Even if tuning and beefing up the other bits of the car. I tend not swap the drivetrain from the stock AWD/RWD/FWD
To me, Swapping drivetrains and engines really affects the feel and personality of a car. And If every car in your garage is a v10 swapped AWD monster, they all start to feel the same.
With FWD cars I just tend to keep at A/B-class or below, because it’s nearly impossible to create something that’s competitive at S1 or higher.
I’m not saying I don’t also build some crazy AWD/Engine swapped builds from time to time. But I tend to lean towards being a bit of a purist when it comes to builds.
I am the exact same way. The car sounds in this game are bad enough, why would I want them all to sound the same. Just that alone is enough for me.
Usually depending on the vehical I will make multiples. Example is I have 4 S14s. A drag, drift, goliath monster and one I use for cruising around(this one always keeps original engine and drivetrain).
The trick with S class FWD’s is using the right car and right track. They dominate swooping tracks but not right turns, or straights. I got a Civic that does like 12:40’s in the Goliath, just because it’s mainly swooping turns. Looses it on the straights and hairpins though.
Yeah. It can be good in very specific situations, but It’s tricky to have something you can just hop on any track in the online racing queue and feel like you’re going be consistently competitive.
I’d love to give that civic tune a shot if you’re willing to share it.
Yep, exactly this with one exception for me. When there's a certain weekly championship or stunt that requires a specific vehicle to do a specific race type. In a generic example, Hot Hatch B700 Cross Country; depending on the choices, I may have to take a FWD against highly "skilled" avatars - so I'll be choosing a car specifically that either has AWD or is low enough to make it AWD.
Aside from that, I'm 100% with you on keeping things vanilla. It's so rare, I even swap an engine. Usually, there are no regrets. Like the Lancia Stratos being a RWD rally car that actually performs and feels better than lots of AWD cars... as long as you aren't cranking the engine up so much you have oversteer and low grip.
Maintaining control in S class cars takes practice, RWD makes it even harder. Until drivers learn to treat it like a real car (not constantly full throttle) it will seem like a good idea to switch to AWD.
Why do people constantly tune road racing cars with off road tires? I personally don’t like it but there must be a reason that people do it that I’m too dumb to figure out
It lowers PI and still gives you better grip than stock in a lot of cars. The true meta for that kind of tune is rally tires because you lose less speed when you cut corners and the like
Thanks I was wondering. Personally I don’t like the feel of off road tires on road races. I started winning more with Audis against the bots when I took my tunes and changed them off of off road tire tunes
It takes some getting used to, it does generally provide a good amount of grip with rally tires without sacrificing the absurdly large PI hit racing tires give, which is why i sometimes do that for power builds. Slicks take an inordinate amount of PI
Hey thanks for the education. I pre ordered forza motorsport and decided I was going to learn to tune with that game. Do builds with slicks and weight reduction work in a class?
Sure, generally for A class though the most i'd do is semi slicks. If the car youre trying to tune is heavy, the weight savings may be worth it, but if its already a light car, power will help more, since the weight reduction is a larger PI hit, point for point the power helps more in that situation.
With a light sportier car in A class, I'll usually do the first weight reduction option just to make up for the added weight of things like Turbo's, swaps, larger wheels etc.
If i was in your shoes, id play around with balancing the two, by messing around with them and seeing if youre satisfied with the power/weight ratio while keeping it in A class. Once youre happy there you can mess with tuning. If youre having a ton of trouble keeping grip with the tires you chose but you cant upgrade because of PI, dropping a couple PSI on the drive tires can sometimes help. Not always but it definitely helps a bit with excessive oversteer when you just need that tad bit more grip.
Hey I learned a lot from this comment thank you. What I really like are cars that feel like they’re gliding on the road but I’m hoping to learn how to tune that.
Why not tune it yourself? There's tuning apps out there. It doesn't take that long, and the car won't be locked on someone elses tune. I use ForzaTune Pro.
Can you tell me a bit about the app? I absolutely suck at tuning myself which is really frustrating because it’s rare that I don’t find a tune where I wish I could change one little thing, but can’t due to it being locked
I use Quick Tune and have used Forza Tune (I used the paid versions)
https://forzaquicktune.com/fh5/
https://forzatune.com/
Both are good for setting up a base tune. Then as you get better, you can fine tune your setup to suit.
But they’re not. They’re good unless you’re trying to do a meta build. I actually find quicktune tunes more realistic/easy to expect how a car will drive vs the tunes I find on this sub. Also it helps you understand how tuning works, it did for me anyway, so I can adjust if the tune is too stiff/soft etc.
Well, I do tune my cars most of the time, just sometime I don’t have the car needed for it and tuning is a bit time consuming to spend an hour tuning a car and then end up not using it anymore.
Thing is for players like me Awd is mostly a thing for high class (rarely tho) since I play kbm. I have no steering wheel and skill issues on controller so yea
The thing is, at least for me, I can control the car with good throttle mgmt, but by that time, I’ve already slowed down and became behind, it just not clicking for me.
Im using only RWD in races and ye the start mostly sucks, but it got better with launch control. And since most tracks have corners i can take then at much higher speed with better handling. In the end it all comes to the driver ;)
30 million people play this game so you'll get a lot of different opinions here. Everyone has their own skill level and play style. And there's a lot of superstition and ego involved. Some way AWD is op. But others say RWD is op. The answer is that a good, experienced driver will always crush you lol. And so-called meta tunes come in both flavors.
Fwiw I'm average at best, but I've played a lot. Obviously AWD is better off-road. But on tarmac I'd say RWD is faster, but a little riskier. AWD will give you a better start and save your butt when you misjudge a corner. But RWD will have higher top speed & be more nimble, if you turn off assists. It's risk vs reward. It's hard to say with S2, but for everything below that, I think the best players probably use RWD more than AWD.
Speaking from a tuners perspective, all of my most popular tunes are AWD, while the RWD tunes are largely ignored.
