NEW FM3 Calc - in depth

Hmmm, just used this on my S700 Lexus LFA and it completely ruined the handling! It drove better stock. Maybe I'm missing something out...

Any better than Forza Tune Magic? I swear by that thing, plus I can use it on my phone

its an evolving work in progress plus free and is SOOOOO much more configurable:

You need to enter on the first sheet on the left:

PI
Engine Position
Drive Type
Power
Torque
Curb Weight
Front Weight
Displacement
Power RPM
Torque RPM
Redline RPM

FRONT
Tire Width
Aspect Ratio
Rim Size

REAR
Tire Width
Aspect Ratio
Rim Size
Lateral G's
Top Speed
Launch Override
Car Width

And on the right enter:

Anti-roll Bars
Strength
Front Bias

Springs
Strength
Front Bias

Rebound Stiffness
Strength
Front Bias

Bump Stiffness
Strength
Front Bias

Aero
Minimum Downforce
Maximum Downforce
Strength
Front Bias

all of these on the right you can edit and play with ;O)

On the third tab, Transmission, you can select 4, 5 or 6 gears and it tunes the box accordingly.

4th tab is tyre (tire) dynamics which you can play with:

Frequency Override (Hz)
Motion Ratio
Damping Ratio

Car widths are on the car list tab
Lateral G's can be taken when you press a to add a new part in upgrades

I don't believe in these tuning calculators. I tried it once on my maserati gransport on forza 2 and it made the car so much worse than the tune I created for it.

Its not for everyone of course but what I would suggest is to practice quite often in test drive mode and make slight changes to the set-up. Start with the tyre pressures and then once you're happy, move to the next one. Change one thing at a time and don't change everything at once otherwise you're going to ruin the way the car goes into the corners and the straights. One advice I could give is not run both the anti-roll bars and suspension too stiff or too soft. You want something in between. Basically, if you have the anti-roll bar too soft, the car won't be very responsive and it will feel quite slow going through the corners.

Once you get a good base set-up, slightly tweek things like the downforce and gear ratio's to suit different circuits. Thats basically what I have done on my Lola Aston Martin and it's brilliant at every track I have been too so far.

However if you are still struggling, then I am more than willing to help you out. I am here to stay in TORA and I'm going to do as much as I can to help.

Nothing really beats understanding what the parts of the car actually do, and how changing their settings affect the handling, however these calculators can give you a good starting point. They certainly aren't a magical solution - put this tune on and you'll have a leaderboard car, but as I said, a good starting point. Usually.

I started to learn the "mechanics" of car tuning using this website:

http://diy-racetuning.net/

...which goes a way to helping you understand what effect the changes you are making are having, and how to diagnose your car's handling before trying to cure a problem. Read through the "DIY Tuning" section first, before trying their walkthrough.

If you want to get reeeeally in depth, then see if you can pick up a copy (I know for certain there is a Rapidshare PDF out there, because I have it, but won't put the link here) of Tune To Win by Carroll Smith.

Another good book is Speed Secrets by Ross Bentley, which goes into depth about driving techniques that can help to improve your speed.

If you can't find these online (a short Google search should turn them up), drop me a PM.

VVV Magictap wrote:http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/thread/3200749.aspx

Got to say Magic I have been using this caultaor for a while now and it is far better than the others I have tried, gives you a great base tune and then you can fine tune, yes not every 1 will see an imprvement as every 1 drivers diffrently but well worth a go.

This isn't a normal tuning calc. It also has help boxes in the advanced options that tell you what everything you change actually does to the vehicle. You're basically inch by inching the vehicle as you would if you were tuning without a calculator. It's in front of you as a whole instead of trying to remember everything and having 22 save files since you can save the individual spreadsheets on your computer.

downloaded this last night.. I've been struggling with Forzatune to get the car to stop understeering..

I like this one a lot.. the car seems better set-up. Tried it for both my P1 and GTC cars.

Couple of questions

the launch value.. is derived from doing standing starts and seeing the point where i get the least wheelspin off the line?

I want to make my car oversteer - http://diy-racetuning.net/ says to tweak the ARB settings. So am i correct just putting a manual override % on the front page should do this on this spreadsheet on the ARB? Or do i need to take anything else into account?

about to pop out but if noone comes back ti you before im on again i'll have a look mate later

If you want oversteer you can adjust a lot of stuff. It really depends on where your car is actually understeering. Entry, mid corner, exit, high speed, low speed, under braking, or when you lift the throttle. It could just be your gearing and you're not running enough rpms when going through the corner.

by launch value if you mean launch override then that's the 1st gear number in the gearing bit on first tab. Yup, raise value to increase traction force and lower to increase speed in gear.

On the over steer bit as Worms post above it depends on what and where you want it plus other things can be adjusted to effect it, but to keep it simple and relate to what you've asked.

The ARB settings on the calc, for strength %, raise the value to increase corning force, lower to increase turn entry oversteer / using the Bias % raise value to increase understeer and lower to increase oversteer

VVV worm wrote:If you want oversteer you can adjust a lot of stuff. It really depends on where your car is actually understeering. Entry, mid corner, exit, high speed, low speed, under braking, or when you lift the throttle. It could just be your gearing and you're not running enough rpms when going through the corner.

Thanks worm – I went back to stock with the gears and the car handled much better through the corners.. it did feel like I was in the wrong gear..

VVV Magictap wrote:by launch value if you mean launch override then that's the 1st gear number in the gearing bit on first tab. Yup, raise value to increase traction force and lower to increase speed in gear.

On the over steer bit as Worms post above it depends on what and where you want it plus other things can be adjusted to effect it, but to keep it simple and relate to what you've asked.

The ARB settings on the calc, for strength %, raise the value to increase corning force, lower to increase turn entry oversteer / using the Bias % raise value to increase understeer and lower to increase oversteer

Thanks Matt.. I just learning this stuff.. although I am managing to combine to of my loves Forza and spreadsheets. What I’m trying now is using the spreadsheet as the stock set-up, testing it and thinking where I need to change it.

Chris wrote:http://diy-racetuning.net/

If you want to get reeeeally in depth, then see if you can pick up a copy (I know for certain there is a Rapidshare PDF out there, because I have it, but won't put the link here) of Tune To Win by Carroll Smith.

Another good book is Speed Secrets by Ross Bentley, which goes into depth about driving techniques that can help to improve your speed.

If you can't find these online (a short Google search should turn them up), drop me a PM.

This is really helping me understand where to change… thanks Chris for showing where to get the PDFs from.. oh and by the way I’ve ordered the books off amazon!

I’m just trying now to get to grips with individual track requirements – Nurburgring GP is proving to be a bumpy problem.. but tweaking the suspension %'s seems to be helping me.

Spreadsheet is great.. I'm now in the process of creating a Garage data sheet folder with all my current TORA comp cars.