General
	Gearing / Engine
	Gas / Breaking / Realism
	Tires / Grip
	Steering

	Dry Weigh: Weight without fluids, oil etc etc
	Wet Weight: weight with fluids, oil etc etc. If u think that the number there is dry wight, simply add 300lbs to make it wet weight.

LBS to Kg, use this calc: weight of vehicle in pounds x 0.4535924 = Kg

Road Bumpiness Factor: Consider this your 'Shock Absorbency Level'. This setting only becomes useful when you decide to plow through dirt or 'dirt areas' on a track. It does not affect the vehicle on road or grass areas.

My suggestion to you builders is keep it within these limits.
0.000000 to 5.000000

0.000000 would represents a 1998 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (smoothest, most comfortable ride I have EVER taken on a dirt road)

1.000000 is a good approximate number for almost every car. Suggested to leave it at this number.

5.000000 would represent a low rider 1970 Chevy Impala with NO shock absorption. (Please, if you own such a lowered vehicle, do me as well as yourself a favor and put some real wheels back on the poor thing. Do you realize that 98% of the population is actually laughing their ass off at you.)

In other words, the higher this number gets, the more bouncy the vehicle becomes when you ride over a dirt area on the tracks. Too high and the vehicle will flip over a few seconds after you move onto the dirt...not pretty.

Camera Arm: Used for a Replay calculation. Unless you want those cool drive by camera angles in replay to leave your car WAY behind, I wouldn't suggest changing this. Just to see what this affected I bumped this to 100 and incrementally down to 0.001500. With the lower number, well let's just say that as the camera moved by the car in replay, within a few seconds the camera was 5 turns and roughly 2 miles ahead of the car. Just, do us all a favor and don't mess with it...but if you insist...I suggest setting this from between 0.1500000 to 0.500000 and no more or no less.

Pitch Roll Factor: This factor specifies the rolling rate of car while turning. When inside cabin, It is when u turn car, the opposite side of car pushed itself downwards.


Body Roll Chart:
Less than 1 - Super cars and Formula race vehicles, the closer to 0.000000 the less the roll.

1.000 - Most Class B and some class C vehicles.
2.000 - Most Class C vehicles and almost any muscle car with an anti-sway Bar front and rear.
2.300 - Muscle cars and grocery getters with a rear anti-sway bar
2.600 - A car that doesn't have anti-sway bars built after 1960.
2.900 - Chopped, lowered vehicles known as 'Lead Sleds'.
3.000 - 4X4 and off-road vehicles

Anti-Lock Brakes: If this is selected it will keep the vehicle from locking up the brakes when you are slowing down.

Power Steering: This little setting is either going to make life easy for turning your vehicle at lower speeds and during hard turning, or if you decide to uncheck it, you WILL know what it's like trying to turn a heavy object moving at high velocity. From what I have seen, if this box is unchecked, then the Steering/Turning Tab data areas will effectively be used. But if it is enabled, then there is some kind of algorithm used to provide better steering (probably a multiplier).

Opponents Area:

Acceleration Tables 1 through 8: This is used to determine how the AI opponents will drive against this car. My suggestion is to open an appropriate Class vehicle and use the numbers from there. I refuse to explain this because it's quite trivial.


Gearing/Engine Tab

This is where you are going to build the drive train for the car. Each field on this page is relevant to how the vehicle performs in the game. Hopefully you will understand this entire page afterwards.

Number of Gears: In NFS, Total number of gears a car have. It also include neutral and reverse gear. So if the number is set to8, it means that 6 are normal gears, 1 is neutral and 1 is reverse.

Final Gear: This is the actual final gear ratio of the vehicle. Does this sound familiar from your favorite car magazine where it says "Power is supplied to the wheels through a Ford 9 inch rear end with 4.11 gears." Well, that 4.11 is actually Final Gear Ratio of 4.11:1. The higher the gear ratio, the faster the car goes, but top speed will actually decrease. The lower the gearing, the more top speed it will have but at the expense of a quick start. Here is a chart to help determine gear ratios, the numbers represent only a few of the actual gear ratios available today:

Final Gear
2.67 - Poor off line performance but ungodly top speed
3.23 - Decent off line response with very good top speed
3.55 - All around performer
3.73 - Good off line with reasonable top end performance
4.10 - Most street/strip or formula racing cars
4.56 - 9 to 12 second quarter mile bracket racer/ Short track racer
5.20 - 5 to 7 second quarter mile Pro-Stock drag strip vehicle
6.10 - Top-Fuel Nitro Burning Funny Car/ Dragster

keep the numbers between 2.50 and 5.00 for actual realism.