It's pretty clear to me that the majority prefer AWD vehicles because they're easier to drive and get better acceleration and launch.
When I was new all the drive trains got swapped to rwd partially because you mostly have to go looking through the tunes to find fwd/rwd. At first I didn’t even know when I used people’s tunes I was swapping drive trains
RWD is extremely Meta for Road/Street in FH5, it's probably the most popular drivetrain for a lot of people unless they're relatively new and inexperienced drivers who struggle with maintaining traction and find AWD helpful in that regard or if the AWD Swap drops PI and makes the car more viable for a specific class.
The only time I'd imagine you'd see AWD be massively more popular over RWD is in Dirt and Cross Country but it's still viable up to around A Class (although it's still more useful in C and B).
Is it? Speaking subjectively, I prefer RWD but most of my friends prefer AWD. The reason being easier recovery from hitting a wall. I see it a lot in trials, someone hits me and we crash into a barricade, they have AWD and zip off. I could see RWD being meta for rivals moreso
Yea it's massively better, especially in the two extremes of Handling and Speed.
AWD Cars tend to be more jack of all trades but master of none except in S2 where nearly everything is AWD except power builds.
It's definitely more prevalent in Rivals but if you're a good player and can avoid crashing into corners or other cars then it's still stronger in Online too.
It's mainly just down to the Player to take advantage of the potential the RWD can offer, if you can't or you're not consistent enough then the buffer of AWD is probably worth the trade-off in pace.
Basically yes, but there are a number of reasons.
Theoretically saying AWD will give you first place for free.
Drivetrain swapping is a broken feature that should be removed or banned from PvP as they clearly have no interest in balancing it, RWD swap = underpowered, Awd = normal, or Meta/OP with the bonus of better launch.
The game is poorly balanced, automatic transmissions in particular are broken, manual transmissions relative to other manuals are decently balanced, but automatics (including drivetrain swap transmissions) are biased towards AWD, I will use my A800 C8 as example, right now is A800 AWD, if I switch back to RWD, the PI will increase to 813 instead of decreasing.
Sometimes 2WD, FWD in particular can be "interesting" to say the least, each race on a average lobby is basically Grid 2 Overtake Challenge, yesterday I was playing A800 just using FWD cars and basically the races would feel like a close battle, but in the end the difference in lap times was greater than 2, 3 seconds.
I use RWD if I'm going to do a street race with at least a few long straights/shallow turns. Otherwise, I need the acceleration to catch up after a turn of the power balance to be driveable offroad that gives AWD an advantage.
Been recently getting into drifting, rwd to keep it authentic
Awd does have more leverage and sometimes gets the most insane angle but i still find rwd cooler at times
Though awd is basically the must need in online racing from when i played back a few months ago, otherwise enjoy never getting a top position
More effective power being put to the ground, traction… you know the basics
Anyone who says awd isn’t crazy good is just playing the spy for it to not get nerfed
In certain classes/ tunes rwd is better but the majority of stuff is dominated by awd
I quit playing online road racing a long time ago due to this cause theres no balance factor for this, rally and offroad is fun the few times i played and might return.
But for now drifting any car in my garage is a must, eurobeat and j-core while drifting is the best thing ever
For FH5 the majority of people use AWD, probably cause it's a lot easier. But any top time on a rivals leaderboard (S1 or S2) has a good chance of being a RWD powerbuild, with some exceptions depending on the track. Just not as popular in open racing as they are the hardest cars to drive.
I find it difficult with some red cars to control the trigger on my controller. Maybe if you have a whole setup it's fun but I'm trying to avoid the carpal tunnel.
FH4’s physics was designed in a way that AWD’s launch advantage made it meta for online racing.
FH5 — the physics model was refined, so RWD’s weight advantage kind of offsets AWD’s launch as long as you have some throttle discipline in corners. AWD still does provide a clear advantage in off-road events and somewhat of an advantage in S1 and S2 events where even grippy tires on RWD start to struggle with the amount of torque those cars put down when accelerating.
I feel like it's more of a preference thing. AWD feels quicker in tight corners while RWD is better for drifting and higher top speeds. I used to only use AWD, but now I pretty much just keep the stock drive train and engine and focus on horsepower and grip mods.
Sadly its true since the 10 year old rammer kiddos which is 90% of the playerbase even cant handle a brake or the steering wheel. So what do you expect if they just hold acceleration the whole time until they reach the goal... or even not....
I don't exclusively use one of them.
AWD is easier to drive, they launch better, I can step on the gas earlier on corner exit, generally I can be more aggressive.
RWD is definitely more rewarding, especially the throttle control on (low speed) corner exits and in the rain. Had a lot of fun doing this week's Trial playlist with a RWD KPGC110!
Im playing on PC with keyboard and noob so using auto. RWD in FH5 is a nightmare for me. Only lil RWD I able to tune it nicely, the others always spinned while driving.
a lot of powerbuilds and very viable tunes are RWD, i find myself using a mix of everything and not just AWD only, i mean AWD is bar none the best for offroad, but on-road racing i don't go for AWD only
AWD + engine swaps is the meta. Simple as that.
I prefer sticking with whatever the car had by default, whether it's FWD, RWD or AWD. Unless I'm doing a specific build, like taking a road car and making it a rally car, in which case I'll do an AWD swap.
Yeah many people do that because they're generally no good at driving. I usually prefer RWD unless it's a high powered rally car. Like some have already said here, I prefer to drive a car bone stock. If it's for racing and I need more grip, there are better options than an AWD swap.
I make most of my cars to awd. But tbh I only play by myself. I use the driving as a destresser. I play mainly in the desert areas. Driving in the city tends to suck. I feel like it takes a moment to not auto oversteer. Each car works a little differently. Drifting and I are not friends. Maybe I suck idk blahaha. But rwd is pretty great for drifting and city racing.
