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TOE TUNING FOR FORZA MOTORSPORT

TOE - HOW SHOULD WE USE IT IN OUR TUNES?

First thing I'd like to say is that I am the Toe Meister. If I had the luxury of starting DIY from scratch, today...I think I'd change my user name to DIY Toe Meister. That's how much I love toe. Let's break the discussion down in terms of drive types:

Rear Wheel Drive - RWD
All Wheel Drive - AWD

(I don't really deal with FWD but the principles of toe for AWD pretty much apply)

Let's deal with RWD first. What we need to be cognizant of is that RWD cars generally turn in better on entry and are prone to oversteer on turn exit.

Here's a little insight into toe settings for RWD cars:

"Toe settings at the rear have essentially the same effect on wear, directional stability and turn-in as they do on the front. However, it is rare to set up a rear-drive race car toed out in the rear, since doing so causes excessive oversteer, particularly when power is applied."

'Smithees race Car Technologies' - http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/align.html

I'm not in the business of preaching absolutes in tuning, but I think I'll make an exception here:

NEVER EVER, EVER TOE OUT REAR WHEELS ON A RWD CAR

(There I said it)

I'm a personal fan of RWD cars, especially of the mid-engine variety (which is why we all quit Forza 3 around here). On pretty much all of my RWD set-ups I'm going to mimic the sentiments of the above quoted text and toe-in my rear wheels. As we improve our driving, we can set our cars up for more oversteer. The fastest guys in Forza prefer a little power-on oversteer in their set-ups. 'Throttle steer' helps get the car to rotate better. The faster we get the car to rotate, the sooner we can put the power down on corner exit. Rear toe-in helps us put the power down! The amount of rear toe I like to run is in the 0.2-0.4 in. Too much rear toe-in will eventually cause understeer in mid corner, and you'll have trouble getting the car to rotate.

As for front toe, for the most part, when dealing with RWD, 0.2 to about 0.5 toe out is my range. If you look at the defaults on the purpose built race cars in this game, they sport a front toe of 0.5*out. Don't forget, on your production cars, they're not purpose built for racing like the LMPs and whatnot, so when you drive your Shelby Mustang Cobra off the showroom floor, you're getting a street alignment, which is 0.0-0.0 toe. Cars come off the showroom toeless because they wear tires faster. This is Forza Motorsport 4 and we're racing, so we don't care about tire wear. And unless you're doing endurance races online, with pitstops, tire wear is inconsequential. So anyway, if the default racing alignment is 0.5* of toe out, we should presume it's for a reason, so let's not ignore the facts.

When you set-up your car and run hotlaps against your ghost and you're looking for a 'super tweak' don't be shy adding an extra click or two of toe-out. You'll be surprised at the results. Here's the deal: You're looking for balance, but need the car to turn in. The problem is a lot of RWD cars have corner entry push and are loose on exit. It's the toughest kind of car to balance. It's a tough fix because the looser you make the front on your RWD, the more oversteer you get in the back on corner exit. Rather than fiddling with the ARBs and suspension, just toe out the front wheels a bit to get the car to turn in, and keep your front-to-rear balance intact.

Dealing with AWD cars I treat them essentially the same way up front. They have a lot going on. On the front tires they are pushy by nature so it's pretty much an automatic that I'll be toeing out my front wheels. This is due to the fact there are driven wheels at the front axle, so they're taxed not only by braking and cornering, but by accelerating as well. A toe out alignment will give us much needed initial turn in and get those tires pointing into the corner.

As for toe on the rear wheels, I pretty much never toe-in the rear wheels on an AWD car. Most often I run neutral toe and utilize my LSD, anti roll bar, and suspension settings to get the back end rotation I need. I'd only toe out my rear wheels as a last resort on an AWD car if other fixes didn't work. Power on oversteer is usually a good thing with AWD, so from this perspective, toe out might work on a very pushy AWD car. But first I'd try to get the back end to rotate by increasing the acceleration setting on the rear differential, as well as biasing the torque split toward the rear tires. My feeling is that neutral rear toe will allow me to put the power down more effectively with less tire scrub, while allowing my LSD to get the rear end rotation I need.

The great thing about using things like the LSD and alignment settings is you can get good results without having to resort to disrupting the balance of the car as you would by playing with ARBs and suspension.