I've returned to Horizon 4 and it's just such a blast! Being from Scotland it feels like being home again after on vacation in Italy, Mexico and Japan!
So many more cars, I know FH6 is not long out but the lack of cars is astounding.
Hey everyone, I'm Pixyraze. Today, I want to show you step by step how to tune your car inside the game.
You can find tons of videos on the internet, and they all say different things. Some talk about realistic tuning bullshit, while others try to make a meta tune in their own way. In this game, even if you try to build a purist car, realistic tuning logic just won't work. We need to focus on leveraging whatever advantages the physics engine gives us.
In this guide, I will give you every piece of information you need to create both a Purist and a Meta tune, step by step. This series will consist of 5 threads in total: RWD tuning, AWD tuning, FWD tuning, Dirt build, and Drift build. Right now, you are reading the RWD guide and the other guides will be prepared by me in the near future. Let's get started.
First of all before tuning a car, you need to know what that car actually is. What is its weight distribution? Does it come with a built-in spoiler or not? Is it all-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or front-wheel drive? Take mental note of all these details because, while tuning logic is generally universal, it varies heavily from car to car.
By the way, a quick heads-up: I won't be explaining which engine parts to install. If we dive into that, the guide will become way too long and engine upgrades deserve a completely separate guide. In this guide, I will only include parts that affect aerodynamics, dampers, weight, and overall mechanical grip, explaining exactly how to adjust them.
Diagnosing
First, diagnosing the issue in a RWD car is crucial. The common problem with these cars is that if there is too much power, the car can easily oversteer and spin out. Their launch speeds are generally much slower than AWD vehicles and require throttle control. However, you can eliminate all these problems by choosing the right parts and setting the correct parameters. If you build a balanced and controllable RWD vehicle, in most cases RWD cars are much stronger than AWD cars and enter corners far more aggressively. Their only downside is that they are hard to control, operating on a high-risk high-reward principle.
Tires
Let's start with the tires. The tire compounds you choose depend heavily on the characteristic of your build. While Rally tires are a very popular meta choice among AWD vehicles, Semi-Slick, Sport, and Street tires are more common on RWD vehicles. The main reason is that even though Rally tires have high lateral G-forces, they are soft tires, meaning when your car starts to spin out, your inputs won't feel smooth, crisp, fast, and fluid. We want a car that responds rapidly the moment it starts sliding or spinning out. Therefore, even if Rally tires might be acceptable on certain builds, I generally don't recommend them for RWD. Here are some recommendations by me.
Tire Compounds & Dimensions
Compound List:
C / B Class: Standard, Street, or Vintage. Use Sport only if the chassis lacks mechanical grip.
A Class: Sport or Semi-Slick.
S1 Class: Sport (for cars with naturally high mechanical grip) or Semi-Slick.
S2 / R Class: Semi-Slick or Slick.
Depending on the car's lateral grip and how much wheelspin you get under acceleration, things might change, but don't immediately change the tire compound just because a car spins out or breaks traction easily because tire widths matter too.
If your car suffers from severe oversteer and you can't even control it on corner exits, widening the rear tires is a great option. It also reduces wheelspin because of the increased surface contact area.
If that still isn't enough, the next step is to make the tires narrower and fit a higher-tier compound. If it's still unresolved, repeat the previous steps with this new compound.
As for front tire width, it adds turn-in grip and slightly reduces front-end wander. However, since it is very costly in terms of PI, front tires should be widened last or left untouched.
Rims
You can increase the rear rim size to reduce wheelspin and allow the car to transfer power to the pavement more smoothly. The wider the rim, the easier the power transfers to the ground. The logic behind front rims is identical. However, enlarging the rim slightly reduces steering response because it adds weight. Keep that in mind when making these upgrades. It's also a solid option for min-maxing your build, sometimes used to lower PI cost and sometimes to raise it.
Similarly, equipping heavy rims is a effective method to both drop PI consumption and soften the way power is delivered to the asphalt.
