Through the guide oversteer and understeer terms will often be emphasized. So, here is an image with brief description to get the basic idea:

• Oversteer: Rear wheels are slipping more than front wheels or front wheel grip is higher.
  
• Understeer: Front wheels are slipping more than rear wheels or rear wheel grip is higher.

To overcome understeer, you may steer through the direction where car tends to slip (out of the way) and apply a little brake (maybe handbrake).

Everyone knows about brakes but, i will emphasize its not less important function than that; weight shifting!
Always remember when braking: When a vehicle enters braking in a straight line, the weight transfers to the front. The back end will not have the same grip as the front.

• When a car is sliding sideways, you may want to downshift instead of using brakes to pull the car's nose forward again (more on that in differentials).
  
• If you are using an RWD car and you want the back end to be more "controlled" then a 40/60 rear/front bias might be more appropriate.
  
• You can control some of the gross oversteer of the RWD cars by shifting the braking power to the front, which I highly recommend you to do.
  Logic behind this: Driver wheels (so is power) are at the back in an RWD car and you lose that power with brake. So, let rear wheels clinged onto the road and push you forward, by just rounding, instead of slipping.(Slipping wheels does not hold onto the road only rounding ones)
  
• Biasing brakes more on rear (I don't mean below 50%) for FWD or AWD vehicles will support aligning the rear of the car to the road by drifting with locked rear wheels. (This is a taste of driving)

Warning:
Too much on bias or brake power will make the car unstable and unusable. If you find you are braking too late and constantly running into the wall you might consider bumping up the braking strength by one notch. If you like to start on the brakes really early, then dropping the power down by one might be for you.Otherwise the standard braking power is probably the best for most of the game.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: (Braking Force) High brake strength can make braking more responsive but it can also cause your wheels to lock. Low brake strength can make braking feel vague but should reduce the chances of the wheels locking up.
(Brake Bias) Front-biased brakes can reduce oversteer but cause understeer under heavy braking. Rear-biased brakes can reduce understeer, but cause oversteer under heavy braking. Too much bias on either axle can cause the wheels to lock.

WRC 8 Hint: (Brake Bias) Determines car behavior on corners. With more power at the rear [-] the car is prone to oversteering, facilitating drifts. With more power at the front [+] you have more stopping power, but the car is prone to understeering.

Physics:
Mentioned earlier; as car decelerates, load transfers to the front tires, which improves front tire grip while decreasing the grip at the rear of the car. All load transfers like this on a car are similar to the effect aerodynamic elements on a plane such as wings. They increase/decrease load on the tires without changing the weight. This can have a big effect on car balance, so the primary goal is to adjust the proportion of the braking forces between front and rear (brake bias) in order to maximize overall braking efficiency.

• You will find brake bias crucial at the corner entry points. So, you may keep an eye on the car when entering a corner if you need to adjust this setting.

Front Bias:

• Front biased brakes tend to cause understeer while used. This is often because the wheels do not have enough traction to both redirect momentum while simultaneously slowing.
  
• Front biased brakes also shift weight more quickly to the front, which allows for extra traction (and, therefore, braking ability) up front.
  
• If the front wheels lock, all effects are exaggerated.

Rear Bias:

• Rear biased brakes tend to cause oversteer while braking. Most vehicles will oversteer and slide if brakes are applied while turning. In FWD vehicles, this is a desirable, predictable, and consistent loose surface and hairpin turn technique.
  
• Both AWD and FWD vehicles can make great use of a slight rear brake bias. It allows for a consistent rotation without any throttle input. This can be especially useful when it is paired with a strong differential and a straight-line stability-focused suspension setup because; it allows the driver to spin the car while braking, and then accelerate into a predictable, self-straightening slide. Rear biased brakes and RWD vehicles do not generally combine for predictable handling.

We'll go over some ways to set the theoretical optimum first and then talk about some of the compromises you may decide to make. The easiest way to set the optimum is visually. You will adjust the brake bias until the front and rear start to lock up under braking at the same time. You might want to have a slight forward bias to lock up the fronts just a little bit sooner for stability though.

If you have a sensitive and skilled driver, they will be able to set the brake bias simply based on how the car responds under braking and this might be the ideal way to begin setting your bias even for a novice. Although the theoretical optimum might be ideal for straight-line braking this might not provide the stability needed for carrying the brakes into the turn for trail braking. When a driver first starts experimenting with trail braking, it would be a good idea to set a more forward bias for extra stability and then slowly work their way rearward as their skills improve.

Some drivers will set more rearward bias than is optimal and use advanced techniques like mixing throttle with braking to have more control over the car at corner entry. There is not a lot of time to be gained by the theoretical optimum bias and it can change from corner to corner if there are elevation changes in the brake zone, aero effects, tire grip changes, etc.. Usually focusing on what makes a driver most comfortable under threshold braking, and trail braking will be the overriding factor.

Strengthening the brakes will cause your tires to lock up quickly, which turns your car into a runaway piece of steel. You don’t want to lock your wheels too quickly. Remember ABS technology is there for to make car stable on a brake by just grabbing and releasing wheels constantly.

One most important effect of braking strength is it determines how fast you car weight shifts. Thus it should be supported with your suspension (which reacts that weight location changes). Very strength brakes makes your car unstable especially on high speeds due to this quick weight transfer.

The front differential comes into play with FWD and AWD vehicles (RWD cars do not have a front differential.) ,
! Differentials usually take more time to perfect.

Adjusting the differential requires the driver/tuner to understand exactly what the issue is while driving. You won't revisit your completed setup and say I will open this diff a little without experiencing an issue while your previous drive. Differential settings are generally adjusted to fine tune performance in particular situations, or to correct problems that only arise in particular situations.
These adjustments can be very different between drivetrains, although the general theory remains the same.

• There is no perfect setting. Your front differential tune should complement your rear differential strategy (more on that in the rear diff section).

With the very basic explanation; the stronger or locked the diff, the more the differential is forcing both wheels to rotate at the same speed. Thus preventing inbalanced torque transmit where one of the wheels are on slippery condition or lost grip.

Warning:

• You have to steer the car with the front so don't ever completely lock the front differential. If you lock the front completely the car will grossly understeer and be completely unmanageable.

Open vs. Locked Differentials:

• Open differentials allow for a greater difference in rotation speed between the two wheels.
  
• Open differential allows for a vehicle to turn at greater angles without losing traction, although it does not provide much assistance in straightening the vehicle’s steering nor momentum.
  
• With fully opened differentials there is essentially no locking power and the wheels will be able to spin independently which allows for a very smooth turns on even acute hairpins. With fully locked differentials wheels will always turn at the same speed which allows to car to rescue on uneven surfaces from stuck.
  
• Locked differential helps the wheels both travels straight, relative to where the wheels are currently pointed.
  
• Locked differential also encourages a vehicle to push its momentum towards wherever the wheels are pointed, because both wheels want to spin close to the same speed.
  
• Locked differential causes the inner wheel to lose traction extremely quickly in sharp turns. This can be desirable for drift-heavy driving styles but will consume your precious timings.(Real life dirfters even weld their differentials.)

This is your primary lock and the one that is in play while you are pressing the gas pedal. Sometimes it is refered as acceleration differential.

• A locked differential will not support your turn as it pushes two connected wheels to rotate at the same rate so; if the stage is twisty, speed is low, and suspension is relatively soft, this should be more opened.

Warning:
With too opened differentials while accelarating on a straight road, if one of the wheels rotate faster or other one lose its traction due to a ditch, snow or wet area; you can lose the control of the car very quickly.
Physics Behind: Your car will tend to move faster on more gripped rotating wheel around other less gripped wheel. For example; if car's left side is on dry asphalt but left side is on ice it will directly move on the right however; you can try to compansate it by turning left as soon as hitting the ice.

• FWD vehicles tend to understeer at full throttle with locked driving differentials.

An opened driving differential allows for more throttle and acceleration in turns without losing traction, though the driver must rely entirely on counter steering and weight transfer through slides. This creates an easier to drive vehicle for many drivers than the alternative.

Differentials effect on handling is complex. Even little adjustments can cause and/or solve traction issues in almost every situation: starting, stopping, changing directions, sliding, entering or exiting corners etc..

Note: Sliders have opposite logic in WRC 8 and Dirt Rally 2.0.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A high lock percentage will improve straight-line traction although it may induce understeer particularly in low grip conditions (Remember front wheels slip more than rear wheels). A low lock percentage will improve cornering at a cost of straight-line stability.

WRC 8 Hint: (LSD Acceleration) A high percentage improves cornering while accelerating but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while accelerating but may lead understeering.
(LSD Deceleration) A high percentage improves cornering but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while decelerating but may lead to understeering.

Braking differential comes into play as name suggests; during braking. By keeping it opened you have more traction at corner entry and less risk of understeer, especially on heavy to medium gravel. The penalty is increased breaking distance, but it barely matters. If you are running a proper line, the loss to braking isn't remotely important.

• Open the braking lock as much as you comfortable with the track.

A locked driving differential and opened braking differential encourages the vehicle to push straight ahead on throttle, while allowing sharp, gripping turn-in during braking and engine braking. This also causes left foot braking maneuvers to rotate the vehicle more sharply with less steering input.

This particular setup encourages a driver to brake into and power out of turns. This kind of setup may also require more negative camber to make full use of the sharper turn-in radius.

An opened driving lock and locked braking lock allows sharp, gripping turn-in while on the throttle, but causes understeer while braking or engine braking. This behavior lets the driver regain grip in low traction situations by releasing the throttle. This adjustment also allows a driver to slow or stop rotation by using the brakes.

This encourages a driver to power through turns, using brakes to shift weight and/or slow/stop rotation as needed.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A high lock percentage will improve traction under braking but may induce understeer on corner entry. A low lock percentage will reduce understeer on corner entry but traction under braking may be compromised.

WRC 8 Hint: A high percentage reduces understeer but decreases traction. A low percentage improves traction when braking but may lead to understeer when turning into corners.

This is how effective the front diff is when under little or no torque (aka, not using the gas pedal & not braking). If in doubt, leave it on a medium-low setting. Only turn it up if the stage has purely shallow/wide turns and you find yourself "coasting" around them (and need to get back on the gas quickly).

• This tune is used in combination with a strong back end. You don't want to simply implement this setting without considering what you are doing with the rest of the vehicle.

If you are using a FWD vehicle and there is no rear differential to consider, make sure your differential strategy matches your stage and suspension strategy.

But regardless, I never, ever recommend using a very strong front differential in ANY vehicle, ever.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Applying preload partially lock the differential when little or no torque is applied drivetrain ensuring it is never fully open. This can improve mid-corner traction but, having it too high may induce understeer.

WRC 8 Hint: The front differential manages the difference in rotation between front wheels. An open differential [+] reduces traction, but the car is easier to turn. A locked differential [-] provides more traction but reduces the ability to turn.

Center differential is only available on AWD cars. It is, however, a very important part of the drivetrain if the vehicle is equipped with one as it can drastically alter how the vehicles accelerates, brakes and turns.

! AWD vehicles have both front and rear differentials. Any adjustments made to acceleration or braking percentages should be made equally to both front and rear axles. If only one is adjusted, or if one percentage is adjusted without the other, the on-throttle or on-braking balance will change. Ultimately, tuning an AWD’s differentials is about creating handling behavior the driver can use most reliably and effectively.

How it works:
Viscous differential consists a liquid which turn into a solid form with more heat. In a car, this heat is generated by the difference between the front and rear wheel RPMs; resulting lock itself with its solid form.
The viscous differential works exactly like the front and rear differentials, except this one limit the difference between front and back wheels.
The "stronger" the center diff is set, the less the center diff allows the front and rear axles to act differently.

This adjustment mostly affects two things;

• How sharp an angle the car can turn into before the rear slides,
  
• How the vehicle responds to throttle during a slide.

This affects other parts of the handling, but in relatively minor ways.This is best adjusted last, after other parts of the vehicle are satisfactory. Generally, the overall effects are similar to the other two differentials.

A soft viscous differential increases tendency to travel straight and increases available traction in those straight lines but makes slip even on swallow corners.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: (Torque Bias) Biasing the torque the rear wheels will induce throttle oversteer similar to an RWD setup. Increasing the bias towards the front will reduce throttle oversteer. But this may cause understeer when on throttle through corners.
(Viscous Differential) A strong differential reduces the speed difference between the axles which can improve straight-line traction, but it may cause understeer depending on the chassis layout.

