Springs and anti-roll bars do not appear to work properly

[HBR-Roadhog]

So far I have only been working with a few cars but what I am seeing thus far is rather odd and confusing. It appears that the anti-roll bars do very little and also appears to be backwards. Springs seem that way to some extent as well. Definitely not working the way they did in FM2-4 or any other game that I can think of.

Example. I soften the rear springs on a Indy car and to my surprise the tail started popping out in the corners. I had to stiffen the rear springs to stop it from happening.

Stiffen the front anti-roll bar and the steering became a bit more touchy and the rear started popping out in corners.

I went out and did some testing with lots of different values and was hard to tell what it was really doing a setting on 1 on the front, 40 on the rear or 40 on the front and 1 on the rear did not feel a huge amount different. I would expect that in the first case 1-40 there would be extreme oversteer and in the case of 40-1 extreme understeer but neither proved to be true instead the car felt almost the same will all settings and became a bit more prone to oversteer when the front was stiff and or the rear was soft.

I have also been messing with the springs in similar ways using values from 10% 25% 50% or up and the only thing that I have determined is that on the Indy car if the rear is softer than the front you get oversteer even though understeer is what one would expect yet the amount of difference between the settings does not seem to be all that pronounced, not nearly so much as it would have been on FM4 for example.

Thus far the only thing I have saw that works as it did on FM4 is the odd ball ride height, spring and damper setting that can be used to increase the top speed.

As for tweaking the handling I have gone from knowing exactly what to do to just having to guess and nothing spring or anti roll related seems to have the expected effect for dealing with over/under steer.

So I do not know if it is just the cars I have been working with or if it is a global thing but thus far the tuning seems very inferior to FM4

 

[ImaRobot]

Springs work in conjunction with your Rebound/bump. So you might want to check out those as well. Still, are you keeping in mind Front/Rear Bias? That should play a role in what you'd be setting these to. Probably something you're already aware of, but I figured I'd mention it anyways.

I, however, really on my anti-roll bars, and have felt change when softening the rear. When I soften it to induce understeer, I do have to lower it by at least 50%, though. It will also depend on you're front stiffness as well, as those are also relative.

I tend to stay away from race cars for the most part, but I'll give it a try when I get home. Maybe it's just the car, but I've definitely felt change from altering my Anti-roll bars, as well as springs.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I've did quite a lot of tuning in the past on FM2,3,4 and most recently on project cars. I can generally drive a car a couple of laps and know exactly what to tweak and a general idea of how much but on here it is like the rules no longer apply.

So far I have saw issues with the Indy cars, the Zonda and the Noble. The Zonda wants to understeer no matter what settings you use and the Noble wants to oversteer. Normal ARB adjustments seem to have either no effect at all or the opposite effect of what they should and much less effect than any of the other games I mentioned.

I will keep at it but it is really disappointing that these things do not seem to work properly where as they did work pretty well in previous editions.

 

[ImaRobot]

I've did quite a lot of tuning in the past on FM2,3,4 and most recently on project cars. I can generally drive a car a couple of laps and know exactly what to tweak and a general idea of how much but on here it is like the rules no longer apply.

First step would be to stop approaching it based off other games The change from 4>5>6 is enough to take a more cautious approach to the whole situation, although you're not entirely new so the idea wont necessairly change. The way I'm tuning now is no different then how I was in FM5. However, I did not tune in 4 so there was probably a change along the way that I may not be aware of.

Still, how you describe your instance on the other games is exactly how I feel now, on FM6. I know how to alleviate the characteristics of my car, and can make a B-line straight to what I need to change. I'm wondering if the changes where just so vast that its throwing you off? Without you playing the game for some time its hard to say.

So far I have saw issues with the Indy cars, the Zonda and the Noble. The Zonda wants to understeer no matter what settings you use and the Noble wants to oversteer. Normal ARB adjustments seem to have either no effect at all or the opposite effect of what they should and much less effect than any of the other games I mentioned.

I will keep at it but it is really disappointing that these things do not seem to work properly where as they did work pretty well in previous editions.

That is very odd. Going off the descriptions used in the tuning menu, I cant say I agree with you. The way it describes the settings, and how I select them, generally coincide with what they are telling me will happen. Are you saying that its backwards compared to the other games you've played, or backwards compared to the descriptions and info they are giving you?

I'll be home in about two hours so I'll mess around a bit. The Zonda being MR, have you tried giving the rear of the car a stiffer set up?

