Hey everyone. Although I'm not new to the Forza franchise, I'm not that great of a driver and I'm looking to improve. Other than "drive more, fool," are there any tips that can help me shave time off my races and make me a better overall driver? Right now I'm driving with a custom difficultly level where assisted braking is off, the driving line is for turns only and car damage is limited. I try to avoid playing pinball with other drivers but I find I do scrape a lot of paint. I usually stick to front wheel drive, newer cars, as they tend to be easier to handle. I love muscle cars from the 70s but they are really tough to handle around turns. I'd really like reach a point where I'm competitive when I race online. Any advice would be appreciated.

Traction Control, ABS and Stability control should be on, all I can suggest is take everything easy. If you start out slow and build up you will find where you can push.

Find a car you like, it's easy to do a lot of events in Forza 4 with just one car so you can get something you feel comfortable with and practice. AWD cars are pretty easy to drive, I like the Subarus myself.

Really the main answer is spend more time. At the end of the day anyone who is good at this has had a lot of practice.

Practice really does make perfect. The best thing you can do is race one track again and again until you've memorized the best line through it, and are able to anticipate all the turns. Then do this with all the tracks haha.

Also you can start to challenge the braking line. Brake later, but still keep it smooth. Find a better line through the turns. Learn to use the brake line as a guideline and not something to actually stick to.

As for muscle cars, it's all about control. Don't slam the throttle, feather it, apply delicate pressure and don't accelerate through the turns too hard or you'll spin like a top.

watching better drivers replays can help you understand how to take certain turns.

just make sure you watch replays where they are driving similar cars to yours.

Played DEMO recently, to be honest I don't see how people play this game with joystick. I like cars and have driven through some amazing Apline passes.

What you have to realize is that each car has certain weight associated with it and that you have to enter and exit each turn at proper line and most importantly speed. Here comes the main problem, with joystick, there is no feedback to driver as to how car behaves and you have to basically "drive" it by looking at the visual feedback (acceleration & brake lines , etc.). Each car has set of its own lines. Some people can play without the lines, but those people probably been with franchise since original release on xbox.

When it comes to fast rear wheel drive cars or muscle cars you have to modulate the acceleration very carefully and it's also very hard to tell how to enter the turn properly on those cars, because at some point they start to feel "arcady" (crazy acceleration, lots of grip in turns, fast stopping power, etc.) I guess what I am trying to say, each car class has its own driving style. Early cars are rather slow to respond, with lots of body roll while later cars feel more like F1 cars and follow completely different playing style.

In short, a lot of your problems stem from playing with joystick. In real car you would not have problem with keeping the car in lane or having problems with pressing the pedal to the metal and causing crazy wheel spin. Unfortunately for xbox users MS only supports plastic kiddie toy $100 MC2 steering wheel which is not much better than joystick or very expensive (read $500+) Fanatec wheel.

Use more skill... ; )

Kidding!

Yea, use ABS and traction control, and yes the Subaru WRX would be a good car to start with. (All wheel drive, not TOO fast of a car.)

Build a good understanding of coming from the outside when entering a turn and moving to the inside at the apex. (The driving line should help you with that.)

Like mentioned above, start slow, get familiar with a single track. (Use time trials when practicing.)

Eventually you should be comfortable enough to turn all the assists off, one by one if you need to. (Master the driving line first, or as close as ya can.)

Do all your breaking before entering a turn, if your tires are squeeling you have less control.

Then you can start using faster cars bit by bit, rinse and repeat.

@Creative: The Fanatec wheel can be had for about 300 dollars shipped, with the standard-style pedals. Still expensive, but not unobtainable.

I do think a wheel makes the game theoretically easier, but the inputs are the same. Some people are incredibly good at modulating the joystick and triggers with their hands, while others are better served with a wheel.

Good tips here for the most part. I don't find that using a gamepad adversely affects my driving, I just really have to get used to all the tracks before I can start turning off ABS, automatic, etc. Also, doing some basic tuning to your cars so they handle a bit better is a must. I'm not even very good at that, but even a little bit does wonders.

When I used to be on alot of the leaderboards in forza 1 and 2. Like top 30, in alot of events.

The way i improved was racing ghosts, and you can see where someone is braking differently to you, where they apply the power etc. Also watching replays helps, as well as having a decent setup.

At the end of the day, racing is pretty natural to be good at. Its all about driving as straight as you can, and braking in a straight line as late as possible, and hitting apexes.