WRC 8 Hint: (LSD Preload Central) The central differential manages the difference in rotation between the front and rear axles. An open differential [+] reduces traction, but easier to turn. A locked differential [-] provides more traction but reduces the ability to turn.
(LSD Acceleration Central) A high percentage improves cornering while accelerating but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while accelerating but may lead to understeering.
(LSD Deceleration Central) A high percentage improves cornering but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while accelerating but may lead to understeering.
(LSD Braking Central) A high percentage improves cornering while braking but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while braking but may lead to understeering.
(Torque Distribution) These settings allow you to manage the distribution of vehicle torque between the front and rear axles. A [-] distribution gives more power to rear axle. A [+] distribution gives more power to the front axle.

The advanced center differential tuning options are some of the most important in the game when talking about the drivetrain. They can be used to make an AWD vehicle act like a rear or front powered vehicle instead.

• For all that is holy in rally don't ever make an AWD car act like an FWD or RWD car.

The key point about the advanced center options is that it gives you access to the torque bias. By changing the torque bias to rear, the car is capable applying more torque to the rear wheels.
If you want to go fast and drive THROUGH turns properly you should always have a bit more torque in the rear than in the front (or an equal front/rear balance).

Higher viscous locking will add stability during turn-in, as well as traction on-power during corner exits. Too much, however, can cause resistance to chassis yaw which will create understeer. It can also cause excessive drag on the driveline by generating too much viscous friction when not all of it is needed to balance the car.

Torque bias depends on the driver preferences. The effects are obvious. An AWD vehicle will generally mimic whatever bias it is set towards. Most AWD vehicles in are biased towards the rear.

• If the torque bias is adjusted, expect to change differentials and suspension settings to compensate for the changed behavior.

More rear power makes the car more likely to oversteer(Remember RWD cars). As the torque bias approaches 50/50, many vehicles become extremely stable. This could be desirable for some drivers.

Changes on torque bias can drastically alter the entire feel of a vehicle. Changing a vehicle’s torque bias more than 1-2 marks often requires numerous shakedowns or runs to account for the differences, but it can be an extremely rewarding change.

Some vehicles dramatically benefit from torque bias adjustments. The hill climb Peugeot 405 is an AWD vehicle, though its default settings have all the power going to the rear. This vehicle is a completely different machine with a 40/60 or 30/70 front/rear bias. The 1995 Subaru Impreza is a 90/10 by default; it makes much more sense as a 10/90. Many group B vehicles are far less intimidating as the bias moves towards 50/50; it makes them feel less “twitchy” while accelerating.

In my opinion, the rear diff will make or break your strategy. If you want to power through the turns hard, keep your speed up and left foot brake like a madman, you need to consider HOW you are setting your rear diff. Unlike the front, the rear differential is where you will be making your power with AWD and RWD vehicles.

While adjusting your rear differentials, you must think about your terrain, the suspension setup, and what kind of strategy you want to deploy.

In most cases, you want a rear diff with some moderate locking power. You don't want a rear diff that isn't constantly "pushing" the car.

After changing rear differantial locks see if you like the way the car drives. Remember, this is assuming you are using an opened front diff (if the car has one). In an AWD vehicle, don't ever use an extra strong front differential and a loose rear differential unless you want to understeer right off the next cliff.

These are times when you would want a looser(opened) rear differential:

• In a RWD
  
• Low max speed due to a lot of tight turns
  
• Very soft rear suspension (or at least soft anti-roll bars)

If you meet the above three criteria, you may want to consider setting the rear diff under the halfway mark.

RWD vehicles tend to spin wheels and lose traction with locked accelerating (driving) differentials on loose surfaces. This does not mean it induces oversteer; this simply means the vehicle more likely to slide at extreme angles. If the differential is locked(strong), the driver can accelerate in whatever direction the wheels are going more quickly than if it were opened( loose). This means; it may create a faster drift, but it also worsen any suspension issues currently causing unwanted oversteer.

An opened acceleration differential allows for more traction while turning. In an RWD vehicle, this decreases any effect of imprecise throttle control. This does make the vehicle slightly more likely to rotate instead of “pushing” straight of the corner. This creates an easier to drive vehicle for many drivers than the alternative.

• Sometimes, a slightly negative rear toe (toe-out) can regain some stability.

If you are expreriencing rear “snapping” back and forth, or generally acting unpredictably whenever throttle is released, tweaking the torque preload can alleviate the problem. A locked preload differentieal may cause some understeer on releasing of throttle, but it also makes the vehicle much less likely to spin in those conditions.

This is your primary lock and the one that will create the oversteer you want or hate.
In medium and heavy gravel, you can't rely on the front to pull the car. If you are on tarmac, it depends on your suspension strategy. If there is risk of the inside wheels lifting off the ground(fast speed turns), you need some medium or high locking power.

• if you are on low speed tarmac with a lot of turns, you need to set the driving lock opened because both wheels will be connected to the ground and they need to spin more independently.

The Stratos, like other RWDs, is already very unstable with power on loose surfaces. Let's pretend we weld the back axle together, so both wheels spin at the same speed (or setting your driving lock at 100%). As soon as we begin a turn, the wheels will break traction immediately. We don't even need to apply gas, it's a done deal. Since the worst handling for the Stratos under power is in the tight corners, you might say, "Why not loosen the lock all the way?".

LSD differentials try to place power to the wheel with best grip by directing engine power more on that. While turning, most of the traction is on the outside wheels. If your ride height is set high and road camber is bad, you may have no traction on your inside wheels (you start to flip). If all the power is set to the outside wheel, the loss of traction might come off as unpredictable. Some drivers want to get all the power to that wheel, some want more stability and predictability at the cost of power to that wheel. It's down to personal taste.

One of the nasty side effects of Limited Slip Diffs(LSD) for any car is when you have two wheels on the track and two offs. When under power, your grippier wheel(s) will try to throttle steer you into the ditch. (Remember my example on Front LSD driving lock)


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A high lock percentage will improve straight-line traction although it may induce oversteer particularly in low grip conditions. A low lock percentage will improve cornering at a cost of straight-line stability.

WRC 8 Hint: (LSD Acceleration) A high percentage improves cornering while accelerating but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while accelerating but may lead understeering.
(LSD Deceleration) A high percentage improves cornering but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while accelerating but may lead to understeering.

This is our friend, because it acts to mesh the wheels smoothly together when we let off the gas helping to straighten the car. It's like when a tow truck pulls you out of a ditch. You straighten out (maybe with countersteer), then roll. Some cars with open diffs will step out bad as soon as you let go of the gas.They call it trailing throttle oversteer.

This is the strength of the diff under braking. Unlike the front braking lock, locked braking differentials can create understeer (locked diffs loose traction). In medium-heavy gravel you want some (not a lot) of braking lock. On low speed tarmac, you want a little less if you are braking into turns.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A high lock percentage will improve traction under braking but may induce
understeer on corner entry. A low lock percentage will reduce understeer on corner entry but
traction under braking may be compromised.

WRC 8 Hint: A high percentage improves cornering while braking but decreases stability. A low percentage improves traction while braking but may lead to understeering

This is the strength of the diff when not under load. Since you still want some locking power, you should consider a low to medium setting depending on suspension and stage.

You still want the driving lock to be medium to high, depending on your suspension. The only major difference is the Braking and Preload Locks. When on tarmac, you want responsiveness in turning when not applying the gas.
(I'm not sure of this yet need to try it)

• Using too much braking and preload lock will create understeer when entering a turn. Tarmac doesn't "give" like gravel and you want the wheels to rotate at different speeds.

More locked preload will result with an understeer while you are decelerating and oversteer while accelerating. Plus inability to turn.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Applying preload partially lock the differential when little or no torque is applied drivetrain ensuring it is never fully open. This can improve mid-corner traction but, having it too high may induce understeer.

WRC 8 Hint: The rear differential manages the difference in rotation between the rear wheels. An open differential [+] reduces traction, but the car is easier to turn. A locked differential [-] provides more traction but reduces the ability to turn.

Generally, proper gearing makes the largest difference and requires the least fine tuning.
Automatic has some advantages, but the manual allows for a driver to limit speed based on gear, and drift far more predictably than the automatic gearboxes in sim allow.

What those numbers on gears?:
E.g: 1st gear 0.333 means,roughly, when engine take 1000 rounds; 1st gear makes 333 round. That means 1st gear has 3x diameter(driven) than output shaft(driving), which results much pull power(aka: torque), as engine turns wheels with ease due to relatively long crank but; until some point.
The basic adjustment slider is the only one I recommend using unless you want to get into gear ratios and shift points. And if you screw up your ratios and shift point the car won't even work properly.

• A driver should tune their gearbox for each individual stage if they want the best results.
  
• A slightly shorter gearing is a great idea for low powered vehicles upward-focused stages in.

Longer Gear:

• The car will stay in a single gear through a larger range of speeds.
  
• This can slow acceleration because the engine takes longer to rev up to the point where both power and turbo fully engage and missing the change of using optimum torque on the upper gear. (Torque drops after an RPM limit compared even by upper gear)
  
• Vehicle is easier to control via throttle, as the engine will not ‘rev up’ as quickly while in gear. In other words, long gears make for higher top speed in each individual gear.
  
• For speedy stages with lots of straights and gentle bends you should choose long gearing which will allow you to reach high top speed, unfortunately at a cost of acceleration.

Shorter Gear:

• For twisty tracks without long straights go for short ratios. This increases the vehicle acceleration but, on the other hand, decreases its top speed.
  
• Shorter gears allow for faster acceleration from lower speeds. With short gears, the driver can almost always find a gear where the car is in the power band (or revving high), which also encourages faster acceleration. This can also cause more wheel spin in most vehicles.

Warning:

• 1st Gear should almost always be individually set longer than default by 2-3 marks regardless of how the rest of the gears are set. This will make starting from a stop without excessively spinning wheels easier. If there are many hairpins, consider 3-5 marks towards longer to exaggerate these effects.
  
• There's way too much power for the 1st gear they installed with the car. So, you can usually longer its ratio by default.

A driver wants a top speed just below the absolute maximum possible speed for the given stage. A driver needs a gearing ratio where they can remain in one or two gears for almost the entire race. This allows the driver to steer with the brake and throttle more reliably for two reasons.

• Any two footed techniques affect the engine’s RPMs less dramatically (which makes its balance and stance more consistent).
  
• The driver shifts less, which allows for more consistent application of power and fewer unnecessary weight shifts.

You can interpolated the gear ratios to the same top speed. Don't let gear sliders seem untidy.

• The best advice I can give is to almost always favor acceleration over top speed. This is rally, not F1. You rarely need top speed, ever.

If the track consists of lots of hairpins but also has a couple of long straights (and usually you deal with this situation) the lower gear ratios can be set up with good acceleration in mind (for these hairpins) and then the higher gears can be stretched out to allow for higher top speeds (for those long straights).

Remember only to test your settings on the shakedown first, to check if the gaps between gears are smooth, because it can often be a problem balancing the ratios when you're going for mixed low speed acceleration with a high-top speed. Keep in mind, gearing for higher top speeds only helps if the driver can consistently stay near it. Otherwise, the driver is better served by greater acceleration (and a lower top speed they may actually use).

Usually rev your car out to redline, even on turbocharged cars. This is because in a relatively lower gear, there will still be more torque going through the drive axle than when in a gear up, even though the engine produces more power. In a low gear, you will measure a lot of torque through the drive axle, because you multiply engine power by the gear ratios. So, for each higher gear you go, (if your engine always made the same power) less torque will go through the drive axle.

Gear strategy per track:
In Wales, a long top gear is useless; most of the turns and sections will not allow for top speed. In this case, acceleration is key.

In Monte Carlo, a bias towards acceleration helps immensely with hairpins and uphill stages. Longer gearing may make the vehicle's throttle/power balance more easy to control in snow/ice sections, but there are few opportunities to make use of an incredibly high top speed.

A perfect run in Greece requires the driver to tune for uphill vs. downhill. If the driver can handle the speed, a longer-than-default ratio can increase the overall speed for some sections, but the fastest sections in Greece are often the easiest to crash on. A bias toward short gears (or acceleration) helps immensely when climbing the steep cliffsides; too long a gear ratio means most vehicles struggle to accelerate, even in the powerband.

In Germany, a driver should gear for the highest possible speed in the highest possible gear on the straight sections, although acceleration is a huge help for the many tight-angle turns.

In Finland, there is no reason for a shorter gear ratio. On almost every section of every stage, a driver can use the top gear (or top two gears, for some sections) without ever dropping to 1, 2, or 3. A higher top speed is ideal, but a driver must take care not to overdrive their own abilities.

In almost every situation, a driver benefits from finding a comfortable gearing ratio that is longer than the default ratio.

• As a rule, you want to bias your gears together more for hill climb stages and spread them out for descents.

Take care not to run your gears too short, or you'll end up locking up the back end when engine braking.
You will want to go with Manual Sequential for the following reasons:

• Downshifting, in addition to braking, will slow your car way down. In many cases, it will improve stability by a long shot.
  
