FOLLOW THESE TIPS AND YOU WILL BE FINE (AS LONG AS YOUR DECENT):
Spring Rates:
Needs to be low (~5-6kg/mm), to soak up the bumps on dirt. Have spring rates at high and you'll have one bouncy car everytime it goes over a small ripple on the dirt road. Increased ride height will compensate
for the low sprig rates.
Ride Height:
Needs to be high >140. Reason, on landing your jumps, it prevents bottoming out of the car. A higher ride height also compensates for lower spring rates by avoiding the car bottoming out.
Shocks:
These needs to be even on Bound and Rebound. Too much Bound shocks and the tires, don't make contact to the ground as fast after compression. Too much Rebound and the car will bounce upon decompression
of the shocks. Now adjust between front and rear for fine tuning of understeer/oversteer control. Softer shocks to remove understeer, stiffer shocks to induce more oversteer. I have slightly, slightly more rebound
on front usually, to bring the tires back to the ground a bit quicker after compression of the shocks. Providing better tire contact to the ground and reducing understeer. Eg, front 5/ rear 7 on bounds, front 6 / rear
7 on rebounds.
Camber:
To your liking. But too much camber stops the car from drifting properly and reduces your tire contact to the ground, ie, less grip. But no camber is also not good. Drifts will be a bit more difficult to control. Keep it
between 2.0 and 4.0.
Toe:
Now, I'm not sure how GT5 treats toe. But in the game, I think, negative front positive rear helps reduce understeer (1.0 / 0.5 are good figures to start in gt5). And Negative rear positive front reduces oversteer
(0.0 / -0.5 are good figures to start in GT5)
Stabilizers:
These will help stabilise the car during drifts. But too much will cause the car to loose too much grip around corners. Have it at about 3 or 4. And remember that a lower value at front will help reduce understeer or
likewise a higher value at rear will cause oversteer.
Brakes:
To your liking. As long as it's not too high, that it causes lockup. Generally figures up to 12 should be enough in Rally.
LSD:
As low as possible or none at all. You WANT the tires to spin, to give you controllable drifts in the dirt. Having LSD turned up will stop the tires slipping and you'll notice more understeer in a corner, especially in
dirt.
ASM/TCS:
Important, not! As above, you want to drift and you want your tires to slip. So TURN these off (ie 0) ! You might as well play an arcade game with these turned on. Only exception is TCS, which can be used on high
powered cars to reduce wheel spin. But use it sparingly, or else it causes more understeer.
Gears:
Have it on the lower end, that is, if using the auto gears, to the left. This gives more torque rather than high speed. In most rally courses, High speed is not where you gain time, it's around those slow 180degree
turns. Higher torque will get you out of the turns fast. As a starting point, use an auto gear value 5 steps to the left of the default auto gear value.
Downforce:
Yes, please. The more the better. However, keep it even at front and rear. Why? Too much rear downforce and you'll find the car's front flying up during a jump. Vice versa, for too much front downforce. During a
jump it will go into the ground nose first. You want to land on four tires, not your bumper bars.
VCD:
Preferably even to help control drifts. But in practice, I find lower VCD values (ie, more RWD) helps reduce understeer. For Rally, start at 30% and reduce slowly towards 10% to remove understeer as suited to your
driving style.
-There you all go. May you all go forth and produce awesome rally tunes. Disclaimer - of course, no two cars are the same or behave the same. The theory above is a good starting point. Finding the exact point of
setup where the car behaves at it's best is a matter of trial and error and a lot of patience.