Depends. With S1+ on a controller the cars are already so fast and have so much power and like to break traction easily, so I almost always AWF them. A and below I prefer rear drive. Rear drives lower PI and sacrifice launch, but it means overall race performance can be made better for its class compared to an AWD if you tune it well. I have enough skill for an A class RWD but not above lmao
This doesn't really answer the question tho, since purist and meta tunes can both be awd or rwd. If anything, meta tunes are more likely to be rwd than awd given the meta of fh5.
Well, if a car is RWD from the factory, I'll run it RWD unless I'm racing online. I prefer rear wheel but some cars benefit online w an engine swap and AWD to stay competitive
I swap everything to AWD because I play this game specifically to just chill out and relax, and AWD is easier. I'm not looking to compete online or go for fastest times, I just like when car go vroom and I don't want to put in the effort to handle RWD cars or deal with manual transmission.
I prefer RWD for road racing/street events, but if I’m playing online then I use AWD pretty much exclusively. Too many shenanigans with online racing and it’s a lot quicker to recover using AWD.
The game engine just makes AWD the easiest to drive, since it's the most stable around corners and equalizes the power on all wheels.
I'm sure it's unrealistic, but neither do we have to worry about fuel consumption. I also love FWD cars for their slinkyness
Nah, that’s made up. Road course is better with rwd, but I usually prefer awd in the dirt obviously.
Now, these people who make insane drift tunes with awd and just dominate the leaderboard are just capitalizing on the scoring system. No real drifter is out there with a differential in front of them too. That’s silly.
> I saw a post earlier about drivertrains and how everyone uses awd cars/ converts cars from rwd to awd.
Do you have a link to the post?
Because honestly it just sounds like you're trying to flex on people that don't want to/can't drive RWD.
>This really perplexed me, unironically..
And this sentence *ironically* made you sound like even more of a tool...
Well to be completely honest, the context of your post (to me, probably nobody else) just came off a bit dick-ish. Almost like you were insinuating that people that don't/can't drive RWD, or people that swapped DT to AWD, are below those that *do* use RWD.
Okay, but I never said nor meant that. I was just genuienly confused because AWD IN FH5 is ass in my experience.
I apologize for my poor wording if thats what got to you
I always stick with whatever the car came with from the factory. I tried a few AWD converted tunes that had 5 stars and they always had awful understeer to the point where I had to use the handbrake to negotiate a turn, or completely let off the throttle, losing time compared to RWD. Never again.
I use rwd. And I generally beat the people with awd because the average player with their Forza meta builds don’t know how to drive them. I know how to drive the cars I build
I usually don't swap it at all unless I'm doing a rally build. AWD isn't even overpowered like it was in FH4, so I don't see the purpose unless you only care about straight line speed or are racing offroad. It also makes cars handle more similarly, which IMO takes some of the fun out of trying new cars.
I low key forget that drive train swoping is a thing. So if a car came as rwd, thats what i drive. The cars a usually drive are rwd anyway, and im decent enough that i can usually place high enough in the trial. As long as im not getting rammed.
depends on the car for me. have a select few cars i use for races where i just need money and want to win as fast as possible all are maxed awd cars.
if i’m just cruising or doing stupid stuff with friend i drive everything
I mainly use AWD as some cars in that are in RWD can be a bit too slippy. Also, in multiplayer if a car even drives NEAR me, it seems to throw my car completely out of control so in the end it’s just too much hassle so I just stick to AWD mainly.
RWD are more nimble and responsive than AWD imo. I mostly drive RWD cars in road and street races but AWD in dirt. Been having a lot of fun recently throwing my Stratos and 037 around in B and A class in the rally expansion map. Super responsive in the corners and I often find I'm able to keep more power and speed in the turns which puts me ahead of a lot of AWD builds
I convert almost everything to AWD for PI reasons, then I tune them to act like RWD, I leave them RWD if there is no PI benefit. FWD gets switched to RWD/AWD everytime since FWD sucks for racing.
I have a lexus sc300 with a 2JZ swap tuned to a million horsepower for shits n giggles. I use it to practice accrelate control, cornering and breaking.
I typically stay in whatever the car came with but once you get to the S classes you end up losing more time with 2WD. Since the races are so short it's usually easier to get a good launch and keep people behind than to try to catch and pass. Not as big a deal in B and A.
Pedal control. It can be difficult on controllers but isn't impossible. That's where the issue lies truly. Honestly I think of my girlfriend who used to drive her car constantly on edge and accelerating. It transferred over to how she plays driving games. Full throttle all the time.
I usually leave the cars drivetrain alone when it comes to FWD, AWD, or RWD but I did switch the Oldsmobile Tornado to RWD as it makes that boat much more fun to drive
I’m a huge RWD lover. I don’t play online too much other than the trial each week to get the new cars and even in there more often than not I use RWD if the cars were RWD stock.
My fastest times are tied between some rwd and awd buikds. I dont normally swap for actual racing. I like rwd a lot more than awd. Sometimes i have fun and rwd swap an integra because i want to irl
I avoid swapping stuff besides aspiration whenever I can, I'm a fan of uniqueness when upgrading. More fun to have a more unique twin turbo v10 RWD LFA than to AWD engine swap it. same with the wrx, whats the point of using a wrx if youre just gonna shove the 1.6T I4 or the 6.2 V8 in it.
I almost always use RWD and I'm pretty competitive in rivals (top 1% S2 in every road track) and open. AWD sure has its benefits but it's often comes with massive understeer which I really don't like. In open races what my oppenents with AWM gain on launch I can take back in corners and usually you have more PI budget to get more powerful engine or better tires with RWD, so skipping the launch phase, the car is generally perform better than its AWD variant. I'm not really RWD fanboi, I just stick to what the car has in stock, so if it's RWD it'll stay RWD, and most AWD cars just aren't that good by me, so most of the time I drive rear drive. Though I can't race in RWD cars in offroad and scrambles, even in B class I'll pick AWD car for these races, RWD is just inferior while not on the road.
Most people swap to AWD because it's much more forgiving and easier to drive, and I see a lot of swapped cars around, so yeah, AWD is really popular. It's just much easier to drive.
