballast Position: -50%
The ballast leads to a F / R Weight Distribution of 43 : 57​

Weight Reduction: Stage 2
Carbon Hood (Body Color)
Windows Standard (only option)
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="" title="RUF RGT &#x27;00 profile"><img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7371/27687463616_1b9561c4d0_o.jpg" width="1920" height="1080" alt="RUF RGT &#x27;00 profile"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Additional thoughts on this car and tuning setup:
Perhaps I should put this car into some of the races required for GT6 completion percentage just in the interest of putting together a Sports Soft or Racing Hard tune... I'm sure these are already out there and better developed than I will manage these days. I also do not have any music playing while I'm driving this one. This may be due to my appreciation for its sound but probably more likely due to a reverence I have for its limits. Given the elevation changes at the Belgian course and the more slippier tires there, some of the corners I am just aching to bring a little more speed into.

Note: This car handles very well my urges to push the start of my breaking zone later and later on subsequent laps. Due to its weight balance (front-rear) it can take some aggressive steering inputs under or immediately after heavy breaking (or mid-corner frankly). Especially through chicanes - in both Mid-Field Raceway and at the Eau Rouge (or whatever it's called: the down and up chicane that's famous at Spa) - this thing feels like its got a nice juicy (and importantly planted) butt just behind where you feel its center of gravity is. This may be the key to its zen-unlocking potential. Its weight balance, heftier rear tires (and ride height with my tune), lets its hindquarters do what you hope a grand touring car's hindies can do.

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="" title="RUF RGT &#x27;00 profile"><img src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7371/27687463616_1b9561c4d0_o.jpg" width="1920" height="1080" alt="RUF RGT &#x27;00 profile"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
For those who may be interested, here are the aesthetic details on the pictured RUF:​

Aero parts cannot be installed on the RUF RGT '00
Inch Up: 1 OZ Envy 4H painted: Granatrot Perleffekt (probably from an Audi vehicle or the VW Golf GTI)
Exterior painted: Matte Pink
Brake Calipers: Granatrot Perleffekt
No custom rear wings (see no aero can be installed, above)

​

For future installments of In Search of Gran Touring Zen, look for the S2000 (which came as an early license test gift this go around, let's not forget) or the LANCIA STRATOS '73. I think the S2000 has supplanted in mind the place formerly occupied by the original Hachi Roku "GT 86" Toyota Trueno.

 

[SolidSnake7735]

PICS COMING SOON...

Time for another installment of In Search of Gran Touring Zen. I think pictures will be soon to follow, but due to my long absence from these halls, I will have to refresh myself of how to post stable images. I already see that at least one of my earlier pics in this thread has a broken link symbol in its stead.

This installment goes entirely to the RUF RGT '00. Readers may notice my proclivity here: I have a weak spot for often driving near-500 PP cars -- cars, that is, that roll off the lot just under or right at 500PP. Mainly I'm thinking of the Ferrari above and the earlier tuned Porsche, the Yellow Bird (default PPs are 496 and 526 respectively, also weights are 1,200 kg and 1,150 kg).

Why and how does this car deliver a zen driving experience?

The why it delivers I have never considered. I've merely always appreciated that it does what it does.

The how of its delivering zen I think I have begun to have insight on. First, it is beautifully lightweight. The one that I have been driving - more like balleting - through the Seasonal Event of the moment is fitted with Comfort Softs (due to Seasonal Event stipulations), ideally NO OIL CHANGE (though I realized it too late in its break-in period), and, sure, a matte but still pastel paint coat. Does the color give this car a zen driving experience? That's a stretch, but some bits of replay you cannot skip in GT6, so... might as well appreciate whatever short glimpses you can grab of this engineering wonder.

Generally, I do not rely on the Red Bull events for credits anymore. My efforts for grinding - if that's even what it is now - are aimed at the Seasonal tasks, which, with the daily log-in bonuses get pretty up there. I really just need places to burn credits that happen to be vastly accruing to the max 50 mil, and the Seasonal events are the only ones that are remotely interesting against the AI. When will PD farm out its AI efforts? Anyone read about the AlphaGo that whooping up on the world's best human Go players? Bring just a few drops of that networked AI over to my home PlayStation, please.