• Better control on RPM levels. For turboed cars, having boost go to zero at a hairpin is not good.
  
• If you're pushing too hard, you can stick to a gear to keep you honest. That way you're not letting momentum get out of control.

If you find the car hits the limiter during a stage, go back and push it up a few ticks and try again.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: (1st-5th Gear) A short ratio will improve acceleration at a cost of top speed. A long ratio will reduce acceleration but increase top speed. Too short a ratio may make it more difficult to control vehicle’s power delivery.
(Final Drive) The final drive in the differential scales the ratios of all gears in the gearbox. A short ratio will improve acceleration but reduce top speed potential. A long ratio will reduce acceleration but increase top speed potential.

WRC 8 Hint: (Gear Ratio) Transmission ratios are crucial for obtaining optimum engine power output. A close transmission ratio [+] will facilitate your acceleration grip but will result in a loss of traction and a reduced top speed. On the other hand, a wide transmission ratio [-] will reduce acceleration but will allow you to get more traction and increased top speed.

Knowing the best gear change RPM points (up or down) for your individual racing car, will give you more lap-time, more confidence and a critical advantage over most components. However this is not something to troubleshoot and adjust tuning. You may need extra tools, and it differs for each car. I suggest use ready gear ratios on the internet for your specific car. Afterall I just mention the logic behind this. As you are not a mathematics guy you can skip this part.

• Selecting the optimal gear is impossible by feel alone.

After finding the optimal points for gear change; results may even surprise you.

Best Gear:
The best gear to be in is the one that is going to give you the fastest possible acceleration at any given speed.(mentioned earlier)

If you’re in the wrong gear, you will be going slower than you could be – the equivalent of only pressing the throttle down part way.
Interestingly, by not knowing the best rpm shift points, you are possibly giving away seconds of “free” lap-time over a stint as a result.
After all the hundreds and thousands spent developing race engines, not changing at the best possible rpm seems crazy. (Yes I emphasized it is important.)

The Down Shift
Up shifts are one issue. The other is the down shift. In fact, this is much harder for the race car driver and therefore results in a higher potential impact on lost lap-time.

The situation: You are slowing for a corner.
The question: Do you change down or not?
“So is that a 3rd or 4th gear corner?”

The issue is that your “feel metrics” can get tricked. This is because one of the main ones, your ears, likes to hear the engine at top revs.

High revs just sound faster. But are they?
The thing is, we also know that it might actually be faster in a higher gear. It might not sound as fast but maybe you could get faster acceleration out of the corner in a different gear?

But how can you know?
Unfortunately, you can’t know for sure through driving.
This is because you can only ever be in one gear at a time.

Determining if it is faster in another gear can therefore only ever be an educated guess, done in the heat of the moment. Typically in these “between gears” corner situations, drivers just experiment. Over consecutive laps you may try going through the corner in both gears and then (somehow) try to work out (nee convince themselves) which is faster.

Not changing gear at the best RPM (both up and down gears) means you are not accelerating the racing car as fast as possible so you are going to be slower than you could be. Period.

The torque curve of a race engine changes with rpm; first increasing and then typically dropping off at higher revs (see image below):

As you accelerate through the revs the torque available at the wheels also peaks and then drops away. When you change up a gear, you effectively drop back down the torque curve as the higher gear will drop your revs for the same speed. You then accelerate again through the torque curve. Changing again when you feel the torque dropping away.

• To have fastest acceleration you need to have the maximum torque possible at the wheels for any given road speed.

If the torque curve did not peak and drop off, but instead continued upwards then you would always change gear at the rev limiter. As this is not (typically) the case, there comes a point in the rev band where there is more torque available to thrust the car forward in the next gear than the current one. For example. In the diagram above, let’s say you are in 2nd gear at about 7000 rpm. The torque from the engine at 7000 rpm is about 100 ft lbs.
The question: Could you get more torque in another gear?
The answer: This depends on the gearing. Remember the higher gear will drop us down the rev ranges for the speed you are going. If you drop to a point on the torque curve that would give you more than 100 ft lbs of torque then yes, change gear, otherwise no.

Situation 1: Say changing to 3rd gear dropped you down from your current 7000 to 2000 rpm. The question becomes, is there more torque at 2000 rpm than 7000 rpm? Looking at the curve in this case, there is less than 80 ft lbs of torque available. As 80 is less than 100 you would be better to stay in your current gear.
Situation 2: What if changing to 3rd gear dropped you down to 3500 rpm instead? Looking again at the torque curve there is about 115 ft lbs of torque available. As 115 is clearly more than 100, in this situation you would be better off changing to 3rd gear asap.

It is your job to change gear at the exact point that you could get more torque to the wheels through another gear. At the image below we see
The highlighted line is a “frontier” line. It represents the optimal possibility.
At the intersection points of each gear graph on the image we should gear up.

• The best gear change rpm points are where the lines intersect.

The fastest acceleration will come from getting the most torque to the wheels at any given vehicle speed. And that is the yellow line.
We simply need to stay on the yellow line to have the fastest possible acceleration at any speed.

But where to check that points' RPM values? (See image below)
Each car has this graphic in its DNA. So in two steps we are able to find the optimal RPM.

Note: In the below video, gear ratios is inverted compared to dirt rally 2.0(as we use 1/x values). For example we need to increase final gear ratio to favor top speed, in contrast to video tells decrease.

Suspension system will affect several vehicle characteristics including (but not limited to):

• Turn In
  
• Weight Transfer
  
• Jump Absorption
  
• Ride Height
  
• Overall stability on changing terrain

The front suspension has less of an effect on:

• Sudden SHOCK absorption
  
• Rebound from sudden shock

Softer suspension settings will result:

• In most cases the vehicle will rock or sway on its springs and not react to forces acting upon it (i.e. road conditions).
  
• In real life, softer front suspension allows for easier steering. In Dirt Rally, however, the difference is negligible.
  
• The vehicle will allow weight to transfer to the front of the frame while braking or changing direction.
  
• Weight transfer will cause the front tires to dig in (up to point, this has limitations).
  
• The vehicle will navigate and absorb changes in terrain and elevation.
  
• Less chance there is to see an inside wheel lift off the ground.

Suspension is a tricky game to play because soft and firm suspension both have their advantages. It is critical to tune your suspension to the terrain. The front suspension, like the rear, should be set based on the terrain and matched to the differential setting (usually).

Fow AWD vehicles keeping front damping and suspension around the middle will be enough for most situations. This creates a balanced vehicle that isn't too loose but will also absorb most of the road terrain.

Front suspension considretaions per track type:

• Smooth(Light) Terrain (Tarmac, Cement, Light Gravel): Firm to Medium suspension
  
• Bumpy(Heavy)Terrain (Heavy Gravel, Medium Gravel, Snow): Medium to soft suspension
  
• Stages with a lot of turns, low maximum speed; use a softer suspension OR softer anti-roll bars. This way you will support your car to handle in turns by keeping weight transfer limited so that the car weight inside the turn keep it steady.
  
• Stages with long straight sections, long sweeping turns, high maximum speed; firm suspension AND firm anti-roll bars. Because you want a stable car under high speeds, loose suspensions would hit the car more effectively on high speeds.
  
• When using a very firm suspension, the inside wheels can lift off the ground. If you don't have any locking power, the differential will spin out and throw you outside, connected wheel will be powerless.
  
• If you are dealing with smooth or hard terrain like tarmac or cement (and even smooth gravel), you would need to weight other factors like the stage layout and what speed you will be taking turns. This is where it is critical to understand what the vehicle will encounter during the stage or location.
  
• If you will be traveling very fast and expect to make very sharp and sudden turns (i.e. Baumholder, Germany) you will likely need to use a firm suspension (for speed) AND a medium front differential (for turn) because there is risk of the inside wheels lifting off the ground.
  
• If the stage is more technical (i.e. Monaco) and max speed is a lot slower, then your suspension can still be fairly stiff, but the front differential may be less locked since there is less risk of the inside wheels lifting up).

Always tune your front suspension as stiff as reasonably possible!
This is Why?
Because this is a video game and you can take advantage of the game mechanics. In almost every case you can afford to tune the front suspension higher than the game probably recommends. I guess Dirt Rally doesn't really have the mechanics to "punish" the car for using a slight-too-firm front suspension (still, don't make it TOO stiff). A medium to firm front suspension keeps the car more stable and you experience a lot less slop.
I recommend always trying to tune your front suspension as stiff as you can get away with. The only location in DR that really beats up a car is Greece. It is the only location you might think about using a fairly loose suspension.
For example; you may set that the front differential is relatively loose but front suspension is still medium. We want the turn-in and forgiveness from medium front suspension and it will also get proper absorption. A medium front suspension also ensures both wheels remain on the ground (inside wheel doesn't lift off). If you find the car feels sloppy, keep stiffing until the car reacts the way you want it to, especially on tarmac.

And one image for thousand words...;

The optimal ride height depends greatly on race surface and vehicle drivetrain.
Ride height has advantages and disadvantages depending on where it is set. A "tall" ride protects the car from bumps, rocks and rough landings but makes the car harder to steer and less reactive to input.
The best general strategy is set the ride height high (this value depends of the vehicle) on bumpy or heavy terrain (i.e. Greece, Wales) and low on smooth terrain(Spain, Germany, Monaco). The default ride height that the game uses too high in most cases. I always recommend consider to lower your ride height as reasonably as possible.

Physics behind:
Ride height is the most important factor lowering the vehicle’s center of gravity. A lowered center of gravity allows for larger and quicker changes of directional momentum than a higher one. It also creates a more favorable aerodynamic profile. Also it reacts with your steering inputs guicker as it now glued to the ground.

The primary ride height consideration for most cars will be lowering the CG (center of gravity) as much as possible without bottoming out excessively or running into suspension compliance issues. Lowering the center of gravity (CG) reduces load transfer and increases grip. All else being equal the lower we can get the CG the faster the car will be. At some point, you will start having issues with bottoming out on the track or having issues within the car's suspension, however.

The main disadvantage of a low ride height is the risk of “bottoming out,” or scraping the underside of the vehicle against the ground. This happens when the combination of ride height and damper strength is not enough to hold the car above the bumps (or jump landings) on the road. This is most noticeable once the ride height is set more than 3-4 marks lower than the default setup.

Another side effect of changing ride height is that you will change roll centers, which influences overall roll stiffness and balance. Raising one end of a car will act as if you stiffened the suspension at that end. For example, if you lower the front ride height you are lowering the front roll center, which softens the front roll stiffness and makes the car more prone to oversteer.
In general, these changes are going to be relatively smaller than making an anti-roll bar change, but it's something to keep in mind if the car is handling differently after a ride height change.
You can have a have a very steeply raked car that you would think would oversteer, but still make it understeer because of other suspension settings. In general, though, you just want to think of this as a side effect of ride height changes and not a way to tune the car balance. Lowering the CG will generally still be the overriding consideration.

• Tune your ride height after you are ok with your spring rates for the terrain. For maintaining your understeer or oversteer however if you are already at the end of your other adjustments and you still wish to have more oversteer or understeer.

Many times, it is best to leave the ride height untouched for loose surfaces, and only tweak it slightly for paved surfaces. This preserves the original “feel” of the vehicle and allows for the weight of the vehicle to be most easily thrown around when needed.

Be mindful of adjusting this much. Even 1-2 marks of change from the default settings can require tweaking the damper and spring settings to ensure the car doesn’t become overly twitchy or unresponsive. Even 1 mark towards a lower ride height can greatly alter its turning ability.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A low ride height helps reduce body-roll and improves overall stability, however, reduces suspension travel. High ride height will improve handling over rougher terrain at the cost of increased body-roll.

WRC 8 Hint: (Ground Clearance) The distance of the body of the car above the ground influences stability and road holding. Reduce height [-] on smooth roads and increase it [+] on bumpy roads to help the suspension do its work.

This is probably the most important attribute of the advanced front suspension options.
The spring's job is not to dampen the impact, its job is to store the energy, so we can put it somewhere else (the damper, wheels, frame etc.). If you receive more energy than the spring can store, such as in a hard landing, your car will bottom out and spike even more dramatically back into the air. This is what happens if your spring is either too soft (your bump stops hit) or too hard (spring acts like a bump stop).

The spring stiffness should be adjusted if there are other problems due to excessive front-back body roll (on throttle or braking). The spring settings also affect side-to-side weight transfer, but if that is the only situation in which the vehicle has excessive weight transfer, then the anti-roll bars should be adjusted first.

• Firm spring rate makes the steering more predictable and car more stable.
  
• Spring rate also determines how well the car rides over changes in terrain, especially at high speed.

