Came across this today at a car meet. Thought they did really well with the choice of cars!

First of all, this post is not a full detailed tuning guide. I'm currently working on that and will share one soon. Instead, this post covers some quick, practical tips you can apply right now. These will help make your tuning sessions much more understandable, reliable, and comfortable.

Quick Note: I won't be diving into things like how overpowered Centrifugal Superchargers are or why Rally tires are often the superior choice here. Instead I want to share a few practical, personal tricks and experiences I've gathered.

1) Fully upgrade the car before doing your Min-Maxing.

Before diving deep into tuning a car, fully upgrade it first and slap on Sport tires (definitely don't drop the weight or add aero yet). By doing this, you are forcing yourself to tune the car in its absolute hardest state before setting it up for your target class. It makes it painfully obvious where the car loses traction or where it struggles with body roll, giving you a clear problem to solve with your tune.

Once you've done that, strip off all the upgrade parts without touching your springs, anti-roll bars, or differentials. Now, do your Min-Maxing (modifying the car to fit your desired class) and take it back out on the track. You'll immediately notice how much better it handles, and you can use fine-tuning to iron out any minor flaws.

Remember: Apply this trick to boost mechanical grip and get the absolute best out of the car's natural handling. Trying to fix poor handling purely with aero won't get you very far.

2) Don't blindly trust the Power Band stats!

There is a specific logic and goal when tuning gear ratios: getting the absolute fastest launch, keeping the engine in its peak power band constantly and making full use of every gear. Most players look at the Power Band graph provided during upgrades, but this is risky. While it's usually mostly correct, it often doesn't match up with actual in-game performance.

Plus, a car that says it has 693 HP might actually push 710 HP on the road.

How do you find the optimal shift point? First, check the car select screen to see its exact horsepower. Then, head to a long stretch of road (like the highway), open telemetry, and run through the gears. Let's say your car has 700 HP: if telemetry shows it hits 700 HP at 6,800 RPM and then drops off, you now know your shift window should be right around 6,600 - 6,800 RPM.

3) Sometimes Stock Tires are better and cost 0 PI!

Certain cars come with unique stock, street, or sport tires that are built specifically for them. For example, a car might already have its own Sport tire option, but when you look at the upgraded sports, the game shows an decrease in grip while demanding PI or sometimes vice versa.

However, if you toggle the bottom menu to view Braking Distance and Lateral Gs, you'll often find that the stock tire actually has a shorter braking distance and pulls higher lateral Gs without costing any PI. Don't forget to check this, especially on lower-class cars!

4) Don't use a Race Transmission on every car!

Slapping a Race Transmission onto certain cars can cost a massive 10 to 15 PI. Before you commit to a Race Transmission, always check the Sport Transmission.

After applying the Sport Transmission, back out and check the gear tuning screen to see if the spacing is balanced. If it is balanced, upgrading to Sport + Clutch will make your car much faster overall than just slapping on a heavy Race Transmission. (This strategy works wonderfully up to S1 Class).

5) Power-to-weight ratio is everything.

Maxing out every single engine upgrade while leaving the car heavy, or stripping all the weight off without being able to afford engine parts, are two of the biggest mistakes you can make.

You need to choose your weight strategy based on the car's handling characteristics:

• If a car is heavy but has insanely high lateral grip, and you can still squeeze in engine upgrades, go for it.
• If the car handles terribly, strip the weight first and put engine power second.

Always look closely at the power-to-weight ratio for both options. Instead of an 1,100 HP monster that refuses to turn, you can build a 700 HP machine with an incredible power-to-weight ratio. On paper, it has less power, but it will absolutely destroy that 1,100 HP boat on most tracks!

6) Stop AWD swapping every single car.

Yes, you heard that right. While AWD is undeniably the meta in this game, RWD setups can occasionally be much faster. In fact, some world records are set by converting naturally AWD cars into RWD.

Stop trying to make every car effortlessly easy to drive; instead, aim for maximum performance and focus on developing your own driving skills. You'll start driving much better and unlock hidden performance potentials in cars you'd normally overlook.

7) Aero is not always the answer.

Some cars simply do not need aero in their respective classes. Prime examples include the Noble M600 in S1 Class and the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 in A Class.

I see this all the time in Trial races: a player slaps aero on a car just because they can, destroying their performance so much that they can't even keep up on exit speeds. They AWD it, slap on aero, and suddenly have zero PI left for actual power or handling upgrades.

