SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED Tuning Tips

As any driver will tell you, there are (at least) three parts to a corner: entry, apex and exit. One of the best things about SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED is that every car behaves differently in corners. Usually you want to exit the corner as quickly as possible, but the car has such low or high turn-in that you lose a ton of time correcting the line rather than accelerating out of the corner. Dampers play the most important role in solving this problem.

When fine-tuning, adjusting the dampers can greatly affect lap times. Front and rear dampers react differently to changes in spring stiffness. A softer front suspension will lead to oversteer, a stiffer one to understeer. The opposite is true for the rear suspension. So, by tuning the front and rear suspension stiffness to your liking, you can achieve that "golden middle" that fully satisfies you.

Need for Speed SHELBY Terlingua Mustang, for example, among all the other "muscle cars", has the most horrendous understeer. It is big, with a heavy engine that only makes cornering more difficult, especially on the technical Laguna Seca track. I know that if you set all dampers to 0.0, the car will simply be carried off the track in corners, while leaving the front suspension at 0.0 and setting the rear to 10.0 can make the Mustang behave like a drift car. That is what I really like about fine-tuning: the smallest setup changes lead to big changes in car behavior. Instead of overdoing the values, I slightly softened the front suspension (from 6.0 to 4.0), and the car responded - I reduced my lap time by 1.5 seconds.

Small cars, such as the Lotus Elise, tend to oversteer. Every time I went through a corner, it felt like the rear of the car was trying to step out on me. I was so busy worrying about oversteer that I spent more time getting through corners than necessary. The rear suspension was already soft enough, but I tried making it even softer (0.0-1.0). As a result, the car began to enter corners wonderfully, while the tires barely held on to the asphalt but did not break loose. I felt on the very edge as I went through every hairpin, loop or chicane, which is exactly where I wanted to be.

The main rule when adjusting dampers is not to do anything unnecessary, only small changes. Heavy "muscle cars" tend to run off the track, while small cars are always threatening to spin. By making small adjustments, you can make these cars behave on track like the well-balanced race cars of your dreams.

Basic rules:
- Softer front: Oversteer.
- Stiffer front: Understeer.
- Softer rear: Understeer.
- Stiffer rear: Oversteer.
- Make small changes: No more than 4.0 in either direction.
- Heavy cars: Tend to understeer.
- Light cars: Tend to oversteer.