McRae Factory Racing (MFR Tuning House)

[hot_shoe]

Welcome to...

McRae Factory Racing (MFR Tuning House) ​

I’ll come up with a cool slogan later! 👍
​

A little bit about my tunes and what to expect. My favorite place to tune cars is the Nurburgring. I love bumpy tracks, and as a result you may find my settings to be a bit soft if you only race on glass smooth tracks. I generally prefer to tune cars with street tires, as they far more accurately replicate what DOT legal R-Compounds are capable of. Usually I leave specific transmission ratios up to the customer due to individual track differences. Traction control is a no-no here in all but the most extreme cases. What’s the point of a tune if you’re going to let the computer think its way through the corner for you? Now, on to the cars!

 

[hot_shoe]

...​

With less than 150 still in existence, we were lucky to get our hands on this Ford. The car arrived at the shop in sad shape, having been sitting in someone’s barn for a bit too long. After a moderate restoration, we dove in headfirst to tuning the beast. The goal: Make modern supercars take a run for their money (and pedigrees!), while retaining the car’s ability to conquer any road with confidence and the utmost speed. We beefed up the engine internals and put a ball bearing twin scroll turbocharger to reduce what would otherwise be horrible lag, and used our own proprietary engine management system. The car received an all new, MFR designed six-speed transaxle that allowed greater control over the torque split. We felt no need to mess with a suspension designed by an F1 engineer, so we focused more on tuning the suspension than redesigning it. Confident in our work, we crossed the ocean to test on the famed Nürburgring. The car showed an excellent, neutral behavior with perfectly even tire wear. After our admittedly short test session, a 7:26 lap time is nothing to be ashamed of, and we know it can go faster. We here at MFR would like to think we are putting our best foot forward our 1984 FORD RS200.

Parts needed:
Semi-Racing Exhaust
Racing CPU
Stage 3 Turbo
Racing Brakes
Brake Balance Controller
FC Suspension
FC Transmission
Variable Center Diffferential
Sports Medium Tires (Standard equipment)

Suspension settings:

(Front/Rear)
Spring Rate - 7.2/8.4
Ride Height - 130/134
Damper Bound - 3/5
Damper Rebound - 5/6
Camber - 2.1/1.8
Toe - 0/0
Anti-Roll Bars - 2/3

Brake Bias - 9/5

Variable Center Differential - 15% Front/ 85% Rear

Driving Aids - None

(I recommend Red with Rays "023" wheels. Gorgeous!!)

 

[hot_shoe]

1971 Datsun 240ZG

I found this car at my uncle’s house, rusting away for 20 years due to mild accident damage he said he would fix a long time ago. Well, MFR bought this car for $100 and instantly began pouring money into it. After we saved the car from a slow death via oxidation, we gave it the MFR treatment. First was the “G-Nose” and flares, along with other carbon fiber body panels, a beautiful white paint job, and then we gave it some serious cajones. A massaged BMW M3 engine was swapped in, as anything but a N/A straight six would be heresy in this car. A new braking package help keeps the speed in check stop after stop without fade. Throw in a MFR tuned suspension and you have a true sports car with serious power and control. She dances with her booty for anyone, just give her a tickle on the right pedal. Now go take MFR’s latest creation for a tango or two.

Parts needed:
Semi-Racing Exhaust
Racing CPU
Stage 3 N/A Tuning
Racing Brakes
FC Suspension
Sports Clutch
Racing Flywheel
Carbon Driveshaft
FC LSD
Sports Medium Tires (Standard equipment)

Suspension settings:

(Front/Rear)
Spring Rate - 6.2/6.0
Ride Height - 130/130
Damper Bound - 5/4
Damper Rebound - 6/5
Camber - 2.2/1.9
Toe - (1)/0
Anti-Roll Bars - 2/4

LSD:
Initial Torque - 8
Acceleration - 25
Deceleration - 11

Driving Aids - None

 

[mazdaman]

Well,first I'd like to say welcome to gtplanet also good luck to your garage.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

The premise of the ZG looks familiar.