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Honestly I haven't read what it says in the game as I already know how to tune a car and have for a very long time now. As for my Basis it starts with what happens in real life when these adjustments are made, it just so happens that in FM2,3 and 4 it worked pretty much the way it should with the exception of ride height and extreme damper settings.

I can't say how good or bad it was in FM5 as I did not bother with that one and even though my brother did get it and is a tuner he did not bother to tune much there so he was under the impression that it was correct and the same as FM4.

The first hint that something was wrong in FM 6 was when he gave a tune to a controller user. That tune had the front ARB set a 40 and what that should have done was made the car more prone to understeer but what it actually did was made it more prone to oversteer. I reduced the front ARB to 10, rasied the rear ARB to 40 and the oversteer mostly was gone. In real life and in any other game with correct tuning options doing what I did would have made the car spin out with even the slightest steering input.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I was just doing some more testing with a different type of car, 73 Trans Am, The only component I added was race springs and ARBs for testing purposes.

The results are still unclear. The ARBs seem to have very little effect and sometimes seem like they are having either opposite effects or no effects at all. It did seem on this car if I went extreme with both the springs and the ARBs that it did have an effect in the expected direction but something just doesn't seem right in the tuning I have done so far.

I did take the time to read some of the text there and of course it says the same thing that it says in all the other Forza titles. The effects of these adjustments however seem to be different. This may be something related to the way the game is doing weight transfer now or maybe something else but whatever it is it is not behaving as expected when small changes are made and even extreme changes don;t always do what is expected.

 

[ImaRobot]

I was just doing some more testing with a different type of car, 73 Trans Am, The only component I added was race springs and ARBs for testing purposes.

The results are still unclear. The ARBs seem to have very little effect and sometimes seem like they are having either opposite effects or no effects at all. It did seem on this car if I went extreme with both the springs and the ARBs that it did have an effect in the expected direction but something just doesn't seem right in the tuning I have done so far.

I did take the time to read some of the text there and of course it says the same thing that it says in all the other Forza titles. The effects of these adjustments however seem to be different. This may be something related to the way the game is doing weight transfer now or maybe something else but whatever it is it is not behaving as expected when small changes are made and even extreme changes don;t always do what is expected.

You're probably going to have to add a little more then just springs and ARB's to get the traction, or noticeable changes especially taking into the consideration the lack of grip the older vehicles would have. If you're rubber can't put down the power, then changes made to the two parts you put on wouldn't be as pronounced.

It's so odd how we're having total opposite incidents. I can feel small changes, especially so when I start getting into Rebound/Bump stiffness. 0.5 in either directions is easily noticeable, especially when trying to induce understeer.

I have an idea. Why don't we work on a similar car, so that way I can directly encounter what you're talking about. Any idea's on which one to start with?

I've never tuned in 4, and I started in 5. Going off the description the game gives me, I'm able to achieve the exact effects it's telling me is happening.

One thing I can note is that you should always use a race differential. It will alleviate some of the understeer/oversteer instances almost with that part alone. Lowering your accel setting will definitely help, especially when trying to notice the changes you're making to suspension as the power will be better put to the wheels, allowing you to not spin them so much.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Not meaning to be rude here but keep in mind that I have been tuning for years, I know quite a lot about it already and especially so about Forza. The point of the thread is that the springs and roll bar settings are displaying some unusual results when adjusted on at least some of the cars.

I was hoping that some other experienced tuner would chime in who has ran into this issue already and could shed some light on it.

Also just to be clear when I am talking about over steer and understeer in terms of springs and ARBs I am not talking about power oversteer or understeer, Consider the effect of going through a high speed sweeping corner. A simple tweak to the ARB and or springs should allow you to make the car push wide or spin out. Those changes have very little and in some cases opposite effects of what is normal and that is what the confusion is.

For example softening the rear springs a little should not induce oversteer it should instead correct oversteer and/or induce understeer but in FM6 in at least the one car it causes the car to over steer quite badly and so does the ARB adjustment that should do exactally the opposite. Stiffer front ARB should induce understeer which means the front tires will loose grip and the car will push wide in the corner but instead the car steers in harder and causes the rear to loose grip and spin out. As I said before it is the exact opposite of what it should do in that case.

 

[EddyMaroon]

So why don't we all try out the same car and try to find an optimal setup, like ImaRobot said?

