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Gear Ratios

Definition: Better known as the Tranny.

The first thing you should know about gears is that the default gears in the game are screwed! The split between 1st and 2nd is WAY too high and the split between 3rd and 4th is too low. The first problem causes you to get bogged down in 2nd when trying to recover from a crash and the second problem causes you to not be able to maximize the use of 3rd gear. So, the first thing you should do is reset 1st thru 3rd to better values. I suggest using 2.00 for 1st, 1.60 for 2nd, 1.20 for 3rd, and keeping 1.00 for 4th. Past that, the only good reason for tuning your tranny is to adjust shift points.

If you use an automatic tranny, like I do, adjusting the 3-4 shift point is very important. You adjust this by increasing or decreasing the difference between 3rd and 4th gear. Since I try to keep with a 1.00 4th gear, I do this by adjusting 3rd gear. To be exact, I use three different values for 3rd gear, 1.20, 1.25, and 1.30 depending on the track. The basic idea is to get the shift point to where you are just at the bottom of the power curve coming out of the corner (just into the bright yellow marks on the tach) and to where the 3rd to 4th shift occurs about halfway down the straight. On tracks where you are required to slow down the most in the corners, I use the higher values for 3rd. This maximized acceleration coming off the corner.

Before going and readjusting all your 3rd gears though, there is one other thing to keep in mind. On most tracks, 3rd is the most important gear. If you have a setup that is working good and you change 3rd gear, you will also be changing the overall gear ratio in effect at the most critical points on the track. So, if you make a change to 3rd, you will probably also want to make a change to your final drive gear in the opposite direction. This allows you to keep the same acceleration off the corners but adjust the 3-4 shift point. You can accomplish the same by changing 4th gear, but I'm trying to keep a standardized 1.00 4th.

I realize that some of the manual shift guys like to use 2nd gear coming off the corners. In that case, the gears I provided above won't work at all! However, since I have no experience with manual shifting, I can't really comment past that.

Final Drive Ratio

Definition: Better known as the Rear End

This is the other most important setting in the game. It doesn't matter how well your car handles, if you don't have the speed on the straights, you aren't going to turn good lap times. This is also the most tweaked setting in the game and has to be adjusted for every track.

There is no "standard" setting for final gear for a number of reasons. First and foremost are the differing track lengths. The same final on a 1/4 mile track and a 3/4 mile track won't work at all! Even within tracks of the same length, the final gears will be different due to the differing track shapes. Then there is track wetness. The final gear that works best with a wetness of 48 will be off with a wetness of 53. And last but not least, on any given track with any given wetness, you have to adjust the final gear based on the rest of the setup (most notably tires and springs). There is however one rule you can follow when deciding on a final gear.

In general, what you are attempting to do is find a final gear which will allow you to stay just in bottom of the power curve in 3rd gear at the end of the corners and middle to top of the power curve in 4th gear on the straights. If you aren't downshifting to 3rd in the corners you need to lower the final gear. If you aren't getting into 4th on the straights you need to raise the final gear. If you are getting stuck between 3rd and 4th (multiple coming out of corner) you need a slightly lower final gear (to cause it to stay in 3rd a little longer).

What I do is find a gear I think is close based on the above rule. Then I bump it up by .1 and run a few laps then bump it down by .2 (.1 below original) and run a few more laps to see which is the fastest of the 3 settings. If higher is faster, then I use that setting as my base and start over again. Once I get to the point where the middle setting is the fastest (or same), then I try .05 above and below that mark. If after all that I'm still not satisfied with my lap times, I change 3rd gear and start the process again. If I still can't get any faster, then I start making changes to the rest of the setup.

Biggest thing to remember, changes anywhere else in the setup will affect how well your current final gear ratio works. Therefore, after making changes elsewhere in the setup, you should do the same testing process with final gear mentioned above.

Although I haven't completely rationalized it yet, there seems to be a correlation between final gear and tire wear on some tracks. Specifically, on some tracks, I can increase the final gear a little and decrease overall tire wear. This is one place to look when you start trying to minimize tire wear as mentioned above.