I like how you tune your cars, purists are always welcome

 

[hot_shoe]

I see you've tuned one too RJ. I'll try out yours later tonight, but its a bit late to post a review on it.

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! I have one more tune to post for the debut, it'll be on in a few minutes.

 

[hot_shoe]

R33 Skyline GT-R V-spec LM Limited
(The blue one)

​

To me, the R33 Skyline is the best looking of the bunch. But its younger sibling R34 seems to get all the attention. This quite simply could not stand. And so we at McRae Factory Racing built our first all out racecar to remind everyone of the still stunning capabilities of this “outdated” chassis. No expense was spared; even the chassis underwent great changes. You'll notice, however, that we kept did not increase displacement. This was done for durability reasons, as well as to preserve the sky-high 9,000 RPM redline of the RB. An awesome innovation on the R33 was the introduction of the ATTESA-ETS Pro (active LSD), which not only split torque front to back, but left to right as well. This is a V-Spec model, so it does have that capability, and you really feel it in low speed corners. As usual, the car was tuned on the Nürburgring, where it is quite capable of giving sub 6:30 lap times, and very entertaining while doing so. There’s not much else to say about this one, almost every shop has an all out Skyline. Enjoy driving ours.

Parts needed:
Racing Exhaust
Port Polish
Engine Balancing
Racing ECU
Racing Brakes
Brake Balance Controller
Triple Plate Clutch
Racing Flywheel
Carbon Driveshaft
Original Turbo (Available in the Tuner Village)
Racing Intercooler
Full Customizable Suspension
Stage 3 Weight Reduction
Rigidity Refresh
Roll Cage
R3 Tires
Oil change
Rear Wing
Cool Black Wheels (optional)

Suspension settings:
(Front/Rear)
Spring Rate - 8.5/6.5
Ride Height - 128/132
Damper Bound - 5/4
Damper Rebound - 7/5
Camber - 3.2/2.8
Toe - (-1) / -1
Anti-Roll Bars - 4/3

Brake Bias - 6/4

Downforce: 28/33

Driver Aids: None

 

[DK]

I look forward to testing your R33. 👍

Bake Bias - 6/4

Don't you mean brake bias?

 

[Rotary Junkie]

He means Bake Bias. Takes more than one oven to evenly cook a GT-R.

 

[oldmodelt]

Welcome to the tuners. As a tuner noob I appreciate the work you do. Hopefully there will be another TCC series and you can enter your garage.

 

[hot_shoe]

Shelby Cobra 427 (Beta)​

Ah, kit cars. Is there any better way to get just the car you want than to build it yourself? Well, this one was left in the shop parking lot with a note on it. The owner had built a nearly exact replica of a 427 Shelby Cobra and wanted us to build and tune a custom street/track suspension set up for it, and nothing more. Building the suspension was a piece of cake, tuning it was the challenge. We strove to keep some of the feel of a 60's racecar, while still vastly improving its cornering prowess. It's a bit of an animal, so much power in such a small car with such poor aerodynamics leads to a car with different behavior at every speed. At low speeds it is well controlled, but as speeds increase the rear end begins to lift up and try to lead the way under braking. Control is the name of the game here, sudden simultaneous inputs unbalance the car and could send you right off track. While the owner may not have been very creative with his choice of car, you'll find he will be able to get very creative on track with it.

(This car may still receive tweaks, so think of it as a beta version. In the meantime I'd like to get some feedback. Thanks for understanding guys.)


setup..

Parts needed:
Brake Balance Controller
FC Suspension
FC Transmission
Sports Medium Tires (Standard equipment)

Suspension settings:

(Front/Rear)
Spring Rate – 6.3/3.8
Ride Height - 111/111
Damper Bound - 5/4
Damper Rebound - 6/4
Camber - 2.1/1.8
Toe - (-1)/(-1)
Anti-Roll Bars - 3/1

Brake Bias – 6/5

Differential Settings:

Initial Torque - 13
Acceleration - 35
Deceleration - 23

Driving Aids - None

 

[PF]

That's a good looking list of cars, hot_shoe, although the R33 sits a little oddly among the more classy old-school models. Do you test tyre-wear or just hot-lap in time-trial mode? I'll print out the '71 Datto but can't promise a review anytime soon. Good luck mate, looks good so far.