Let's use the E46 M3 maybe? Descent grip, descent power, not too expensive. For testing purposes if I want sweeper corners, road America's ~150 degree right hand corner is a great one to figure out what your car does. Let me know if you intend to experiment with this, so maybe we can figure out how to use all the settings.

 

[ImaRobot]

Not meaning to be rude here but keep in mind that I have been tuning for years, I know quite a lot about it already and especially so about Forza. The point of the thread is that the springs and roll bar settings are displaying some unusual results when adjusted on at least some of the cars.

Not rude at all, so no worries. At first I figured it would be the changes that have occurred over the 4 years you've been gone, but if it's doing exactly the opposite of what it's even saying will happen then it's not that. I figured I'd approach it in the most informative way, as if I'm talking to someone who's fairly new, just to eliminate any possibilities. Another reason I approached it the way I am is because I have not encountered this problem, or at least not yet. It probably sounded a bit condescending, but it was not meant that way.

I was hoping that some other experienced tuner would chime in who has ran into this issue already and could shed some light on it.

I dont know of many tuners, but I do know that @Im_Lukas is making his own tunes for rivals. Maybe he can chime in.

Also just to be clear when I am talking about over steer and understeer in terms of springs and ARBs I am not talking about power oversteer or understeer, Consider the effect of going through a high speed sweeping corner. A simple tweak to the ARB and or springs should allow you to make the car push wide or spin out. Those changes have very little and in some cases opposite effects of what is normal and that is what the confusion is.

I kind of figured that was the case, but just threw in the LSD just in case. How you're describing the ARB's should work, is actually how they work for me.

For example softening the rear springs a little should not induce oversteer it should instead correct oversteer and/or induce understeer but in FM6 in at least the one car it causes the car to over steer quite badly and so does the ARB adjustment that should do exactally the opposite. Stiffer front ARB should induce understeer which means the front tires will loose grip and the car will push wide in the corner but instead the car steers in harder and causes the rear to loose grip and spin out. As I said before it is the exact opposite of what it should do in that case.

I'm not confused about how the the parts work, and as I've said, I've yet to encounter it. Although, I highly recommend we all set up the same car and we'll go off the settings you start with just to make sure we're in the same zone. You said the 73 Trans Am is one of them? Why not start off that car?

 

[EddyMaroon]

Spent an hour experimenting with the E46 before work. Making changes does appear to have the effect described in the information. Softer front means more oversteer and vice versa. I only had time to try spring rates, ARB's and different ride heights. I'm yet to try the bump damping and such.

You need to make drastic changes to see an effect though. Maximum stiffness at the front and softest setting in the rear is only marginally different from running the other way around.

Interestingly, ride height is the thing that affects your handling the most. A high car has less grip, whereas a lower one will have more cornering grip. The thing that really bugs me though is that if you run as low as possible, you should increase stiffness to prevent the car from bottoming out. This just made the car strange and twitchy to drive. Lowering it fully but with default spring rates didn't case any issues, running around the final turn at Sebring it absorbed the bumps incredibly well and turned smoothly around the corner, without botioming out. Yet to try a lap around the Nordschleife to try extreme changes in elevation.

Conclusion: lower your car! Use semi-soft spring rates. Adjust ARB in big steps, it makes very little change in the handling.

 

[Im_Lukas]

Just a quick note, I have very little experience tuning so I don't know how this compares to other games or most of the time what the settings are supposed to do in real life but I make sure to read the descriptions in game and always tune by feel. I made a couple of tunes on FH2 and now I'm tuning all of my own cars on FM6 so this is just what I've experienced. I use a controller with all assists off and simulation steering (in case that makes any difference).

I dont know of many tuners, but I do know that @Im_Lukas is making his own tunes for rivals. Maybe he can chime in.

I actually read this thread last night and decided to try messing with the ARB settings on a car that I had problems with oversteer, the Lotus 2-Eleven (lightweight, MR, lots of potential grip). Didn't have time to get in to the spring rates and ride height though.

First I ran the default settings for a couple of laps, I believe it's like 28 front and maybe 22 rear (minimum is 1, max is 40) and round Prague Reverse the car was on the edge on a lot of the longer sweeping corners and quite often required countersteering to keep the rear of the car planted. I decided to soften the front ARB by 10 and the difference was quite noticeable, the car went from being on the edge to being incredibly difficult to control as it just wanted to oversteer the whole time.

