Official FM4 Sports Racer thread

OK, we were racing 'Sports Racers' the other night and having a blast. I put all mine in the team garage for those who do not have the cars(they are millions each)

Basic specs: B500 Wheels: 16", Crager Bonneville OR Hallibran (no OEM wheels) Tires: Street, Rear 245-, Front 235- (Tires MUST be Street, no OEM tires for hp advantage) Cage: Full Race, Sport, Street depending on car/PI Trans: Race, or Sport depending if the car cannot get the Race Trans Suspension: All Race Brakes: Race NO FORZA PARTS, ie front splitter, rear wing NO added Turbo/Blowers NO cars with roofs Build in this order: Wheels, tires, brakes, shocks, sway bars, trans, cage, hp

Eligible cars are:

Aston Martin DBR1

Jaguar D Type

Porsche 550

Maserati 300S

Corvette 1953 (only authorized Corvette)(MUST have 'hood' that covers the seat area, Recommend 'Fin' to fit the Le mans, Sports Racer style from the 50's as seen on Le Mans, Riverside, and Sebring)

Ferrari 250 Testa Rosa

Lotus 11

Mercedes Benz SLR300 (the open top Sterling Moss model with the 'silver arrow' paint job)

Cars such as the Ferrari 250 California, and other 'vert's are NOT allowed. This is a 'sports racer' restomod spec(we want them fast and slippery). The trans on most of these is either stock or full race so race we go with if we can(some have Sport option). Paint should reflect a vintage style. My DBR and Maserati are painted as Shelby raced them with his number, but on the tail instead of 'Raced By' mine say 'Rest in Speed' Carrol Shelby

Lets have some fun, old school sports racer style. Check out the 'net for the best vintage styles or make your own, 50's decals do count where you can find them too.

Note on braking: These cars will require earlier braking points than what you are used to. Remember, slow in, fast out works here. As FGC says,"Let's treat 'em like real cars!"

Fm4 meaning forza 4 finally has something happening like the ps3 league?

For now, this is a nightly thing whenever we see each other on the XBox. I am thinking either Friday or Saturday night, but a week night or two isn't out of the question after dinner(I am Central time so I eat around 6 - 7). These cars are a blast to race. Last night we also figured none of them really have an advantage over the others considering driver skill or state of beerness

Will have to see if I have any of those or if I can afford one

I want in. Please send invites to 'BobOfTheFuture'

Jaynen wrote: Will have to see if I have any of those or if I can afford one

I have tons of credits that I'll never use. I can buy a few stock ones and gift them if you want. Gamertag? (apologies if I missed it on one of the other Forza threads..)

It's just Jaynen. If I sold one of my expensive cars I could buy it or I could race it up quick. Trying to decide which one I want.

The porsche and corvette start low so more room for mods, the ferrari makes pretty noises, and the jag has this "bomber" feel to its sound

couldnt get the street tires on the merc....left them stock and did the rest of the build...will be racing all the cars next time i see yall...this is fun....the 250 testarosa is good for drifting...............

Got my porsche setup. Everything fit except all power mods ended up B497. Fun little car to drive.

I already have a 300S at B500.....and I'm usually on Friday or Saturday night Might have to tweak it to make it legal though. Of course, the way I drive, if I can keep the pack in sight I'm doing good

Building a car now... When do you guys tend to race? Redline, Whats your GT?