Note: This is not to be confused with sudden shock impact (which really falls to the dampers to absorb). I never recommend setting FRONT spring rate under 50% (halfway) in any kind of terrain with perhaps the exception being Greece. Doing so makes the front end too soft and the car's steering (and reaction) will be unpredictable.This also keeps the car from springing up and "jumping" off a bump or spike in elevation. Especially on a tarmac or cement, the spring rate should be firmer.

• Firmer Front Spring will result in quicker, more responsive handling, and allow the car to run lower for better aerodynamics. However, this can also both decrease tire grip, and increase tire wear.
  
• Softer Front Spring will make the chassis move around a little more, allowing it to maintain better contact with the track surface on bumpy tracks and increasing mechanical grip. However, this will require higher ride heights which, in turn, will decrease aerodynamic grip in higher speed turns. Also you have to be aware of your damper settings.

The spring settings should also be adjusted in case of oversteer or understeer if other changes are made to the vehicle’s center of gravity or general handling.

• As a quick guideline, a lowered vehicle needs equally stiffer springs and stiffer dampers to retain some turning ability. Besides that, spring firmness is very much up to driver preference.

Soft spring settings induce more front-to-rear body roll in the softened side. In other words, soft springs increase weight transfer as the result of braking and acceleration. This causes more drastic changes in traction as the vehicle leans forward and backward.

Firm springs reduce body roll and weight transfer. Stiffening the springs may reduce braking ability by reducing weight shift, so be ready to slightly increase the pressure (or hit the brakes harder). Reducing body roll may also alter grip levels under throttle and breaking; expect some very noticeable handling changes. Firm springs also resist more of the front-rear balance changes on inclines.

Firm springs can create a more stable and predictable driving platform, but if the ride height is also high, it can cause the vehicle to “snap” upright after weight transfers. “Too high” and “too firm” is entirely vehicle dependent. Setting up a predictable, consistent, stiff suspension vehicle requires some experimentation.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Firm springs will improve body stability, but bump absorption is reduced. Soft springs will reduce body stability, but bump absorption is improved.

WRC 8 Hint: (Springs) Reduced spring stiffness [-] is better and more stable on uneven surfaces, while increasing spring stiffness [+] allows for greater speed on flat roads.

Anti-Roll bars were something that I sweated to understand yet very easily effecting setting on the car. Thus I will try to explain it in every aspect.
Adjustment of the Anti-Roll Bar allows you to control the amount of lateral chassis roll the car has when going through a turn. Roll bars are there to reduce chassis roll and transfer force from the inside tire to the outer (for example in a turn). Think about no anti roll bars and dampers on both side moves freeley if one wheel deep into a ditch it will rebound until the end, but anti roll bar will aid to hold that wheel up enough so it wont hit very hard when exiting ditch.

• If made too stiff, the inside wheel will lose grip, such as when exiting a turn at high speed.

The front anti-roll bar (ARB) exists to limit vehicle roll from left to right or right to left. In general, a firm anti-roll bar makes the car more predictable by making the vehicle more rigid. A firm anti-roll bar forces energy to pass through the vehicle instead of absorbing it by rocking on its frame.

The front ARB can be used in a similar fashion to the front suspension. Both settings will have a similar effect on the overall vehicle characteristics. The best way to set the front ARB is usually the same as your spring setting or a little firmer. Alternatively, if you are using a tight suspension but you are concerned with the inside wheels coming off the ground, think about using a slightly looser ARB to make sure the inside wheels stay down. (Note: Most racing sims allow the car to turn easier with a LOOSE ARB. For whatever reason, DR cars turn relatively the same whether using a loose or firm front ARB.)

Combining ARBs with rest and for track type:

• Stages with a lot of turns, low maximum speed; use a loose suspension OR loose anti-roll bars. This way you will support your car to handle in turns by keeping weight transfer limited so that the car weight inside the turn keep it steady.
  
• If ARBs are softened or stiffened more than single mark, the spring settings for the same part of the car (front or rear) will likely need adjusted as well. Firm springs can counteract the increased body roll from soft anti-roll bars. Soft springs can re-introduce some body roll into a vehicle with stiff roll-bars, if desired.
  
• Stages with long straight sections, long sweeping turns, high maximum speed; firm suspension AND firm anti-roll bars. Because you want a stable car under high speeds, loose suspensions would hit the car more effectively on high speeds.
  
• For faster and smoother tracks, running stiffer Anti-Roll Bars can help maximize the aerodynamic grip by providing stable ride heights. For slower, bumpier, tighter tracks, running softer ARBs will increase mechanical grip.
  
• When using a very firm suspension, the inside wheels can lift off the ground. If you don't have any locking power, the differential will spin out and throw you outside, connected wheel will be powerless.
  
• The ARBs should be adjusted to reduce bump transfer on extremely bumpy stages, or to add/reduce body sway.
  
• Body sway is only one aspect of weight transfer. The maximum amount of body roll ARBs allow is directly linked to the maximum amount of weight transfer possible. The spring rate and ride height also effectively reduce the amount of weight that can move from side to side.

Firm vs Soft Front ARB:

• Firmer the Anti-Roll Bar will keep the car more level in a turn and sharpen cornering response but can potentially cause the inside wheels to lift off the ground in high-load corners.
  
• Softer the Anti-Roll Bar will let the car roll more, increasing mechanical grip as more weight transfers to the outside tires through a turn.
  
• Stiffer front (and softer rear) ARB can cause understeer while more roll resistance at the rear can cause oversteer.
  
• Stiffer front ARB increase the amount of bump transfer, which can cause some instability in bumpy sections of the road. They also greatly reduce body sway (and restrict the ability to transfer weight). Extremely stiff roll bars can cause the inside wheel to lift or lose traction extremely sharp turns.
  
• Softer ARBdecrease the amount of bump transfer and may allow the inner wheel to get more traction than possible with a stiffer setting. They also increase body sway. Extremely stiff roll bars can cause the inside wheel to lift or lose traction extremely sharp turns.
  
• A stiffer front and softer rear allow for greater weight transfer in the back than the front. This encourages the front end to slide and backend to grip. This is how most FWD vehicles are adjusted by default.
  
• A stiffer front sway bar on a RWD car will reduce oversteer. Typically, a rear wheel drive car will handle better with a front sway bar that is stiffer. Some rear wheel drive cars, however, also understeer.
  
• Soft Front ARB = More body Roll / Less Response / Less understeer.
  
• Stiff Front ARB = Less body roll / More Response / More understeer.

A good rule of thumb for race cars is to set ARBs such that the inside front tire is just barely touching the track surface during high cornering loads.

Note that an ARB only works when one wheel is either higher or lower than the other; it’s aim is to try and keep things level. And this is great for performance and road cars but it’s not always ideal for AWDs which when you’re off-road will want as much wheel travel as possible. Obviously, the whole point of a sway bar is to try and maintain an even weight distribution from one side to the other.

The relationship between the stiffness of the front and rear ARBs greatly affects the vehicle’s overall handling.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A strong setting will resist roll but could lift the inside wheel and overload the outside wheel resulting in loss of traction. A weak setting will allow more roll but transfer of bumps to the opposite wheel will be reduced

WRC 8 Hint: Regulates the car’s anti-roll bars. A hard setting [+] allows for more precise driving at the expense of stability. A soft setting [-] increases stability but reduces precision.

The front camber angle will dictate the grip of the front wheels when turning. The more negative camber angles the better the vehicle will grip when turning. However, too negative camber angle will remove significant acceleration and braking traction. (You are decreasing touch area of the wheel to ground like you are going on top on a cycle tires).

Warning:

• The best bet is to leave the front camber angle on the default setting (usually -0.5 or so).
  
• Your front and back camber angles should usually match unless you are trying some hybrid setup.
  
• Don't ever use positive camber.
  
• Don't ever use maximum negative camber.

Keep in mind:

• 0 degrees camber is when this imaginary line is in square with the road.
  
• Positive camber occurs when the "middle-lines" are in "V shape" V+
  
• Negative camber occurs when the "middle-lines" are in "A shape" A-

Consider changing camber angle when:

• Dry to wet conditions
  
• Curved to flat roads

Camber angle will not(or negligible) have effect on:

• Bumpy or smooth terrain
  
• Oversteer or understeer

Increasing the negative camber settings on a rally vehicle allows it to use its tires more efficiently while cornering. Because while cornering the outside wheels with negative camber will have more contact area compared to 0 and positive camber or than the inner wheels with also negative camber.

Positive vs Negative Camber:

• Negative camber increases cornering traction and slightly decreases straight line traction. This allows for sharper turns without traction loss, which is most noticeable on paved surfaces. It has a second, more useful effect as well. The increased traction creates a more gradual transition from grip to slide/drift. This effect is noticeable on any surface, though it is most obvious on gravel and dirt. A gradual slide is more controllable and predictable than an instantaneous one.
  
• Positive camber increases straight line traction. This means the vehicle will have less available traction while turning, requiring the driver to slow down more dramatically, or slide. The increased straight-line traction also allows the car to more effectively “push” or “claw” itself towards the direction the wheels are pointed while drifting or sliding. The downside is that the vehicle slides more suddenly and at lower speeds.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Negative camber improves cornering grip but reduces straight-line traction. Removing camber will reduce cornering grip but increase straight-line traction. Positive camber may reduce steering effort, but overall grip may be reduced.

WRC 8 Hint: Adjusting the car’s camber allows you to set the wheel angle to suit the type of surface. However, if the camber is too pronounced, the tires will wear out quicker and the car will have a harder time approaching bends.

Let's look specifically at what is happening at the tires as we adjust toe so we can learn more about it. The primary variable that toe will affect is how quickly the car reacts to steering movements right around center.

If the vehicle has toe-in at the front, as the driver turns the outer wheel (also more heavily loaded) which provides the majority of turning forces, will already be generating a force into the corner so the car will respond more quickly and turn in faster.

For a given amount of initial steering, toe-in actually causes a car to turn-in quicker.

A side effect of steering forces building quicker however is that there will be a greater self-aligning force on the steering wheel, which will feel more stable to a driver. This is a primary reason why road cars are typically setup with toe-in, as it feels more stable to an average driver that likes a car that tends to track straight and has a very strong centered feeling in the steering.
Too much toe-in however, makes the car unstable under acceleration and braking. Leave it alone unless you want to experiment with it.

• Front toe-in (or negative toe angle) causes the vehicle to resist turning or changing directions. In all vehicles, toe-in causes the front end to “lock in” to a somewhat straight line under heavy throttle.
  
• Front toe-out (or positive toe angle) causes the front end of the vehicle to respond quickly to steering input and changing directions. It also allows for sharper turning angles, although there is no guarantee the vehicle can handle the sharper turning radius without losing traction.
  
• Front toe-out angle it is possible to give the vehicle more stability after turning into a corner, however, you will lose some responsiveness in the steering. A slight toe-in angle on the front wheels works inversely and will increase the steering response but may cause the vehicle to lose stability after turning into the corner.

With toe-in; the outer tire, which is producing the majority of turning force, will have to go past center before it starts building forces in the direction of the turn. The more lightly loaded inner tire, however, will already be creating a turning force into the direction of the corner. So, with the initial turn of the wheel, the net effect turning force will still be in the direction of the corner, but it will be less than with toe-in.

Because of the load transfer and relative importance of the outer tire over the inner in supplying forces, you can change how fast the car initially turns by modifying the initial slip angles. Put simply, toe-out creates a more gradual buildup of turning forces. The side effect of this slower buildup is that the steering will feel lighter and have less self-centering force. To most drivers this will make the car feel more responsive even though technically it is less responsive. Because of this paradox, it's easy to see where people's confusion with toe effects stems from.

Realize though that this is simply the tires and steering force response to a given steering wheel movement. The driver can always turn the steering faster or slower to get the exact same turning response provided by a different toe setting. So although a certain toe setting might feel better to some people, a skilled driver will be able to negotiate a corner in virtually the same fashion with several different toe settings by adapting and changing the rate of steering needed at turn-in.

It's also important to understand that although we usually think about toe's effect on initial steering, it actually will have an effect anytime a tire is initially building turning forces even if it's going from one direction to another such as in the middle of a transition or during a correction.
This is like toe settings will primarily have an effect in some of the same situations that dampers will. So, should you tune your toe setting based on going through a slalom as you would with dampers? You might, if you are an auto crosser who doesn't have to worry about long straightaways, but for most road course racing the most important factor in optimizing toe is probably in reducing drag.