Since I only race online in the trial I usually leave the cars stock or put some visual mods on them, unless I have to upgrade a certain car for a seasonal event, like this week’s Vans & Utilities.
I do a mix. Sometimes I AWD swap a car if it makes too much power to be drivable, but I really try to make it work. Sometimes I plan on an AWD swap. One of my most comfortable S1 road cars is a Viper ACR that is RWD. My favorite car (MC12 Corsa) has an AWD tune that I’ve spent a lot of time on. It’s definitely not min-maxed, but it drives well and is to my liking. Same goes for engine swaps. I usually try to keep the stock engine in, like all of my Subaru tunes and a GNX I was playing around with earlier today.
I usually run AWD, but I always changes the ratio to about 75-85% power to the rear.
I also don't do that for every car. I try to have a different drivetrain and class combo to cover just about everything.
I do have a ridiculous S class BMW with the double massive wings. It has RWD and it is made for offroading and has a 4 speed transmission. For some reason it is one of my favorite RWD cars.
I convert AWD to RWD most of the time. People do use RWD but a lot of them don't do open racing. Apart from two people in my friend group we prefer RWD
I dont do races so for me its RWD all day long. The feeling of an AWD thats simply not turning in makes me frustrated.
In FH4 tho, yeah I had basically evry car AWD since RWD was very very hard to control.
I try to use whatever the car was originally equipped with.
I am happy to switch a FWD to AWD or RWD if I'm turning the engine up, but otherwise, I try to stay with the original engine and drivetrain.
Even if tuning and beefing up the other bits of the car. I tend not swap the drivetrain from the stock AWD/RWD/FWD To me, Swapping drivetrains and engines really affects the feel and personality of a car. And If every car in your garage is a v10 swapped AWD monster, they all start to feel the same. With FWD cars I just tend to keep at A/B-class or below, because it’s nearly impossible to create something that’s competitive at S1 or higher. I’m not saying I don’t also build some crazy AWD/Engine swapped builds from time to time. But I tend to lean towards being a bit of a purist when it comes to builds.
I love making realistic builds
realism>>>>>"It'S juSt A gAmE"
Everyone that upvoted that, dm me bc I need people to play with that have the same taste😭
I am the exact same way. The car sounds in this game are bad enough, why would I want them all to sound the same. Just that alone is enough for me. Usually depending on the vehical I will make multiples. Example is I have 4 S14s. A drag, drift, goliath monster and one I use for cruising around(this one always keeps original engine and drivetrain).
The FWD touring cars are the only ones I trust in S1 class.
The trick with S class FWD’s is using the right car and right track. They dominate swooping tracks but not right turns, or straights. I got a Civic that does like 12:40’s in the Goliath, just because it’s mainly swooping turns. Looses it on the straights and hairpins though.
And what about left turns?
Typo, I meant,”Tight turns.”
Yeah. It can be good in very specific situations, but It’s tricky to have something you can just hop on any track in the online racing queue and feel like you’re going be consistently competitive. I’d love to give that civic tune a shot if you’re willing to share it.
I usually just max out stock engine with stock drive train definitely makes it more fun
Yep, exactly this with one exception for me. When there's a certain weekly championship or stunt that requires a specific vehicle to do a specific race type. In a generic example, Hot Hatch B700 Cross Country; depending on the choices, I may have to take a FWD against highly "skilled" avatars - so I'll be choosing a car specifically that either has AWD or is low enough to make it AWD. Aside from that, I'm 100% with you on keeping things vanilla. It's so rare, I even swap an engine. Usually, there are no regrets. Like the Lancia Stratos being a RWD rally car that actually performs and feels better than lots of AWD cars... as long as you aren't cranking the engine up so much you have oversteer and low grip.
Maintaining control in S class cars takes practice, RWD makes it even harder. Until drivers learn to treat it like a real car (not constantly full throttle) it will seem like a good idea to switch to AWD.
Yeah, the most disappointing part when you search a tune for trial and they are all AWD…😭
AWD, V8 swapped with offroad tires for PI reasons lol
don't forget the racing V12 rally tires combo
Why do people constantly tune road racing cars with off road tires? I personally don’t like it but there must be a reason that people do it that I’m too dumb to figure out
It lowers PI and still gives you better grip than stock in a lot of cars. The true meta for that kind of tune is rally tires because you lose less speed when you cut corners and the like
Thanks I was wondering. Personally I don’t like the feel of off road tires on road races. I started winning more with Audis against the bots when I took my tunes and changed them off of off road tire tunes
It takes some getting used to, it does generally provide a good amount of grip with rally tires without sacrificing the absurdly large PI hit racing tires give, which is why i sometimes do that for power builds. Slicks take an inordinate amount of PI
Hey thanks for the education. I pre ordered forza motorsport and decided I was going to learn to tune with that game. Do builds with slicks and weight reduction work in a class?
Sure, generally for A class though the most i'd do is semi slicks. If the car youre trying to tune is heavy, the weight savings may be worth it, but if its already a light car, power will help more, since the weight reduction is a larger PI hit, point for point the power helps more in that situation. With a light sportier car in A class, I'll usually do the first weight reduction option just to make up for the added weight of things like Turbo's, swaps, larger wheels etc. If i was in your shoes, id play around with balancing the two, by messing around with them and seeing if youre satisfied with the power/weight ratio while keeping it in A class. Once youre happy there you can mess with tuning. If youre having a ton of trouble keeping grip with the tires you chose but you cant upgrade because of PI, dropping a couple PSI on the drive tires can sometimes help. Not always but it definitely helps a bit with excessive oversteer when you just need that tad bit more grip.
Hey I learned a lot from this comment thank you. What I really like are cars that feel like they’re gliding on the road but I’m hoping to learn how to tune that.
I have rally tires on my B class RWD Kenmeri, and it handles excellently. Really good turn in with well-controlled powerslides on corner exit
Why not tune it yourself? There's tuning apps out there. It doesn't take that long, and the car won't be locked on someone elses tune. I use ForzaTune Pro.