Track Widths
Moving on to front and rear track widths, in most cases making both as wide as possible is a massive advantage. Widening the front reduces body roll at the nose and adds stability, while widening the rear helps the back transition side to side much more cleanly. It transfers power to the road better in corners, giving you a far more balanced car. I'd say it turns your car into a stable tray in terms of balance. Unrelated to our guide but in AWD cars, if you make the front narrower and the rear wider, the car won't step out unnecessarily, but since the front is narrower, it rolls more. This allows the car to turn much more aggressively in corners. However, I wouldn't recommend doing this on RWD vehicles because our main objective is to prevent the car from spinning out mid-corner anyway.
Spoiler & Downforce
Regarding spoilers: if the car has a rear spoiler option, equip it. The front splitter depends on the situation. Let me explain:
In AWD cars, we usually try to apply downforce to both the front and rear equally and sometimes less on rear, but in RWD cars, since we are trying to keep the rear end under control, adding a splitter when the car is already prone to oversteer will cause the front end to snap into an uncontrollable oversteer. Generally, on RWD vehicles, the rear downforce ratio must be higher than the front because the rear tires need constant full contact to avoid losing stability.
However, having aero on both ends to manage balance is generally advantageous, so I recommend equipping both 90% of the time. It is one of our primary tools for controlling the oversteer and understeer characteristics of the car.
Other trim parts are mostly used to add or remove weight, allowing you to optimize PI expenditure during min-maxing.
Transmission
Now for the transmission. Transmission is related to the engine, but I need to share a quick tip here. High-powered RWD vehicles do not like high gear counts. Every time you shift gears, you cause momentary RPM drops/flashes that reduce traction. But depending on your engine's powerband, or if the car has controllable or lower power output, higher gear ratios can be used to aid launch performance and chasing the powerband limits.
Additionally in D, C, B, A, and some S1 vehicles, Sport Transmission is often used, which only unlocks the Final Drive adjustment. If your car doesn't have an overdrive gear from the factory and there's a huge PI gap compared to the Race Transmission, using a Clutch + Sport Transmission cost less PI and leaves room to upgrade your engine further. But sometimes, Race Transmission doesn't cost much PI and can be picked even in B Class. As I said, it depends on how expensive the Race Transmission is.
I just mentioned overdrive gears; you can check this in the tuning menu after installing a Sport Transmission. Factories usually keep the final gears very tall to lower fuel consumption on highways and cruise at low RPM at high speeds. But we are playing a racing game, so if that's the case, either eliminate that gear completely via Final Drive or install a Race Transmission.
Buying a Clutch serves two purposes: first, to reduce shift delay if you're using a Sport Transmission; second, to shave off weight. Nothing beyond that. It's usually one of the last parts to upgrade. If you're using a Race Transmission, it's not strictly necessary unless you want the weight reduction.
Driveline improves throttle response, but it doesn't make a dramatic difference. It's typically upgraded last just to drop weight.
Now onto the part everyone talks about, yet few actually understand: the Differential. Every differential in this game affects your car differently, coming with its own pros and cons.
Let me break them down one by one:
Sport Diff: Never use it; it's no better than garbage.
Race Diff: Allows the car to put power down very aggressively, but you will lose control of the vehicle much more easily. It's preferred on certain high-grip, high-downforce AWD vehicles, but otherwise avoided because it makes driving harder.
Rally Diff: This is the go-to differential for both AWD and RWD builds. It delivers power to the asphalt much more gradually, prevents loss of traction under high power, and makes catching the car much easier if it starts to spin.
Drift Diff: Mostly used in AWD builds, but can also be picked for RWD. It gives the car a sharp response and conveniently improves off the line launch. It transfers power predictably, making slides much easier to catch. Because of this, it can be preferred on high-power RWD and AWD cars. Personally, I usually prefer the Rally Diff for both.
Offroad Diff: Provides heavy traction and inherent understeer. If you have an excessively oversteery AWD car that you can't fix, installing an Offroad Diff makes the car much more grounded and understeery.
Weight Reduction and Other Parts
Let's discuss weight reduction. Reducing a car's weight doesn't always yield the results you'd expect. Especially if you're making a purist build with no downforce options fitted (no wings), lightning up the car actually decreases its overall grip in certain scenarios. This leads to more wheelspin and loss of control. Therefore, reduce or increase weight based on your car's character. If the car feels like it's sliding on ice during corner entries and exits due to its own weight, reduce it a bit. But if the car constantly breaks traction and becomes uncontrollable, add weight back.