Velocity to RPM: Also known as Drive Power in gears or Torque Inertia vs. MPH. There is a special diagnostics program available that will provide this information. Each car is different because the weight of the vehicle, the amount of torque output, tire sizes and gear ratios make up the algorithm used to calculate this out in actuality but it looks like you COULD take a shortcut for the game.

Negative numbers are always considered "reverse" gears. A zero is neutral and positive numbers are forward. With that in mind, the total amount of numbers used should ALWAYS represent how many gears the vehicle has. Lets look at and dissect a set of numbers.

-310,0,305,224,175,146

-310 obviously represents the velocity to RPM in reverse gear. The next number is a 0 and is neutral.
The next 4 numbers represent the transmissions gearing ratios to the "Maximum Velocity" in the form of the calculation

Drive Gear Ratio x Max Velocity (mph) = Velocity to RPM setting per gear.
MPH = Max Velocity (m/s) x 3.6 x .6213712

So if I took a Max Velocity of 150mph and multiplied that by a 1st gear ratio of 2.20, the 1st gear number should be 330. But keep in mind this is estimating. To get the true number you would need to really adjust it carefully so the dashboard tach, 0-60mph timing and speedo were all synchronized. It's difficult to do, but can be accomplished with a little effort. At least this calculation would give you a head start.

Gear Ratios: These are the actual transmission gear ratios per speed. Me being the resource hog I am have various transmission manuals that help me locate these specific numbers for any US car built between 1955 and 1999

Note: This set of numbers looks almost like velocity to RPM numbers but remember, were talking small ratios here. Usually nothing bigger than 3.0 and nothing smaller than .50.

As a side note, this is also where you could put a governor on your vehicle (Like a 1991 Camaro RS, which is governed at 122mph) by simply adding an extra gear and placing all zeros on the last gear. Like so: -2.88,0,2.47,1.73,1.36,1.05,0.74,0.00

Each other characteristic of the gear ratios would need the extra number added in too, like number of gears changed from 7 to 8, velocity to RPM would need 0.00 added to the end of it, etc...

Gear efficiency: When it comes to gear ratios, lets face it...gear efficiency can make or break a transmission. Be very careful adjusting these numbers. This affects performance, velocity, top speed, and how the dash gauges work.

Shift delay (for manual transmission setting only): The time delay (in milliseconds) of the transmission shift pattern when you press a shifter key. The lower the number the faster the shift occurs. Set it too high (above 15) and the car may sound like it is stalling when you shift. Affects velocity. Suggestion is that you leave it between 5 and 12.

Engine Tab

Minimum RPM: This number should be set to the cars 'idling' RPM speed. Most V10 and V8 engines usually have an idle of 500 to 900 RPMs. The V6 and 4 cyl vehicles normally run a little higher, like from 800 to 1100 RPMs. When working on your RPM GAUGE, be sure to set the minimum to the proper location with this number. If you don't, the RPMs will not look right in game.

Redline RPM: Consider this the maximum version of the above setting. All vehicles with a combustion engine have a redline. This is the RPM in which 1) the torque curve has dropped significantly and 2) the maximum RPM that can be attained before engine damage will occur.

In the game I have noticed that if this is set real high (15,000 RPMs), the rpm gauge tends to roll all the way around. Also, the sound of the engine turns into this really hideous whiny noise.

In this field, for Big Block V8s (383, 400, 413, 429, 440, 454, etc) the normal RPM limitations were roughly 5000 RPMs. Small Block V8s (4.6L to 5.9L) normally run from 5500 to 6000 RPMs. and the smaller the motor goes from here, the higher the RPMs. for redline. My Nissan Altima has a redline of 7000, for example and comes with the 1.8L Inline 4.

Racing engines, I suggest 8000 to 12000 RPMs

Front Drive Ratio: This appears to be for use in the event that you design a 4-wheel drive vehicle, for off-road racing. This ratio should be a negative number and in this case. You can also design a front wheel drive vehicle using this and eliminate the "Final Gear Ratio" factor. But by doing this you will need to change some Steering numbers to negatives and make other adjustments so the steering works properly.

If there was an off road track, the 4x4 vehicles would work as long as the Final Gear ratio and Front gear ratio was the exact same number, but the front gear ratio would need to be a negative number.

On the actual road surface in game, this front gear ratio is useless when working with the final gear ratio.

Perhaps we may be seeing an off-road based game from the NFS3 game engine sometime.