My GT is Switchblade762

FAQ Answers:

Build ORDER is EXACT as outlined: 1: Wheels, spec is Bonneville or Hallibrand, 16" 2: Tires are STREET, Merc will remain OEM tires 3: Tire Width/Size is 16" x =/>235F, =/>245R(begin with 225F/235R, and go from there, but 245 does help in the corners) 4: Race Brakes, due to more engine than tire, this will allow a little advantage but not much 5: Race Shocks, Race Sway Bars 6: Race Cage if car does not go over B500, Sports if it does, Street if it still does. Merc may not be able to have any, but remains stock in this case. 7: Race Weight if car stays below B500, if not, in order remaining below B500, Sports, then Street. ONE of these will work. 7: Engine mods: NO Turbo, NO SC, Cams, Exhaust, Bore, anything goes 8: If you are still within a few PI of B500, the normal weight reduction items are fine, as in: Flywheels, Clutches, and Drive Shafts to get to B500

I built each of these cars, and used my standard blanket tune set up as follows:

Tire PSI: 28.5 Sway Bar: 22.50F, 19.50R Steering: -1.3F, -1.0R, Toe: Rear only -.6 Spring pressure: 420#F, 395#R Damping: 6.8/6.2F, 4.8/4.2R Gear ratio: Each car is set to somewhere between 3:36 - 4:56 due to the car's abilities, or left stock as in the case of the Merc Brakes: 50%, 105# Diff: 35 Accel, 15 Decel

I ran my cars that are in the Team garage on Seabring and D leg 'Ring, and they all make pretty much the same lap times for me. The reason for the build order is I build my cars in that order. OEM wheels always give a PI advantage which is why I made spec wheels after discussion with 'fried'. Also, I looked and did research in magazines and 'net and found that these two wheels were pretty well used back in the day, along with Baroni wires(which are not in the game). Each car has it's inate abilities as seen on long tracks or short tracks. With the availablity of the technical tracks like Infineon, and Nur GP, as well as speed tracks like Le Mans, the cars are pretty equal when gearing is set up for each track, or a basic top speed. My cars are pretty much set 'All Around' due to where I test and tune(Seabring, Nur D)

When do we race: Pretty much after dinner each evening.(I AM CENTRAL TIME) When I get done eating, and doing dishes, and if the kids are not using the XBox, I jump on, set the lobby up, and send out a blanket team invite

Enjoyed watching RRD run that 'vette last night, now if we can get our brakes warmed up faster than our tires, we might be able to keep from bangin our cars up on T1, T2.

I am thinking since everyone knows how to do a rolling 45mph - 65mph start, we might set the lobby to more laps and run longer races with Lap 1 being a rolling start. Also, with Full Damage as the norm, I am also going to drop the time down to 3:30 as the end race timer. If we have issues I will add more time back, but waiting for 6 minutes for the race timer to drop sucks for everyone if one or two cars die.

Just a note, The Ferrari cannot get up to those tire widths, so I just maxed it out both sides.

Lots of cars, like for instance the vette, dont get to B500 with out motor mods. I removed weight, added clutches, diffs, etc before I added HP. Is this ok, Even though not called out for in the mods?

I was actually running two different '53's. Now that I have a spec sheet, I realize both cars were close to legal, but not completely. Gonna fix that. Yeah, not being able to stop kinda sucked LOL! Sorry Racerfink and Fried for punting you. I liked the 'Vette over the others...maybe because my Uncle has a '54 #800 off the assembly line (he also has a fuelie '61 and a '63 Splitwindow)

The 300S is a slippery little beast, the Merc is a monster. Didn't care much for the 250. Haven't built any others yet.

yeah, rolling starts and more laps. I'm just getting warmed up at 3-4 laps!

Lets run the old hairpin at Sebring too....that berklying "S" turn sucks Trabant exhaust.

Rebuilt my '53 Vette. Ran a 1:33 and change at Sebring using the old turn after the bridge (blew through the cones, hard right and kept going) That wall comes up gawd almighty fast so if you late brake...well.....yard sale time LOL! Rebuilt and tuned my 300S and the big Merc so they're legal now too

We could probably get away with running the original Turn 7 on Sebring with a two lap rolling familiarization lap, then a rolling start.

I may also make the lobby private for team members only to keep the downforce/heavy wheel crowd out too. Some just do not get the message when I message them telling them "NO FORZA PARTS, Spec Wheels!", but there are a few guys out there who love this as much as I do.