After I'd done messing about with smaller adjustments I decided to try out the extremes, first the front ARB set to 1 and the rear to 40. If the description in game is correct this should increase oversteer which is exactly what it did. I then did the opposite and ran 40 on the front and 1 on the rear, this made the car understeer a lot which if I'm understanding the description correctly is also what should happen.

However when running the very soft rear setting I did experience some interesting characteristics which I was able to replicate a couple of times, on one of the slower corners (turn 1 of Prague Reverse) once I had got the car pointing where it needed to go, got on the power and stopped any steering input the car continued to turn until I turned the other way, it wasn't oversteer of any kind but it felt as if the tyres weren't turning back to where they should be. I don't know if this is normal for these extreme settings, has anyone else experienced it?

--

Tomorrow if I have time I will experiment a bit with the Trans Am and E46 M3, although it looks like @EddyMaroon has it covered on the M3 👍.

 

[ImaRobot]

Just a quick note, I have very little experience tuning so I don't know how this compares to other games or most of the time what the settings are supposed to do in real life but I make sure to read the descriptions in game and always tune by feel. I made a couple of tunes on FH2 and now I'm tuning all of my own cars on FM6 so this is just what I've experienced. I use a controller with all assists off and simulation steering (in case that makes any difference).



I actually read this thread last night and decided to try messing with the ARB settings on a car that I had problems with oversteer, the Lotus 2-Eleven (lightweight, MR, lots of potential grip). Didn't have time to get in to the spring rates and ride height though.

First I ran the default settings for a couple of laps, I believe it's like 28 front and maybe 22 rear (minimum is 1, max is 40) and round Prague Reverse the car was on the edge on a lot of the longer sweeping corners and quite often required countersteering to keep the rear of the car planted. I decided to soften the front ARB by 10 and the difference was quite noticeable, the car went from being on the edge to being incredibly difficult to control as it just wanted to oversteer the whole time.

After I'd done messing about with smaller adjustments I decided to try out the extremes, first the front ARB set to 1 and the rear to 40. If the description in game is correct this should increase oversteer which is exactly what it did. I then did the opposite and ran 40 on the front and 1 on the rear, this made the car understeer a lot which if I'm understanding the description correctly is also what should happen.

However when running the very soft rear setting I did experience some interesting characteristics which I was able to replicate a couple of times, on one of the slower corners (turn 1 of Prague Reverse) once I had got the car pointing where it needed to go, got on the power and stopped any steering input the car continued to turn until I turned the other way, it wasn't oversteer of any kind but it felt as if the tyres weren't turning back to where they should be. I don't know if this is normal for these extreme settings, has anyone else experienced it?

--

Tomorrow if I have time I will experiment a bit with the Trans Am and E46 M3, although it looks like @EddyMaroon has it covered on the M3 👍.

This is what my experience is as well. I haven't tried out extremes yet so I'm not exactly sure, but I'll give it a try later tonight. I plan to try out the Trans am.

@HBR-Roadhog Besides race springs and ARB's, what else did you install?

 

[EddyMaroon]

First I ran the default settings for a couple of laps, I believe it's like 28 front and maybe 22 rear (minimum is 1, max is 40) and round Prague Reverse the car was on the edge on a lot of the longer sweeping corners and quite often required countersteering to keep the rear of the car planted. I decided to soften the front ARB by 10 and the difference was quite noticeable, the car went from being on the edge to being incredibly difficult to control as it just wanted to oversteer the whole time.

Strange. It seems like we don't get the same results on our tuning. You say you felt a big difference with the ARB's, I didn't really get much of a difference, even when I went to the extremes. For the record I'm also on a controller, and I use no assists whatsoever. I guess I should try the Lotus, too. Maybe it's individual for each car how responsible they are for tuning inputs. I mean, the Lotus is a light racing car. The M3 is a 1.5 tonne GT car, so they should behave differently. This big of a difference in tuning inputs though? That surprises me!

Would be great if someone else could try the M3, just to verify I'm not completely useless at this

 

[ImaRobot]

Having just tried the 73 trans am, I was not able to recreate your problems whatsoever @HBR-Roadhog. My settings are working literally exactly like the game is telling me it would. I lowered the rear ARB as much as it can go an the car was just plowing through corners. Same with the rear spring stiffness as well. Front wasn't as pronounced but it definitely was not the opposite as you're saying yours is. There was one thing tht was causing variables, an that was how hard I brake and if I over throttled. Everything worked as it should though.