Shift blip in RPM: This should probably have been called the RPM loss during shift. It really only affects manual shifting too. This had very little affect on shifts of the automatic transmission. It is based on how long the shift takes, in milliseconds, to shift between gears and shows up as a vehicle coast on the RPM gauge.

If you don't understand this, let me put it this way. Shift Blip and Brake Blip, in RPM, work together to create that cool sound and the RPM needle movement during shifting.

When you drive a manual transmission, there is a specific amount of time it takes to shift between gears...during that time the car will coast at whatever speed you are traveling. This basically covers just how long it takes the driver to shift the vehicle from one gear to the next.

Because I enjoy realism a lot, I use the shift characteristics of a special program that tests how long it takes to press a keyboard button. This gives me my numbers.

The higher the number (I went to 5000 for testing) the longer the shift will take and the longer your car will "coast" between shifts. There seems to be a limit on this but I'm not sure what the actual number is. For no coast time, just put all zeros in here, like so 0,0,0,0,0,0 Each comma represents a different gear. The example is for a 4 speed manual tranny.

Brake blip in RPM: You know that Shift Blip is used for the coast between gears. The Brake Blip is the SAME thing, but used when downshifting/braking on a transmission. From what I've seen, the RPM gauge and sounds will use these numbers, in milliseconds, to adjust themselves accordingly.

Consider this Shift Blip for the Brakes.

Torque Curve: The Torque curve is an actual curve seen when the engine is tested on a dynamometer. If you don't know what this is, I'll explain. When an engine is built, the builder usually runs it on a machine called a dyno (dynamometer for short) which tells them specifics about the engine, such as horsepower output at specific RPM ranges and torque at specific RPM ranges. The Torque curve is a form of the overall torque range.

Use the torque curve, if available for your vehicle, to create the Torque Curve of the vehicle in game. Note that the total number of dots used on most every car is 40. Using less or more than this amount could cause problems and WILL affect almost everything from how the engine sounds, to performance characteristics to how the gauges work.

In other words, either build the torque curve appropriately, or ask someone who knows. If you want a simulation program and know, in-depth, the various specifications of the engine you are using, you can pick up a nice dyno program from Motion Software for about $40.00. Their URL is http://www.motionsoftware.com. It is a DOS-based sim, so you'll need some form of OS that supports it.

NOTE: It should also be noted that the torque curve generated will need to be in kilograms per meter, NOT lbs per foot.

GAS/BREAKING/REALISM Tab


Gas/Braking

Gas Increasing Curve: I saw absolutely no affects of changing these numbers. I am guessing that this has something to do with the keyboard typematic rate per gear...but that's simply a guess. I set this curve from 1 to 100 and nothing changed in regards to handling or speed.

Gas Decreasing Curve: See Gas Off Factor for comprehension. The numbers of points used in the curve should be the same used for "number of gears". They represent the % of gas deceleration from velocity compared to each gear.

Brake Increasing Curve: I saw absolutely no affects of changing these numbers. I am guessing that this has something to do with the keyboard typematic rate per gear...but that's simply a guess. I set this curve from 1 to 100 and nothing changed in regards to handling or speed.

Brake Decreasing Curve: See Max Braking Deceleration for comprehension. The numbers of points used in the curve should be the same used for "number of gears". They represent the % of brake applied compared to each gear.

G Transfer Factor: I use the G force calculation (in SAE numbers not Metric) on the vehicle I'm working on. It seems to be the correct setting. If this is indeed the G force, you can find out what the G Transfer Factor is using these formulas:

g Force= Vehicle Weight ÷ Wheel Thrust

Wheel Thrust = rolling radius ÷ drive wheel torque

Drive Wheel Torque = Flywheel Torque x First Gear Ratio x Final Gear Ratio x .85
and
Flywheel Torque = Maximum Torque - 15%

So to put this together: Lets say you have a car with a 5.7L motor, connected to a Muncie M22 transmission with the 1st gear ratio of 2.94 and a final gear ratio of 3.55 to 1. The car weighs 2790 lbs. The motor produces a maximum of 290 lbs-ft of torque and 275 BHP. Tires are the Firestone 215x70x15in tires.

Using the formulas above:

Flywheel Torque = 290 x.15 which comes out to 43.5. Take the number and subtract it from the original 290 to get your total Torque at the flywheel. The outcome is 246.5

Drive Wheel Torque = 246.5 x 2.94 x 3.55 x .85 which comes out to 2187 (rounded up)

Wheel Thrust = Rolling Radius ÷ 2187

Rolling Radius - To find this number you need to know about tires. Without going into a long and boring lesson on tires, use 215x70x15 to follow along.

