Tip from the Track - Tuning Those Big, Bad Gears

Posted by: GeneralELive

Written by Eric "General E" Earley, Forza 2 Professional for the Carolina Core

Hey everyone it has been a busy two weeks since TFTT #1, and I have finally finished up this week's Tip from the Track (TFTT). This week we will have a brand new tip, and input from other CGS racers. This week's tip is what each cars tuning setup is based off of, the tuning of this part sets the tune for the entire rest of the car. With that said this is something anyone can do whether you drive a manual transmission (MT) or automatic transmission (AT). I will say though, you can’t fully take advantage of this tip if you do not drive manual. You will only see about 50% of the results if you decide to stick with AT. The tip itself is actually quite simple as well and will not have near as long of a learning period as the switch from AT to MT does. With this tip you are not learning something on the track, you are learning the most important concept there is off the track. Enough with the fluff let’s get it started!

Carolina CORE Tip from the Track
#2 Tuning Those Big, Bad Gears

Gears, gears and more gears, I can’t tell you how important a good gear setup is. There are many different depths of gear tuning. We will start with the choice of how many gears you want to run on a given track. In my racing experience I have used 2, 3 and 4 gear setups primarily, in most cases using a full 5 or 6 gear setup is not worth the effort. Also 5 and 6 gear setups are much slower as well. Basically what I mean by 2, 3, and 4 gear setups is that on a full speed lap your car will only use that many gears. Certain tracks require certain gear setups. Here is a small list of some of the tracks and the respective preferred gear setups.

2 Gear Setups:
Silverstone Short
Road Atlanta Short
Maple Valley Short

3 Gear Setups:
Sunset Infield
Laguna Seca
Tsukuba

4 Gear Setups:
Nurburgring
King Cobra
Suzuka

As you can see the number of gears is in direct correlation to track size. The 3 gear setup is the most popular because the 3 gear setup is the best on all tracks that are moderate in size. Now there is a part two in regards to gear choices. Part two relates to how many gears you want to go through at the start of a race. If you are hotlapping then it makes no difference at all, however if you are in an actual race the number of gears you go through on the start of the race makes a big difference. All of these examples will be with 3 gear setups in mind. Let’s say you want to use all 5 or 6 gears, the first 2/3 gears are used on the start of the race only and the last 3 throughout the race. This will give you slightly better acceleration off the line.

Another option is to just use 1st gear to get off the line and after that use gears 2,3 and 4 for the rest of the race. The full 5/6 gear option will give you slightly better acceleration off the line but requires more shifting than the latter option. I feel like the 4 gear option gives you slightly better control of the car. In most cases you will always be in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear. This is much more comfortable than being in 4, 5, and 6, or even 3, 4, and 5.

So a quick review of what I have said comes down to making two decisions. Number one: make the decision of which gear choice goes with the length of track you are racing on, whether it is the 2 gear setup (really short tracks), 3 gear setup (moderate tracks), and 4 gear setup (really long tracks). The second decision comes when deciding how many extra gears you want to use on the start.

If you have any other questions regarding this or anything else we discuss feel free to post it in this feature and I will further explain until you fully understand. I think it would be beneficial to have some more input from other races. So I decided to ask CGS racer this week, what gear choices he prefers.

Optx - SACKAMONJARO
"I used the 3 gears setup using 6 total gears during the Nissan Sentra tournament and was able to get off the line quicker in the races which really helped. The 3 gear setup using 4 gears is faster around the track but at the time getting through the first turn clean was more important."

Equally important to gear choice is the car you are driving, certain cars have different gear characteristics. The faster the cars the more gears you might have you use. The slower the cars the fewer gears you might have you use. My recommendation is to take the car you want to use, drive it around the track a few times while focusing on getting through the turns at a strong RPM in the appropriate gear. Each car has a different target RPM, in most cases it will be between 5000 and 7000 RPM. Set your car up so that when you start easing into the throttle the engine already starts in the 5000-7000 RPM range. This will give you maximum torque/acceleration off the turn, if you get stuck, its also very easy to go to the leaderboards and download a replay, watch and listen to the top hotlappers car and turn the telemetry on and look for the target RPM. Another consequence of better gears is better handling, not to mention the gears have an influence on how every other part of the car is tuned.

The difference in speed between well tuned gears and just average tuned gears is quite incredible. When you mix great gears and a manual transmission, you have the two fundamental basics that you need to not be just fast but one of the best.

Hope this week’s TFTT helps you out; please feel free post any and all questions and comments below. Look for the next installment of the TFTT very soon. We will have a new tip, new racer input and a couple of new surprises that should further help all of you improve your racing abilities.

Thanks guys

General E Live

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