Unlike altering damper settings, using toe settings to alter the transient handling of a car can also affect drag. A side effect of using negative camber on the front wheels is that the camber thrust will create a force trying to turn both wheels toward each other in basically the same way as toe-in would. This creates drag on the tires that slows the car down on straights. If you set some toe-out at the front, you can counteract this inward camber thrust force to reduce this drag. This is fairly easily tested by checking straightaway speed in a similar manner to the previous aero/ride height testing. We generally feel that whatever setting produces the least drag and best straightaway speed is the best one. This will most likely be with some minimal amount of toe-out that most drivers seem to prefer from a transient handling standpoint anyway, but even if some adaption to the transient handling is required, the higher straightaway speeds should be a welcome incentive.

Lastly;

• On FWD cars negative toe can help to gain desired oversteer with the overhead of stability.

Troubleshoot with toe angle:

• If you're having difficulty with turning the car into hairpins, toe-out on the front wheels can help.
  
• If the car's wandering over the road when you want it to go straight, try toe-in the front wheels.
  
• I was able to get increased stability around corners by maxing out negative toe angle on the rear axle, but it seemed to go crazy on the straightaway as soon as a wheel went airborne.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Toe in in the front increase stability at the cost of responsiveness, however too much can cause the vehicle to understeer. Toe out on the front increases turn in, however this can cause vague steering.

WRC 8 Hint: [Like a joke no toe setting]

The rear suspension "agrees" with the rear differential tuning in that the rear differential has some moderate locking power. In gravel you can generally use a moderate/strong amount of locking power because rear end oversteer is desired. Leave the suspension moderate enough to absorb the terrain.

• On tarmac or smooth terrain, the rear suspension basic slider should almost certainly be firmer. Don't leave the suspension loose when on cement, asphalt, etc.

What does softer rear suspension mean?

• More the vehicle will rock or sway on its springs and not react to forces acting upon it (i.e. energy transfer, road conditions).
  
• Allow weight to transfer to the rear of the frame while accelerating or changing direction
  Note: an extremely loose rear suspension will ABSORB that energy instead of transferring it to the wheels.
  
• More weight will transfer to the rear axle and cause the back end of the car to "dig in" and oversteer less (as above, this has limitations).
  
• More the vehicle will navigate and absorb changes in terrain and elevation.
  
• Less chance there is to see an inside wheel lift off the ground.

Understanding Soft vs Stiff Suspension:
The simplest way to understand this is to imagine a car with no suspension at all. With no suspension, hitting a bump at speed will result in the vehicle losing contact with the ground. A vehicle with no suspension is essentially equivalent to a vehicle with an infinitely high spring rate(that is too much stiff). As you decrease the spring rate, the suspension is able to conform better to road irregularities, and thus grip improves. Of course, there is a sweet spot where all of this is optimal.
While too stiff of a suspension may mean going airborne when hitting a bump, it can also mean not contacting the road quick enough if there’s a drop in the road. Imagine we have a car with a super stiff spring on the front left tire, and a super soft spring on the front right tire, heading towards a 20 millimeter indent ahead where the road drops. Which tire will come into contact with the road first? You might think the higher spring rate would react faster, but in reality, the lower spring rate will contact the ground first,(because soft one will extend or compress with same amount of force than stiff one) and thus allows for more grip. Again, going back to imagining a spring with an infinitely high rate (a fixed suspension), you’d simply rely on gravity for the car to drop down into the divot. With a lower spring rate, the force pressing the tire down remains higher longer relative to the amount of travel it has, so it contacts the ground much sooner.
So why race cars favor stiff suspensions afterall?
It’s not that race cars don’t desire soft springs (they do!), it’s that the compromise isn’t worth it because factors like aerodynamics won’t allow it.These cars are capable of creating more downforce than the weight of the vehicles themselves. What would happen if you placed another car on top of your own car? The bottom car would sink low, eventually bottoming out if enough weight is added. To prevent this, the cars have to have super stiff springs, so that downforce doesn’t cause the car to bottom out.

As stated above it is critical to tune your suspension to the terrain. The rear suspension, like the front, should be set based on the terrain and matched to the differential setting (usually). ,
Front suspension considretaions per track type:

• Smooth Terrain (Tarmac, Cement, Light Gravel): Firm to Medium Suspension
  
• Bumpy Terrain (Heavy Gravel, Medium Gravel, Snow): Medium to Loosen Suspension

In the front suspension section, I talked about making sure to tune the suspension as stiff as possible without destroying your car. The same applies with the rear but usually, the rear suspension should be the same as the front or a little bit softer.

Why rear suspension better be little softer than front?

• Don't ever tune the front and rear suspensions too different from each other or you will have a car that is a mess to handle.
  
• You can always use a looser suspension in the rear to keep the rear end in contact with the road. There are multiple bumps in rally workd that your front suspension will glide over but cause the rear suspension to spring up. By using a slightly softer rear suspension you can keep the car planted to the ground.

Ride height affects all kinds of stuff in the real world such as bump steer, wheel geometry, etc. All those things are important, but probably do not pertain to the Dirt world. What they did tell us is that it does affect suspension travel and that it might adversely give the car a high CG (center of gravity). This setting sets the baseline for everything else and thus may have the greatest impact on handling for any particular track.

Once again; the default setting is almost always too high. You can usually afford to bump it down by one or two clicks. The lower the car is to the ground, the easier it is to control since the center of gravity is lower. The general rule of thumb is to use a high ride height on rough terrain and a low ride height on smooth terrain. It is important to note the ride height dictates your total suspension travel. If you lower the suspension too much, the car will constantly slam the bump stops when coming off large jumps or when hitting ditches, terrain, etc.

On loose surfaces, the front and rear ride height should lower 0-2 marks lower than default, depending on vehicle and surface. For most vehicles in most situations, the default ride height (or 1 mark lower) preserves the ability to easily and gradually shift the vehicle’s weight for reliable, predictable maneuvers. It also keeps the vehicle’s underside comfortably safe through the biggest jumps.

On paved surfaces, the number of marks lowered is the same (0-2), although vehicles have a much lower base height than on loose surfaces. Ideally, it should be adjusted as low as possible without bottoming out over the bumpiest sections of the track, given near full throttle. This is very track dependent. Germany has many bumpy sections, while the other paved roads (as of Version .50) are fairly flat, with large elevation changes.

Another consideration with a ride height change is the direct effect it will have on camber. In most cars, as you lower the suspension, the negative camber on the wheels will increase (I’m not sure if this really applies on simulations as well). The amount will vary based on suspension design, but it's almost universal that some camber change will occur. This may be beneficial by itself if the car's camber adjustment range is limited and the optimum camber is more negative than the adjustments allow at a higher ride height. If you have already established optimum cambers however, you will need to re-establish those if you change the ride height. This is one reason that establishing ride height early in the process is a good idea.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A low ride height helps reduce body-roll and improves overall stability, however, reduces suspension travel. High ride height will improve handling over rougher terrain at the cost of increased body-roll.

WRC 8 Hint: (Ground Clearance) The distance of the body of the car above the ground influences stability and road holding. Reduce height [-] on smooth roads and increase it [+] on bumpy roads to help the suspension do its work.

For tuning suspensions at a given weight you have to gauge your stage, set ride height, match your spring to your tire (which we don't do here), then set your main damper settings, then your fast settings. It all goes downhill from there. For example; in Monte Carlo, we want to set Ride Height low and spring rate firm.

Adjust the front and rear spring rates to find the right balance for the track, the car, and your personal driving style. Having a softer rear decrease oversteer but having it too soft could make it feel lazy and reluctant to rotate through a corner. It’s generally best to adjust the front and rear spring rates together.

Unlike the front suspension that need to be firmer, the rear suspension can be softer even below halfway. You can soften the rear to deal with the gravel and dig in instead of spinning out.

• The stiffer the rear spring rate, the more that weight transfer will create oversteer and swing the back end out. Think of it like a whip. An extremely stiff rear spring rate will cause the back end to "whip" out when energy transfers to the back end. A softer rear suspension will cause the rear tires to dig in (to a point).

There is a balancing act here. Too soft and the car turns into a marshmallow (bad). Too stiff and oversteer will be your nightmare, especially in an RWD vehicle.

• A good tip to managing the gross oversteer in RWD: soften the rear spring.

Remember, your front and rear suspension should never be too different otherwise the vehicle will not handle properly. If racing on tarmac or hard/smooth terrain use a stiffer spring rates.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Firm springs will improve body stability, but bump absorption is reduced. Soft springs will reduce body stability, but bump absorption is improved.

WRC 8 Hint: (Springs) Reduced spring stiffness [-] is better and more stable on uneven surfaces, while increasing spring stiffness [+] allows for greater speed on flat roads.

Like the rear suspension, the rear ARB should be set to match the terrain and vehicle strategy. In general, the ARB can be used in conjunction with the suspension to set how much "play" or amount of frame rocking you want from the vehicle. Also like the rear spring rate, the rear ARB can be used to control the amount of "whip" that occurs when energy transfers to the back end. By allowing the frame to rock, the car is less responsive but less oversteer occurs, especially if the rear differential has a lot of locking power.

Rear ARBs per track type:

• In bumpy gravel, the rear ARB is somewhat softer. This keeps the back end under control, but it isn't so loose that the car is completely unstable. As stated before, the general strategy is to get some oversteer going but keep that oversteer in check.
  
• If this was a tarmac or hard surface example, the rear ARB would likely be stiffer. A very stiff rear ARB means the inside wheels can lift off the ground and thus the rear differential will need some locking power to make sure the differential doesn't spin out.

Anti-roll bars may belong near the top of the list because they are going to be the primary way that a driver adjusts the car's balance and will be one of the most frequently adjusted settings.

Some cars even allow ARBs to be adjusted directly from within the cockpit. ARBs don't directly add or take away grip; they simply shift how the load is distributed among the tires during cornering. This causes a balance shift because of a tire's load sensitivity. You can accomplish the same balance shift through spring and roll center changes, but those are harder to modify usually. Understand that any of these changes can also cause the car to handle bumps differently as well as changing the car's overall roll stiffness. This can change the camber angle the tires corner at so any change in anti-roll bars might require a camber adjustment as well.

Relation between Rear and Front ARB:
If you like the way a car feels and you have good camber settings, make sure you make even adjustments front and rear to keep the overall stiffness the same. If you soften the front, make sure you stiffen the rear proportionately, and vice versa. This allows you to make balance changes without the necessity of making other changes to the car's suspension to compensate.

• Front and rear ARBs should never be different each other

FWD Cars: A stiffer rear sway bar on a front wheel drive car will reduce understeer. Typically, a front wheel drive car will handle better with a stiffer rear sway bar.

AWD Cars: To put it simply, if you drive an all wheel drive car that understeers, install a stiffer rear sway bar. If you drive an all wheel drive car that oversteers, install a stiffer front sway bar. All wheel drive vehicles all handle a little bit differently, this means that choosing the right combination of sway bars will depend on how your specific vehicle behaves.

For AWD and RWD vehicles, softening the front ARB can increase the vehicle’s ability to turn in sharply, quickly, and without losing traction. The downside is this may change the overall balance of the vehicle slightly, making it slightly difficult to control in low/no traction situations until the new handling is learned or the tuning adjusted elsewhere.

For RWD vehicles, softening the rear ARB can make the rear end turn in more sharply and respond more quickly in turns. This also makes the vehicle more susceptible to sliding via slalom and flick maneuvers. This is a common adjustment to make on the 60s Mini Cooper. The F2 Kit Cars are tuned for a softer rear ARB by default.

Soft vs. Firm Rear ARBs:

• Stiffer bars increase the amount of bump transfer, which can cause some instability in bumpy sections of the road. They also greatly reduce body sway (and restrict the ability to transfer weight). Extremely stiff roll bars can cause the inside wheel to lift or lose traction extremely sharp turns.
  
• Softer bars decrease the amount of bump transfer and may allow the inner wheel to get more traction than possible with a stiffer setting. They also increase body sway. Extremely stiff roll bars can cause the inside wheel to lift or lose traction extremely sharp turns.
  
• A softer front and stiffer rear restrict weight transfer in the rear and while allowing the front to turn further in than the front before losing traction. This also encourages the front end to grip, but it discourages the back wheels from sliding. It can introduce a “floaty” feeling (for lack of a better term) in the front end only. This kind of adjustment is common on RWD vehicles, though not everyone has this ratio by default.
  
• If your vehicle understeers, front or rear wheel drive, a stiffer rear sway bar will make the car handle more neutrally.
  
• Great care should be taken with extreme Anti-roll bar settings as they can have unexpected results. Very soft rear settings can, for example, effect the tyres contact patches to such a degree that it results in greater oversteer rather reducing oversteer.
  
• Soft Rear ARB = More Body Roll / Less Response / Less Oversteer / Can be unstable.
  
• Stiff Rear ARB = Less Body Roll / More Response / More Oversteer / More Stable.