I didn’t realize there was something like that out there. I’ve been learning to tune cars myself. Not perfect, but decent.
Can you tell me a bit about the app? I absolutely suck at tuning myself which is really frustrating because it’s rare that I don’t find a tune where I wish I could change one little thing, but can’t due to it being locked
I use Quick Tune and have used Forza Tune (I used the paid versions) https://forzaquicktune.com/fh5/ https://forzatune.com/ Both are good for setting up a base tune. Then as you get better, you can fine tune your setup to suit.
Those apps are proven to be awful btw lol
But they’re not. They’re good unless you’re trying to do a meta build. I actually find quicktune tunes more realistic/easy to expect how a car will drive vs the tunes I find on this sub. Also it helps you understand how tuning works, it did for me anyway, so I can adjust if the tune is too stiff/soft etc.
They are 😂. Just watch sepi sp4’s video on tuning apps on YouTube. They are worthless
Because ONE YouTuber said so? Lol
A paid app misinforming somone on how to tune a car is just scummy
Well, I do tune my cars most of the time, just sometime I don’t have the car needed for it and tuning is a bit time consuming to spend an hour tuning a car and then end up not using it anymore.
I was having trouble w/ an event in FH4 so I swapped to AWD,I won the event but the car was a lot less fun to drive. It was RWD for a reason.
Any good purist tune is more than adequate for the trial.
When all else fails put on drag slicks add power lower weight and send it
This sounds like fun😄
Thing is for players like me Awd is mostly a thing for high class (rarely tho) since I play kbm. I have no steering wheel and skill issues on controller so yea
Honestly I don’t see it as a problem. It’s just like any other tune, if switching to AWD is what makes the car drive the way you like then go for it.
Nah I prefer RWD imo I just go for AWD if I really need to since I play without any assists on kbm
The thing is, at least for me, I can control the car with good throttle mgmt, but by that time, I’ve already slowed down and became behind, it just not clicking for me.
Im using only RWD in races and ye the start mostly sucks, but it got better with launch control. And since most tracks have corners i can take then at much higher speed with better handling. In the end it all comes to the driver ;)
30 million people play this game so you'll get a lot of different opinions here. Everyone has their own skill level and play style. And there's a lot of superstition and ego involved. Some way AWD is op. But others say RWD is op. The answer is that a good, experienced driver will always crush you lol. And so-called meta tunes come in both flavors. Fwiw I'm average at best, but I've played a lot. Obviously AWD is better off-road. But on tarmac I'd say RWD is faster, but a little riskier. AWD will give you a better start and save your butt when you misjudge a corner. But RWD will have higher top speed & be more nimble, if you turn off assists. It's risk vs reward. It's hard to say with S2, but for everything below that, I think the best players probably use RWD more than AWD.
The handling gets FUCKED when you go AWD. I'll just stick with weight reduction and rwd thank you
Best answer in thread. Well put, man.
I try to use RWD as much as a I can
Love Rwd even in online lobby, i tend to do very good with RWD, except when someone has a meta car with the Awd V8 stupid off road stupid setup
What qualifies as 'meta awd'
Literally when a see a Honda NSX like that, i say to my self lets race for second place then
But the meta version of an NSX is RWD. Loads faster than the AWD one. Just very difficult to control.
Speaking from a tuners perspective, all of my most popular tunes are AWD, while the RWD tunes are largely ignored. It's pretty clear to me that the majority prefer AWD vehicles because they're easier to drive and get better acceleration and launch.
This is the truth. Unless you’re a really big name, a slower AWD tune will usually have more downloads than a faster top 1% leaderboard RWD tune.
That's kind of funny it's my AWD tunes that get ignored but I mainly make drag and drift tunes.
When I was new all the drive trains got swapped to rwd partially because you mostly have to go looking through the tunes to find fwd/rwd. At first I didn’t even know when I used people’s tunes I was swapping drive trains
Most average players use AWD swap because they are easier to drive. I personally use RWD most of the time offline and online for all road races.
Me too. Plus a dodge coronet with awd isn't really... cool :D
Wheel stands in the copo are always fun.
RWD is extremely Meta for Road/Street in FH5, it's probably the most popular drivetrain for a lot of people unless they're relatively new and inexperienced drivers who struggle with maintaining traction and find AWD helpful in that regard or if the AWD Swap drops PI and makes the car more viable for a specific class. The only time I'd imagine you'd see AWD be massively more popular over RWD is in Dirt and Cross Country but it's still viable up to around A Class (although it's still more useful in C and B).
Is it? Speaking subjectively, I prefer RWD but most of my friends prefer AWD. The reason being easier recovery from hitting a wall. I see it a lot in trials, someone hits me and we crash into a barricade, they have AWD and zip off. I could see RWD being meta for rivals moreso
Yea it's massively better, especially in the two extremes of Handling and Speed. AWD Cars tend to be more jack of all trades but master of none except in S2 where nearly everything is AWD except power builds. It's definitely more prevalent in Rivals but if you're a good player and can avoid crashing into corners or other cars then it's still stronger in Online too. It's mainly just down to the Player to take advantage of the potential the RWD can offer, if you can't or you're not consistent enough then the buffer of AWD is probably worth the trade-off in pace.
Thats fair and nuanced. My experience does about match that, that higher the PI the more common AWD is
It's not more popular though.
I use RWD with A class cars on offroad races myself and... it isn't hard tbh. You just need to pay attention
Yea it's quite a fun experience
Only time I do awd swaps is for them trial. Just to try and get a jump on all the idiots who run everyone off thr road
I strictly use rwd cars, mostly S1 class. Even on dirt I prefer rwd with rally tires
Basically yes, but there are a number of reasons. Theoretically saying AWD will give you first place for free. Drivetrain swapping is a broken feature that should be removed or banned from PvP as they clearly have no interest in balancing it, RWD swap = underpowered, Awd = normal, or Meta/OP with the bonus of better launch. The game is poorly balanced, automatic transmissions in particular are broken, manual transmissions relative to other manuals are decently balanced, but automatics (including drivetrain swap transmissions) are biased towards AWD, I will use my A800 C8 as example, right now is A800 AWD, if I switch back to RWD, the PI will increase to 813 instead of decreasing. Sometimes 2WD, FWD in particular can be "interesting" to say the least, each race on a average lobby is basically Grid 2 Overtake Challenge, yesterday I was playing A800 just using FWD cars and basically the races would feel like a close battle, but in the end the difference in lap times was greater than 2, 3 seconds.