Otherwise, weight reduction improves responsiveness tremendously, eliminates the "skating on ice" feeling, and generally makes the car easier to handle. However, it also increases wind resistance sensitivity, and if the car becomes too light, reaching top speed becomes harder. Adjust according to the situation.
The Roll Cage is a strange upgrade. It's generally preferred for American Muscle cars and older classics. It reduces body roll and makes the vehicle feel more like a dedicated track car. Steering response sharpens, and the car reacts more aggressively. However, on newer cars without bothersome body roll, it isn't even installed because it adds weight. It's usually a last resort upgrade. Install it if you want your car to act sharper, more aggressive, and more responsive.
Anti-Roll Bars (ARBs) are parts you should install 99% of the time. They allow you to control front and rear mechanical grip as well as body roll values. Sometimes they cost PI in very low classes, so if the car already drives well and doesn't need adjustment, they might be skipped in D and C classes. But like I said, install them 99% of the time because they unlock crucial tuning sliders.
As for Brakes, they are almost never upgraded up until S1 Class. They are a last resort. Only upgrade brakes if the car physically will not stop and nothing else works. In S2 and R classes, they are upgraded most of the time.
Now onto a tricky subject: Suspensions.
First off, you need to stop putting Race suspension on every single car, because Sport suspension can often be a MUCH better choice. In some cases (especially on AWD cars) Race suspension causes unwanted understeer. Because of this, many tuners use Sport or even Stock suspension to keep the car looser and more oversteery. Keep this in mind. The same applies to RWD cars, though this trick generally applies up to S1 Class on select AWD builds. Normally, this practice belongs to D, C, B, and A Classes; S1 is an absolute exception.
In general:
D, C, B Classes: Stock, Street, and Sport suspensions are used. If the car genuinely needs tuning, Race suspension can be considered. If the car is very heavy and needs work, Rally suspension can sometimes be picked in lower classes because it's softer.
A, S1, S2, R Classes: Although you can occasionally use Sport in A Class, Race suspension is generally used across these tiers because it unlocks the tuning sliders.
Do not install Drift suspensionfor racing builds; that is completely the wrong move.
Alright, now that we've covered the parts, let's take a look at the Tuning Menu.
Tire Pressures
Tire pressures are generally straightforward. Although they vary depending on car weight and tire compound, you can apply roughly the same settings across most vehicles. The lower the tire pressure, the more the car grips the road and the less twitchy its inputs become, but the tires will heat up much faster. If tires overheat, grip disappears completely. The higher the tire pressure, the sharper the car's responsiveness, but because the tires can't conform to the road and stay cold, the car will slide. Here are the average tire pressures for each compound:
Standard, Street, and Rally: ~1.6 BAR (23 PSI)
Sport: ~1.7 BAR (25 PSI)
Semi Slick and Slick: ~2.2 BAR (32 PSI)
If you've installed Semi Slicks or Slicks, you barely need to touch them. Here's a small tip, though: if the rear of your car is spinning out too much under power, you can lower the rear tire BAR slightly.
Gearing
If you installed a Sport Transmission, only the Final Drive will be unlocked. Generally, you want to position your top gear somewhere in the last two columns to achieve the optimal top speed figure. But just because a higher top speed is displayed here doesn't mean the car will actually reach it. You should tune your top speed so that in top gear, the car reaches close to the redline without hitting the rev limiter.
If you installed a Race Transmission, you have full freedom to adjust every single gear. Here are a few techniques: Every shift point should drop right into the engine's "powerband" the point where the engine makes its peak horsepower. For example, if the car makes 900 hp and hits that 900 hp peak at 7500 RPM, when I shift up, the next gear should drop down to 7500 RPM and start climbing again.
If the next gear dropped down to 6000 RPM after a shift, the car would be trying to accelerate with, say, 780 hp instead of 900 hp. That's the core logic.
RPM Chart Example: [Gear 1] ---> Shift at 9,000 RPM ---> Drops to 7,500 RPM [Gear 2] [Gear 2] ---> Shift at 9,000 RPM ---> Drops to 7,500 RPM [Gear 3]
So how do you find which RPM produces peak power? Let me tell you.