Pretty much starts with memorizing the tracks imo. Do plenty of laps, practice visualizing a track start to finish. You shouldn't be getting caught off guard for a turn, even in the heat of battle.

Once you have the tracks down, you can then focus on the cars and you'll feel very comfortable even in a never driven car.

I would hate to see how many laps of the Nurburgring I've done in my life time through different games...

The most helpful resource I've ever seen about how to play driving simulators is the instruction manual for Gran Turismo 1. In it, it basically says that the most important thing is distribution of static friction/grip on the tires. There three things you ask your tires to do that all eat up some of the limited static friction/grip of your tires - accelerate, decelerate, and turn. Once the grip is out, you skid and inherently lose efficiency (e.g. speed, braking power, turning radius.) because static friction is a stronger force than kinetic friction.

Of this very simple concept arises very complicated scenarios in a race. For example, when turning, you want to commit as much as your tires' grip/static friction to the turn. This means you cannot be accelerating or decelerating (or, rather, you should be applying very little acceleration to keep wind resistance and other types of friction from slowing your car). This is why it is often better to regain control by simply letting of the accelerator rather than hitting the brakes. Rather than committing your already-skidding tires toward trying to brake, letting off the accelerator allows your tires to regain static friction/grip. At that point, you can brake, assuming the regained traction isn't already enough to carry you through the turn.

Another thing to realize is that you can take advantage of the car's shifting weight when driving. Whenever possible, you want to put as much weight onto the working wheels as possible in order to increase grip/static friction. This is why nearly every high performance car uses the rear wheels to drive it forward. During acceleration, the car's weight shifts to the back, over the rear wheels, increasing grip and, therefore, acceleration. During braking your weight shifts over the front, turning wheels, increasing your ability to turn. However, since both accelerating and decelerating eat up your precious limited grip resource, you want to do your braking immediately before a turn. With the weight still shifted over the front wheels, you can stop braking and begin your turn with your increased grip.

This concept is why you're finding front wheel drive cars easier to drive. Most newer drivers brake too earlier and try to accelerate too much during a turn. Front wheel drive cars will always be subject to understeer because you are asking your two front tires to do both 100% of the accelerating and 100% of the turning. Furthermore, when accelerating, your weight will shift to the rear wheels, decreasing the amount of grip you can use to do your accelerating and turning. This is why front wheel drive cars are slow to accelerate and slow to turn, but also why they don't spin out.

Rear wheel drive is the preferred drivetrain in performance cars because you can put all four of your tires to work. While the rear wheels drive the car, the front wheels can turn the car. This is also where engine placement comes into play. In a front engine, rear wheel drive car, a majority of the weight is put over the front wheels, increasing turning grip, but decreasing driving grip. This explains front engine, rear wheel drive cars' propensity towards oversteer and spinouts.

You'll often see the engine sitting in the back of many supercars. This is to increase the grip under acceleration while decreasing the possibility of oversteer. Since the car's weight will want to shift backwards during acceleration anyway, also placing the engine in the back will ensure that as much of the engine's power as possible is shifted to the driving wheels, providing superior acceleration. While this also decreases grip among the turning wheels compared to front engine cars, the advantages of a rear engine, rear wheel drive car often outweigh the disadvantages in a high-speed racing situation since you want to do your braking and turning at different times to maximize the efficiency of the front tires to perform both actions.

So there you have it. You have three big players: 1) the car's shifting body weight when the car is in motion, 2) the engine location, and 3) drivetrain type. Knowing where all three of these factors are located relative to your car at any given moment is the key to better driving. This says nothing of aerodynamics and inertia, but you can probably figure that one out with the knowledge I've just given you. Notice how I also mentioned nothing of memorization of tracks, which I consider tedious and a more advanced driver skill. What I have provided is a relatively simple, procedural way of determining how to predict what your car will do at any given moment, which I consider far more important than knowing what the upcoming turn will be. That's why there's a minimap. Now go forth and conquer.

tl;dr, amirite?

You'll often see the engine sitting in the back of many supercars. This is to increase the grip under acceleration while decreasing the possibility of oversteer. Since the car's weight will want to shift backwards during acceleration anyway, also placing the engine in the back will ensure that as much of the engine's power as possible is shifted to the driving wheels, providing superior acceleration. While this also decreases grip among the turning wheels compared to front engine cars, the advantages of a rear engine, rear wheel drive car often outweigh the disadvantages in a high-speed racing situation since you want to do your braking and turning at different times to maximize the efficiency of the front tires to perform both actions. 

