FWD Tuning Guide

All essential information for adjusting your FWD car.
This guide will be updated with more information as I discover FWD.

You can find me here:
Twitch[www.twitch.tv]
YouTube

Intro

This guide will explain every aspect of adjusting your FWD car for competitive racing.

Сheck out my guide about general tuning settings for better understanding:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3326252601

FWD cars available in game

Civic FK8

• Fastest FWD in the game.
  
• One of the best engines in the game, great torque overall and lightweight.
  
• Super stable chassis that handles great, can have a bit of understeer.
  
• Likes widebody, otherwise prone to roll over.
  
• Can get out of 6:35,000 on C5 Goliath TA as of 27/04/2025.
  
• Very competitive in multiplayer.

Focus ST MK4

• 2nd fastest FWD in the game.
  
• Lightest engine in the game with great torque/HP graph that can rival FK8.
  
• Chassis is almost immune to roll over, doesn't require widebody.
  
• Handles better than FK8, but suspension tuning is a bit trickier to set up.
  
• Can get out of 6:39,000 on Goliath C5 TA as of 27/04/2025.
  
• Competitive in multiplayer.

Golf GTI MK7

• Shares 2nd fastest FWD title with Focus.
  
• Engine is not as good as on FK8 or Focus, but still very potent.
  
• Hadling is good but very tricky to set right.
  
• Can be made particularly lightweight.
  
• Bonus: can use 2.5 L 5 cylinder TFSI from Audi TT RS.
  
• Could probably get under 6:40,000 on Goliath C5 TA.
  
• Competitive in multiplayer.

Eclipse MK2

• An overall good car.
  
• The engine is potent.
  
• The handling is decent, not on the level of the previous 3.
  
• You won't be making records with this one, but it won't let you down either.
  
• Could be competitive in multiplayer.

Mini Cooper JCW F56

• A car with a great handling.
  
• The engine underperforms, it lacks torque on medium range.
  
• Torque steer or wheelspins are nonexistent on this car, partially due to the lower torque of the engine.
  
• Doesn't really require widebody, however you can lower it further with DMaster.
  
• Can get under 900 kg weight, but not advised, since it loses even more power and torque that way.
  
• Could be competitive in multiplayer.

RSX

• The engine gets most of its torque and power in high RPM range.
  
• No torque steer or wheel spin.
  
• Not sufficient torque throughout the majority of the RPM range.
  
• Handling is great, but the car is prone to roll over even with widebody.
  
• Not competitive in multiplayer, can even struggle with singleplayer.

Civic EG6

• Engine suffers from the same problems as RSX, not enough torque.
  
• Handles decently, but not great.
  
• Can be made lighter than 1 tonne, not adviseable.
  
• Has a tendency to understeer from the lockup of brakes.
  
• Widebody doesn't do much, the car doesn't roll over.
  
• Not competitive in multiplayer, can even struggle with singleplayer.

Civic EK9

• Engine gets most torque on highest RPM.
  
• Great front weight distribution ranging from 64-66 %.
  
• Amazing handling due to weight distribution, perfect for touge runs.
  
• Heavily underpowered on straights.
  
• Widebody not required.
  
• Not competitive in multiplayer, can even struggle with singleplayer.

Lada Samara / VAZ 2108

• Collectible car with high downforce.
  
• As a collectible, can only be made for 1 class at once.
  
• Underpowered engine with low top speed.
  
• Handles great due to high front downforce.
  
• Lacks proper shocks settings, the range is limited.
  
• Can be made lightest vehicle in the game, not adviseable.
  
• Overall this car can be somewhat competitive, but FK8, Focus or Golf are still better choices.

Styling before tuning!

Yes your read this right, you need to style your car before you start tinkering with parts.
If you read my tuning guide, you would know that you should start adjusting your cars from wheels. Some FWD cars need fine adjustments in track width and ride height. They also benefit from having wide front track.

Installing some bodykits can allow you for wider front and rear tracks by default.

Some bodykits also have higher fenders, which will allow you to clearly see how much you can lower your car.

Tuning

Wheels

Always start with the wheels, as they will determine your ride height.

Spacers - always go for adjustable Ultimates, FWD needs track width adjustments.
Wheels - square setup, the minimum width required for 1.08 grip coefficient is 265, so use it at least. I tend to setup all my cars with 285 width, front and rear.
Tires - Racing, any that give you 30-35% profile.
Tuning: 3 bar pressure on all wheels / spacers adjusted to your bodykit. Wheels should be flush.

