Questions and philosophy about tuning ff cars

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I am not a hard core racer with mad driving skills, but I do enjoy driving in the games and most of all I enjoy tuning every ounce of performance out of a car. I typically tune 4WD and RWD (FR) cars. I just recently became interested in tuning FF cars, but found the idea's and concepts to have odd effects that I did not expect in a car. I am writing this to share some of what I found, and ask for help from people who know better.

I typically start with the base car, and gradually tune it to get the best performance by adding parts, tweaking settings, until I find the limit of the traction and handeling for the course that I'm working with. Adjusting over/understeer conditions to give me the perfect mix for my driving style. But I'm stumped on this type of car. By the time that I get the steering just about where I want it, I find I'm pushing the tires beyond the limits, and my weight and balance are way off.

The car I'm working on is the Mazda Protege 03 (yes I know there are better cars, but I want to tune this one to see what it is capable of). I have been able to tune it for the original racing courses, but can't seem to get the city courses to co-operate... in the tight 90 degree corners (especially the hong kong course), I suffer from massive understeer... or unintended drifting (pushing the limits of the tires too far). One other side effect I am experiencing is large amounts of tire spin on acceleration even in 2nd and 3rd gears. The car fully modified only has about 300 HP. I've tried to turn on the traction control system, but it really limits the car, and doesn't work well with my driving style (had to turn TCS up to about 8 to prevent spin... but really hurt overall performance).

So... is there a way to increase the traction on the front of the car at lower speeds (like 90 degree corners), and still have the weight and balance right for acceleration so the weight is on the front tires when starting...

Again I'm not a hard core gear head, but I am trying to figure out the tuning for a FF car. I am sure there are tons of you who could beat my cars, and or driving... I've read several of the guides, and would like more info about this.

Thanks in advance.

Here are the settings I've managed to come too, I'm willing to explain how or why I made any of the modifications so far.
Modifications
Exhaust Racing
Racing Brakes Racing
Brake Controler Equip
N/A Tune Stage 3
Port Polish Purchased
Engine Balance Purchased
Chip Sports
NO2 Equp
Transmission FC
Clutch Triple
Flywheel Racing
LSD Standard
AYC ****
Carbon Shaft ****
Turbo ****
Intercooler ****
Supercharger ****
Suspension FC
Front tire RS
Rear Tire RS
VCD Standard
Weight Red. Stage 3
Refresh Chassis Yes
Wing Equped


Spring Rate 7.5/ 9
Ride Height 100/ 113
Damper -/ -
Bound 5/ 6
Rebound 6/ 7
Camber 2.2/ 1
Toe 0/ 0
Roll Bars 5/ 6

Brake Balance 8/ 10

NO2 100

Downforce 20/ 13

LSD
Initial Torque NA
Acceleration NA
Deceleration NA

VCD NA

Balast
Weight 0
Position 0

ASM O/Steer 0
ASM U/Steer 0
TCS 1

Gear Ratios
first 3.0400
second 2.1240
third 1.5850
fourth 1.2380
fifth 1.0110
sixth 0.8560
seventh 0.0000
final 4.1470

Auto 8
Click to expand...

I'm open to trying changes... but I want to understand why the changes are made because i'm trying to learn how to do the tuning and why things are setup the way they are on a FF car.
 
I can say, Up the rear toe to 2 or 3. It make the car steer easier. Go buy a FC LSD to limt wheelspin and to make it turn better also
 
There's a few different areas you can look at.

1st off the suspension. The Spring Rate is a little bit too stiff, and the damper bound/rebound is too stiff aswell. I'd ease it up a couple of degrees, same with the roll bars/stabilisers and add some negative toe angle for the rear. You want to have some body roll and to allow the toe angle to work around the corner, having more tyre contact patch as you're going around.

Adding a fully customisable LSD helps for cornering, but you need to know how to adjust it otherwise it can be more of a detriment than a help.

Ballast helps for traction, but it can affect the way the car can handle (ie. make it understeer). The weight can go from 0-200kg extra, and be pushed onto the frontmost areas of the car over the tyres (from -40 to -50). The amount of power you're pushing is heaps for a N/A 2.0L motor. I would've detuned the power level personally or eased up the bottom end torque to prevent wheelspin. Something along the lines of 250-270hp is enough for an FF unless you're going for the 1/4 mile records or aiming for 400km/h!!

Compare the cars we currently have in the Tuner Cup (version 3 or 4 in the Tuning Section). Cars from Civic's to Megane's to Tigra's all facing eachother and it will give you an idea of how we all go about getting our cars to handle better than factory. ;) Look at our garages aswell to get more pointers aswell. :)
 
Thanks for the input mafia_boy and I-ROC. I'll experiment with all of that, and post up what I find. I am very used to the 4WD tuning, and a little bit more of the FR (RWD),but FF is very new to me.

Before posting I did experiment with the Limited Slip Diff. (LSD), and I did notice quite a hit in performance that is why I went back to the standard. Are there any articles about how to tune LSD for a FF car, or how settings on the LSD affect the performance of a FF car? All the docs I found covered the FR setup, and mentioned the 4WD briefly.

I had also experimented with adding weight some, but had different results than I expected. Even when I placed the weight all the way at the front it caused the car to want to swing out much harder than expected (even with as little as 10 kg @ -50). So I might experiment some more with that too, but weight is something I've always been hesitant to ad to a car as a general rule. Although I'm open to trying new driving styles and or tuning philosophies.

Thanks again for the food for thought. (I invite more.)

And one more quick question... where are the garages you mentioned in your post, or how do I find them... I looked quickly at the forums and didn't see what you were talking about but I did see the tuner cup. (Sorry if it is blatantly obvious and I just missed it...)
 
Well, I did several things and managed to shave about 8 seconds off my best time on the hong kong circuit (Reverse) with this car.

