If you want to get the best out of your car in Shift 2: Unleashed, you will need to tune it, test it, tune it, test it, and repeat it a lot of times before you will have something than runs with optimum speed, acceleration, and handling. Thankfully, this NFS Shift 2 Advanced Tuning guide can help make the process easier for you.
NFS Shift 2 Advanced Tuning
Drivetrain
One of the most important trade-offs in Tuning your car is whether you want max acceleration or top speed. Both have their own advantages and both their disadvantages, so adjusting your Gears Ratio for top speed will result in rather low acceleration and when you adjust your Gears Ratio for maximum acceleration, it will come at the cost of decrease in top speed.
So, it’s give n take in the end, and you will be required to test out different setups for your car before making your final decision. It’s always best to keep testing your cars because if it works for one, it won’t necessarily work for other cars.
Tips
Generally, it is recommended that you limit the gears ratio to 2.0 or less for Class D cars, short tracks with short straights, or for tracks with lots of corners. Keep the gears ratio in 2.0 – 6.0 range for any Class C car and above or for the tracks with lots of variations. You can set the gears ratio above 6.0 for tracks with extremely long straights or that require constant speed like Monza Jr.
Alignment
Alignment? That is usually wrong in your car when it’s turning itself or turning more then you would want her to… But when it comes to racing cars this is a total different story, the alignment of your car can result in many dramatic changes which includes top speed, acceleration and of course the steering.
The alignment in Shift 2 depends on the following variables:
Caster Angle
It is noticeable when you’re on your vehicles peak speed; this is used to keep the car to go in a straight line with a proper manner. Most of the gamers won’t notice this but this is useful when you’ve maxed out your engine. So I would suggest you to set it up if you have a fast car, low values will result in more control.
Steering Lock
Most of you are familiar to this; the steering lock is like the sensitivity to your turning. It’s up to you on how you want to set it. Few gamers don’t like it when they try to turn a little and their car gets off the track. If you’ll set it to 0 then your car will lose the ability to turn that means lowering the value will result in less-response. You should adjust this variable at any point you see fit, lower will result in no response, while higher will result in more response.
Cambers & Toe Angles
This is the important variable which controls your acceleration, breaking and the handling. Changing the cambers and the toe angles will result in massive changes. For example if you’ll increase the negative camber to a higher value then you’ll be good in turns and corners, because this way more of your tire will be intact with the road. The same way if you’ll increase the value of the positive camber than it will result in better acceleration.
The toe angles are to the cambers in a way that the cambers control the vertical angle of the wheels whereas the toe angles are used for the horizontal controls. Increasing Toe-Out will increase the responsiveness.
You can adjust distance between the front of the tires to Toe-In, if you want better straight line. If you want to improve responsiveness, adjust it to Toe-out. Or you can keep it somewhere in the middle, 19.0 – 21.0 for optimum response and straight line.
You can adjust the Camber to adjust the vertical angle of the wheel, negative camber leads to better cornering, positive camber adds better acceleration. You should keep the rear angle between 5.0 – 10.0 but higher than front.
Stance
Stance of the car is mostly changed for controlling the grip and the acceleration. This is very much different for each car, depending on its weight. If you’ll just increase the ride height to the maximum then it will be difficult to control the car but it will increase your acceleration. The same way if you’ll keep a lower stance then you’ll have more grip on the road and your car will have less chancing of toppling.
The shooting sparks out of the back of your car are a sign that your car is inefficient in terms of speed, so it is paramount that you minimize bottoming out whilst keeping the car low at the same time, achieving this is going to give you the best result in terms of speed.
Some of the body kits will place your front splitter and rear diffuser only a mere inch from the ground. Lowering the stance too far in the front or rear can make the pieces scrapping the asphalt against the ground. The center of gravity needs to be low when cornering. All in all, this will result in instability in your car which will slow you down when you turn around corners or during weight transfers.
Tips
Raised Stance gives you more acceleration, increased body roll, less traction while Lower Stance gives you better center of gravity, and more grip. Make sure you don’t set it lower than 2.0. If you plan to set the front and rear differently, make sure you set the front lower than the rear.
Aerodynamics
Stance is important for almost every vehicle, but there is a difference case for aerodynamics as its mostly effective for the high-end vehicles that move at a flying speed. But it’s not that it doesn’t affect the other vehicles either.