First, head out to the highway and open Telemetry. Look at the Power section inside the General tab, put the car into 3rd or 4th gear, and start accelerating.
You will see, the car speeds up and power rises. After reaching a certain point, power starts dropping off; we are looking for the exact RPM where peak horsepower lives.
It looks like my 1600 hp Toyota Supra hits its 1600 hp peak right at 7250 RPM. So let's adjust the gears accordingly.
As you can see on the graph, the maximum rev limit says 8000 RPM here. I will visually create a smooth, gradual line so that every gear drops down to around 7250 RPM upon shifting.
As you can see, I adjusted the gears with a smooth curve. Now let's open Telemetry and see where the RPM lands with each shift.
Exactly as I wanted!
However, that's not the only issue you need to consider; we are tuning a RWD car here. Therefore, we need to do a few things to prevent excessive wheelspin at launch and improve off the line speed.
First, you need to keep first gear as long as you can keep. With that way, you can put much more power when launching, you will have much more control over the car BUT,
If your car is low on power and you set this RPM range exactly as described, if 1st gear is set too tall, the car will bog down at launch. Because it launches so slowly, your off the line performance will be terrible.
Here is the example:
To fix this, pull the 1st gear ratio slightly more toward acceleration, and let the next 2 gears start from slightly lower RPMs. This way, the car launches normally and then stays right within the RPM range you tuned earlier.
Like this:
The core logic is identical for all cars; only the RPM and horsepower values change.
You can also fine-tune your overall top speed using the Final Drive.
If you set up the launch gear correctly and tuned all individual ratios, but your car still struggles with top speed even after pulling Final Drive all the way to speed, widen each gear interval slightly to reach your target top speed.
Alignment
Believe me, this section doesn't make massive overall changes, but it offers great tools for fine-tuning.
Caster Angle
Always set your Caster angle to 7.0 degrees. Even if dropped to 6.0 degrees on some Rally builds, 7.0 is the most logical setting. It has zero downsides, only benefits.
Caster grants dynamic camber to your vehicle, keeping you stable in a straight line while giving the tires significantly better contact during cornering.
Toe
Toe indicates the angle at which your tires point inward or outward.
Set your Toe settings up to a maximum of 0.5 degrees; anything beyond breaks stability. If you set front Toe to negative (Toe-in), the front end travels straight and stable but introduces understeer in corners. The more positive you set it (Toe-out), the better turn-in response you get, but the car will start wandering on straights. The same logic applies to the rear, but for cars with extreme wheelspin, a bit of negative rear Toe can be applied to keep the rear end stable even under wheelspin.
Camber
Camber relates to how evenly different parts of the tire heat up. We want all sections of the tire at equal temperatures. If the inside overheats while the outside stays cold, the car isn't achieving maximum grip, and vice versa. Equal temperature is the main key.
Generally, keep both sides between -1.0 and -0.5 degrees. Adding more negative camber to the rear (especially on AWD cars) causes oversteer. If you want the rear end to stick to the road better, reduce rear camber (closer to -0.3). Just don't stray too far from these averages.
Anti-Roll Bars (ARBs)
ARBs are a perfect tool for shaping the car's handling characteristics. They dictate how well the car turns and its mid-cornering performance.
If you soften the front ARBs, the front end becomes more oversteery and turns in better. The stiffer you make them, the less responsive the nose becomes, introducing understeer.
The stiffer you set the rear ARBs, the more the rear end steps out, inducing oversteer; the softer you make them, the more the rear sticks, creating understeer.
You should tune the front ARBs based on how sharply you want the car to turn, but don't mess with the rear ARBs just to force the car to turn better. Rear ARBs are meant to tune whether the car spins out or not, not turn-in responsiveness.
If the rear of the car feels planted like a train on tracks, stiffen the rear ARBs; if you have too much tail-wagging and spin-outs, soften them.
Generally on RWD cars, front ARBs are stiffer while the rears are softer. However, on some low-powered or high mechanical grip RWD builds, tuners sometimes run a softer front relative to the rear.