RGT is a horrible name for it. Or maybe it fits. I just wish the sound of "RGT" had as much fluidity as the handling of what it refers to does. RGT: Returning to Gran Turismo

RUF RGT '00
- a Golyadkin Zen Tune -
​

Well I think I must post the tune here, even though there is not much to report. In general, I use the same settings for either comfort soft tires or the sports hard compound. This car, particularly with the rougher, poorer handling tires in this month's Seasonals, lacks little in the handling department. This means all the fun tweaks, even the minute ones, I usually indulge in on my drives are eschewed in this edition. Perhaps, this car ought to receive special accolade due to its zen-out-of-the-box status. I've said too much. The Daytona above already saw some of this sort of babble. I am using DS3 these days (for quick jump into the game during my daughter's naps) with the following driving options: Manual trans., Comfort Softs F and R, Driving Line off, Blind Spot indicator On, Traction Control off, Active Steering off, ASM Off, ABS 1, SRF off, Controller Steering Sensitivity 7 (most sensitive), FF Max T 10, FF Sens 10.

Tires: Comfort Soft

Suspension:
FC Custom Kit
Ride Height: 80 / 90
Spring Rate: 5.4 / 10.10
Dampers (Compression): 2 / 3
Dampers (extension): 2 / 3
Anti-Roll Bars: 3 / 2
Camber Angle (-): 1.1 / 0.5
Toe Angle -0.05 / 0.10

Racing Brakes: 5 / 5

Transmission: FC Transmission
1. Reset to Default (AFTER installing all other engine parts)
2. Final Gear to highest number (5.000 in this instance)
3. Max. Speed (Auto Set) to lowest number (137 mph here)
4. Now individual gears to match mine:
1st: 3.340
2nd: 2.155
3rd: 1.609
4th: 1.280
5th: 1.062
6th: 0.898
5. Final Gear to track necessities (here I've got mine at 2.992...)

Drivetrain
Differential standard (which in the default gray color shows as 7 / 30 / 15)
Clutch: Triple-Plate
Drive Shaft: N/A

Power
Power Limiter: 90.3% (keep in mind I accidentally oil changed mine)
Everything else standard (comes with semi-racing exhaust by default/least PP exhaust available here)

Body
Downforce: 0 / 0

Ballast Weight: 25 kg
Ballast Position: -50%
The ballast leads to a F / R Weight Distribution of 43 : 57​

Weight Reduction: Stage 2
Carbon Hood (Body Color)
Windows Standard (only option)

Additional thoughts on this car and tuning setup:
Perhaps I should put this car into some of the races required for GT6 completion percentage just in the interest of putting together a Sports Soft or Racing Hard tune... I'm sure those are already out there and better developed than I will manage these days. I also do not have any music playing while I'm driving this one. This may be due to my appreciation for its sound but probably more likely due to a reverence I have for its limits. Given the elevation changes at the Belgian course and the more slippier tires there, some of the corners I am just aching to bring a little more speed into. Note: This car handles very well your urges to push the start of your breaking zone later and later on subsequent laps. Especially through chicanes - in both Mid-Field Raceway and at the Eau Rouge (or whatever it's called: the down and up chicane that's famous at Spa) - this thing feels like its got a nice juicy (and importantly planted) butt just behind where you feel its center of gravity is. This may be the key to its zen-unlocking potential. Its weight balance, heftier rear tires (and ride height with my tune), lets its hindquarters do what you hope a grand touring car's hindies can do.

The pictures aren't here yet, but just in the interest of full disclosure are the aesthetic pics I've made on my vehicle:​

Aero parts cannot be installed on the RUF RGT '00
Inch Up: 1 OZ Envy 4H painted: Granatrot Perleffekt (probably from an Audi vehicle or the VW Golf GTI)
Exterior painted: Matte Pink
Brake Calipers: Granatrot Perleffekt
No custom rear wings (see no aero can be installed, above)

​

For future installments of In Search of Gran Touring Zen, look for the S2000 (which came as an early license test gift this go around, let's not forget) or the LANCIA STRATOS '73. I think the S2000 has supplanted in mind the place formerly occupied by the original Hachi Roku "GT 86" Toyota Trueno.

Expertly written, beautiful allusions, and dare I say divine command of language?

I'm so glad i subscribed to this thread long long ago. I'd forgotten of it, but after the night I had this post relieved the drab reality of a hangover by taking me to a place of Zen without rowing through any gears myself.

Thank you!

I'm in constant search of that pure driving Zen, sheer pleasure of circumstance. I would love to contribute to this thread soon with my own experiences - as I frequent the virtual mountain passes made with our beloved "NO-CHECKS" Track Path Editor.

If you're familiar with the AE86 and its legend, then I've no doubt you have some knowlege of Initial D, and mountain pass (touge) racing and the philosophies and creeds that cone attached.

Myself, I tune my touge cars not for the fastest times but the most balanced and pure driving sensation.

I want to invite you personally to join me and my friends on a touge cruise some time. We don't do much racing (aside from the occasional sanctioned battle), but we do a lot of driving as these twisty courses are as demanding as they come. Few things beat the feeling of a fast clean lap on a pass exceeding 50, 60, 100 corners.