So there you have it. You have three big players: 1) the car's shifting body weight when the car is in motion, 2) the engine location, and 3) drivetrain type. Knowing where all three of these factors are located relative to your car at any given moment is the key to better driving. This says nothing of aerodynamics and inertia, but you can probably figure that one out with the knowledge I've just given you. Notice how I also mentioned nothing of memorization of tracks, which I consider tedious and a more advanced driver skill. What I have provided is a relatively simple, procedural way of determining how to predict what your car will do at any given moment, which I consider far more important than knowing what the upcoming turn will be. That's why there's a minimap. Now go forth and conquer.

@keris said:

You had it right until that part. No, no, no! The engine will sit behind the driver, not the car. Damn near most high performance exotic cars (not to mention open-wheel racers *choo, choo* and Le Mans prototypes) are mid-engine. The engine sits in between the two wheel axles giving the car a much better front-rear weight distribution. When the weight of the engine is put towards the center of the car, the center of gravity is closer to the axis of rotation and the car's moment of inertia is reduced. This gives the advantage of making it easier and quicker to turn. Rear-engine cars are notoriously prone to oversteer. Porsche has only been able mitigate the effects on their own RR cars through their continual suspension tuning.

You're right, thank you for correcting me. I was oversimplifying my example for informational purposes, probably to a fault. I'm no gear head by any means, so my crass vocabulary regarding front/mid/rear-engine vehicles leaves something to be desired. I just enjoy the physics of it all. But, yes, a car with the engine in the trunk, literally over the rear axle, would likely handle horrendously. Luckily actual rear engine cars are hard to come by in Forza 4 (although there is the DeLorean, the only supercar as far as I'm concerned). The point, really, is that any kind of gross imbalances in the car at any point is going to lead to handling issues.

I think figuring out how to balance a car and how to prevent skidding while maintaining maximum speed is the only way to improve time. The things you describe are finer points to be perfected after the fact. There's no point in memorizing a course if you can't keep the ass end from swinging out every time you take a turn. Maintaining control is something you need to nail down first, especially if you're afraid to drive anything other than front engine, front wheel drive cars.

I agree with turning off auto-braking, and auto-steering. If you're not comfortable with braking distances and driving lines, it's ok to turn on the visual driving line for a time to get a feel for those things; just don't build all your skill off of relying on it because the ultimate goal is to be able to turn it off. Use it to learn what and where an apex is, and where to brake and accelerate around it.

I believe that stopping a car is damn near impossible without ABS and starting the faster cars without traction control also requires an enormous amount of skill. I'll let you and peer pressure determine whether you should have those on. Stability control, however, seems detrimental if you want to learn how to drive something other than a front engine, FWD car.

Late braking, like @keris was talking about, is also a fairly easy but important concept to grasp. The point is you want to spend as little time braking and as much time accelerating as possible while still keeping the car under control.

Now these physics-based, procedural ways of thinking about your driving may or may not work for you. If rote memorization is your thing, then turn off the driving line, run the time trials by yourself, and memorize courses and landmarks. Different strokes for different folks.

As a side note, that link to the GT2 manual is a phenomenal resource.

I think figuring out how to balance a car and how to prevent skidding while maintaining maximum speed is the only way to improve time. The things you describe are finer points to be perfected after the fact. There's no point in memorizing a course if you can't keep the ass end from swinging out every time you take a turn. Maintaining control is something you need to nail down first, especially if you're afraid to drive anything other than front engine, front wheel drive cars. 

Here's the thing, you've put the cart before the horse. Keeping the balance of a car while maintaining maximum speed is actually a highly advanced skill. But the only way to understand what the maximum speed of a given section is to actually know the course. Unless what you mean is to go some vague "maximum speed" when you first go out. If that's the case, that's just reckless and will just result in banging up the car.
 
Knowing how to keep the ass end from swinging out is actually very easy. It's a problem of dynamics. Separating linear acceleration inputs from rotational acceleration inputs solves that problem easily. Going in a straight line while accelerating or braking isn't going to cause a spin out (barring some special circumstances). Turning without linear acceleration inputs is a bit more involved in diagnosing. Basically if there's understeer it means you're going faster than the turning radius is going to allow. If you oversteer entering a turn it means you were too abrupt in bringing on the steering. Apply the turning input more slowly. If you oversteer exiting the turn it means that you're applying too much throttle while turning. That's solved by either applying throttle more slowly or delaying the application of throttle until the car is going straight.