First I lowered the HP to about 265HP by going to NA Stage 2 (from Stage 3)

Then I adjusted the spring ratios to : 5.0/6.6 (still surprisingly tight... the car must be lighter than I originally thought, but I prefer a tighter feeling ride.)

Then I reduced the stabilizer to: 4/5

Then Changed my toe to: 0/2

I don't usually adjust Toe because of tire wear and straight away stability on FR cars. But because my front tires were wearing so fast, my rear tires barely get warmed up before the front are losing traction, So I went ahead and adjusted. I still want to perform a couple endurance races with this setup to see how my tread wear is with these settings.)

I also changed my FC transmission to Auto 10. Just to increase the gear ratios to help with the tire spin.

I love the way the car handled at that point very nice. But I was still having the problem of spinning the tires all the way through 2nd gear and even in the start of 3rd. While I would say that it comes down to driver control, I only have the analog controller and it is hard to do fine throttle adjustments with that, so I turned the traction control up just a bit
Oversteer: 0, Understeer: 3 TCS: 3
I found this gave me the ability to not spin the tires so much (still can if I try...) but helped control it better.

I still want to do a few of the longer races to check tread wear, but at this point I am quite happy with the car. After I race it for a while I'll post what my final spec is for critique if anyone is interested.

BTW I decided to put the Racing Super Soft tires on it and give it a run on the hong kong circuit... shaved another 10 seconds off my best time... thanks for the input, looking forward to any information about tuning a LSD for a FF car if anyone can find it.

Thanks.
 
Throttle control can be easily done using the X button, you don't need the analogue sticks. ;)

As for the LSD, it's more trial and error. I know the SHO Taurus needs HEAPS of Deceleration LSD compared to most other FF's. A few others want more Acceleration LSD and a couple like Initial LSD aswell.

To start off, get a fully customisable LSD and just put all settings on 5. Then increase as you go along. I usually go soft on initial, harder on acceleration and somewhere in the middle of those two for deceleration.

P.S. Don't double post, otherwise moderators get very annoyed. ;) Just edit if you're the last person to post. 👍
 
Didn't know about the double post thing (new to gtplanet)... will make sure not to do so in the future.

Thanks for all the helpful info. I am very very thrilled with the settings I have got so far. (I just won a 157 Aspec point race with that Mazda Protege.) And with the possibility of being better with the LSD I am even more pleased. I will tinker with it for the next few days, and see if the LSD helps or hurts me in the long run. I could get used to FF cars :-)

I'll post the final settings I get once I've tweaked it a few days incase anyone is interested!

Happy racing! And Merry Christmas!
 
take in decel alittle higher to stop the understeer on corner exit. I'm the one would like's spring rates higher in the front better turn in on entering the corner. And a higher swaybars in the back
 
And to remark on the above vehicle, less rear spring rate and more rear sway bar should increase manouverability and cornering.
 
Why is it that with FWD cars in GT4 and 5 having stiffer front springs than rear typically makes the car turn better? Is that some sort of glitch in the physics (which I believe it is)?
 
Not really...

The key seems to be softish rear springs and stiff rear sway bar, which, looking at say, TEIN's site, seems about right.
 
Actually RJ, with some FF cars not coming out with a factory rear swaybar it makes a huge change even if you have a stabiliser setting of 1 or 2, only buying the FC suspension and leaving that section really weak. Others that came out with one from the factory improve more with the stiffer rear.
 
^ Interesting...

However, from what testing I've done, I've yet to see a FWD not respond the way I expect when I run the big bar and softer springs.
 
The soft rear springs allow more rear roll, which allows more rear slippage... in the game... in real-life, stiffer rear springs should, theoretically be better.

The big problem in GT4 is the way they model tire traction... a glitch which we've discussed previously... a glitch which dooms almost all FF cars to ignonimous understeer, no matter how you tune them.

As for the original car in question, the question has been answered, but there's a little I'd like to say about it... in real-life, the traction of the Protege really is poor... the street car can't really put a lot to the ground. This is exacerbated by the fact that no matter what compound tire you move to, you're effectively stuck with the stock tire size, which is a measly 195/50R16. I don't care if you have R-compounds... 195-wide tires can't take 300 hp... no matter how you cut it. Not even taking into account the fact that the automatic transmission of the car modeled in GT4 means that modelled WHP will always be lower than you expect given the quoted BHP.

Another quirk of the Mazdaspeed version of the Protege is the stiff front swaybar. This gives it more natural understeer than lower-spec versions. And while you can tweak the balance a little through tuning, it's very hard to alter a car's innate behavior in GT4. I'm hoping the GT5 will have more accurate sway-bar modelling (or at least a wider range of adjustment... 0 front would be nice) than GT4 did.

And the option to upsize tires. The US Mazdaspeed version was the best of the Protege lot, and it had 205-wide tires. Some autocrossers even go to 235-wide fronts... something you can simulate in GT4 by mixing different compounds of tires front-rear... The other advantage of the US version is the integral LSD. While I've seen some effect from GT4 by adding an LSD, I've never been able to replicate the effects of a stock LSD as you see on the DC2 and DC5 Integras and the Ford Focus RS... front-drivers that are exceptionally pointy in the game... though the DC5 had a really inert rear-end in GT4... thankfully loosened up in GT5P.
 
Actually, softer rear springs means weight will be distributed between the rear tyres more evenly giving them more traction. Nothing I have found explains why stiffer front springs on FF cars works so well in GT games. Even though the stabilisers are correct.:odd:
 
A zero would help on some FF cars, always a bigger bar in the back. I know a guy that runs time attack that runs no front bar with 1000 pound springs in front and 900 pound springs in back, with a big bar. If gt5 allows more tuning on FF cars.
 

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