 

[Im_Lukas]

Strange. It seems like we don't get the same results on our tuning. You say you felt a big difference with the ARB's, I didn't really get much of a difference, even when I went to the extremes. For the record I'm also on a controller, and I use no assists whatsoever. I guess I should try the Lotus, too. Maybe it's individual for each car how responsible they are for tuning inputs. I mean, the Lotus is a light racing car. The M3 is a 1.5 tonne GT car, so they should behave differently. This big of a difference in tuning inputs though? That surprises me!

Would be great if someone else could try the M3, just to verify I'm not completely useless at this

I forgot to add I used racing tyres but asides from that there are plenty of differences between the two cars; light vs heavy, front-engined vs rear, as well as the fact the Lotus has quite a lot of downforce.

If I'm reading this correctly (apologies if not) @HBR-Roadhog with the Trans Am which would have the worst tyres feels little difference, you in the M3 feel little difference which I'm assuming comes on the equivalent of street tyres and then the Lotus on racing tyres reacts quite a bit to the changes. It wouldn't surprise me if the difference in tyres is causing the different experiences we are getting, I'll make sure to try the M3 and Trans Am tomorrow though.

 

[EddyMaroon]

Good points. I'll go experiment more on bump damping, tyre compounds and downforce on the M3, and possibly try the Lotus and the Trans Am. Not sure if I have time tomorrow, but before the weekend I'll try it out.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

@HBR-Roadhog Besides race springs and ARB's, what else did you install?

I just threw those parts on a Trans am for a quick test mostly due to the previous post about the cars that are showing a real problem being to expensive.

Despite what you guys seem to think a car with less grip will likely display this more than one with a lot of grip. It is all about the point where traction is lost and this happens sooner on cars with less grip so smaller adjustments should if anything be more noticable more noticeable.

As I said earlier the first I noticed it was an Indy car. Stiffer front ARB made the car oversteer, a very stiff front ARB made the car spin out easily when using a controller where as the normal behavior of this would be to make the car understeer. By setting the ARB softer the oversteer decreased even when the rear roll bar was maxed out and front was at min there was no oversteer.

Having just tried the 73 trans am, I was not able to recreate your problems whatsoever @HBR-Roadhog. My settings are working literally exactly like the game is telling me it would. I lowered the rear ARB as much as it can go an the car was just plowing through corners. Same with the rear spring stiffness as well. Front wasn't as pronounced but it definitely was not the opposite as you're saying yours is. There was one thing tht was causing variables, an that was how hard I brake and if I over throttled. Everything worked as it should though.

And as I said already the result was less than clear when I tested the transam, The only thing I could tell for sure was that the effect of the ARB changes were less than they should be, so much so that I could barely feel a difference between say 15/30 and 30/15 but again that is not the car I was really talking about and did very little testing with it, in fact it is not even the same kind of car nor is the beamer.

Another thing that I should probably note is that the issue is much more noticable at speeds over 200MPH

 

[ImaRobot]

The results where very clear to me when testing the Trans Am. However, I've found in my time tuning that in order to induce understeer that I found desirable I would have to drop the rear significantly. Although, I've never encountered them doing the reverse of what they should be doing.

I'll try again with Indy car because I believe I've won one.

It seems you're getting flustered a bit with your replys to me. I'm just here to try to figure out what's wrong. Yet, I can't replicate the things you say are happening so it seems like you think I'm being dismissive.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Yes I am a bit frustrated, can't help it. I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for a few days already and some of the tests I have done just don't make sense. The worst part is that I can't seem to find any consistency in it. On one car large changes seem to work in the direction expected and on another they seem to do the opposite and then in other cases it is hard to tell if they are doing anything at all.

As for the Indy car the issue is hard to notice if you are using a wheel or even a controller if you are really smooth but it pops its ugly head up real quick if you are the least bit jerky on the controller. I found the issue with the ARB there when a friend who uses a controller was having trouble driving a car that we had set up for Daytona. I had to try it with a controller before I could see what he was running into and then I was able to tune it out by moving the ARBs in the opposite directions of what would be normal.