215 = Width in millimeters
70 = Aspect ratio of width to height of sidewall
15 = Fits a 15 inch rim

70% of 215mm is 150.5 (Use a calculator 215 - 30% = 150.5)
150.5mm x .0393701 or mm to inches = 5.93 (rounded up) inches
We know the diameter of the rim is 15, so the radius would equal 7.5
Rolling Radius = Tire Height + Rim Radius = 13.43
13.43 is in inches, so we need to convert that to feet 13.43 ÷ 12 = 1.12 ft

So, Wheel Thrust = 2187 ÷ 1.12 = 1953 (rounded up)

Now, the G Force is within reach

G Force = 1953 ÷ 2790 = .70

A pain in the @#$&%? Absolutely.

Front Brake Bias Ratio: Percentage of how effective the front brakes are compared to the rear brakes. 0.1 to 1.0. The higher this number is the harder the front brakes are applied in braking. For a well designed braking system, you want the front bias to be equal to the back, therefore, don't deviate too much from the .50 that is normally set here.

A lot of this has to do with weight distribution during breaking. If you have a front heavy vehicle, to keep from locking the brakes up hard and swinging the rear of the car around too drastically, the number should be increased. I'm not going into formulas on this one.

Gas Off Factor: For simplification, when you are driving a car and you take your foot off the gas, this factor determines how far a vehicle travels compared to the gas decreasing curve. The number runs from "0.000000 to Max Velocity". If you set this for Max Velocity, it stops the car the second you take your finger off the gas and the gas decreasing curve takes affect.

Max Braking Deceleration: Similar to Gas Off Factor but used when the brakes are applied. Again, this determines how soon the vehicle stops in a braking situation. It uses the Brake decreasing curve to determine how quickly the car will stop. Range is from 0.000000 to Max Velocity again. The higher you go in number, the quicker the vehicle stops.

It helps to know the 0 to Top Speed acceleration time and the Top Speed to 0 braking time to help figure this number.

Needless to say, if you don't understand, you will just have to play with it. If you want the car to stop at all you must have that number above 0. Else the car just keeps on going unless you bounce into a flat surface or scrap a wall.

Realism

Leave these alone. The settings in this area are pretty static. The ability to change these settings has nothing to do with the car performance or the way it reacts to objects. "Move along, there's nothing to see here, people."

Tires/Grip

Tire Specs Front, Tire Specs Rear, Tire Wear, and Tire Factor: These setting have NO noticeable affect on the game. Set them however you want. I suspect that they were inserted during the design of the game for realism items that never made it into the game. The only other possibility is that they are used in the calculation of the car setups grip feature.

Lateral acceleration grip multiplier: This field is used in conjunction with turning. When a vehicle turns a corner, there is a loss of speed that occurs because of sideways movement in the turn. Like when you drive and take a sharp corner quickly, the rear of the vehicle comes sliding around. This sliding affect can move the car in an accelerated motion sideways in some instances. This setting changes that affect.

This number should range between 2.8 and 3.5. Anything less and the vehicle becomes incredibly fast if you turn the wheel, any higher and it can cause you to come to a halt every time you try to turn. Stick with the range above.

Aerodynamic downforce multiplier: This is the multiplier used to determine just how much pressure is placed on the vehicle and is determined by its mass, speed and other variables. I would suggest playing with the settings. Consider it sort of like a gravity type setting. Mess with these, It's the only way to understand the affect of changing this field.

† Front Grip Bias: Front Tire Grip, to put it in it's simplest form. The Bias is a rating on the tires ability to grip the road. For ease of understanding, use the table to choose the correct number from below:

Big wheel Plastics .001 to .1 (Not recommended EVER)
S = .10 to .29
R = .30 to .34
HR = .35 to .39
VR = .4 to .49
ZR = .5 to .69
RACE GRIP = .7 to .9
Neverslip = 1.0 +

As a side note, this will not cause a sliding noise. You will simply notice that the cornering gets worse the closer you get to 0.000000 and gets better the higher the number used. I don't suggest going above 1.000000 on this one simply because I don't know of any car that can turn tighter than the steering ratio. This field is a variable used in a calculation for steering ability at various speeds.

Wheel base: This is the average width between the tires. On a vehicle the front and rear tires are sometimes not as wide apart in the front as they are in the back or vice-versa. The width between the tires is called the track. Some vehicle specs provide the track width (usually in inches) of the vehicle. To find the Wheel Base that this game is requesting, you need to find the average between the two (if they are different) and then provide the number in meters to this field.