If you move the car closer to neutral balance you are increasing the car's overall grip potential. Any adjustment that moves a car toward greater understeer or oversteer lowers its overall grip potential. Car balance will change due to track variations as well as driver induced changes such as braking or going to the throttle. A driver's car control skill and preference will generally always remain the overriding factor over the desired car balance. A novice driver will typically want a very stable car that understeers readily and gives them confidence to push their limits. As a driver's skill progresses, they will want to shift the balance toward less understeer as this will increase the maximum grip a car can achieve and allow faster lap times.

If you go extreme with ARB settings, you will finally end up with at least one of your wheels have zero load on turns thus no grip. That zero-load tire will be locked up easily and will spin under acceleration.

• These setting should be made at the end of your settings to balance your car.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: A strong setting will resist roll but could lift the inside wheel and overload the outside wheel resulting in loss of traction. A weak setting will allow more roll but transfer of bumps to the opposite wheel will be reduced

WRC 8 Hint: Regulates the car’s anti-roll bars. A hard setting [+] allows for more precise driving at the expense of stability. A soft setting [-] increases stability but reduces precision.

As with the front, the default camber angle is usually appropriate. The more negative camber you add, the better the tires bite in the corners but the more they slip when going straight. As with most things, it’s a balancing act. If the stage features a lot of corners and tight maneuvers, adding a bit more negative camber can help.

Remember; while cornering the most work will be done by the outer wheels, so we let them more friction area for a good grip. This can be an advantage on tarmac stages where there is a lot of cornering involved. If the settings are pushed too high, the vehicle's braking ability will be affected. Positive camber angle helps to minimize the amount of steering effort.

Most racing and rally cars run with a certain amount of negative camber. The ever road camber of an average rally stage changes dramatically over time, and even from side to side of the road. For this reason, camber is best adjusted to assist in controlling the vehicle reliably and precisely, rather than maximizing grip over time or in particular situations. This is one system more easily discussed in terms of exact numbers than difference from default settings.

Almost every vehicle should be tuned to start with -.5 to -2.0 camber angle on both front and rear wheels, usually beginning around -1.3.
I highly recommend becoming comfortable with the vehicle's default settings first. Any changes to camber or toe will cause dramatic changes in how the car handles during turns.

If the vehicle has different camber settings on the front and rear by default, there are two choices. One, make the front and rears symmetrical; this equalizes the base grip for front and rear. Two, preserve the original ratios while adjusting the camber; this keeps more of the original handling feel intact.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Negative camber improves cornering grip but reduces straight-line traction. Removing camber will reduce cornering grip but increase straight-line traction. Positive camber may reduce steering effort, but overall grip may be reduced.

WRC 8 Hint: Adjusting the car’s camber allows you to set the wheel angle to suit the type of surface. However, if the camber is too pronounced, the tires will wear out quicker and the car will have a harder time approaching bends.

Rear toe settings will primarily have an effect on how quickly the car rotates (yaws) during a turn. Rear toe-in causes the more heavily loaded outside tire to start with a slight slip angle so the buildup in forces are going to start sooner and the maximum yaw for a given amount of steering will be less. For both reasons the car will feel more stable during cornering. The initial response is a much more significant effect than the final yaw achieved though.

Rear toe-out will have the opposite effect and increase the rate of initial rotation and final yaw for a given amount of steering. But unlike front toe settings, the effects of rear toe are always going to be present, because while a driver can compensate for front toe settings by changing the rate at which they turn the steering wheel, the rear toe settings are going to directly affect the attitude of the car in a corner. Also, just like front toe, rear toe settings are going to primarily affect the car in transients. While the overall maximum yaw for a corner will be greater and thus require less steering to negotiate the same turn, the difference will be fairly small.

I highly recommend becoming comfortable with the vehicle's default settings first. Any changes to camber or toe will cause dramatic changes in how the car handles during turns. All adjustments should be made in tenths (-0.1, -0.2, -0.3). This is an extremely sensitive part of the vehicle. Small changes equate to large differences in control.

• Rear toe-in (or negative toe angle) causes the rear end to slightly resist spinning or sliding. This can cause the rear to stick to the road more effectively as the throttle increases. This is often desirable for paved surfaces.
  
• Rear toe-out can cause on-throttle oversteer, but it also allows for sharper turning angles. This is because outer tires while turning provide more grip and with toe-out that rear tire will be aligned in the direction with the curve.
  
• Rear toe-out (or positive toe angle) causes the back end of the vehicle to swing or slide out more quickly while accelerating or braking. Even +0.2 degrees of toe out can change a tame RWD or AWD vehicle into a drift machine.
  
• Rear toe-out settings will be felt primarily during a fast-initial turn in. While this effect can be minimized with a skilled driver, the change in yaw velocity as the tire crosses over center in a chicane or correction will be unavoidable.

For most cars, extra yaw velocity is not preferable, so it's almost universally understood that a car will want to be setup with some amount of toe-in at the rear, not only for the increased stability, but also because the tire's slip angles will normally be more optimized for grip during cornering. The one possible negative side effect of toe-in at the rear would be drag so it would probably be beneficial to do drag testing with various toe-in and toe-out settings at the rear to see how sensitive the tires are to changes. Some tires will tolerate more toe without a noticeable change in drag, but only testing will tell.

Increasing the rear toe angle of the vehicle will have a more pronounced effect on the vehicle's handling. When adjusting the rear toe angle, it is wise to make small adjustments and then test the feel of the vehicle to see how it has affected it. Generally, you should avoid to toe-out the rear wheels as this can make the car very unstable. Because while cornering you will have a weight transfer on the outside wheels that is already pointing outwards and this transfer will result a slip.

• At the rear, a touch of toe-in can help tame an oversteering car.
  
• Too much toe-out at the rear will make your car unstable and undriveable. (Never do that)
  
• A little toe-in at the rear will help for high speed stability.
  
• If you want a noticable change in terms of driveability try to adjust rear toe.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Toe in on the rear increases stability and enables you to get better drive out of the corners. Toe out on the rear increase vehicle rotation mid corner, however too much can cause oversteer.

WRC 8 Hint: [Again like a joke no toe setting present]

Note: This section covers both front and rear dampers.

Unless a dampening structure is present, a car spring will extend and release the energy it absorbs from a bump at an uncontrolled rate. This means the spring will continue to bounce at its natural frequency until all the energy originally put into it is used up. So a suspension built on springs alone would make for an extremely bouncy ride and an uncontrollable car.

Bump vs. Rebound:
The two most common adjustable aspects of a damper are bump and rebound.

• Bump settings control how fast the springs will be allowed to compress. The higher the value more resistance and slower the compression. This occurs at the front under braking and the rear under acceleration.(when weight hit on either side)
  
• Rebound settings control how fast the springs will be allowed to expand. The higher the value more resistance to expand and slower the expansion. This ocurs at the front under acceleration and at the rear under braking.(again when weight hit on either side)
  
• Think of a damper as a syringe filled with hydraulic fluid and your thumb is the wheel. At a certain point, it doesn't matter how hard you squeeze, your rate will be roughly dictated by the orifice or tip where the fluid leaves. If you want to get the fluid out faster, you open the hole up meaning; softer bump.
  
• Rebound forces are based on the forces from the spring extending on the damper. When a spring compresses it is usually a fast process and the vertical displacement is often absorbed within the damper. If the spring was allowed to return to its normal length with the same speed as it compressed then it would slam the wheel back towards the floor resulting in a notable jolt to the car which is unsettling for the driver and the grip.
  
• Rebound adjustment is key to control the rate at which the spring and damper are allowed to extend. This is most ideal for tuning how a car exits a corner when the car rolls back to center as the lateral load reduces. A smooth return is important to not overload the tires and reduce the grip of the car. Another area is where a car rides a curb or lands from a jump/rise over a crest and needs to rise back to ride height. If this is done slowly and controlled it is much better for driver confidence and maintaining grip at the tire.

Beside its job to control the motion of the spring it also takes a huge role on the weight transfer. Without a damper, in short, the car cannot maintain a constant contact patch to increase grip to a maximum. Therefore, the damper controls how much the spring can oscillate and returns it to a stationary position a fast and efficiently as possible once the spring has done its job.

• A damper is throttle or brake reactive component. This means that it is only effective when the car accelerates or decelerates. If it operates at a constant velocity it would not work effectively.

We’ve mentioned that spring stiffness determines how far spring will compress(bump) or expands (rebound) under a given load. On the other hand, damper stiffness determines how fast that compression or expansion will occur.

• Springs determine how much weight will rest on each corner of the car as we drive.
• Dampers determine how fast the weight will be transferred around as we drive.

When Dampers come into play?

• A damper becomes crucial when the car enters a corner, exits a corner or experiences a bump or dip in the road, or the car lifts or down like in a bump or a crest on the track or due to acceleration or braking.
  
• It is not active when the car is driving smoothly down a road in a straight line or in the middle of a corner when the weight transfer has fully occurred, and the car is settled and cornering in one direction. That means you might start thinking of them when curved and constantly brake/throttle needed roads or with too much jumps are ahead.
  
• If a track is smooth enough that you don’t have to tune primarily for bumps, then you are freer to use dampers to alter this.
  
• Shock absorbers, in categories like rallying this is even more important where the ground is uneven, and wheel needs to absorb as much shocks form the ground as possible to not jolt the car up.
  
• This adjustment that can be either extremely important or almost negligible depending on the car, track, and driver. In racing however, dampers are now the primary item controlling the transient handling of a vehicle.
  
• Damper settings only come into play when your suspension is in transition between expanded and compressed state. It is a tool for fine tuning the handling that you will only feel in specific moments, like direction changes, right after starting to brake, right after hitting the throttle, etc. If your car has poor balance in other moments (not transitions), look somewhere else.
  
• This is adjusted if the car is leaning too much on corner entry and exit or if it feels as though too much body roll is occurring. Alternatively, it can be adjusted based on how the car rides over bumps such as apex curbs or if the car is bottoming out or lands too aggressively after driving fast over a crest.

Controlling how fast the damper can compress or extend controls how much the car rolls in and out of corners which is very useful to tune understeer/oversteer out of the car.

While you can do many things with damper tuning that will affect balance in different phases of cornering, in general it is probably best to focus your efforts on using the dampers to improve the grip and tune the transient handling to your personal tastes.

• If the track is very bumpy or has curbs that will gain you a good bit of time by going over them then tuning the dampers to accommodate these should be your number one priority because you will be increasing grip. Remember grip is our primary goal.
  
• In general, to improve road holding over bumps you will want to soften dampers up to the point that you get no more than one oscillation after a big bump.

Soft dampers mean that the car goes to full compression during a bump, and then it can go to full extension before finally settling back to its normal ride height. If you get a pogo effect because of a bump, then you need to either stiffen the suspension or avoid the bump because it's too big for the suspension to handle. If the dampers aren't able to control the suspension and you get big tire load variations as the car is bouncing you will lose almost all the grip.
The other end of this compromise is that as you soften dampers to handle bumps and curbs better you are slowing down how quickly load transfers which changes your transient handling by slowing down how quickly the car reacts to inputs. Some drivers prefer a slower reacting car, and some prefer a quicker reacting car.

Theoretically, the quicker a car reacts, the faster it can be as the tires load up and go to maximum grip faster. This is generally a small difference and only if a driver is skilled enough to take advantage of the quicker loading will it be faster. In addition, this will primarily only be a benefit during track sections where a quick tire loading is required which is usually only in the center of a chicane as a driver goes from one direction to the other quickly. During a normal corner, the slower transitions cause damper settings to make much less of a difference.

Advanced damper tuning is very complex and there are different ways to set it, depending on the vehicle, driving style and terrain. In this section, I will give recommendations but note that when using the advanced settings, you may find something that works better for you since much of the time damper settings should comply with driving characteristics.

If the terrain is rough (e.g. Greece), soften the dampers a bit. When it comes to "hybrid" stages; you can stiffen the dampers while still using a soft suspension. The point is; you want your dampers to be firm, when possible, but not so firm which cause lose control of the car.

Fast and Slow Settings:

• Keep fast bump/rebound settings softer than corresponding slow bump/rebound. Because fast settings is there to compansate hard hits on the car wheel. So keeping it softer will give oppurtunity to do its intended work. (Assuming you've adjusted slow settings optimal)

Considerations on setting dampers:

• If the vehicle feels difficult to control over bumpy sections, adjust the dampers a little softer and try; this way dampers will allow the springs to make wheel meet the ground quicker. If the bumps only greatly affected control after lowering the ride height, the driver should first soften the dampers. If this does not solve the issue, the ride height may need to be raised to prevent loss of control.
  
• On paved surfaces, if the ride height is lowered, then the springs should be firmed, and the dampers firmed alongside. This helps prevent bottoming out. Keep in mind it will make the vehicle twitchier in bumpy sections.
  