The other issue with the springs occurred on the Indy oval. I was playing around with a new tune so from the default settings I changed the gearing, reduced the down force to min on front and rear and I looked to see how many lbs of DF I had removed from each end of the car. I then removed that amount of spring from both ends, The result was that the rear springs were softer than the front afterwards as there was more down force to remove from the rear than the front. I then drove the car and when it got up to speed the rear was very loose in the corners. I added more rear spring [at least 100lbs maybe 200 can't remember] and the rear was fine.

Both of these were discovered while tuning a Honda but it appears the Chevy does the same thing or at least related to the ARB on Daytona.

Keep in mind that these Indy cars are being setup for fastest possible lap times so they are running minimum down force and no toe. Also note that i am testing with no assists and simulation steering though with the controller I switched to normal steering as I am a bit rusty with a controller.

At one point I thought that maybe the front ARB was swapped with the rear one, or the min and max values were inverted but the frustration is that it seems to be unpredictable what effect it is going to have and in the case of smaller adjustments often seems to do nothing at all.

As for the tuning on FM5 part the only way that really comes into play is if it had the same oddities. If that is the case then it may seem normal to those who have only tuned on FM5 and if I had played FM5 I would likely have figured out what the oddities are long ago. That does not change the fact that there is something strange going on there.

 

[ImaRobot]

The other issue with the springs occurred on the Indy oval. I was playing around with a new tune so from the default settings I reduced the down force to min on front and rear and I looked to see how many lbs of DF I had removed from each end of the car. I then removed that amount of spring from both ends, The result was that the rear springs were softer than the front afterwards as there was more down force to remove from the rear than the front. I then drove the car and when it got up to speed the rear was very loose in the corners. I added more rear spring [at least 100lbs maybe 200 can't remember] and the rear was fine.

Those cars have a rear weight bias dont they? I cant exactly recall, but wouldn't it need to be a bit stiffer in the rear, then in the front to account for the engine in the back?

At one point I thought that maybe the front ARB was swapped with the rear one, or the min and max values were inverted but the frustration is that it seems to be unpredictable what effect it is going to have and in the case of smaller adjustments often seems to do nothing at all.

Do you get these same problems on road courses, or has this only been happening on the Oval? Smaller adjustments on the ARB have been shown to not change the feel that much, I agree. When I want to induce understeer, I practically lower the rear to about 9, and that gives me the understeer that I'd typically like. Spring stiffness, and rebound/bump stiffness I felt with relatively little changes, though.

As for the tuning on FM5 part the only way that really comes into play is if it had the same oddities. If that is the case then it may seem normal to those who have only tuned on FM5 and if I had played FM5 I would likely have figured out what the oddities are long ago. That does not change the fact that there is something strange going on there.

I dabbled in FM5, but just hardly. I was never really good at it and didn't take the time. FM6, I'm taking more time with it and doing miles better then I was in 5. I'm just tuning to what the descriptions tell me what would happen, so far. With being able to tune now I've been able to jump up to the top of the leaderboards, something I was having trouble to do in FM5.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I will be working up a couple of road cars soon. Thus far I have been working mostly on the two ovals to try and sort out the tuning. Not being able to use my Fanatec wheel was a bit of a set back for my road course driving. The braking especially but now I have modded my brake to where it is suitable with ABS off and am trying to come to terms with the lack of FFB in the wheel I am using.

I have driven a few cars on the road courses but have not really did much in the way of tuning those yet. One of the good parts about tuning on an oval is the ability to turn very very consistent lap times makes it easier to see what various changes are doing, though some changes can't be tested there as you would be doing full throttle most/all of the time so no braking and no sudden weight transfer from front to rear or rear to front.

Tuning is both fun and frustrating and is also rewarding when you do it right. I had did a bit on older games prior to FM2 but when I really go into it was during FM2 which I did not get until a year after it came out so there were some very fast times posted already when I started. At first I was looking to get into the top 1000, then top 500 then top 100. When Forza 3 came out I jumped into tuning right away and by then on the Oval tracks anything less than top 10 was not good enough. The target was #1 which I manged to get many times. My brother and I had some of the best tunes out there and at one point both of us had the #1 spot on every oval in every type of car and #1 overall. On FM4 I went more for the road courses but still one of the first things I did was built an Indy tune for my Bentley and grabbed the #1 time on all of the ovals with it then placed the tune in my store front for others to try. I made millions of credits off it and received lots of messages from people who were shocked when they drove it and posted their first ever top 10 time with ease.

Anyway not meaning to toot my own horn there but to show that tuning is not a new thing to me. Every Forza has had some oddities in it, it is just a matter of figuring out what they are in each version.