Explanation: Square setup is more consistent and showed best results after testing. You can run staggered setup too, but correct differential, brake bias and suspension setups will give you the right amount of oversteer with stable square setup.

Body

We skipped suspension intentionally. As we will adjust our body weight, the load on springs and dampers will change, so it makes sense to adjust your weight before suspension settings.

Body swap - go as low as possible, but bear in mind, that there's also body weight reduction and fuel tank that affect your weight.
Body weight reduction - Ultimate, biggest range for making your car lighter or heavier (for fine BoP adjustments).
Fuel tank - While it lowers the center of gravity, it can shiftsweight on the back, reducing front axle traction.
Front aero - Ultimate, maxed out.
Rear aero - Racing or Elite. Adjust the pressure according to your rear axle's grip.
Try to stick to a weight of around 1000 kg.

Explanation: When dealing with FWD, more power is detrimental, as you will have a hard time putting it down on the road. When accelerating, the weight shifts backwards, which unloads front wheels and they struggle getting grip. By reducing power, you lower the torque at wheels and you give yourself a better start. Always prioritize weight reduction over power upgrades. All of my cars in C5 had stage 4 weight reduction. Bear in mind that you still can go "too low" on weight. I generally setup my cars all around 1000 - 1030 kg range. Go higher and you'll have too much power and inertia, go lower and the car will be too underpowered and unstable.
Fuel tank should be stock or street, otherwise too much weight will go backwards and hinder your handling.
Front aero helps to keep extra downforce on your front driving wheels.
Rear aero is not completely useless, it keeps rear planted, but the excess of downforce on the back will provoke understeer, which is already present in FWD.

Suspension

Here you will find general settings that will help you to start.

Spring stiffness - 65% of range in front, 100% in the back.
Springs length - as low as you can go, without visually altering camber.
Stabilizers (ARB) - values ranging 50-70 in front, maximum at rear.
Camber - up to -6 in front, -5,5 in rear.
Caster - lowest possible.
Ackerman - 90/100.
Steering angle - 25-30.
Wheel toe - 0 front and rear!
Dampers - adjust starting from slow bump. Use following ratios: X / 0.5X / 2X / X. Front 65-70%, rear 100%.
Braking force - maxed out.
Front braking force - 44-48% for most cars will do the job.

Explanation: Stiff suspension in rear, as well as ARB, help the car rotate more. Camber is needed on both axles for optimal grip. Rear camber values lower than -3,5 will make handling less predictable. Bigger caster angle is not needed, as we already have good camber values and making steering less responsive on a car with understeer is not a good idea.
Wheel toe at 0 is optimal value. You adjust your turn in with Ackermann steering and oversteer with other settings.
Damper values go hand in hand with spring values. Usually your rear dampers will have values close to their 100%.
Brake bias should be adjusted more to rear, to balance out overall stopping power and help the car turn while braking. Too much front brake bias will make your car less eager to turn on braking and will make your braking distance longer as the front wheels will be overloaded. You should adjust it according to your static weight distribution.

Transmission

Transmission swap - T50S, T70, 8-speed.
Clutch - Prototype.
Differential - only Ultimate.
Gearbox - Prototype.

You can use the ratios you find on the internet for any specific car, but this is suboptimal.

How to properly setup gearing:

1. Recreate torque graph from the game on your adjusted car in Google Sheets, Excel, Calc.
   
2. Calculate HP graph from torque values.
   
3. Calculate torque on wheels on each gear and combine graphs for the whole range.
   
4. See what's the optimal point to shift and adjust gear ratios accordingly.

Here's the video in which I briefly explain the principle:

Explanation: This is section that requires time. Always start with swap, because if you do in other order, after swapping you will lose all installed parts! T50S offers best weight and best shifting delays. However, T70 and swappable 8-speeds offer comparable shifting delays and minimize power losses by allowing your engine to stay in the best RPM range.
Clutch and gearbox on Prototype give the best results.

After inventory update differential choice is limited to Ultimate.

Welded is fast, but locks both of your wheels together and induces even more understeer on acceleration and braking. This creates point and shoot setup, that doesn't forgive any mistakes from driver. It's too unreliable, but can be fast.
VLSD works only on acceleration, but not coast or braking. This will potentially make you slower, as FWD relies on locking on coast.
Elite is the chopped version of Ultimate with restricted ranges.
Ultimate is the best, as it allows to enable or disable lock on acceleration and/or coast. It also has the widest range of preload settings available. All of the other versions are worse.

