Tuning your car for speed and realism

[Arya]

Dirt 4 is an interesting game. The core physics are pretty good, but the default setups are so abominable that you're unlikely to ever feel that. We've had plenty of threads already exclaiming "tune yer setup yer eejit!" but what does that actually mean, and what do all these slider-bars do? I hope to help at least a few of you get your heads around that.

Now as a disclaimer, I'm not a mechanic. I'm sure there'll be veterans reading this and screaming internally - and I would absolutely encourage them to scream externally into this thread. Please - if you've got better knowledge, holla out. Let's share it around and get people driving better.

Right.

First of all, we need to understand what is wrong with the default setup. On most cars, they've been deliberately set up to Understeer. Understeer is when you turn the steering wheel, and the car doesn't turn as it should. And it's a huge problem: not only is Understeer boring and unrealistic, it's also costing you seconds a stage and making the car dangerous at high speeds.

So how do we fix that? You can "dial" understeer out of a car by adjusting the Wheel Alignment, the Differential and the Suspension. I know there are a whole bunch of sliders and that's daunting, but once the understand the effects it's pretty easy. Don't feel intimidated.

Always start by running a Shakedown with the default setup, so you know what you're starting with. And then run more Shakedowns each time you make a major adjustment - it's important to keep track of how your changes are effecting the car. When you first start out, you could try setting a particular bar to zero, running a shakedown and then setting it to max and running again, as a way of finding out how each bar effects the handling.

I recommend starting with a car from the '70s or '80s, because they respond really well to tuning and have fewer bars. The Peugeot 205 GTi and Ford Escort MKII are great choices, they're relatively cheap, fun to drive, and respond really well to minor setup improvements.

[Arya]

Step 1: Wheel Alignment

Wheel Alignment is exactly what it sounds like, adjustments that effect how the wheel attaches to the car, and the car's stance on the road. These are a great place to start, since the effects are huge and there are only ever four slide-bars to worry about.

Camber is the vertical alignment, and it directly effects Grip. Adding more Negative Camber increases grip, especially at high speed. Removing Negative Camber increases straight-line braking and acceleration grip. Normally you want a lot of Negative Camber at the front, settings between -1.50 and -2.50 are normally. At the rear, you'll typically run slightly less. Maybe -1.00 to -2.00. Remember that 4X4 and RWD cars need rear grip to accelerate, so don't go too crazy.

Toe is the horizontal alignment, and it effects Responsiveness. Unlike camber, Toe is very sensitive and even a little tweak here can go a long way to improve handling. At the front, Toe-In improves agility and steering response. Toe-Out makes the front feel lazier.

Rear Toe settings are the exact direct opposite to front. Toe-In makes the rear more stable, Toe-Out makes it snappier and more agile. Don't go crazy, even a few tens of a degree can be a big help around tight and twisty tracks.

Step 2: Suspension

Suspension effects how your car goes over bumps. It also effects how much Body Roll it has, and how it behaves when you throw it into corners. Basic suspension adjustments can improve grip and make your car less likely to spin. More advanced tweaks can transform the handling, and the Escort MKII is probably the best car possible to play with, thanks to an extremely adaptable chassis.

Basic suspension tuning means adjusting your Springs and Dampers and Ride Height to suit your current Event. Increase the Ride Height and Soften the Springs(Spring Rate) and Dampers(just grab all those bars and shove 'em left) to improve grip and handling on rough dirt roads. This makes a very big difference to your mid-corner speed, especially once you add Negative camber.

Damatically lower the Ride Height, Stiffen the Springs & Dampers and pile on the Negative Camber to improve handling on Tarmac, and get your fully sick Subie onto the cover of Stances. Again, you're potentially going to gain a couple of seconds per stage, maybe even more.

Advanced suspension tuning means changing the overall handling traits of the car. Anti-Roll bars make a huge difference to how your car handles. You need to think of them as a balance, rather than seperate settings. This is called the Roll-Center, and it dramatically effects handling.

Stiff Anti-Rolls at the front and Soft at the back makes the car more stable and predictable, but also costs grip. Doing this on an FWD car is bordering on dangerous, since it can lift a front wheel off the ground - I've only had two Terminal crashes so far, and they were both caused by this effect.

Soft Anti-Rolls at the front and Stiff at the back creates a "tight" setup and increases Oversteer. This is absolutely ideal for "Straight" driving styles, and the tendency to oversteer also makes it easier to initiate a drift. This type of setup is common on road performance cars and race cars, for a good reason. Around Michigan's fast bends I gained between 5 and 15 seconds per stage after making this adjustment on my Peugeot 205.