 

[ImaRobot]

I will be working up a couple of road cars soon. Thus far I have been working mostly on the two ovals to try and sort out the tuning. Not being able to use my Fanatec wheel was a bit of a set back for my road course driving. The braking especially but now I have modded my brake to where it is suitable with ABS off and am trying to come to terms with the lack of FFB in the wheel I am using.

I have driven a few cars on the road courses but have not really did much in the way of tuning those yet. One of the good parts about tuning on an oval is the ability to turn very very consistent lap times makes it easier to see what various changes are doing, though some changes can't be tested there as you would be doing full throttle most/all of the time so no braking and no sudden weight transfer from front to rear or rear to front.

👍 Was just wondering because I just noticed that you where tuning for ovals, but I was testing on road courses, so the effect I'm feeling would probably show a bit more on the flatter tracks.

There has been a change in braking. In FM5, I would use almost about 80% of the trigger, but when I first jumped into FM6 the hot spot was much lower then that, and I was locking my brakes like crazy. Looking at telemtry videos I noticed that now I'm only using 50-60 percent of the trigger most of the time.

Tuning is both fun and frustrating and is also rewarding when you do it right. I had did a bit on older games prior to FM2 but when I really go into it was during FM2 which I did not get until a year after it came out so there were some very fast times posted already when I started. At first I was looking to get into the top 1000, then top 500 then top 100. When Forza 3 came out I jumped into tuning right away and by then on the Oval tracks anything less than top 10 was not good enough. The target was #1 which I manged to get many times. My brother and I had some of the best tunes out there and at one point both of us had the #1 spot on every oval in every type of car and #1 overall. On FM4 I went more for the road courses but still one of the first things I did was built an Indy tune for my Bentley and grabbed the #1 time on all of the ovals with it then placed the tune in my store front for others to try. I made millions of credits off it and received lots of messages from people who were shocked when they drove it and posted their first ever top 10 time with ease.

I was the same way, although I did it over the past few iterations. In FM4 I was content with being in the 1000's, FM5 I started reaching in the top 500s, and now I'm doing vastly better and reaching down into the 50's and lower for the ones I dedicate to. I'm learning more about tuning and what I want out of a car as I go, and now that I'm tailor making my cars to my needs, it is definitely helping out.

I have not attempted the ovals. As easy as it seems, I'm just horrible at it I stick to road courses, and The Ring happens to be my testing ground so I do rivals on that all the time. I think right now I'm in the top 10 in America, inching my way up the field little by little.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Well I just ran several tests on the front ARB and the results are not surprisingly unclear.

Track: Road Atlanta Short
Car: 05 Lotus Elise @ C500 Racing tires,widened, increased rims size, racing springs and ARBs installed.
I did not install the trans nor any aero parts, not sure now if I added any HP I think I added the adjustable diff and maybe a driveshaft whatever got it to 500.

I tested the car first with stock settings for 10 laps, I then softened the front ARB by 5.0 and another 10 laps, softened again and 10 more laps and so on. I went down as far as 10.0 and then after that run I went to 30. It seemed like it had a little less understeer when at 30 than it felt at 10 which of course would be opposite of what it should be.

So I upped the Front ARB to 40 and ran 10 more laps, posting my fastest time thus far in that car and I was pretty confident that the front ARB was both having less effect than it should and backwards but rather than assume I ran another test with the ARB at 1.0. The car did not really feel any different. I tried one final test with the ARB at 20.0 and again could not feel a difference in fact in the 3 heats one with a setting of 40 then 1 and then 20 my best lap in each heat was within .007 on the other settings.

In other words inconclusive results other than the front ARB setting seems to have very little effect on this car around this track.

Later I will try similar tests with the rear ARB and the the front and rear springs as I really need to get a grip on what is going on in this game related to over/under steer and ARBs

BTW just to be clear, the only changes I made in any of the tests were to the front ARB setting all other settings were left at the defaults and all testing done with simulation steering and no assists enabled.

 

[ImaRobot]

I've always felt that cars that are MR and FR would take the opposite settings considering the engine being in the back and all. Even stock settings on cars show that the rear is usually stiffer with springs. If that is the case, it can make sense for the Indy car, or the Elise as well.

I haven't done the test on an MR vehicle yet, so I'll give it a try.