• If car feels boat-like and sluggish reacting to inputs; stiffen all damper settings by similar amounts. You´ll get better response. Can be useful for road cars, combined with harder springs.
  
• If car feels unpredictable, it reacts very violently to inputs or bumps; soften all damper settings by similar amounts. You´ll get a bit more road compliance and a more progressive response.
  
• As track contains more and more bumps or quick transitions, dampers become increasingly important. The quicker the suspension must move the more effect dampers will have. This could be from track bumps, quick transitions such as autocross slaloms, or even quick corrections done by the driver. For this reason, off-road racing teams spend considerable amounts of time on damper development because they are a huge part of the performance package.
  
• On a smooth track with no quick transitions however, the dampers become much less important.
  
• For stages with high-speed, you want your rates to be firm/slow. You don't want your suspension to sag unpredictably fast to one side; sending you out off track. When letting off or gunning the throttle, you want your springs tight and dampers moving things slowly under the twitchy environment.
  
• Winding, low speed gravel is another matter though. The car wheel needs to use its vertical travel (which you have hopefully already set up with ride height and springs) to manage constantly changing camber. You will want the car to keep the wheels moving up and down while the chassis is relatively stationary (hint: higher rate, faster fluid flow, softer settings) important.

Dampers that are too soft will allow too much sway, or worse, slam off the bump stop and possibly toss the car in an awkward direction. Dampers that are too stiff won't absorb anything and the car again, can get tossed in an awkward direction when landing or hitting ditches, holes, etc. Dampers that are too stiff can also leave the wheels off the ground because the rebound is too slow.
One other factor to keep in mind is how a car reacts when responding to quick driver inputs during a recovery. Some of the fastest suspension movements can be when a driver is trying to recover a car from a big oversteer . So, besides extra stability, stiff front and soft rear damper in a controlled cornering might be a benefit especially for a novice driver who tends to be a little sloppier with their inputs and is making big corrections more often.

Bump is the "normal" shock control (and spring limitation) that is always in effect (unless fast bump comes into play). A firm bump will resist compression, add stability, and add traction (better for smooth, safe terrain). A soft bump will allow more compression and absorb holes, ditches, jumps, etc.
Slow damping controls the car’s suspension compression in response to driver inputs (weight shifts around naturally or when we brake -front springs compress, rear spring extend- or accelerate -front springs extend, rear spring compress- ) not to hard track conditions. It controls the dynamic weight transfer and overall motion of the main chassis relative to the track surface when the car turns, slows, and accelerates. Most fine-tuning of the handling balance will be done with the Slow Damping settings.

Warning:
Just because there are jumps in the stage does NOT mean you need very soft bump. In fact, a lot of soft bump will likely allow the car to slam off the bump stop. Jumping is tricky because you need some absorption but too soft and you'll break the car by bottoming out.

• Soft vs. Fim Slow Bump:
  
• Stiffening the slow bump will make the car react quicker and sharper in response to driver inputs, resulting in a more responsive car when changing direction. Too stiff slow bump, however, can reduce mechanical grip, causing more “snappy” behavior. It can also result in a car that is prone to sudden understeer when the front is too stiff, or sudden oversteer when the rear is too stiff.
  
• Increasing the absorption (softering) of the dampers will make the vehicle feel more stable on bumpy roads to some point, whilst decreasing it (stiffen) will make the vehicle feel rigid on fast and smooth tracks.
  
• If you set the dampers too stiff the car will tend to bounce off the road; as it would response late to changing track conditions. So, if your car is shakey or bouncy after bumps, you need to soften your dampers and/or suspension (springs)
  
• If you set the value too soft the damper will fail to absorb bumps within the road causing the bottom of the vehicle to hit the track surface. Spring rate is one consideration that should be in harmony with dampers.

Harder suspension springs (look above) require stronger dampers. Adjusting them on their own producing an effect like that of adjusting suspension stiffness, but where they're really effective is in tweaking the car's behavior in transitions: turning into the corner and coming out.

If you are oversteering, you can soften the damper in the rear or stiffen the damper in the front.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Firm bump rate will aid stability, but absorption of bumps can be reduced. Soft bump rate will be better at absorbing bumps, but stability can be reduced.

WRC 8 Hint: (Shock Absorber Compression) Affect the speed of shock absorber compression. Setting it to hard [+] gives precision at the expense of stability, while soft [-] increases stability but decreases precision.

Fast bump is needed for stages with lots of jumps with hard landings: your normal bump and rebound settings will contend with most of the track, but for those hard landings fast bump will kick in and save your suspension."Fast" in this case is referring to vertical wheel speed, not the car's speed. What this adds is the capability to have an extra damping force applied when the wheel is moving very fast upwards (landing from a jump, for example, or on rough surfaces.

Think of this as by-pass mode for all your rocks and bumps. Back to the syringe, let's say we frequently burst the chamber from over pressurization (hit a rock). So, we add a safety valve that opens only when the pressure spikes past a certain internal pressure. Remember that even though the rate which the fluid flows through the main nozzle is about the same, the internal pressure in the chamber will continue to increase as we add more force.
When this special bypass valve opens, all the sudden the syringe moves faster, because now we have two ports open instead of one and more flow (more RATE).
The same goes when we hit a rock. The damper goes into bypass mode because of the major pressure spike, allowing much higher flowrate from the additional orifice (less resistance to flow, the wheel comes up faster). This is a simplification of real-world setups using shim stacks and a nitrogen cylinder.

Think of the "Fast Bump Threshold" setting as the minimum pressure required to go into bypass mode. That's what will open the bypass valve. The "size" of the valve/port is your Fast Bump setting. It will determine how fast the fluid will move to make this valve open. Remember that the threshold setting only controls when the valve opens, the fast bump controls rate after the valve opens.To rephrase it; it is the "sensitivity" or tolerance of the damper before it chooses to use fast bump instead of regular bump. By setting the fast bump threshold at a high fps, the fast bump will almost never come into play and the car will almost always be riding on the regular bump setting. By setting it low, the fast bump will almost always come into play when the tire hits something or you come off a jump.

In practical terms, you do not want the threshold to open during your normal turns. You want it to turn only when you hit the rock, bump, or jump.. Otherwise all sorts of unpredictable stuff will happen to your handling. It might feel as if your suspension is fading.

• My recommendation here is to use a slightly softer fast bump than the regular bump setting. A softer fast bump acts like an emergency bump setting.

The damper will only go soft when it needs to, otherwise it will stay stiff. I have a dozen setups where I choose the bump setting and then I place the fast bump slightly softer than the regular bump. This is especially effective when you want a stiff regular bump, but you would need an emergency recovery, just in case you come off a jump wrong or hit some rough terrain.

If the terrain is rough feel free to set fast bump to react the same as the regular bump if your regular bump is already low/medium that you won't need anything lower.

Too softer fast bump setting can prevent loss of control after a hard hit. A firmer fast bump setting (or higher ride height) may be needed to prevent bottoming out in low vehicles. Like everything in the life; we need to find the balance.
In bumpy sections of track, too stiff Fast Bump at the front can cause understeer, too much at the rear can cause oversteer.

• You should make the strength of the fast bump slightly softer than your slow bump setting and make the fast bump threshold high enough that the fast bump setting is not being used all the time.
  
• Slow Bump and rebound settings better be different from each other or you will miss a potential tweak.

To tune fast bump, you may pick a bumpy section of the track. Start with soft Fast Bump and Rebound settings, and stiffen them until the front understeers, then back off a few clicks. Repeat this process for the rear until it oversteers on that bumpy section and, again, back off a few clicks. Now check the car’s response to the rest of the track, and over kerbs. This may require softer settings than the bumpy section: perfection is rare, and compromise is key.

Tune Fast Bump in sync with Spring Rate changes. The stiffer the spring, the stiffer the Fast Bump/Rebound setting.


Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: (Bump Zone Division) If an impact on the wheel causes the damper to compress slower than this rate, the standard bump rate will take effect. If it causes the damper to compress faster than this rate, the fast bump rate will take effect.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: Fast bump controls how the damper handles impact from jumps & large bumps. Soft fast bump allows greater absorption, but vehicle may hit the bump stop reducing stability. Firm fast bump may prevent this, but bump absorption is reduced.

WRC 8 Hint: -

A damper not only can control the rate the fluid leaves the chamber (high speed turn entry) but also how fast it's allowed to return and refill (turn exit). Rebound is how quickly the damper will allow the suspension to expand after an impact. Return force (not rate) is determined by the following:

• Your spring pushing back down.
  
• Weight of your wheel
  
• Other factors such as damper gas preload.

If you allow your wheel to return too fast (too soft rebound or think no dampers at all), your springs (or worse, your bottomed out chassis) may also be allowed to return at high velocity before you pass that smooth hill, sending you flying instead of going "through" the hill. You want to keep your springs under control.
Conversely, if your rebound is set too firm (slow fluid returns back, slow rate, etc.). Your wheel will not contact the ground after you pass the crest of your hill and you'll find yourself spinning air guitar instead of shredding dirt. As mentioned earlier it all matter of balance with rest of the car and track.

Soft vs. Firm Rebound:

• A soft rebound allows the wheel to drop faster and stay in contact with the road. A soft rebound also causes the car to sway more on spring extension and thus can shift or push the car in an odd direction.
  
• Firm rebound adds control and stability but keeps the wheels off the ground longer, making it so the car cannot steer or react to input.
  
• The rebound strategy almost always follows the bump strategy. For example, a firm rebound is almost always used with a firm bump. A soft rebound is almost always used with a soft bump. On the rough stages like Greece and Wales, a soft bump is desirable since it helps keep the wheels in contact with the road. As you can probably guess, in a place like Germany a medium or firm rebound is more desirable.

Rebound settings are also very important as they affect the decompression of the damper. However, you should avoid using too soft settings.

• If there will be no bump no rebound to happen. We want rebound to make springs come its original position as soon as possible but not too fast to make the car off the ground. Rebound damping should usually be set at around 2/3rds of bump(softer).

The fast rebound and fast rebound threshold work the same way as your normal rebound, except instead of dialing it in for large rolling hills and camber, you are tuning for rocks and jumps to be expected on the track. The goal of this setting is to maintain maximum wheel contact with the ground after sharp impacts and ripples in the road. If the wheel takes too long to hit the road, you'll find yourself loosing precious time not applying power to the ground.

Fast rebound is a little tricky to understand but it basically goes like this: Fast rebound is used when the rebound of the damper bypasses the fps threshold set on fast rebound threshold. This means you can have a damper that, in theory, goes into fast bump mode but does not go into fast rebound mode.
In most cases you want opposite usage as compared to fast bump or don't use it at all (set it the same as your base rebound setting). What I mean is that IF your fast rebound should come into play (very hard hit off a jump, ditch, or hole), you want some stability. Set the fast rebound a bit firmer than the regular rebound. This is essential to keep the car from, quite literally, springing up and off the course.

Fast rebound threshold setting is different than fast bump threshold and can be used to cause the damper to go into fast rebound mode even if it didn't go into fast bump. Lowering its value will reserve less room for slow rebound finally you won't take advanteage of both.

Dirt Rally 2.0 Hint: (Slow Rebound) firm rebound rate will resist damper extension for more stability but the wheel may take longer to contact the ground. Soft rebound rate will result in less resistance on extension, but stability may be reduced.

WRC 8 Hint: (Shock Absorber Rebound) affect the speed of shock absorber extension setting it hard [+] gives precision at the expense of stability., while setting it soft [-] increases stability but decreases precision.

Slow Bump/Rebound settings:

• If weight transfer is too fast which result in loss of grip, try to stiff front and rear and vice versa.
  
• If the car understeers at the corner entry that means; while braking or turning fast, you can not gain weight enough at the front resulting it to slip straight. To allow more weight transfer on the front either soften front slow bump or stiffen rear slow bump (to make it carry less weight).
  
• If the car oversteers at the corner entry that means; while braking or turning fast, you lose more weight than optimum resulting it to lose grip thus skid around. To keep more weight at the rear either soften rear slow bump or stiffen front slow bump to limit weight transfer on it.
  
• If the car understeers at the corner exit that means; while accelerating you lose more weight at the front than it needed to be resulting lose grip on front. To keep more weight at the front or limit weight trasfer to rear either soften front slow bump or stiffen rear slow bump.
  
• If the car oversteers at the corner exit that means; while accelerating rear wheels can not gain enough weight to grip onto the road. To gain more weight at the rear either soften rear slow bump or stiffen front slow bump to limit weight gaining on front. (Worth try to soften front slow rebound to release weight on it quicker)

Fast Bump/Rebound settings:

• On a bumpy track where you lack grip over bumps and curbs, try to decrease front and rear.
  
