Gran Turismo 5: Basic Car Tuning Guide

In Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3, there are a ton of car tuning options you can purchase. For beginners and people that don’t know much about cars, these settings can be very daunting. This guide should help you get a feel for what you should tune first to get the most bang for your buck.

Your First Car

When you first start the game, you only have $20,000. The best idea is to find the best car you can for as cheap as possible so you can tune it up. Your best bet is smaller cars like Mazda Miatas, because your first races will be against slower cars anyway, and most tracks have a lot of curves so you’ll need the agility and acceleration.

If you can spend $12,000 on a decent car and throw the rest into some tuning, you’ll be blowing their doors off right out of the gate on the beginner tracks.

First Tuning Options

The first tuning options I usually purchase are the low end Intake, Exhaust, Engine, Drivetrain, and Turbo options. The amount of horsepower and torque you get out of the upgrades depends entirely on the car. Remember, you probably won’t be using your first cars very long, so it’s not necessary to overload them with upgrades.

Purchase the Racing Air Filter under Intake for $450 for a small horsepower boost. Also purchase the Sports Exhaust for $1,500 and the Catalytic Converter for $500 in the Exhaust section for some small horsepower boosts. Purchase the upgraded Flywheel for better response under Drivetrain which I believe is $500, and the Single Plate Clutch as well for $1500.

Now for your Turbo options, each turbo you can buy is independent of the others and works differently. The Low RPM Range Turbo Kit is the cheapest at $4,500 and works best at low RPM’s, but bad at high RPM’s. This will be the one you want to purchase first as soon as you can to easily win the beginner tracks. The Mid RPM Range Turbo Kit costs $10,000 is the best all around turbo kit in my opinion, because it works fairly well at all RPM levels, so purchase this turbo kit for cars you intend to use quite a bit as soon as you can.

Lastly, purchase the Stage 1 Engine upgrade as soon as you can for $2,500, and the upgraded ECU for $1,000. They give you a small horsepower bonuses, but every little bit counts.

Now you’ve spent hardly any money at all, but you have a pretty fast little car that should tear up the beginner tracks with no problem.

Future Tuning Options

So we covered the tuning options that will give you the best bang for your buck, but what comes after that? Well, go back to those initial categories and purchase the more expensive options on cars you intend to use for more races. Also, start to venture into Suspension and Tires. Try to stick to Soft tires since they have the most grip around the corners.

You’ll need the more expensive upgrades once you start to get to Amateur and better tracks. I would go for the middle turbo kit first, and then save up for the Soft Racing tires for $36,000. They’re expensive, but you’ll be cutting corners like a dream.

I’ll make a more advanced car tuning guide later, but this is it for the basic guide. Post comments for any questions.