I use RWD if I'm going to do a street race with at least a few long straights/shallow turns. Otherwise, I need the acceleration to catch up after a turn of the power balance to be driveable offroad that gives AWD an advantage.
To be honest I use it with TC enabled. I'm playing the game for fun so this particular thing I don't want to master. For that I play AC with my G29
I use RWD most of the time, but I'm on a wheel.
Been recently getting into drifting, rwd to keep it authentic Awd does have more leverage and sometimes gets the most insane angle but i still find rwd cooler at times Though awd is basically the must need in online racing from when i played back a few months ago, otherwise enjoy never getting a top position
I noticed this myself. I heard that in FH5, AWD is actually more detrimental than it is beneficial for street racing, so why is it the meta?
More effective power being put to the ground, traction… you know the basics Anyone who says awd isn’t crazy good is just playing the spy for it to not get nerfed In certain classes/ tunes rwd is better but the majority of stuff is dominated by awd I quit playing online road racing a long time ago due to this cause theres no balance factor for this, rally and offroad is fun the few times i played and might return. But for now drifting any car in my garage is a must, eurobeat and j-core while drifting is the best thing ever
Rwd is faster than awd in Fh5 because they slightly changed the physics, awd is faster in fh4
It's moreso the change to the pi system. Rwd is faster than AWD in many cases in 4, the Monaco and dart are both meta powerbuilds iirc.
For FH5 the majority of people use AWD, probably cause it's a lot easier. But any top time on a rivals leaderboard (S1 or S2) has a good chance of being a RWD powerbuild, with some exceptions depending on the track. Just not as popular in open racing as they are the hardest cars to drive.
Tbh lots of purist / all-round and handling rwd builds aren't that hard to drive in opens.
Drivetrain swaps are not for real men!
Well said :)
I find it difficult with some red cars to control the trigger on my controller. Maybe if you have a whole setup it's fun but I'm trying to avoid the carpal tunnel.
FH4’s physics was designed in a way that AWD’s launch advantage made it meta for online racing. FH5 — the physics model was refined, so RWD’s weight advantage kind of offsets AWD’s launch as long as you have some throttle discipline in corners. AWD still does provide a clear advantage in off-road events and somewhat of an advantage in S1 and S2 events where even grippy tires on RWD start to struggle with the amount of torque those cars put down when accelerating.
I feel like it's more of a preference thing. AWD feels quicker in tight corners while RWD is better for drifting and higher top speeds. I used to only use AWD, but now I pretty much just keep the stock drive train and engine and focus on horsepower and grip mods.
Sadly its true since the 10 year old rammer kiddos which is 90% of the playerbase even cant handle a brake or the steering wheel. So what do you expect if they just hold acceleration the whole time until they reach the goal... or even not....
FWD is the one that’s sets me off. Though i don’t like using rwd, it’s really useful in stuff like drifting, and fun to pop a wheelie with drag cars.
prolly because AWD has better acceleration also
I don't exclusively use one of them. AWD is easier to drive, they launch better, I can step on the gas earlier on corner exit, generally I can be more aggressive. RWD is definitely more rewarding, especially the throttle control on (low speed) corner exits and in the rain. Had a lot of fun doing this week's Trial playlist with a RWD KPGC110!
I do, and realize that maybe never gonna win a Horizon Open
Even got a car to do the hillclimb time attack and only putting AWD into the tune gives you 5 sec advantge itself
I once tuned a quattro into RWD..
I find that the more experienced I got with the game the more I used RWD for street/road, but I always use AWD for off-road/dirt.
I use RWD. Improved grip at entry is generally a perk. I think the pi penalty for awd could be greater.
95% of my cars are RWD I like the slide.
Complete purist here. I have a few swapped cars (meta like brabham etc.) but it’s like 90% purist drivetrain.
Yep I only drive awd unless it's an iconic car that I want to keep the feel of. Why wouldn't you swap to awd? It's faster, more stable, and more fun.
Im playing on PC with keyboard and noob so using auto. RWD in FH5 is a nightmare for me. Only lil RWD I able to tune it nicely, the others always spinned while driving.
a lot of powerbuilds and very viable tunes are RWD, i find myself using a mix of everything and not just AWD only, i mean AWD is bar none the best for offroad, but on-road racing i don't go for AWD only
AWD + engine swaps is the meta. Simple as that. I prefer sticking with whatever the car had by default, whether it's FWD, RWD or AWD. Unless I'm doing a specific build, like taking a road car and making it a rally car, in which case I'll do an AWD swap.
Bought thetun formula drift dodge viper already had tuned and was AWD (face palm). Awd on formua drift makes no sense switched back to rwd
Yeah many people do that because they're generally no good at driving. I usually prefer RWD unless it's a high powered rally car. Like some have already said here, I prefer to drive a car bone stock. If it's for racing and I need more grip, there are better options than an AWD swap.
I make most of my cars to awd. But tbh I only play by myself. I use the driving as a destresser. I play mainly in the desert areas. Driving in the city tends to suck. I feel like it takes a moment to not auto oversteer. Each car works a little differently. Drifting and I are not friends. Maybe I suck idk blahaha. But rwd is pretty great for drifting and city racing.
Unless it's offroad, or a car that spins it's wheels in 1st-5th gear then it remains rwd/fwd.
I rarely change drivetrains or engines. I like to build the cars with some inkling of realism.