My ideas for a short series:

2 25 minute heat races, 20 laps each, with pitting at lap 6 - 16 1 50 Lap Main Event with pitting from laps 6 - 16, and laps 26 - 36

change spec tire to DRAG, bump PI up to an 'A' level(about A 615 - 620 should work) to equal out all cars to the Merc's build status. From what I have seen, the cars pretty much equal out in the end due to the ability to actually play with gearing in the race trans. This was evidenced by a new kid, Digital's little Lotus 11 running 168mph on Old Mullesane. The Merc tops out around 185, and the Jag/DBR1/250TR/550 top out at between 165 - 179, but outhandle the Merc due to it's larger size. With equal tires, the Merc is still a big beast of a car that needs more skill to run fast through the corners.

Let me see some ideas on this. I think it bears a working series

I am going to run a few races tomorrow night with this. During the day I will upgrade the racers to A5xx to get all the cars to get the street tires and race transmissions in them. Once I have my cars retuned for this, I will give the total update on the A5XX tune number

My Porche 550 is almost maxed out at the B class lol

In order to get the Mercedes to the level of the rest of the cars, the Class must be raised to A5xx. The additions of all race parts(suspension, brakes, trans, cages) and street tires on the spec wheels will decide the top PI for the class.

If you tweak the gearing in the race transmissions, you will find all of these cars perform very close to one another in top speeds and handling and cornering. The top speeds we saw were consistently around 165 - 180 on the old Mulsanne straight and the long straight of Mugello. All of my cars will run in the 170's on Mulsanne and slightly lower on Mugello's long front line

ATTENTION ALL TUNERS OF SPORTS RACERS!

The PI is now set to:

A542

ALL my cars are in the team garage with the allowed tuning specs for your testing

Build order is exact as follows: Wheels, spec Tires, Street, >/= 225F, 245R Race: Brakes, Suspension, Trans, Diff, Cage, Weight(Mercedes will not have Race weight) NO Forced Air NO Forza Downforce parts Engine mods allowed to PI, along with Clutches, Flywheels, and Driveshafts

NOTE: The '53 Corvette with ALL parts is A539, but it can be tuned by adjusting the gears and ratios to be as fast as all other cars. (The thought to add width to the rear tire did make it go to PIA542, but was too wide...should we allow this?)

As those of us who have raced these fun machines know, they are slippery in the corners and hellasciously fast with speeds up to around 175 - 185

I'll try it again at A542. When I entered, I forgot that the lightweights (Lotus 11, Porsche 550) could get in..I thought it would be all of us driving the "big cars". Ferraris, Astons, Jags & Mercs. I got out because I had to brake so early on the stock brakes, and the little cars slammed me in the ass so often. It will be awhile (weird stuff at work, and trying to go flag at The Dragon hillclimb), but I'll give it another shot.

That being said...there's a good reason I'm such a slave to setting a minimum weight in my own lobbies.

The lobby is set to PI from 539 - 542. I can further add TWO classes, Roadster and Lightweight, but that may cause two roll off times...need to mess with it a bit. I'll look at the weights and set that too, but I think hp limits may not work because of the amounts from each car being pretty wide...will look at that too

I tested all mine on Road America for the long straights and Old Le Mans. Any way you try to tune it, the little Lotus 11 is a freakin handful, while the little 550 is a dream to drive. With the Merc not getting race weight, it makes all the cars perform very close to one another when the gears are adjusted. On a more technical track like Sebring or 'The Point'(infineon), the vette performs very well. The Jag seems to be the most balanced, and the Aston seems to be just a tad squirelly over the Maserati

ps For fun, I built a green corrado with a blown motor and oil sprayed all over the front and sides and hood. Working on fire marks for the hood too so it can truly be a FGC. It runs so well I WAS going to gift it to a certain guy, but I am liking it way too much in the lobbies