 

[Im_Lukas]

I'm a bit behind by now but I'll share what I experienced earlier with the M3 and Trans Am, in both cases I added the race ARBs, front and rear, and with the Trans Am I added race springs which I left at default settings.

First I took out the M3 on Road America to match @EddyMaroon and with changes in increments of 5 to the front or rear ARB I could only feel small differences and they were definitely working the way the description said. I then tested the extremes, 1/40 or 40/1 (F/R) and could definitely feel a significant difference in how it held itself round the corners, with 1/40 settings I was struggling a little with mid-corner oversteer and the opposite was true with 40/1 settings where the car just wanted to push wide.

I then took the Trans Am out on Road America, the differences were still as described with the M3 but not as pronounced, and bigger adjustments were needed for the desired effect.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I've always felt that cars that are MR and FR would take the opposite settings considering the engine being in the back and all. Even stock settings on cars show that the rear is usually stiffer with springs. If that is the case, it can make sense for the Indy car, or the Elise as well.

I haven't done the test on an MR vehicle yet, so I'll give it a try.

No they are definitely not opposite in FR and MR. Springs and anti roll bars do work together but not in the way you might think.

Spring rates are based on weight distribution. In a front engine car there is more weight up front so the front springs are stronger, rear engine car has the weight at the back so the rear springs are stronger. ARBs effect the way the weight shifts from one side to the other on their end of the car. Typically softer springs require more ARB and stiffer springs require less and this is because softer springs allow the car to roll more and stiffer ones allow less roll.

In all cases when a car is balanced already then stiffening the front ARB should induce some amount of understeer and the rear should induce some amount of oversteer. Typically the reverse is also true in that softening the front may induce oversteer and softening the rear may induce understeer

On the Lotus it was pretty clear that the front ARB was having very little if any effect at all no matter what I set it to.

If I would have changed the rear also or the springs then some effect would have probably be saw but the test was to see how just the front ARBs were acting and the result was that even with multiple settings and over 100 laps I could not really tell much if any difference at all.

What I have not been able to see in any car thus far is a change to the front ARB that had the effect that I would expect it to have, either the effect has been so small as to not be noticeable or has had a different effect than expected.

 

[ImaRobot]

Spring rates are based on weight distribution. In a front engine car there is more weight up front so the front springs are stronger, rear engine car has the weight at the back so the rear springs are stronger

Yes, this is exactly what I mentioned. The way you set it up would be opposite of that of an FR car.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I'm a bit behind by now but I'll share what I experienced earlier with the M3 and Trans Am, in both cases I added the race ARBs, front and rear, and with the Trans Am I added race springs which I left at default settings.

First I took out the M3 on Road America to match @EddyMaroon and with changes in increments of 5 to the front or rear ARB I could only feel small differences and they were definitely working the way the description said. I then tested the extremes, 1/40 or 40/1 (F/R) and could definitely feel a significant difference in how it held itself round the corners, with 1/40 settings I was struggling a little with mid-corner oversteer and the opposite was true with 40/1 settings where the car just wanted to push wide.

I then took the Trans Am out on Road America, the differences were still as described with the M3 but not as pronounced, and bigger adjustments were needed for the desired effect.

Those 1/40 and 40/1 are drastic changes and should have huge effects on the car, both making it pretty much in drivable 1/40 should induce severe oversteer on that car to the point of not being able to corner at any speed without spinning out. 40/1 should induce so much understeer that the car plows through every corner unless grandma is driving.

Yes, this is exactly what I mentioned. The way you set it up would be opposite of that of an FR car.

If that is what you meant then I missunderstood. I took it to mean that you were thinking that the roll bar settings would need to be altered in a different direction to get the desired results which of course is not the case.

With all cars there is a balance between over and under steering once that balance is reached then changing the ARBs in any direction have an effect to unbalance the car one way or the other.

Does any one other than me posting here have any real life experience or experience in other games where the tuning works properly?


https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/members/im_lukas.135430/
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/members/im_lukas.135430/

 

[ImaRobot]

If that is what you meant then I missunderstood. I took it to mean that you were thinking that the roll bar settings would need to be altered in a different direction to get the desired results which of course is not the case.

With all cars there is a balance between over and under steering once that balance is reached then changing the ARBs in any direction have an effect to unbalance the car one way or the other.

Does any one other than me posting here have any real life experience or experience in other games where the tuning works properly?

Ah, yeah. I was talking about the spring rates, not the ARBS.