I agree with turning off auto-braking, and auto-steering. If you're not comfortable with braking distances and driving lines, it's ok to turn on the visual driving line for a time to get a feel for those things; just don't build all your skill off of relying on it because the ultimate goal is to be able to turn it off. Use it to learn what and where an apex is, and where to brake and accelerate around it.

That's a crutch that hinders actually knowing the track. The entire point of making the reference points is to make the track a visual braking line. Once a certain landmark pops up the idea, "Oh that's a blind left hairpin, I should enter it from the right side and brake...here!" should pop up. 
 
Once you use the driving line cue you'll rely on it. And then when you turn it off you'll be in near the same position as starting without it. My main problem with the driving line is that blindly adhering to an imaginary line on a track stops the driver from paying attention to what the car is doing.

Now these physics-based, procedural ways of thinking about your driving may or may not work for you. If rote memorization is your thing, then turn off the driving line, run the time trials by yourself, and memorize courses and landmarks. Different strokes for different folks.

The problem with your method is that there is no method. You've laid out vague concepts with frankly vaguer understandings of the physics behind those concepts. Just because you know weight transfer (1 in your original post) and drivetrain configuration (2 and 3) of a car doesn't mean that you'll magically be able to sight read a track. The funny thing is that the first few laps you don't even have to know what type of car your driving. That doesn't come into play until you're trying to shave tenths of a second off. 
 
The concepts you laid out are important to racing. But without knowledge of the track how can you learn how to apply them? Using the minimap means you're looking at a map when you should be looking at the track.
 
The bottom line is if you want to do something that involves speed, then you start slow and make sure you have the basic outline of what you have to do down. Then you increase the speed from there. Just because you know how high Mario can jump and how fast he can run doesn't mean that you'll be able to complete a speed run of Super Mario Bros. You have to know the levels.

Careful with those American Muscle cars, they are great for drag racing or getting a good launch. But unless heavily modded, they suck at taking lots of turns. And this game usually likes to make you play on tracks with more turns than less. I would probably turn the line all the way on; at least until you used to the tracks. Also, make sure to drive mostly the cars they give you as rewards. These cars are race tuned and unlike those you get from the dealer they are modded up to the top of their class. At least in the early going anyway.

If your worried about tradin paint with the A.I. cars, don't they don't get really intelligent until your around Elite level and then you are pretty used to them, so they are easy. Don't get mired in the pack, but try to get a nice launch. Because unlike REAL racing, most of the early races are won or lost in the first lap or by the beginning to middle of the second lap. And don't worry about coming in 2nd or 3rd. You get a descent number of points and it probably taught you something. If I had to do all over again I would have shut rewind off from the start. Because I used it too much in the middle difficulties. In Championship, which is what I'm in now, you only get one per race and the races are usually twice as long as they were just one division before. So you basically just forget the rewinds are there.

The above advice is also really good. This game takes a time investment. I've played the last two Forza's to pretty high levels and I'm still learning things in this new one.

Hope all that helps....

Get in a good FWD car like you are in (Civic, Integra, etc.).

You must turn stability control OFF. Leave ABS and TC on though. Assisted braking off too. Assisted steering (does this even exist?) must be off too. If you have stability control on you will never get a feel for when you are going too fast or turn too much because the car will fix it for you. So it must be off.

Have the driving line on. Use it for speed and where to start your turn. For most turns, you're just going to use it for speed and drive from the outside of the straight to the apex (the inside edge of the corner). Basically, go from the edge, slowing, then turning in. Once you meet the apex you could be accelerating and turning out. No turning out (unwinding the steering wheel) before the apex should be needed nor any turning in (winding up the steering wheel) past the apex.

The driving line is very useful, but don't get freaked about getting right on the line. If you get off the line, getting back on it and getting your direction of driving correct is actually pretty much impossible, so you will just mess yourself up if you try. So just use the line to know where to start the corner and to see the apex. Use the color for speed, if it is red, you are going too fast.