[Screebing For Vengeance]

This is more of a personal style thing, but brake bias adjustment can help a ton. I tend to favor rear brake bias on every car I drive, solely because it helps induce oversteer during braking. It can be difficult to get used to, because if you're not careful when you tweak it the car can get really unstable and twitchy, but with a bit of fiddling and practice it makes it incredibly easy (and fun) to pitch the car into a corner, tap the brakes, and shift the back end out so you slide through turns while throwing massive dust clouds. I'm not going to claim it'll make you a super pro driver or help you set amazing leaderboard times, but it's fun as hell once you get it figured out and adjusted to your liking :D

[Arya]

Originally posted by T1g4h:

This is more of a personal style thing, but brake bias adjustment can help a ton. I tend to favor rear brake bias on every car I drive, solely because it helps induce oversteer during braking. It can be difficult to get used to, because if you're not careful when you tweak it the car can get really unstable and twitchy, but with a bit of fiddling and practice it makes it incredibly easy (and fun) to pitch the car into a corner, tap the brakes, and shift the back end out so you slide through turns while throwing massive dust clouds. I'm not going to claim it'll make you a super pro driver or help you set amazing leaderboard times, but it's fun as hell once you get it figured out and adjusted to your liking :D

It depends on the chassis, but rear brake bias makes a lot of sense of twistier tracks.

Another solution would be to soften the front spring-rates a bit and then adjust the anti-roll bars. This would give you a lot of Dive, a bit like a Rallycross Lites car. It creates a similar kind of oversteer under brakes, but only when the axles are out of line with eachother.

[Carbune]

You'd be best off making this a proper guide I think. Good effort though.

[Arya]

Originally posted by Coffer:

You'd be best off making this a proper guide I think. Good effort though.

A full guide is coming. But I'm thowing this out here now because I know it'll get more eyeballs here.

[allan766]

Originally posted by 狼 Wolfey:

Originally posted by Coffer:

You'd be best off making this a proper guide I think. Good effort though.

A full guide is coming. But I'm thowing this out here now because I know it'll get more eyeballs here.

please give us a guide for 4wd and rwd. i like group A and B cars but i don't know how to tweak it.

[Arya]

Originally posted by allan766:

please give us a guide for 4wd and rwd. i like group A and B cars but i don't know how to tweak it.

RWD cars are pretty straightforward, since you only have a single Diff and it's at the back.

At the front, I recommend lots of Negative Camber. You're only using that axle to steer and stop, so there's no need to compromise. -2.00 and above are just fine. You don't necessarily need Toe-In but a small amount can help on tighter stages.

At the rear I recommend a compromise camber setup, since your back axle is carrying 200+ horsepower and you need strong acceleration. I normally have neutral rear Toe, since it can make RWD cars unpredictable and can be downright dangerous on mid-engine models like the Lancia Stratos.

Anti-Rolls should always be biased rear, meaning the rear Anti-Roll bars are stiffer than the front. Don't judge by where the slider is, check the actual number and make sure the rear is set higher than the front. The ratio of stiffness on the Anti-Roll bars sets the basic handling of the car: having the rear stiffer than the front gives you extra grip on the front axle, and dramatically improves your handling through mid and fast corners, at a minor cost to stability. The softer the front relative to the rear, the more extreme that becomes. Try a few shakedowns with different settings until you find the sweet spot - it's different for every car and driving style.

Springs and Dampers are terrain specific. You'll want to run extreme-hard for Tarragona, medium settings for Michigan, soft for Australia and very soft for Wales.

As for differential, it depends on the rest of your setup. A lot of Driving Lock will increase your grip coming out of corners, but once you reach 45% lock it can create a little bit of understeer in slow corners. Running a lot of Driving Lock also makes the car more controllable and much more capable in a drift, allowing you to completely sidestep any slow-speed understeer by using the handbrake.

A more Open diff(Less than 35% driving lock) allows you to turn in hard at full throttle, and prevents any problems with low-speed understeer. The catch is, you can't drift a car with a fully open rear diff - it just makes a lot of noise and spins one wheel. Normally I run a very locked Diff on gravel stages, and change to an open diff for tarmac.

I can't give any specific information for Group B 4X4 yet. I only reached the class last night, and I'm still getting familiar with my first Group B car - the MG 6r4. From what I've seen so far, the Mid-Engine config makes them handle a bit like a Rallycross Lites car. You have outstanding turn-in even with the default setup, and adding extra oversteer could destabilise the handling. Right now I'm running mostly default settings, although with a lot more Front Camber and slightly adjusted Anti Rolls.

[CrazyHunterXIII]

I have a few issues...settings like camber angle, toe (in/out) and various others aren't there as in I go into the tune setup on my lancer evo 6 and there are missing settings

Nvm...figured it out what was making these settings missing. Didn't know handling style is supposed to be set to simulation