• If the car bounces over bumps resulting in loss of grip, increase front and rear.
  
• If the car under steers over bumps, increase rear OR decrease front.
  
• If the car over steers over bumps, decrease rear OR increase front.

• Softer settings: Dampers offer less resistance, so springs are freer to move as they please
  
• Stiffer settings: Dampers "hold" the springs movement down and so stop them reacting as fast
  
• Fast/Slow bump should always be different each other or they will have no effect on the car.
  
• Fast/Slow rebound should always be different each other or they will have no effect on the car.

Fast Bump - Controls the rapid upward movement of this suspension corner following bumps and curbs. This Bump is described as “Fast” because the damper is moving up(compressing) in a rapid motion. So, this adjustment controls how a tire conforms to the road as it’s negotiating the leading edge-to peak of a bump or road undulation. If you find the car pushing to the outside of the track in a “skating” fashion over bumps, then soften (lower) this setting. If the car floats and changes direction erratically, then stiffen (higher) this setting. When in doubt, go softer.

Slow Bump - Controls the mild UPWARD movement of this suspension corner caused by a driver input (steering, braking, throttle). This Bump is described as “Slow” because the damper is moving up (compressing) in a slow motion. Used to affect chassis balance while we are transitioning into, and out, of the corners. Decreasing this number will speed up how quickly a corner accepts weight transfer while we are transitioning. Increasing will slow it down.

Fast Rebound - Controls the rapid DOWNWARD movement of this suspension corner following bumps and curbs. This Rebound is described as “Fast” because this damper is moving down (extending) in a rapid motion. So, this adjustment controls how a tire conforms to the road as it’s negotiating the peak to trailing edge of a bump or road undulation. If the fast bump setting has been changed, then it’s usually a good idea to change fast rebound in a similar manner.

Slow Rebound - Controls the mild DOWNWARD movement of this suspension corner caused by a driver input (steering, braking, throttle). This Rebound is described as “Slow” because the damper is moving down (extending) in a slow motion. Used to affect chassis balance while transitioning into, and out, of the corners. Decreasing this number will speed up how quickly this corner gives up - or “sheds” - weight transfer while we are transitioning. Increasing this setting will slow it down.

Soft bump controls how firm the setup is over soft gradual bumps. Fast bump controls how firm the setup is on sharp bumps or landing from jumps. So a firm Fast bump will stop the suspension from compressing to much and hitting the bump stops or bottoming out when I gets extremely bumpy. So if a sharp bump is larger than the cars ride height you'll need a firm fast bump to stop the car bottoming out and causing unnecessary damage. As we all know any car that's hitting the bump stops or hitting the deck becomes skittish and difficult to control.

The easiest way to begin to understand dampers is; while on a straight line, under braking or acceleration:
Under braking, much of the car's weight will shift from the rear of the car to the front. The front springs will compress while the rear springs will decompress (or rebound). The dampers do the same and will compress (front) and decompress (rear). The faster the front springs are allowed to achieve their most-compressed state, the faster the front tires will have maximum grip for that all-important braking. A softer compression setting will give the least amount of resistance to the spring compressing, allowing weight to transfer very quickly once the brakes are applied. The rear damper compression setting will have no effect on what happens here, but the rebound will. A greater rebound setting will resist against the rear springs decompressing. If the spring is not allowed to rebound quickly, the rear tires will be somewhat lifted off the ground (exaggerated of course). Softer rebound settings in the rear will allow the rear tires to stay connected with the road and offer more rear-grip during that weight transfer to the front.

Under straight-line acceleration the complete opposite is happening, with the rear dampers compressing and the front dampers decompressing. Surely you will want maximum grip on the rear tires under acceleration, but the front tires may need grip adjustments to prevent understeer oversteer. You can adjust this condition by adjusting how the rear suspension compresses or how the front suspension rebounds.

The same philosophy can be applied laterally (side to side) as well. Long sweeping corners that do not involve large braking or accelerating will shift weight to the left and right of the car. How fast you allow that weight to transfer is up to you and can be adjusted via the left and right dampers, but keep in mind how that will also affect your front to rear damping.

If your car is equipped with fast-damping adjustments, everything above still applies but only when the suspension is in "fast motion". This is when you are shocking the suspension into movement in a very short time frame. Hitting a curb at speed is forcing your suspension to compress or rebound in a much shorter time frame than normal weight transitions. This is where fast damping comes into the mix.

Make your main setup on the below table; TOP to BOTTOM order, however for little adjustments follow settings BOTTOM to TOP.
Your settings on an item upper should be followed and compatible by lower setting.

For fixing understeer or oversteer start tweaking from BOTTOM to TOP. But adjust one thing at a time until it reaches its optimum limit for the track.
X’s on the table will have no effect at all on the related situation.

Hint:
As you will see; a quick way to understand fixing oversteer or understeer is just soften suspension system at the slipping side of the vehicle (remember oversteer means rear is slippiing more, understeer means front is slipping)

• Lower the 1st gear ratio
  
• Strengthen the rear driving lock
  
• Increase rear torque up to 60-70%
  
• Strengthen the center viscous differential
  
• Increase rear toe angle

• Weaken the rear ARB/Strengthen the front ARB
  
• Lower the rear differential brake lock

So rear wheels are getting out of control due to lack of weight on them and decreased independence of two rear wheels. Or Front wheels just holding road much more they have to.

• Lower the rear differential driving lock percentage
  
• Weaken rear ARB and strengthen front ARB
  
• Increase negative rear camber angle
  
• Stiffen front bump, rebound and soften rear bump and rebound

So front wheels are getting out of control due to lack of weight on them and decreased independence of two front wheels. Or rear wheels just holding road much more they have to.

• Soften the front springs as much as you can
  
• Put some brake bias to front
  
• Soften front ARBs
  
• Increase front toe out
  
• Decrease front LSD driving locking

• Shorten final gear ration
  
• Shorten 3rd and 4th gear
  
• Lower front LSD Driving lock
  
• Raise rear LSD driving lock

• More negative front camber (don’t exceed -1.5o)
  
• Less positive or even negative front toe angle (don’t exceed -0.3o)
  
• Soften front damping or stiffen rear damping

• Raise ride height both for front and rear
  
• Soften spring rate on both sides
  
• Soften fast bump/rebound damping rates
  
• Lower fast bump thresholds

• Shift brake bias to the front (70-75%)
  
• Lower brake pressure

• Lower ride height
  
• Stiffen spring rate
  
• Stiffen bump and rebound rates
  
• Increase negative front camber
  
• Increase positive front toe angle

• Lower the rear differential driving lock percentage
  
• Weaken rear ARB and strengthen front ARB
  
• increase negative rear camber angle (don’t exceed -1.0o)
  
• lower rear Toe Angle (try +0.2o or +0.1o)
  
• Try stiffening front bump and rebound and softening rear bump and rebound (don’t go to extremes).

• If the vehicle’s back end slides out too much while braking with and without throttle, move the brake bias forward (1 mark).
  
• If the vehicle’s front-end understeers while braking heavily BUT turns an appropriate amount while using only engine braking, then move the brake bias rearward slightly (1 mark).
  
• If the vehicle’s front-end understeers while braking heavily, AND understeers while engine braking, then the driver has a choice. If the driver moves the brake bias rear 1 mark, it will become easier to slide around corners and rotate while braking more quickly.
  
• Another option is to adjust the all braking differentials 1 mark toward loose without touching the brakes. This allows the inside wheel to spin slower than the outside wheel during a turn. This second option lets the car turn and brake more efficiently without affecting anything about how the vehicle transfers weight.

• Understeer at hitting the brakes and turn into corners:
  
• Decrease your front bump values or increase your rear rebound values.
  
• Oversteer at hitting the brakes and turn into corners:
  
• Increase your front bump values or decrease your rear rebound values.
  
• Understeer at getting back on the power:
  
• Increase your rear bump values or decrease your front rebound values
  
• Oversteer at getting back on the power:
  
• Decrease your rear bump values or increase your front rebound values.
  
• When hitting bumps and curbs the front of the car tends to bounce and skate wide:
  
• Decrease your front fast bump values. Can be complemented by decreasing front fast rebound.
  
• When hitting bumps and curbs the car tends to change direction and react erratically:
  
• Increase your front fast bump values. Can be complemented by increasing front fast rebound.

First you need to keep in mind that you will suffer for less grip and stability than in dry conditions. To support this; (Assuming you have dry setups working for you at hand)

• MORE POSITIVE CAMBER ANGLE - Camber angle will determine wheel contact to ground so we need to increase contact point to support our stability. But it is alone and unaided could make worse everything.
  
• MORE REAR TOE IN - But just one or two notch. Toe in at the rear will help slightly to resist spinning or sliding.
  
• LESS BRAKE FORCE - The last thing we want in slippery conditions is locking the wheels which turns the car into nothing than a ton of steel.
  
• MORE OPEN DIFFERENTIALS - We favor more for griped wheels to pull the car into the road.
  
• SOFTER SLOW/FAST BUMPS - At first it seems that we are allowing weight transfer more easily by this setting (hence decreased stability) it keeps us on the ground and forgives for a rugged road which is deadly in wet conditions.
  
• SOFTER SPRING RATE - Not only supports the softer bump settings but also allows better contact with the track surface on bumpy tracks and increasie mechanical grip.
  
• MORE RIDE HEIGHT - This support for softer spring rates and bump settings. It also prevents bottoming out.
  
• SOFTER ANTI-ROLL BARS - For slower, bumpier, tighter tracks, softer Anti-Roll Bars will increase mechanical grip. This will increase inner wheel traction.

• Try to avoid any side slipping, any spinning the wheels, even drifts. Especially on damp/wet tarmac surfaces/hairpins. Maybe it looks very spectacularly but it takes precious fractions of seconds. However, in Australia, for example, you can already use slides.
  
• Improve your technique by racing with weakest cars in given category. It's not difficult to obtain the fastest time on the stage when you're using the strongest vehicle - you'll probably rest on your laurels then, but this doesn't mean at all that your technique was so admirable during that race.
  
• Many of players thinks DIRT is a racer in which you can "put a brick on the acceleration pedal" (step on the gas) and then go like a bomb, often playing with a life and death (virtually death, fortunately). Well, that's not the truth. Sometimes it's worth to take off your foot from the acceleration pedal, in order to avoid crashing (which often, especially on higher levels of difficulty, leads to the terminal damage and ends your race). Sometimes releasing gas pedal when passing the crest or jump is a sign of consideration, since the vehicle's suspension may not stand that hard landing after a jump. Similarly, if you have lost in co-pilot's prompts and you don't know what to expect on the track in the moment - slow down, or at least release the gas pedal for a while.
  
• Gear box: automatic or manual? To be honest, my experience points to the conclusion that with automatic transmission you can drive with good results even on pro-am level of difficulty. Automatic gear box lets you concentrate only on track and co-pilot's prompts, when using manual transmission, you must additionally listen intently to car's engine (its rpms) and it may draw your attention. However, manual gear box has some advantages. Time advantages probably are not worth my writing, they should be obvious for you: computer changes gears too early or too late and usually doesn't squeeze out everything from the engine. So, increase of acceleration when using manual transmission is noticeable and transmits into seconds of profit on the track and better race results. Besides, manual gear box gives you a possibility of braking by reduction of gears. This method of braking allows you to avoid sliding which often happen when using handbrake. Of course, you shouldn't overuse braking by gears reduction, because this may lead to gear box damage! Though, this advantage of manual transmission is reduced to a considerable degree by a footbrake (look below). Additionally, manual transmission has a one but serious disadvantage: after a heavy impact, when you want to reverse and return on the track, shifting to the reverse gear may take precious seconds.
  
• Brake: footbrake or handbrake? Definitely footbrake. Why? In DIRT this brake is ultra-strong (even too strong) and can save your life on very speedy straights that end unexpectedly with hairpins - footbrake lets you avoid crashing in these situations. Additionally, the footbrake does not cause sliding almost at all. You must only operate him with caution, press him (its key) for fractions of seconds. Often you can brake at the last moment, literally.
  
• General rule of taking the corners: we're closing to them along the outer edge of the road, taking them along the inner edge and exiting the corners again along the outer edge, to gain speed as fast as possible. Of course, when you play on the keyboard, it's not easy to stick to this rule - you struggle sufficiently and almost all the time, trying to stay on the road, even on straight sections.
  
• It's good to listen to the co-pilot, but it's even better to learn the tracks by memory.
  
• You should always watch the replays and learn on them. It's best to observe rally car from chase cam on these replays. You will be probably very surprised when you see, for example, that it is possible to drive even closer to that wall you passed it almost hooking it up (as it seemed to you on bonnet cam view during the race).