Learning Forza2 - Setting Up Your Car

Posted by: ncasolo

Written by Ryan "Solo" Terpstra, Lead Forza2 Feature Writer

Welcome back Core fans to this week's edition of Forza Fundamentals.

So far we've covered some of the different scoreboards and competitive online environments for Forza and introduced you to the basics of playing the game. Now it's time to help you be a bit more competitive. For those of you picking up the game for the first time knowing what car to use and how to upgrade it can be intimidating. With thousands of different combinations possible for each car this week's article should give you a good place to start.

The first thing you'll want to determine when you're setting up your car is what type of track you're setting it up for. New York, Sebring, and Sunset Infield are good examples of tracks that require a little bit of handling but are going to be more conductive to power than handling. The reverse of that is true of a track such as Leguna Seca or Mugello where the premium is on handling. When you're trying to figure out what you want to do with each and every last point of PI (Performance Index) knowing what type of track you're setting the car up for is critical.

We'll start by going over a setup I have for New York that always surprises people when I pick the car before the race. The New York track is essentially two drag strips connected on one end by a hairpin turn and on the other end by a 90 degree turn with a short straight and a roundabout. For this track the only thing that matters is speed and acceleration. I have an A-class VW Beetle that will burn pretty much any car off the line and outrun almost any non-leaderboard car. People laugh until they realize this AWD car has 530 hp and an acceleration rating of 8.5. Almost any A-class online lobby requires traction control be turned off so people don't use the 1969 Dodge Charger which settles into A-class with just short of 1,100 horse power and racing muscle cars is more like CGS racing than clean racing. The Charger has the speed but a lobby with 8 of those quickly turns into an 8 car pile up in the first hairpin turn as they are next to impossible to drive. With AWD the lack of TCS isn't a big deal and people quickly realize that the pink bug they can barely see any more is no joke.


Photos by RoxApex
So what on earth made me build one of those in the first place? One of the things I was specifically looking for was a car with acceleration that would be much more manageable than the muscle cars that have a hard time even going in a straight line. With that in mind I wanted to look at something then that would be AWD or FWD. To this point I haven't found a single FWD car that would fit this criterion so I started looking at cars that were AWD or could be upgraded to AWD. I was lucky I had a friend who built a VW Bug into S-class and he told me it had a 10.0 acceleration stat. It was horrible in the corners, but it pulled away every time on the straight so it was hard to pass. I decided I would try to build one of my own for A-class to see if that would meet my needs. I was essentially trying to build a drag racer so there were definitely some priorities when building the car. I wanted to give it as much HP and take off as much weight as I could. Suspension, tires, brakes, etc. were all secondary. One of the biggest things you'll find when building cars is that the Forza aero kit will lower the PI of the car. This is because it adds weight and reduces acceleration and top speed. 90% of the cars you build you'll want to put the aero kit on the car, but not this one. Anything that drags this car down would go against what I was trying to do. One of the other things to consider is where your power comes from. A turbo charger will give you a bit more of a kick at the higher RPM’s where the superchargers will usually give you a bit better torque and low end acceleration. Since this is a car for accelerating I put a Supercharger in it. I’ll include a post at the bottom with full build details for anyone who wants to give it a try.

The same basic principals I used to build that VW Bug basically apply to building a car for any of the horsepower tracks. You want to get as much power into the car as you can without making it too unmanageable to drive. Recently the hot lap series featured Aston Martin DB9's on Sebring Short. Sebring Short is very similar to New York in that it features 2 primary straights with a couple of turns thrown in the mix. The best build we ended up with had nearly 700 hp with no tire upgrades no weight reduction and very little in the way of suspension upgrades.

The exact opposite though is true of cars designed for handling. In D and C class the two dominant cars have race tires, Forza aero kits, full platform and handling upgrades, without touching the engine. If you want to build a car for Suzuka's East circuit for example you're going to want to carry as much speed through the esses as you can. The only way to do that is to upgrade the car's handling as much as possible. You'll find that two of the dominant cars in D-class are the VW Golf Mk2 and the Honda Civic VTi. Both cars weigh in around 2,000 lbs and you can put one of the best brands of racing tire on them available. They lack some speed on the long front straight, but they more than make up for it cruising through the esses at a speed comparable to that of even the best S-class cars. While the end lap times will differ significantly you'll find that your apex speeds between classes really doesn't vary that much.


Photos by RoxApex
A good example of a competitive car that was built for a track designed for handling is the A-Class SEAT Leon Supercup that we ran for a week on Leguna for the HLC. By the end of the week people were putting the supercup in the top 100 that was dominated exclusively by the Lotus Elise 135R. The supercup was a lightweight car with race tires and on top of that it was FWD so a lot easier to hang on to than the super lightweight Lotus. Since the Supercup comes with race tires and limited upgrade options the choices were pretty basic building the car. However the difference between the two choices as far as lap times go was significant. The car could have approximately 80hp added to it or the race weight reduction. The reduction in weight significantly improved handling of a car that already had an exceptional handling rating.

If anyone has any specific questions, fire away. We’ll get our local experts to chime in and give you all some tips on what you’re looking to build.

Other Photos By RoxApex




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» Learning Forza 2 - The Fundamentals

About The Author

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Ryan "Solo" Terpstra
Lead Forza2 Feature Writer

Ryan has been involved with the Forza community since the launch of the game in May of 2007. He is a moderator over on the official FM2 forums at ForzaMotorSport.net and also provides valuable feedback to Turn 10 regarding some of the multiplayer competitions. Beyond that, he is an avid racer himself climbing to as high as #5 in the world on the main Time Trials leaderboard.