Engine

This section will not be detailed with part levels, as this is the less important part in FWD cars.
Reasons:
1) The more power you have, the less traction you will get. Low power is beneficial for us.
2) We already went with prioritizing weight, so engine parts will simply balance out your build.
3) Some cars can be fine with completely stock engine, think of C2-C3 classes.

Explanation: Engine parts will depend on the "room" left for your rating.
Always prioritize the torque on low and mid RPM, only after that try to improve the torque on high RPM.

Each setup will be dependent on engine graph, but overall, the general priority of parts would be the following:

1. Engine heads
   
2. Engine block
   
3. Exhaust and exhaust manifold
   
4. Fuel system
   
5. Camshafts
   
6. Intake
   
7. ECU
   
8. Turbo

Turbo should be the last thing to install. Usually you will need it if you aim for a high class and your car doesn't have enough power-to-weight ratio to get into desired class. Don't skip Sport Turbo, as it gives a huge rating boost to NA cars.

Traction control, yay or nay?

Traction control is an option you can bind to a button and use to your convenience when needed.

The principle is easy to understand, once one wheel starts to spin, traction control applies brakes to that wheel, which helps regaining traction.

While in theory it would make you faster and more stable, it slows you down and acts more like a bandaid. If you experience excessive wheel spin, the best would to try to reduce it via suspension setup, proper gearing and differential settings.

Driving technique

FWD driving technique with described setup will be quite agressive. Compared to well tuned RWD and AWD car, FWD will have more understeer. You need to adjust your driving accordingly.

On launch either use TC and/or keep your gas input slightly above 50% in order to regain grip fast.

Maybe a personal preference, but I would advise to do tight turns with proper braking instead of using handbrake.

Every time you brake or lift the gas, your front wheels receive more grip. You feel like you're not going to make a wide high speed turn? Lift off the gas and watch your car return to the intended line.
You carry to much speed in a chicane or a hairpin? Brake slightly for the front wheels to regain traction. This behaviour is very natural.

Gas pedal is also your tool. Every time you want your car to shoot out of the corner, press the gas. Somebody tries to ram you out of an online race? Press the gas and get back in action.
Unlike with RWD, you don't have to wait for the corner exit and feather the gas pedal, once your front wheels are near the apex, you can floor it and have a fast corner exit.

Your typical corner entry on moderate speed should be like throwing your car.
Instead of modulating braking and accelerating out of the apex, as in RWD, in FWD you brake hard for a brief moment, use steering input agressively and then lift off the gas. By doing so, your car will rotate more, then it would with constant braking or gas input.

Below is the best of my runs around the track on a FK8 Civic. This time has been set before the prototype parts update.

Note the input indicator that shows you how I work with brakes and accelerator around corners.

Civic FK8 build

Here you can find a detailed explanation of my Civic FK8 build.

Outro

Thank you for your attention.

If you have any question, ask it in the comments.

[<#0ef>Step]

I decided to close it.

[Osmustis]

Hey Step, did you delete the tuning discord or was I kicked for inactivity or something like that? Your guides are really helpfull and I enjoyed following the discussions about carxstreet in your little discord community :)

[<#0ef>Step]

@samuisback, thank you for your comment, I really appreciate it.

[samusisback]

hi, just a little comment about an error. the eclipse it technicly not good in term of model. it's not a gsx as the gsx is awd and the one in the game is fwd. it could be a gst but it ahs the 4g64 wich is a 2.4L non turbo motor. the problem is that there were never sold like that as much as i know. only convertible non turbo eclipse ever came with the 4g64. all the fwd non convertible eclipse were equip with the 420a 2.0L non turbo from chrysler.

[わざとじゃなか]

Большое спасибо за очень нужный и интересный гайд, он сильно помог в настройке.
Было бы круто увидеть на твое ютуб канале видио с остльных тайм атак, особенно на тоге, спасибо за контент.

[<#0ef>Step]

Спасибо за отзыв. Рад что смог помочь.

[Kuvi]

Спасибо за туториал, ты реально очень сильно помог. Помимо того, что ты дал настройки, ты ещё и рассказал как нужно настраивать, что бы в дальнейшем не пришлось открывать руководство по несколько раз и дальше сам смог настроить машину под себя. Огромный респект тебе