Gran Turismo 5: Car Tuning Guide

During your time with Gran Turismo 5, it will be impossible for you to not make use of the tuning features available. Mercifully this section can be utilised as much or as little as you want, making the most of complex tweaks and alterations yourself or simply buying a part to add some BHP. We run down each section of the tuning feature to provide you with the necessary knowledge to make the most of the speed-boosting options.

Body/Chassis

All of the options under this category allow you to alleviate some of the weight of your chosen car. In doing so you will make the car considerably lighter, thus improving acceleration and handling around corners. This is particularly useful for larger cars, whose heavy metallic bodies drag the car down and limit its increase in speed – and since Gran Turismo 5 is all about the ‘slow in, fast out’ cornering method, you’ll need as much acceleration as you can muster.

Purchasing body upgrades will decrease the weight significantly, with the later, more expensive options being particularly useful. One of the additional options include adding anti-roll bars, which increase rigidity while taking corners. You also have the option of lowering window weight, though this has minimal payoff when you could just save up and purchase stage-one of the main upgrade.

Engine

As you might expect, upgrading your engine will increase its power capacity, giving you an overall faster and quicker vehicle. There are three stages that each of which must be installed incrementally, and dramatically increase its BHP. The higher the number, the faster you will go. These are always expensive options, however, so only worth splashing the cash on a vehicle you enjoy driving rather than a beat-up Vitz for the Yaris race.

Alternatively there is the Sports ECU. This only costs 1,000 Credits, so naturally won’t add the effect that the more expensive engine upgrades cost, but it is worth remembering. This is fairly cheap in the long run, and could be the difference between an easy race or a challenge. Remember, however, that it affects each car differently: others are more responsive to tuning and will earn a bigger BHP payoff with the Sports ECU than others.

Intake System

By making the car more efficient at the way it handles the intake of air, improvements here will make minor – yet important – improvements. The sports intake manifold improves gear shifts, meaning there is less lag between gear changes and provides a small boost to speed.

Filters, however, are the reason you’re here. These are cheap as chips and, while their upgrade is minimal, can be a handy boost. At a maximum of 450 Credits, it is worth purchasing for any car you’re likely to drive. As we say, the BHP improvement is never above 10, but for the cost you really can’t grumble! Do this before anything else.

Exhaust

Altering your exhaust doesn’t look like it might make a lot of difference except a meaty sound spitting out of the back, but it can be a vital upgrade. By allowing more air to leave the engine, high rev acceleration is improved. This is great when trying to reach top speed on straights or when keeping a fast racing line where possible. As is always the case here, the more expensive the upgrade the better its improvement.

The manifold upgrade will slightly increase your max speed, giving you more efficiency from your engine. It’s a little expensive, however, for the benefit so only really an option as and when you need a car to increase its max speed – so if you’re only just losing out on straights then this could be the upgrade you need.

Turbo Kits

Turbo kits can be installed to almost any vehicle and are one of the biggest improvements you can make to a car. As is often the case though, these upgrades come with a high price tag. As with the engine upgrades, you will want to really only buy these if you’re looking to upgrade your favourite car, rather than a stopgap for a less powerful vehicle.

The other option is the supercharger, which provides a huge boost in a car’s BHP output. The downside to this, however, is that not every car is suitable for a supercharger. This means you’re likely to only be able to fit it in the sportiest of sports cars, and at 17,500 Credits it’s probably just as well. However, it is money well spent if you want it.

Transmissions

Altering gears has a few minimal options. Purchasing the first set will buy an improved 5-gear ratio that evens out the distribution of your speed, making it more efficient in reaching the peak of any gear. The same is true for the second option, though it provides you with a 6-gear ratio. This makes it considerably easier for you to reach maximum speed, but without the acceleration you’ll barely notice the effort. Save these two upgrades until last.

If, however, you splash out and purchase the fully customisable gear set, you can alter the settings at your whim. This isn’t for the light-hearted, since you will need to know where a low gear ratio is needed or where a high-gear is need. Put simply, lowering the gear ratio is better on tracks with a lot of slow, sharp corners, allowing you to pull away quickly and accelerate after a bend. Conversely, a high-gear ratio will give you the opposite effect, making you slower to accelerate but increasing your top speed – so better for tracks with a lot of straights.

Drivetrain

Upgrading drivetrains is all about decreasing the time it takes to switch gears. For this reason it is one of the later upgrades you need to worry about, since you first need to worry about your cars BHP before you consider working at optimising its efficiency during a gear change. Upgrade clutches increases the speed of gear changes, keeping your vehicle’s speed up and minimising the stutter some cars will have during a shift.

There are multiple other options available here, all of which meet the same effect. Flywheels, for example, stabilise the car at low revolutions, improving use after you change into a higher gear. The additional upgrades available on the right-hand side of the screen aren’t always available, so you won’t need to worry too much about these. If you do use them, however, remember they’re just about efficiency, rather than actual brute force.

Suspension

There are two basic options here available. The first is a preset suspension setup for circuit racing, and gives you the optimal ride height and alterations. The second option allows you to adjust your car’s height in the garage. A lower height will increase downforce and increase grip, but make turning slightly tougher. If you purchase the fully customisable suspension, however, you’ll need to know what you’re doing.

Here you can alter height ride and spring settings, too, as well as how many anti-roll bars you want to equip. The important alterations here, however, are the camber and toe tunings. By increasing camber you improve the grip on the wheels while cornering. This is especially handy if you find yourself oversteering too much. Altering toe adjustments does the same, just for the real wheels.

Toe adjustments alter the angle of the wheels: if you want to add camber angles then you’ll need to adjust your toe angle to be pointing outwards to counter the effect. If all of this didn’t make sense, however, don’t bother will customisable suspension.

Tyres

These might seem like simple changes (and an expensive one), tyres can make all the difference in a race. Comfort, sports and racing types affect the amount of grip you have, with comfort being basic and racing being the best. Remember, however, that racing tyres might as well be useless in wet races, since their let of water treads will give you almost zero grip.

Alongside this is the option of three durability options: hard, medium and soft. With all tyre choices, much of this won’t make a difference until later races where tyre durability will affect your racing more. This is especially true on long races where pit stops might be necessary. The harder a tyre the longer it will last, however this is at the sacrifice of grip. Choosing the right balance between when you should use hard and when you should use soft is the trick to a successful racer.

GT Auto

There are a number of reasons to pay attention to the Auto shop, beyond just keeping your car spit-clean and in tip-top health. Firstly is the ability to add Aero Parts to your car. Most will allow spoilers, which will increase downforce and help keep your car stuck to the ground when turning. Other aerodynamic parts will have a similar effect, while increasing its overall acceleration, though few cars can equip these.

Overhauling your engine should be done every so often on your favourite car. It’s not a necessary feature, but if you have a tough race coming up then spending the hefty amount to restore your engine’s ability will pay off. Similarly, body rigidity is a worthy purchase if your vehicle has taken one too many bumps, altering the car’s overall stability.

And finally there are racing mods. Very few cars can actually have racing modifications installed on the body, and so it’s easy to forget. Once you have an expensive car, usually one of the premium sports or race cars, apply a snazzy looking racing mod; if not to make it look damn cool then to boost whatever feature is advertised in game.