The more I play Forza 3, the more I figure out little ways to make my in-game cars work better…
1; Select a couple or five tracks and get to know them inside and out, learn the best lines, the right angles, use these tracks as your “benchmark” tracks, that way you have a consistent frame of reference when testing out new cars, mods, or performance tweaks
my five benchmark tracks are;
Benchmark High Speed Ring - maximum speed and how a car handles at speed
Fujimi Kaido - handling stress test, this track is nothing but hairpin corners
Maple Valley Raceway - a more open, meandering road-style course, just fun to cruise at speed
Nurburgring - because it’s the Nurburgring, and is awesome
LeMans; combination of tight corners and long straightaways
2; When you think you want to buy a new car, go to the “Free Play Hot Lap” mode and test drive it on one or more of your benchmark tracks, that way you won’t end up buying a car you hate
3; Rear Wheel Drive GOOD! (once you get the knack), front wheel drive MEDIOCRE, AWD, sacrifices sharp handling for grip
3a; if you buy a front wheel drive car and it happens to have a drivetrain swap option to RWD, DO IT, even if you have to save up for it, it’s worth it, it balances out the handling and reduces understeer, if you have an AWD car that you can adjust the traction balance, shift it towards the rear wheels as much as possible
4; After you buy a new car, the first upgrades you should do is put grippier tires on it, a race air intake and race exhaust, then a racing weight reduction, you’ll get improved grip, a easier breathing motor, and less unsprung weight for the chassis to carry around
5; when you get better suspension, firm up the ride stiffness until the car starts getting jumpy and/or skittish, then back off a few notches, that will help keep the tires planted more firmly on the ground
6; Supercharging Vs. Turbocharging?, depends on your driving style, first off, I’m a fan of “All Motor” (naturally aspirated, no 'charging), but you need a BIG motor to take advantage of that, if you want to go forced induction, I’ve found that…
1; Turbocharging produces more power at mid-to-high RPMS, if you ted to wind your cars out to the upper end of the RPM band, you’ll probably like turbocharging, the only minor drawback is a slight turbo lag before the turbos kick in, the bigger the turbo, the more lag, if your car supports dual turbos, you’ll get the advantage of a bigger turbo, but using smaller, quicker to spool up turbos, and since turbocharging uses exhaust gasses to spin the turbo impeller, the parasitic drag on the engine is minimal
2; Supercharging produces power across the entire RPM band, and has NO lag at all, as it’s driven by a pulley and belt attached to the crankshaft, the drawback is that the supercharger produces a small parasitic load on the engine, as the motor has to use energy to spin the supercharger, it’s a higher parasitic load than turbocharging, but it’s not too horrible, if you like your cars to have more low-RPM grunt, you’ll probably like supercharging better, as the power is on tap right away
Personally, I prefer the low end grunt and lag-less power of supercharging, I can live with a small parasitic drag if that means I don’t have to deal with turbo lag
aerodynamics (wings, spoilers and body kits) for the most part are useless cosmetic frippery, except for when they’re not, F3 has two different types of aero components in the game, name brand cosmetic mod kits (Wings West, and the like) and dedicated, adjustable “Forza Motorsport” aero kits that you can adjust the downforce settings on, for the most part, I don’t put either of these on my cars, unless I’ve exhausted every other option and the handling is still a little skittish or subpar, then I begrudgingly put them on under protest
99.999% of the cars in my Forza garage are aero/wing-free, and that’s just the way I likes it
What hints have you found are beneficial in your racing sims?