Remember this, slow in, fast out. Fast in, crash out. This means you will need to slow enough to make the corner before you turn in, so brake first and then turn. If the tires are screeching as you turn in, then you are going too fast and you are slipping outward (drifting). You don't want that. Drifting is rarely the fastest way through the corner, the fastest line will be to go as fast as possible without drifting. You also don't really want to be braking as you are turning in, brake before the turn in. If you want to break the habit of trying to brake while turning in (called trail braking) then just get in a mid-engine or rear engined car. An MR2 is a cheap one. If you try to trail brake one of these you will spin the car frequently. So driving a mid-engined car will teach you not to do this (and also frustrate you). Trying to brake turning the corner will rarely produce the effect you expect (turning tighter), it'll usually cause you to skid toward the outside of the track (understeer) more or spin the car instead. So that's why you need to get slowed down before you turn in.

You need to dial in enough steering input to maximize turning, but no more. If you put in more you will either cause the car to understeer more (steer less) or spin the car, depending on the car and speed you are going. Basically, once you reach the limit, turning in will just produce more tire noise, getting more actual turning at that point will require entering the corner with less speed, not turning the wheel more.

Once you get good with an FWD car, go to a low-powered RWD car, like a Nissan 240SX/Silvia, a Miata, Sprinter Trueno (AE86) or Mitsubishi Starion. A Miata can be a great car to learn on because you'll actually want to drive one later, but honestly the shorter wheelbase makes it tougher to learn on than one of the other cars listed. Do not drive a muscle car or Corvette/Viper. Do not go to AWD next, some of them drive more like FWD cars, some more like RWD cars and some are undrivable (the Bentley Continental SuperSport). While AWD drivetrains can provide a lot of performance, when you are learning they'll just mess you up, because it's difficult to understand what you are learning by driving them unless you already are expert on driving that particular AWD car.

I don't know what mouserve2 is saying above, there are cars with the engine between the rear wheels, the 911 even has the engine hanging behind the rear wheels. It would handle horrendously if Porsche didn't put much wider tires on the rear than the wrong. In the end, rear engine has some merits, although I don't recommend it for beginners (nor mid-engine) except to help practice your technique.

Despite what was mentioned above, the AI doesn't change as you progress through the game. Even if the computer cars are getting faster (they don't seem to be, and I'm in the 8th or 9th series right now) it is not because they are becoming more cagey. As to trading paint with the other cars, remember that usually the winning car of a race has few or no marks on it. So trying to crash your car to the front is usually futile, even with damage off it'll just slow you down to hit other cars. That having been said sometimes to make a pass in a corner you might need to bump another car along the side. Hitting in the back is rarely useful in this game (the computer ignores the chrome horn) and hitting in the rear quarter to spin is frowned upon and never necessary to win. Concentrate on passing either on a straight by having more power or by coming out of a corner with more speed (a cleaner corner). If you must pass in a corner, an outside pass must be completely clean, hitting the other car in the corner is of no use at all, but they may come into you on the straight after the corner. Generally if this happens to you on an outside pass, you shouldn't have been passing on the outside. When passing on the inside on a corner, it may be useful to bump the other car as you are alongside, mainly because the other car isn't leaving enough space. If you can avoid the bump, it's usually better, just sometimes it isn't possible. If you want to pass dirty on the inside by taking the inside and then driving outward to the edge of the track slowly and forcing the computer car off the track, that's up to you. It's just a computer, it can't punch you in the face after the race. But personally I treat the computer as if it were a human and I don't run them off the track to pass or to block back.

@KimChi4U:

What I'm going to suggest is harder but will lead to better times once you get used to it.

I would turn stability control off but keep traction control on. Stability control leads to under-steer (meaning the car turns too wide). I would also stick to rear wheel drive cars as AWD cars tend to under-steer as well (but are usually faster in the straights). I would also try to turn on 'simulation' handling.

So all of the things I mentioned will lead to a harder game and make controlling the cars, initially, harder. BUT, these things off two important things will happen; over-steer (or the car turning more sharply) and drifting. With the setting above you can really brake late into turns and swing the back end of your car out allowing you to sling-shot cars around corners. It can be a little tricky getting used to this and learning to brake late can be challenging. You'll likely crash a lot before you get the hang of it. But, once you do get a handle on it, you'll start shaving seconds off left and right.

Another thing I would suggest is switching to manual transmission and switching to the cockpit view. Again, these things sound crazy. But, if you can get used to switching gears up and down yourself, you can usually shift faster then the automatic transmission. Plus, you can keep the car in a higher gear through turns, in order to allow for more speed through and coming out of the turn, where an automatic would shift down (causing you to lose speed). I've found that the cockpit view allows me to control the oversteer and drifting much easier then the other views. I have a better sense of place and a better idea of where the car is and what it is doing in that view then the other views. But that might just be me.