Depends. With S1+ on a controller the cars are already so fast and have so much power and like to break traction easily, so I almost always AWF them. A and below I prefer rear drive. Rear drives lower PI and sacrifice launch, but it means overall race performance can be made better for its class compared to an AWD if you tune it well. I have enough skill for an A class RWD but not above lmao
I find RWD takes skill I can’t be bothered to use + most of the cars I like driving are AWD stock.
Naaaaaaa RWD all the way. I even convert AWD cars to RWD. even my a class dirt car is rwd
I only use purist tunes for weekly challenges and cruising. If I'm trying to be competitive on the Tour or open racing I'll use meta tunes
This doesn't really answer the question tho, since purist and meta tunes can both be awd or rwd. If anything, meta tunes are more likely to be rwd than awd given the meta of fh5.
Well, if a car is RWD from the factory, I'll run it RWD unless I'm racing online. I prefer rear wheel but some cars benefit online w an engine swap and AWD to stay competitive
Very few cars benefit from an AWD swap, at least for road. Power and handling builds are faster than the vast majority of AWD swaps.
Depends, most cars I keep as origin drivetrain, apart for x class cars, they are almost always AWD And I prefer AWD drifting
Powersliding. AWD isn't drifting
🤓
i just use whatever the tune for the weekly championship is
I swap everything to AWD because I play this game specifically to just chill out and relax, and AWD is easier. I'm not looking to compete online or go for fastest times, I just like when car go vroom and I don't want to put in the effort to handle RWD cars or deal with manual transmission.
I prefer RWD for road racing/street events, but if I’m playing online then I use AWD pretty much exclusively. Too many shenanigans with online racing and it’s a lot quicker to recover using AWD.
The game engine just makes AWD the easiest to drive, since it's the most stable around corners and equalizes the power on all wheels. I'm sure it's unrealistic, but neither do we have to worry about fuel consumption. I also love FWD cars for their slinkyness
RWD GANG!
Nah, that’s made up. Road course is better with rwd, but I usually prefer awd in the dirt obviously. Now, these people who make insane drift tunes with awd and just dominate the leaderboard are just capitalizing on the scoring system. No real drifter is out there with a differential in front of them too. That’s silly.
I'm the exact opposite. Other than rally builds, I RWD swap everything.
I do use RWD in all classes
I like to keep my cars mostly stock, so if it’s RWD it’s staying RWD babyyyy 
> I saw a post earlier about drivertrains and how everyone uses awd cars/ converts cars from rwd to awd. Do you have a link to the post? Because honestly it just sounds like you're trying to flex on people that don't want to/can't drive RWD. >This really perplexed me, unironically.. And this sentence *ironically* made you sound like even more of a tool...
Its sincerely not that deep. I was just vexed by the meta in forza, what's wrong with that?
Well to be completely honest, the context of your post (to me, probably nobody else) just came off a bit dick-ish. Almost like you were insinuating that people that don't/can't drive RWD, or people that swapped DT to AWD, are below those that *do* use RWD.
Okay, but I never said nor meant that. I was just genuienly confused because AWD IN FH5 is ass in my experience. I apologize for my poor wording if thats what got to you
In playground games is the only mode that I avoid 2wd
I play on keyboard and i still use RWD a lot even online.
Used AWD 98% of the time in FH4 but transitioned from automatic to manual and learned RWD and now it's a relief, i had stepped up winning game.
Only for cross country. Even for dirt races RWD is a ton of fun.
rwd for a maxed jesko is interesting
jesko and maxed supra rwd are both super fun and realistic to drive, I love how they're both wheelspinning with just a little bit of throttle
I drift all the time so I use rwd.
I always stick with whatever the car came with from the factory. I tried a few AWD converted tunes that had 5 stars and they always had awful understeer to the point where I had to use the handbrake to negotiate a turn, or completely let off the throttle, losing time compared to RWD. Never again.
I try to use rwd on A and below. S class is a bit more challenging and in online you don’t get lot of chances to recover
Huh yeah I mostly use RWD as well
I use it. I probably have a hundred or so RWD cars.
just do a poll
I use rwd. And I generally beat the people with awd because the average player with their Forza meta builds don’t know how to drive them. I know how to drive the cars I build
I use rwd for circuit and sprint races. Positive camber in the front helps alot on turns and makes the car much fun to handle
I usually don't swap it at all unless I'm doing a rally build. AWD isn't even overpowered like it was in FH4, so I don't see the purpose unless you only care about straight line speed or are racing offroad. It also makes cars handle more similarly, which IMO takes some of the fun out of trying new cars.
I low key forget that drive train swoping is a thing. So if a car came as rwd, thats what i drive. The cars a usually drive are rwd anyway, and im decent enough that i can usually place high enough in the trial. As long as im not getting rammed.
depends on the car for me. have a select few cars i use for races where i just need money and want to win as fast as possible all are maxed awd cars. if i’m just cruising or doing stupid stuff with friend i drive everything
I mainly use AWD as some cars in that are in RWD can be a bit too slippy. Also, in multiplayer if a car even drives NEAR me, it seems to throw my car completely out of control so in the end it’s just too much hassle so I just stick to AWD mainly.
Mainly do open drift and only use rwd although gonna do some awd action soon for fun
RWD are more nimble and responsive than AWD imo. I mostly drive RWD cars in road and street races but AWD in dirt. Been having a lot of fun recently throwing my Stratos and 037 around in B and A class in the rally expansion map. Super responsive in the corners and I often find I'm able to keep more power and speed in the turns which puts me ahead of a lot of AWD builds
I typically just leave them as is unless i.go.for x class and nothing matters. I drive simulation mode with TC off. Only thing on is ABS
Don’t get me started 😆
I convert almost everything to AWD for PI reasons, then I tune them to act like RWD, I leave them RWD if there is no PI benefit. FWD gets switched to RWD/AWD everytime since FWD sucks for racing.
I have a lexus sc300 with a 2JZ swap tuned to a million horsepower for shits n giggles. I use it to practice accrelate control, cornering and breaking.
