Hello All,
I'm brand-new to this forum, but not to Gran Turismo. Since I was too cheap to get a PS2 for about 2 years after they came out (yeah yeah), I was stuck playing GT2 into the GROUND!! I came here looking for some advice for GT4, and found this part of the website... which of course rekindled my love for GT2 that I drove nearly to death!
Anyway, I've been a mechanic by trade, and a professional racing jetski builder in my spare time. As it is, I love the tuning aspect of the GT games, to which I can focus my talents and skills to extract every inch of performance for my driving style. Which, I may bring up, should - and most likely is - different than many other drivers. The settings I use are invariably different than what YOU will be comfortable with, yet are what I've found to give the cars the best control and lap times.
I started by keeping detailed notes on every setting I used for every car (with 99 cars, it can get tedious), as well as keeping notes on the cars' original settings and configurations. After I created a "best setting" for each car, I wanted to find a commonality between what I felt was a "best setting" and what the "stock" settings were for all my cars... and I found it. After tuning 99 cars, I got a quick feel for what they needed, and what was going on; and documented everything to begin comparison.
I found that - within a small percentage here and there - each car's tuning was changed to the same degree each time for each car. There's actually a formula!!!
For ALL cars, I purchase every single high-end part available in the game (like when there's 3 mufflers, just get the "race" one). And with the availability of 500,000 credits in one Gran Turismo All Stars race, why not? You've got enough money, may as well use it!
My formula:
All cars get the spring rates increased by 25% front and rear. Exceptions to this are FF cars that get only 10% up front and 25% in the rear, and the full-race prize cars that already have very stiff springs to start with, which get 0% increases. Some cars in my garage (Acura NSX Type S Zero, Camaro Z28 '69, All Corvettes, All Older Muscle Cars) preferred a 30% increase overall, and the Toyota Sprinter Trueno felt best with a 15/30% increase. Otherwise, +25% front and rear seemed to cover most all cars.
I lower every car by only 10%. It sounds small, but it actually uses up most of the adjustment available, while still leaving a decent amount of travel and sway. Notable exceptions to this rule are the Oreca Viper, S2000 GT1, 3000GT LM Edition, Altezza LM Edition, Wed's Celica, Castrol/Cerumo/Denso Supra (15%), Mugen NSX, RX-7 LM Edition (25%), Cusco Impreza (20%), and the XJ220 Racecar (35%). As you can see, it's typically an oddball or exceptional car that will usually want something different. As well, Rally driving needs a different setup, but isn't as demanding of "perfection" with settings.
The dampers, I've found, are far too stiff for most suspension action to happen at my race pace, and need to be loosened up a bit. The stock settings are usually "7" for front/rear and compression/rebound; to which I like to bring down to "6" and tune from there. Some cars like stiffer settings while others like it softer - and some like a mix front to rear, etc. You'll have to play with this to fine tune the car to your style, as this is usually the biggest factor to making a car "feel" right to YOU.
The ol' "2.0/1.0" camber setting is usually the ideal, and I stick with this as closely as possible with all cars. Lighter FF cars can benefit from "1.8/1.0" settings to the effect of sticking in corners and turning much better. Some cars may want more rear camber if they are heavy and have a tendency to push the arse end out (RUF cars, or the Viper for example).
I don't mess with toe in/out in the video game because it doesn't positively or negatively affect my driving. I leave it zeroed. You can affect your straight-line or cornering habits by changing this setting, but again, I've found the "best" to usually be zero for my style. Along the same lines, I don't change the brake balance settings very often, unless something is very glaringly off about it.
I, 9 times out of 10, will soften the anti-sway bars (stabilizers). Since I like stiff, low cars, something needs to "give" if I want traction - and I usually get it from softer sway-bar settings. Most cars like 3, while smaller cars like 2. Play around until it suits your style.
I like to balance the downforce with the spring settings. That is, if I increased the spring rates by 10% in the front and 25% in the back, then the downforce will be increased conversely 25% in the front and 10% in the back. Seems my formula for suspension settings nets the best downforce settings too.
After all that, it will be up to you to tune your car to your liking. I've found now that I can usually apply my formula to ANY car and have it perform close enough to my standards that it rarely needs messing with. Transmission ratios will also depend on your driving style and the track - I prefer to use the quick adjusting feature, so that I don't need to write or memorize a dozen different settings for each gear per track - just get the car to top out and the end of the longest straight, and remember that one quick adjust number. Sometimes, for some cars, I like to have a number of different settings that will help with small idiosycratic differences between tracks. A good example would be how I dial in the Castrol Supra for Laguna Seca versus all the other tracks: The car will be slightly higher, have a stiffer sway bar, lower tranny ratios, much higher downforce than usual, and very high LSD control. But even then, it still adheres to my formula and is "tweaked" to get the most out of the unique conditions of that track.
Hopefully this will be of some benefit to someone out there STILL playing this game. I put in thousands of hours with my tuning, and it would all be a waste in my mind to let it rot in my notebooks without putting it to good use and sharing it. To those of you that are having trouble tuning cars in this game, please use my methods and report back. To those of you with the same experience/knowledge about this as I have, please share what you are doing differently - and if you have tested my methods or not. Do you have your own formulas?
I would be more than happy to share a setting for any car in the game, whether it be to compare to your settings or if you're having trouble understanding what I'm saying. Maybe you have a favorite car, and you think you've got it "dialed in"? Again, I've got 99 cars in my garage all tuned up, and I've got the formula at hand to set up any other car I feel like trying out. If you need help from MY style of tuning, I'd be glad to get you in the right direction.
Thanks GT Planet for letting me post my first post. Hope you like it!! 👍
I'm brand-new to this forum, but not to Gran Turismo. Since I was too cheap to get a PS2 for about 2 years after they came out (yeah yeah), I was stuck playing GT2 into the GROUND!! I came here looking for some advice for GT4, and found this part of the website... which of course rekindled my love for GT2 that I drove nearly to death!