For instance, a 1999 Mustang has a front track of 60.4 inches and a rear track of 60.6 inches. This gives a wheel base value of 60.5 (avg)

60.5 is in inches so we convert to meters by this 60.5 x .0254 = wheel base value and this total would equal 1.5367. Appropriate value for the game and realistic in play.

I noticed that most vehicles in game have a larger number than this so I suggest you add 50% of the value onto your vehicles wheelbase value which should provide the control you are looking for.

Wheel base settings change how the car holds the road and the effects of sliding. A lower value, and thus, slim vehicle, is easier to flip the vehicle when you drive radically. You can also make a car so wide so as not to be affected by road curvature. Be careful with this setting. Other cars around you are affected by this setting too.

Suggested width range: 1.000000 to 3.657000. This represents 3.2 ft to 12 ft wide, or roughly the width of a Rover Mini to a Mack Truck.

Steering Tab

Min Steering Acceleration: This is the number used to determine the turn factors. The lower this number is, the slower you must travel to turn the vehicle. The higher this number is the faster you must go to turn the vehicle properly. It appears to be tied to the turn speed modifiers also.

Setting this to 1 and going faster than 25mph, the car drove in a straight line.
Setting this to 16, the car reacted properly.
Setting this to 32, the car accelerates (much like pressing the gas)

† Turning Circle Radius: Effective only when the gas is not pressed. The smaller the number, the quicker it turns. The larger the number, the slower it turns. I use the actual turning radius (in m x 2.)number on vehicle specs here. It fits. Approximate turning radius on most normal cars is around 12-14, for super cars, many are 9 to 12. Play with it, but start it at a base of 12. Turning on a dime = 1.

† Turn In Ramp: The lower the number is from 16, the worse it steers. 0 and 1 will keep the car from turning. Higher than 16 and the vehicle turns much quicker in a coasting situation. The only apparent difference here is that Turn In Ramp does NOT affect acceleration. Judging from how this works, it is probable that this is an aspect ratio used to determine how fast the turn is at certain speed. Much like an Gas Increasing Curve but for turning.

† Turn Out Ramp: Similar to Turn In Ramp, except this affects the steering correction after you have completed the turn.

Slide Multiplier: Notice that when your car hits another in game, it seems that the bumpers of the two vehicles are locked and causes you to have to slow down to unlock yourself. Well, playing with this I discovered that the lower the amount (Set it to 0.000300) the more the car tended to "slide" off the car I just hit. It even worked against cops in Pursuit mode. Now the test vehicle can no longer be stopped by the cops slowing down in front of me, I just sort of slide off of them.

Slide Velocity Cap and Slide Assistance Factor appear to be connected to Slide Multiplier. At least the affects of changing these fields have the same affect on the game. I'm sure there is some calculation this does but I am unaware of it, so I'll continue to research it.

† Spin Velocity Cap: Noticed no changes to game play.

Push Factor: Decreasing push factor decreases the sideways slide of the car. 9000 seems to be a little high for reality. The larger this number gets, the farther this car slides when it's turned sideways. It also affects how far your vehicle can be "pushed" sideways by another car hitting it.

By this I mean that whole power braking, sideways turning, slide we all adore and love to do at the finish line, is longer or shorter depending on what number is used.

Suggestion- For every 500 lbs of car, add 1000 points of Push Factor. So, for a Mazda Miata, this should be about 3000.

Low and High Turn Factor: Keep these between 0.0150000 and 0.0350000. Otherwise you end up with really odd turning capability. I noticed changes to the turning realism moving this from 0.000010 to 1.000000.

† Gradual, Medium and Sharp Turn Cutoff: This seems to have something to do with the way the steering wheel turns at various speeds. I found it had nothing to do with the capability of performance in steering on 10 different cars. Each was set to a different number from 1 to 200. the only difference I saw was the amount the steering wheel turned.

I'm not sure how the numbers work on this though.

Turn Speed Modifiers: Depending on the speed you are going, the numbers inserted here will affect the steering of the vehicle. The lower the number, the less capable the car is of handling the turn.

The higher the number the faster/easier the car turns.

Suggestion- Number range should not exceed 1 unless you're driving a unicycle. and should not fall below 0.500000 unless you are driving a sleigh.

This modifier works on how fast the car is moving. The faster it goes, the less capable turning it should have. Decrease the number using the Medium Turn Speed Modifier by at least .05 for for Sharp and .10 for Extreme. Then adjust from there.

VIV Wizard created by Jesper Juul-Mortensen Help File created by Jesper Juul-Mortensen & Mitch Larson