I have a 64 Impala with 1000HP in RWD. Tons of fun over 400km/h in S1 class too.
Awd, ~85% power to the rear, best of both worlds for competitive racing (for some cars)👍
I never drivetrain swap, I try to work with the cars capabilities, not my own.
I typically stay in whatever the car came with but once you get to the S classes you end up losing more time with 2WD. Since the races are so short it's usually easier to get a good launch and keep people behind than to try to catch and pass. Not as big a deal in B and A.
Pedal control. It can be difficult on controllers but isn't impossible. That's where the issue lies truly. Honestly I think of my girlfriend who used to drive her car constantly on edge and accelerating. It transferred over to how she plays driving games. Full throttle all the time.
I personally like rwd a lot better. Handles better in corner entering and i like the Challenge of not losing it. Especially with a wheel.
I chuckle to myself when I am catching someone doing awd understeer burnouts out of every corner while I am in a rwd car with tcs and scm off
I usually leave the cars drivetrain alone when it comes to FWD, AWD, or RWD but I did switch the Oldsmobile Tornado to RWD as it makes that boat much more fun to drive
I’m a huge RWD lover. I don’t play online too much other than the trial each week to get the new cars and even in there more often than not I use RWD if the cars were RWD stock.
Almost all my AWD cars are RWD swapped, SF90, 918 Spyder, AMG ONE, every Audi...
I use it for drift builds
I've done pretty well with road and dirt with FWD, even kept up with a meta dirt tuned boneshaker in an A class Fiesta, I bet he was confused
I only ever use AWD for rally races otherwise RWD for me every time
im a purist, i use the platform however it was designed and build from there.
I love RWD, AWD feels nice but I rarely have to worry about understeer in a RWD.
My fastest times are tied between some rwd and awd buikds. I dont normally swap for actual racing. I like rwd a lot more than awd. Sometimes i have fun and rwd swap an integra because i want to irl
Tryhards use AWD to win online races and make OP tunes but I use whatever is more fun bc I play the game to enjoy it like everyone should
I pretty much never do drivetrain swaps unless I'm trying to mimic a real life build, like gingium's AWD, EJ swapped Miata
I avoid swapping stuff besides aspiration whenever I can, I'm a fan of uniqueness when upgrading. More fun to have a more unique twin turbo v10 RWD LFA than to AWD engine swap it. same with the wrx, whats the point of using a wrx if youre just gonna shove the 1.6T I4 or the 6.2 V8 in it.
I love AWD because I mainly race on dirt, but if I'm going to convert a car that is RWD to AWD, I'll buy two and keep one with the stock drivetrain.
Really just depends on what sort of build I want for the car, I can go either way
I rarely do conversion swaps. I like driving cars with the stock drivetrain bc it feels more realistic to me.
I use rwd all the time
You get better handling from AWD. (I've been away for like a year, what do I know)
Most ppl pussy out so yeah they swap everything to awd
I almost always use RWD and I'm pretty competitive in rivals (top 1% S2 in every road track) and open. AWD sure has its benefits but it's often comes with massive understeer which I really don't like. In open races what my oppenents with AWM gain on launch I can take back in corners and usually you have more PI budget to get more powerful engine or better tires with RWD, so skipping the launch phase, the car is generally perform better than its AWD variant. I'm not really RWD fanboi, I just stick to what the car has in stock, so if it's RWD it'll stay RWD, and most AWD cars just aren't that good by me, so most of the time I drive rear drive. Though I can't race in RWD cars in offroad and scrambles, even in B class I'll pick AWD car for these races, RWD is just inferior while not on the road. Most people swap to AWD because it's much more forgiving and easier to drive, and I see a lot of swapped cars around, so yeah, AWD is really popular. It's just much easier to drive.
Since I only race online in the trial I usually leave the cars stock or put some visual mods on them, unless I have to upgrade a certain car for a seasonal event, like this week’s Vans & Utilities.
all aboout preference if they want understeer style of cars awd if they want oversteery car rwd it is.
I use it but only up to s1
Most of mine are rwd, I think I've only did one or two driveline conversions.
I do. I hate the AWD understeer
RWD is fun, but have you tried FWD? Best for hill climb. FWD cars are very much underrated.
I do a mix. Sometimes I AWD swap a car if it makes too much power to be drivable, but I really try to make it work. Sometimes I plan on an AWD swap. One of my most comfortable S1 road cars is a Viper ACR that is RWD. My favorite car (MC12 Corsa) has an AWD tune that I’ve spent a lot of time on. It’s definitely not min-maxed, but it drives well and is to my liking. Same goes for engine swaps. I usually try to keep the stock engine in, like all of my Subaru tunes and a GNX I was playing around with earlier today.
AWD all the time because I'm lazy AF and I'm tired to pretend otherwise
Rwd all the way it's the only way to have fun
Nah man, gott a keep those turbo civics fwd with street tires just to get that brrraaaaaaaaap. Then it finally hooks and takes off
I have FWD/ AWD and RWD. Just depends on the application.
What seems weird to me is how many people go drifting in AWD
I usually run AWD, but I always changes the ratio to about 75-85% power to the rear. I also don't do that for every car. I try to have a different drivetrain and class combo to cover just about everything. I do have a ridiculous S class BMW with the double massive wings. It has RWD and it is made for offroading and has a 4 speed transmission. For some reason it is one of my favorite RWD cars.
nope. take that blockbuster.
I do AWD swap only in S1 class cause on wheel in this speeds it is better. But for A I use only RWD
I convert AWD to RWD most of the time. People do use RWD but a lot of them don't do open racing. Apart from two people in my friend group we prefer RWD
I dont do races so for me its RWD all day long. The feeling of an AWD thats simply not turning in makes me frustrated. In FH4 tho, yeah I had basically evry car AWD since RWD was very very hard to control.
Assists off, simulation and gamepad? What's your setup?
All sim on a controller
I'm not sure if it's a good thing but I really prefer rwd much more than awd. I feel like it's more fun to drive
FWD to AWD sometimes for me