| CAMBER TUNING FOR FORZA MOTORSPORT 3 |
| Camber tuning in Forza Motorsport has proven to be one of the easier, and more straight forward tasks, due mainly to the fact that it's one of the elements we can monitor in tuning mode via the telemetry screen. Telemetry in FM2 was marginal at best, and time will tell how helpful it will be in FM3. |
| That said, the challenge in using telemetry to align camber comes from the variance of turns on any particular track. The idea is to use data from tire temperatures (inner, middle, and outer) and set the camber so that the temperatures are relatively even across all three. |
| One major shortcoming that impedes achieving our goal is the fact that Forza Motorsport doesn't provide an optimal temperature range for the variety of tires available when we purchase our upgrades. One school of thought in real world tuning is that the inner portion of the tire is optimal when running at about 10 degrees warmer than the outer portion, but there's no way to confirm if this theory translates in-game. |
| The second challenge is that most tracks lack balance in regard to left hand versus right hand turns, as well as the type of turns. Tighter turns that scrub off more speed heat the tires more so than smaller radius turns requiring less aggressive steering inputs. A track that is heavily biased with right hand turns will heat the left side tires more than the right side. So the long and short of it all is you need to tune camber in part by the seat of your pants, by feel, and use telemetry to get you in the ballpark of your optimal setting. |
| For the most part, if you can get your inner, middle, and outer areas of the tires within 10 degrees of each other, you're 90% of the way there. The last 10% you'll need to rely on personal observation during your test laps. An extra .1 degree of camber may not show up making much of a difference in heating the tires in telemetry, but you may feel it in your high speed corners and kink turns. The right amount, and you can be full throttle through the turn, where as before you had to lift off the throttle and let the car breathe slightly prior to turn entry. By contrast, too much camber will have you riding excessively on the insides of the tires, and your car may feel sluggish, scrubbing the tires excessively in sweeping, steady state corners. |
| Keep in mind, that any element of successful tuning, such as camber or ARBs (acronym) is reliant upon your ability to observe what the car was able to do before an adjustment and compare it to what it can do after the adjustment. |
| Camber is one of those subtle adjustments that can pay dividends in shedding some tenths off of lap times, mainly by increasing your contact patch in the corners, which means more grip, and the ability to carry more speed. |
| As usual, knowing where to start with your initial settings is always the hardest part. |
| At this juncture, it's hard to define a good starting point. Forza Motorsport 3 is still weeks away, and I have no clue what changes will be made to the latest edition. In FM2 the range of camber has been, in my observation, from about .6 degrees on the low end to 1.2 degrees on the high end. This is counter intuitive to me as most real world cars run much more camber than this. My Honda S2000 is set up for Autocross which is not very aggressive, since we don't corner at speeds over 50 MPH, and my camber is 2.0 degrees in the rear and 1.5 in the front. Most S2000 owners, as well as many enthusiasts that track their cars run camber in the 3.0 degree range. |
| In any event, understanding the factors that dictate real world tuning will give you insight into setting camber on your in-game vehicles based upon: |
| 1- YOUR CAR'S CHARACTERISTICS (VEHICLE WEIGHT and BALANCE) 2- YOUR OTHER SETTINGS (Springs and ARBs) 3- TIRES |
| If you read the CAMBER BASICS section and recall the diagrams, the first variable you need to account for is that body roll affects camber loss. The more the car rolls, the more camber you lose in the corners. And what affects body roll? ANTI ROLL BARS |
| So, we can infer: |
| Stiff ARB's = Less body roll = Need less camber Loose ARBs = More body roll = Need more camber |
| Keep in mind that your front to rear ARB bias is one of your main weapons for dialing out oversteer/understeer and balancing the car, so your camber bias should reflect accordingly. |
| Another clue you have available is the characteristics of your car, firstly, the vehicle weight. The generation of lateral force (g-forces) is measured by the simple formula of vehicle mass X acceleration. So heavier vehicles that are capable of pulling a lot of G's will generate a lot of force. You can benchmark your vehicles in tuning mode to get a general idea of what the cornering force of your vehicle is. One other thing to note is when you slap that Forza front bumper and rear wing on your car, how much downforce the car is capable of making. A lot of the exotics like the Saleens and Zondas of the world make a lot of downforce, which compress the suspension even more than other cars, especially in those high speed corners. |
| So, from what we've gathered about our car, we can make a few general rules to guide us in setting camber: |
| More suspension compression = More camber loss. Heavy vehicle + High cornering force = More compression More compression = Need for more camber |
| The next phase of the relationship between your settings and camber is your springs. What do springs do? They regulate how much your suspension moves in both bump and rebound. Stiffer springs will compress less than soft springs. So we have a lot of stuff going on simultaneously. You have your cornering force, which determines how much your suspension will compress, then you have your spring rates which determine the vehicle's resistance to that compression. |
| So we can conclude: |
| Softly sprung car = More suspension compression = More camber loss = Need for more camber Stiffly sprung car = Less suspension compression = Less camber loss = Need for less camber |
| The next element to consider is your tires. Hopefully the tire physics in Forza Motorsport 3 will be greatly improved, because not enough emphasis was put on their importance in FM2. Tires are everything, period. As such, more grip equates to more cornering force and as we know, more cornering force equates to more compression. That said, all things being equal, a car with race tires should require more camber than the same car with the same set-up on street tires. |
| The last thing to consider is vehicle balance. In theory, a car with a 50/50 weight balance with equal spring rates front and rear, equal ARBs front and rear, on equal size tires front and rear, should require the same amount of camber. (Caster angle excluded). |
| If one variable were to change, like a mid-engine car with a 40/60 weight displacement, one could make a sound argument for more camber in the rear. The same might hold true if we were to change the car to a staggered tire set-up with wider tires on the back. More rear grip will cause more deflection of the rear suspension, so we may need try to balance out that camber loss with a more aggressive rear alignment. |
| Generally speaking, my FM2 experience has shown that you're best suited to run as little camber as you can while heating the tires as evenly as possible. Too much camber has scrubbed off too much speed, (presumably in the straights) and has been quite noticeable in the resultant lap times I've recorded. In steady state sweepers, less camber has resulted in a car that is smoother, and faster during off-throttle cornering. |
| Obviously, this section of the tuning guide will be updated when we get our hands on Forza Motorsport 3. |