 

[hot_shoe]

I usually tune by feel of the car more than lap times, and I check tire wear after the majority of the tuning is done. When the tune is finalized I go check tire wear at an endurance race. I got perfectly even tire wear on the RS200, and the 240Z is fully capable of even wear if you keep it neutral and avoid oversteer. The R33 does wear its fronts first, however. I have not tested the Cobra's tire wear yet as I was looking for tuning feedback on that one.

I never really set out to tune older cars, its just many of them have such wonderful nature's even bone stock, but with plenty of room for improvement. Plus, I'm trying to avoid getting too many common cars on my debut. Everyone tunes late-model Japanese cars, I'm trying to be a bit different to avoid being just another tuner.

 

[hot_shoe]

It's been a long time since I posted an update, but believe it or not the garage is not dead. Combine an extremely busy few weeks and a rather difficult to tune car - It doesn't lead to much to show. However, a new tune will be posted in the coming days, a car somewhat known to be a pig to handle (at least in GT4). Stay tuned!

 

[hot_shoe]

1969 Ford GT-40

No story for this one. Just an explanation.

First off, in contrast to Gran Turismo's representation, the GT-40 had a good amount of front lift, so much so that Dan Gurney said on the Mulsanne straight he could turn the wheel ¼ the way to lock and it would have no effect on the direction of the car. This cannot be modeled in GT4, as the minimum downforce level in the front is ten. So right off the back the car cannot be tuned to resemble its real world behavior.

Problems in tuning come from the relatively heavy iron block motor. Due to the big weight and big power, Gulf Oil team put big tires on the back. I have to think that with older, lower grip tires this obviously worked, but with more modern tires with greater grip, what I would call the power to grip ratio changes. This makes power oversteer harder to achieve without similarly increasing horsepower levels to match the increase in grip. Honestly, I would prefer more evenly sized tires than 10” front and 14” rear to get better balance and wear.

Anyway, I tuned the car without any power increases (besides the oil change). I used the GT-40 I won long ago and equipped with a roll cage for initial tuning, but as I went on I found it increasingly difficult to remove understeer. So I acquired another 40 but did not install the cage, and tested the same tune again. I found that this greatly reduced understeer in the tune. Encouraged by this development, I pressed on.

One thing you may notice to be strange is the differential is set very open compared to most other tunes. I found that with all that weight over the rear axle, combined with huge rear tires, gave such immense grip that a tight rear diff was not neccesary. This low setting greatly helps keep the handling balanced. You should find it just tight enough to avoid pegleg burnouts.

This was the first car I ever tried to tune. That was some time ago, long before this garage. I took that tune out for a spin and was not immediately dissapointed. I checked the tire wear and became disgusted - I still had plenty of work to do. I went through at least 4 distinct generations of the tune, always aiming for even tire wear and good balance. After fiddling with it and increasing certain settings to unexpected levels, I finally came about with a tune that I found acceptable. Also, This one gets my even tire wear guarantee. (I hope that doesn't backfire on me... ) As usual, it's been tuned on the 'Ring, so I recommend that you drive it there if you want to test it.



Parts needed:
Oil Change
Racing Hard Tires (R2)


Suspension settings:

(Front/Rear)
Spring Rate – 7.0/12.0
Ride Height - 112/120
Damper Bound - 3/5
Damper Rebound - 4/4
Camber – 2.8/1.8
Toe - (-1)/(2)
Anti-Roll Bars - 1/5

Brake Bias: 9/4

Transmission Settings:

Autoset: 19

1st Gear: 2.122
3rd Gear: 1412
4th Gear: 1.000
5th Gear: .639
Final Drive: 4.285

Differential Settings:

Initial Torque - 8
Acceleration - 16
Deceleration - 13

Driving Aids: – None