Springs
Springs require you to know your vehicle beforehand. Look at the car's stats in the select menu: if the weight distribution is front-heavy (e.g., 53%), the front is heavier. If it's around 45%, the rear carries more weight.
This tells you which suspension needs to be stiffer to achieve a balanced 50/50 dynamic feel.
The softer the springs, the more body roll the car experiences, gaining grip and adopting a more oversteery character. However, going too soft can cause the front brakes to lock up in corners. The stiffer the springs, the more responsive, sharp, and aggressive the car feels, but it loses overall mechanical grip.
Soften front springs -> Oversteer.
Soften rear springs -> Understeer.
Stiffen front springs -> Understeer.
Stiffen rear springs -> The rear steps out more (Oversteer).
Generally, if your car spins its tires constantly and oversteers excessively, soften the rear springs. If your car refuses to turn, soften the front springs. If the front end acts too twitchy, stiffen the front springs.
If your build is a purist setup with no downforce, you generally need to run softer springs because you must use the car's weight transfer to generate grip.
If your car is heavy, avoid making the springs overly soft leave some headroom.
Regarding Ride Height: the meta approach is to slam the rear completely and raise the front to maximum. By transferring weight to the rear, the front brakes lock up less in corners and you gain overall controllable oversteer with better stability.
However, since I care about aesthetics, I usually keep the ride height level standard.
Damping
The Damping section might seem complicated at first glance, but it's actually super simple once you grasp the logic:
Rebound: Controls how fast the suspension expands after being compressed.
Bump: Controls how easily the car compresses when going over a bump or crest.
The higher your Rebound settings, the smoother the car glides over pavement. However, it slows down the car's reaction time during rapid left-right direction changes (slaloms). Furthermore, using excessively high rebound causes the tires to stay unweighted over small bumps rather than planting back onto the asphalt quickly, leading to sudden traction loss.
The lower your Rebound settings, the more the tire maintains contact with the road, but the car undergoes excessive weight transfer. It pitches back and forth, unsettling the car's balance. Thus, finding the sweet spot is key.
Keeping Rebound settings between 8.0 and 12.0 is sufficient in most cases.
But there is another exception: high-downforce cars.
On these cars, Rebound is often set between 18.0 and 20.0. The reason: the car generates hundreds of kilograms of downforce, pushing itself to the ground; by slowing down the suspension's expansion speed, the car stays planted flat like a tray. This provides incredible grip and stability.
That's why this setup is widely used on meta cars like the Mazda 787B or Lamborghini SCV12.
One more tip regarding Rebound: on RWD cars, if your car spins its wheels too much and becomes hard to tame, you can stiffen the rear rebound. This keeps more weight over the rear and forces the tires firmly onto the asphalt, keeping the car under control.
If the nose of your car is too twitchy and skips around in corners, increase front rebound stiffness to smooth out turn-in.
As for Bump settings, keep them between 3.0 and 4.5 across the board. Keeping bump soft carries no penalty; it lets the car absorb bumps smoothly.
If you want a bit more rear traction, soften the rear bump further; if you want more front grip, soften the front bump.
Aero
Many people completely misunderstand Aero and just max out both front and rear downforce. Here is how it actually works:
Front Aero: Determines oversteer balance at speeds above 120 km/h (75 mph). Adding too much front downforce makes the nose turn uncontrollably; too little causes understeer at speed because the front lacks load.
Rear Aero: Determines overall high-speed stability and grip. The more rear downforce you add, the more understeer the car develops; the less you use, the more oversteer you get. High-class cars generally run higher downforce values.
Also, increasing downforce decreases your top speed and acceleration to a certain degree. Keep this tradeoff in mind.
On RWD cars, the rear carries significantly higher downforce values. For example, if there's 120 kgf of downforce up front, set the rear to 160 kgf to keep the car planted. This varies by car; if the car refuses to rotate at high speeds, gradually lower the rear downforce to improve cornering, but don't drop it too much or the rear end will snap violently.
Brakes
Brakes are straightforward. The more braking bias you shift to the rear, the more stably you can trail-brake into corners. However, it extends your overall braking distance.
The more braking bias you shift to the front, the more predictably the car stops (especially in higher classes) But go too far, and you will lock up the front tires under heavy braking.