Increasing the downforce will increase your grip and control whereas lowering the downforce will increase your acceleration and top speed. You must keep a balanced front and rear downforce or else it will result in stupid movements.
If you’ll have a lot of downforce at the front and very few at the back then your car will be turning way too much. So, tune it wisely and according to your needs as the right setup can improve your speed and timings.
In the game, one of the most important skills you are going to have to learn is to control your car 200 mph. At high speeds adding downforce to your car can help you with cornering. To do this push the front or rear of the car into the ground giving you more traction.
You can also set the front and rear downforce to 0 and the top speed goes up to about 4-5 mph; but the drawback is that your car becomes a bit more difficult to control. Your car might slide a lot making it feel like you are driving on soap.
It is recommended that you go for a downforce of 8.00 on the front and 5.00 on the rear. This will help you in turning a lot better
Tips
You should set your gear ratios to much taller setting than your stock. Tweak individual gears of the car in order to maximize performance. When revs drop too low on shift, try adjusting that gear more toward acceleration. Set the downforce to low, increase negative camber, and also increase tire pressure.
Brakes and Tires
You can drastically improve the handling of the car by adjusting the tire pressure and brakes. Tire Pressure and Brakes are two variables that you will need to test with different other tweaks to your engine you would do.
They ran alongside each other, and any drastic change to result in negative performance. Make minor changes and test the car. Go from there to tweak it more and keep testing until you have an optimum balance between Brakes and Tires.
Similarly you can couple your brake balance with brake pressure and optimize it to make your car perform better. Following are the general rules when it comes to tuning Brakes and Tires.
Tips
If you want to understeer, increase tire pressure in front and decrease it in rear. If you want to oversteer, decrease it in front and increase it in rear.
Brake Balance
Higher will lead to more movement in the rear, making it easier to turn, but more unsettled.
Brake Pressure
How hard the brake will be executed. Basically adds or removes the bite when braking.
Sway Bars
Sway bars are used to control the handling balance of the vehicles and its body lean. Heavier cars have under steer and lighter have over steer. The Shift 2’s sway bars are pretty detailed then the original game. You can easily customize your sway bars and tweak them for maximum performance.
The best combination can get you the fastest lap time because you’ll now have the best turning control on your body. Changing the sway bars can either make your car to under steer or over steer.
If you’ll SOFTEN the front bar then you’ll over steer and if you’ll STIFFER the front bar then you’ll under steer whereas SOFTENING the rear bar will result in under steer and STIFFENING the rear bar will over steer.
You should keep it in your mind that your adjustments don’t cross to be more then 4.0 or it will be too much.
Tips
If you soften front and stiffer rear, it will result in oversteer. If you soften rear and stiffer front, it will result in understeer. Always make small adjustments, no more than 4.0 in either direction. Heavy Cars tend to understeer by default, while Lighter Cars generally oversteer.
Springs
Similar to Sway Bars, Springs help control your car. Stiffening or softening the springs results in the variance of the stability and control of your car. But if you have a higher stiffening then you’ll obviously feel bad on an off road track or bumpy roads.
Adjust the sway bars and the springs with a good coordination because a good combination will result in perfect controlling and good response. Stiffening the springs will result in more response but lower control whereas the opposite goes for softening them.
The bump stop is used to stop your vehicles bottoming out; it should not be increased any more than the required value because it will result in destroying your control.
Tips
If you want response, use stiff Springs. If you want control, use soft Springs. Raise the Bump Stop to a point where you stop bottoming out, any more than that you will find it difficult to control.
Tune Your Car For Standing Mile (Game Mode)
Standing Mile is a new game mode in the game; your objective is simple – You’ll literally have to fly your car because what you have to do is cross the highest MPH barrier.
The tracks are usually straight, tune your car, and make it perfect to reach the maximum of its speed. No doubt, every car has its own ups and downs and the tuning for each is different like the PagaiHuayra will result in more speed if you’ll tune its drivetrain to the maximum but it’s not the same with all of the cars.
You will have an experiment with your car to see what works best for you. Following are the variables you can tweak and try what works for you in Standing Mile game mode.
Tips
You can increase Gear Ratios, Negative Camber, and the Tires Pressure from stock setup. Test it and see how it goes. You can also try the car with decreased downforce. Make sure you are getting the result for which you are tuning the car for, and for that, you will need to test the car with every change.
Share your own tips regarding NFS Shift 2 Advanced Tuning with us in comments and we will feature them in the article.