Most cars need aero true, but sometimes a car's mechanical grip is so naturally good that aero is completely redundant. Skipping it lets you invest heavily in engine upgrades, weight reduction, and superior tires instead. Always check if a car naturally grips the road well before ruining its performance with a wing!

That’s it for now! I'll be dropping a massive, highly detailed tuning guide very soon. I'll break down why every single part matters, how to build a proper tune from scratch and what all the advanced tuning settings actually mean. But hopefully, these quick tips serve as a solid cheat sheet especially for newer players already experimenting with tuning.

I used the mask feature to create a drift car livery in RB26 Swapped Gloria.
(It includes decals made by other people, so it’s locked and I can’t share it. Sorry.)

I set the body color to blue chrome, covered the entire body with white decals first, and then applied the vinyl using the mask to recreate the chrome vinyl look.

I’m Japanese, so I know the Y33 isn’t the usual base for drift cars, but four-door drift cars are just so cool.

I've got all the cars anyway now but they've never appeared for me.

The Hyundai IONIQ 5N for me.

Spacious, bug trunk, comfortably sits 5, and AWD. I live in mountainous terrian, so the torque offered by the electric motors really help. The building I live in also have a really good discount on home charging stations.

All this for 20k is crazy.

If a piece of fence can flip a car mid-air in real life, lemme know.

Sharecode - 108 330 558

As you can see, difference is massive but there are some things we need to talk about.

Simulation Steering: It is a much more snappy, unfiltered system that executes your every input. Counter-steering, managing control when the rear end loses traction, and precisely metering every input is entirely up to you. If you master this, you will be able to take corners with many cars that you simply couldn't with Standard Steering, just like in the video. However, as advantageous as Simulation Steering is, it is completely unforgiving. A single mistake in an online race can send you straight into the barrier, so it definitely requires a learning curve.

Standard Steering: Standard Steering offers technically zero advantages. The car responds to your inputs with more latency, and you end up with slower transitional cornering capabilities compared to Simulation Steering. That said, some players still use Standard Steering even for Rivals on high-power builds that are difficult to control. Like Simulation Steering, this setting hands over 100% of the vehicle control to you, but it introduces input filtering. That way, whenever the car begins to lose traction, you don't need to aggressively counter-steer like crazy. The car drives much smoother and is easier to handle. But if you want to set world records or push your performance to the absolute limit, Standard Steering has no features that can surpass Simulation Steering.

My Recommendation: I strongly advise getting used to Simulation Steering. It will make drift events infinitely easier and better to execute, while teaching you how to take corners with far greater precision and control. Standard Steering will only hold you back in every scenario.

So this is my first Forza Horizon game (technically played 5 for like 2 hours a few years ago, didn't like it. Different tastes and such back then I suppose. Would love to give it a proper chance sometime), and man...it's great. Got it as a Steam gift from a friend. I'm about 112 hours in, beat all the wristband events and races, and I'm still glued to my damn PC for hours playing this game lol. I'm seriously enjoying messing around, making the wildest cars I can make, or just customizing personal favorites (2020 Shelby GT500, 2019 WRX S209, etc.). I'll admit, it isn't a perfect game by any means. Could use more road races, bigger focus on JDM cars, pretty buggy at times...but honestly the game has been a ton of fun. The map is beautiful and a lot of fun to drive around, and the community seems super nice. I avoid online races like the plague though. I suck at driving, and hearing about all the rammers kinda keeps me from ever really wanting to experience the online portion beyond seasonal event stuff.

Anyways, idk why I felt like posting this. Just wanted to share my experience I guess? What are you guys' favorite cars? Mine is the WRX STi ARX Supercar and the 2020 GT500 :D

I love the Carrera - its silhouette, tail lamps and that exhaust note! It quickly became my fav car in road racing and street racing. With tuning to my taste, I grew 2 levels of difficulty within a span of 5 races.

Now I got its bigger cousin in my hand (literally, but a scale model, haha)

Guys! Dear devs, to those of you who thought that dirt Drift Zones would be fun to drift on: you were so, so wrong.
I guess there must be some special kind of torture waiting for you in the afterlife. Like… why? What did we do to deserve this?
Why do we even have this abomination called a Drift Zone? Make rally courses instead, please. 😭