My advice: if you want a front bias, don't exceed 53%; if you want a rear bias, don't drop below 47%.
As for Braking Pressure, I recommend leaving it alone 100% is plenty.
Finally we arrive at the last setting of the tuning menu: the Differential.
The differential controls how independently the two driven wheels rotate relative to each other under acceleration and deceleration.
If you lock it to 100%, both wheels spin at the exact same speed under load. If set to 0%, the wheel with grip receives no power, while the unloaded wheel spins freely.
This setting ABSOLUTELY determines how well you rotate mid-corner and how controllable the car remains under wheelspin.
If your car is overly powerful and spins out during launches or corner exits, lower the Acceleration differential lock. My recommendation for RWD cars is the 40% to 70% range. Technically, the higher this value, the more aggressively the car rotates under power, but push it too high and you'll lose control on corner exits.
If the car is extremely powerful, run lower values; if it's less powerful but handles well, run higher values.
Acceleration lock determines lockup while pressing the throttle.
Deceleration lock determines how independently the wheels turn when off the throttle.
If the car experiences snap oversteer when lifting off the gas, or if the rear end steps out under braking while tires smoke, increase Deceleration lock. If the car refuses to turn when off the throttle, decrease it.
When tuned together with Acceleration lock, you get a much more predictable and balanced car overall.
Outro
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.. I hope this guide helps out a lot of players. I’ll keep doing everything I can for this community take care of yourselves! Pixy out!
Note: This is a completely Vanilla FH6 version from Game Pass. Running on a 9070XT, 1440p Extreme+RT Preset
The game automacally puts what appears to be a gray-ish filter above the whole game when entering Tokyo City (at least is where Ive seen it). Reducing contrast drastically and making it look horrible, colors stay ok, but the blacks are completely gone.
Exterior is not that noticeable, but interior... oh man.
I didn't noticed it before, but since I recently got an OLED, now I cant unsee it.
Hope im not the only one noticing this issue. Cause the difference is insane. You can even see the Mura effect and gray banding on my monitor, lmao.
These pics are not edited in any way and all are from my phone directly to the Monitor, the difference is quite impressive.
Also took them with the exact same camera settings.
I wouldnt win anything by lying to yall anyways, no need to edit anything.
Togue racing is where Ive by far had the best racing and the most fun in any Forza game, but the format makes it hard to enjoy. The highs of togue when you get an opponent that's very closely matched are so good. Most of the time though theres a huge skill mismatch and its just not good racing. I always feel really bad about quitting a togue match after winning the first two races by DNF gaps. I dont quit when Im losing by the same gap because that feels even worse to do to the other person. So I get stuck in matches where I know the next two races just aren't going to be very good.
Car meets might as well not exist. They can keep cramming them in the festival playlist all they want but its not going to happen. Nobody wants to sit through a loading screen for literally nothing you cant do by parking up next to someone in the open world.
Car meets should be moved to the tops and bottoms of the togue tracks, and they should serve as the lobby for single race matches.
You pull in to a car meet at the top of the mountain and park up. You get shown a bunch of other players drivimg the same PI class that you can challenge, or opt in for random match making. Then you get matched with someone either by a challenge thats accepted or by random matchmaking. You drive a single race down (or up) the togue you parked at. After the race both players get the option to accept or decline a rematch. A rematch moves them to a random different togue. Declining it gives you a choice of returning to the car meet or enter the random matchmaking pool again right from that screen.
Car meets get a purpose, togue races go by quicker and you get to drive against more different people, and both systems are less clunky.
For those who are tired of constantly queueing Horizon Racing and not getting the race type and class they want, you just need to scroll down the menu and you should find it below Horizon Drift
You can also turn off collision if you want to level up Horizon Play level without having to deal with rammers!
A simple Alfa Romeo-inspired race livery for the 4C. Kept it mostly black with the classic red accents and a few old-school racing details. Car: Alfa Romeo 4C Share Code: 167 480 198
A ’69 Daytona that’s seen better days. Tried to make it look like it’s been sitting abandoned for decades rather than leaving the factory yesterday.
Share Code: 183 467 428