Anyway, I've been a mechanic by trade, and a professional racing jetski builder in my spare time. As it is, I love the tuning aspect of the GT games, to which I can focus my talents and skills to extract every inch of performance for my driving style. Which, I may bring up, should - and most likely is - different than many other drivers. The settings I use are invariably different than what YOU will be comfortable with, yet are what I've found to give the cars the best control and lap times.
I started by keeping detailed notes on every setting I used for every car (with 99 cars, it can get tedious), as well as keeping notes on the cars' original settings and configurations. After I created a "best setting" for each car, I wanted to find a commonality between what I felt was a "best setting" and what the "stock" settings were for all my cars... and I found it. After tuning 99 cars, I got a quick feel for what they needed, and what was going on; and documented everything to begin comparison.
I found that - within a small percentage here and there - each car's tuning was changed to the same degree each time for each car. There's actually a formula!!!
For ALL cars, I purchase every single high-end part available in the game (like when there's 3 mufflers, just get the "race" one). And with the availability of 500,000 credits in one Gran Turismo All Stars race, why not? You've got enough money, may as well use it!
My formula:
All cars get the spring rates increased by 25% front and rear. Exceptions to this are FF cars that get only 10% up front and 25% in the rear, and the full-race prize cars that already have very stiff springs to start with, which get 0% increases. Some cars in my garage (Acura NSX Type S Zero, Camaro Z28 '69, All Corvettes, All Older Muscle Cars) preferred a 30% increase overall, and the Toyota Sprinter Trueno felt best with a 15/30% increase. Otherwise, +25% front and rear seemed to cover most all cars.
I lower every car by only 10%. It sounds small, but it actually uses up most of the adjustment available, while still leaving a decent amount of travel and sway. Notable exceptions to this rule are the Oreca Viper, S2000 GT1, 3000GT LM Edition, Altezza LM Edition, Wed's Celica, Castrol/Cerumo/Denso Supra (15%), Mugen NSX, RX-7 LM Edition (25%), Cusco Impreza (20%), and the XJ220 Racecar (35%). As you can see, it's typically an oddball or exceptional car that will usually want something different. As well, Rally driving needs a different setup, but isn't as demanding of "perfection" with settings.
The dampers, I've found, are far too stiff for most suspension action to happen at my race pace, and need to be loosened up a bit. The stock settings are usually "7" for front/rear and compression/rebound; to which I like to bring down to "6" and tune from there. Some cars like stiffer settings while others like it softer - and some like a mix front to rear, etc. You'll have to play with this to fine tune the car to your style, as this is usually the biggest factor to making a car "feel" right to YOU.
The ol' "2.0/1.0" camber setting is usually the ideal, and I stick with this as closely as possible with all cars. Lighter FF cars can benefit from "1.8/1.0" settings to the effect of sticking in corners and turning much better. Some cars may want more rear camber if they are heavy and have a tendency to push the arse end out (RUF cars, or the Viper for example).
I don't mess with toe in/out in the video game because it doesn't positively or negatively affect my driving. I leave it zeroed. You can affect your straight-line or cornering habits by changing this setting, but again, I've found the "best" to usually be zero for my style. Along the same lines, I don't change the brake balance settings very often, unless something is very glaringly off about it.
I, 9 times out of 10, will soften the anti-sway bars (stabilizers). Since I like stiff, low cars, something needs to "give" if I want traction - and I usually get it from softer sway-bar settings. Most cars like 3, while smaller cars like 2. Play around until it suits your style.
I like to balance the downforce with the spring settings. That is, if I increased the spring rates by 10% in the front and 25% in the back, then the downforce will be increased conversely 25% in the front and 10% in the back. Seems my formula for suspension settings nets the best downforce settings too.
After all that, it will be up to you to tune your car to your liking. I've found now that I can usually apply my formula to ANY car and have it perform close enough to my standards that it rarely needs messing with. Transmission ratios will also depend on your driving style and the track - I prefer to use the quick adjusting feature, so that I don't need to write or memorize a dozen different settings for each gear per track - just get the car to top out and the end of the longest straight, and remember that one quick adjust number. Sometimes, for some cars, I like to have a number of different settings that will help with small idiosycratic differences between tracks. A good example would be how I dial in the Castrol Supra for Laguna Seca versus all the other tracks: The car will be slightly higher, have a stiffer sway bar, lower tranny ratios, much higher downforce than usual, and very high LSD control. But even then, it still adheres to my formula and is "tweaked" to get the most out of the unique conditions of that track.
Hopefully this will be of some benefit to someone out there STILL playing this game. I put in thousands of hours with my tuning, and it would all be a waste in my mind to let it rot in my notebooks without putting it to good use and sharing it. To those of you that are having trouble tuning cars in this game, please use my methods and report back. To those of you with the same experience/knowledge about this as I have, please share what you are doing differently - and if you have tested my methods or not. Do you have your own formulas?
I would be more than happy to share a setting for any car in the game, whether it be to compare to your settings or if you're having trouble understanding what I'm saying. Maybe you have a favorite car, and you think you've got it "dialed in"? Again, I've got 99 cars in my garage all tuned up, and I've got the formula at hand to set up any other car I feel like trying out. If you need help from MY style of tuning, I'd be glad to get you in the right direction.
Thanks GT Planet for letting me post my first post. Hope you like it!! 👍
). I'll try your settings and see how they run for me, i'm playing gt2 in my pc to get better graphics, besides i have a logitech analog controller that's very similar to the dual shock, so no prob with that. And for the GT4, well, i have the game, but not the console 
. I'll try to give some feedback soon.
!
