Hi Spiny.

[MinimonsterZ]

So I see you have alot of D-class tunes here. What is your favorite one? Actually what is your recommendation for someone that wants to build a D-class car for online racing. Something to use in exhibition races and something that's an all around good D-class runner. If you have a few different ones you enjoy using and feel are competitive I would love to hear your opinions.

Thx.

Mini

[Spiny Anteater]

Of the four that I've run and posted up here, it's hard to pick a favourite - all have their strengths.

The Trans Am is great fun to drive, probably my favourite and has the best QR, but is much slower on the Flowing and Twisty tracks. The Stratos is also a fun drive, but isn't quite as quick as it feels is should be. The Civic doesn't fit much in the way of upgrades unless you do an engine swap, but is a surprisingly good all-rounder so long as you stay away from Maple Valley (I got thrashed in a 50 lap race at the short track earlier this year). Away from the power tracks, the 2000GT is definitely the fastest, apart from a few tracks where acceleration out of corners is important (such as Black Mamba and Diamondback) where the Civic is a better bet.

As for cars which are fast, the obvious suggestion from the leaderboards is to dig out the Chevelle and Mk II Golf. But, the fact that you're here (and the fact that these cars are disapproved of in many quarters for online racing) suggests that you would prefer something a little different. The Toyota MR-S and Civic VTi are very good too, but again a few people consider these leaderboard cars.

Of the cars I've run, the 2000GT is probably my strongest car in the flowing tracks and the Trans Am my best at the power tracks. Other cars which I like are an S14 Silvia (not long after I got online I blew away a field of Pros in Golfs at Silverstone to the extent that they were asking what I was running) and the Hyundai which is a very good all-round car. I'm sure there's plenty of others out there which I haven't run yet. The thing with D Class is that the base car attributes probably have a larger impact on the final car performance than any other class. So, if there's a car you particularly like give it a go. The worst that can happen is that it's slow, and you might find something that suits you (for example, look at fndr's Tiny Terrors).

[MinimonsterZ]

Well one of my first (real life) cars was a Honda CRX-Si. So I may use one of your civic builds as a start to whip up a D-class CRX and see how it goes.

Thx for the comments.

Mini.

[fndrbndr]

The worst that can happen is that it's slow, and you might find something that suits you (for example, look at fndr's Tiny Terrors).

I know you asked Spiny, but I figured I'd add my two cents for good D-classers:

1.  Mazdaspeed roadster (MX-5 Miata)  This is my weapon of choice for online racing.  You can find a build for one in my garage, though it has enough room that you can put your own spin on it.

2.  Boss Mustang - on power tracks, this is the best combination of speed and power for me.  Granted, most of the muscle cars work pretty well in D.

3.  2000GT-not much for the tight, technical stuff like Tsukuba, but I'd recommend one of these for Mugello and Maple Valley.  I used my B-class as the basis for my C-class tiny terror spec car, and it ran well.  I haven't tried Spiny's build/toon, and tunes are too individual to allow for critiques anyway, but his cars are usually fast, and his car is almost always a good starting point for tailoring a car to your own style.

Those would be my top choices for twisty, power, and flowing tracks, respectively.  That said, any car with a PI under about 250 or so is worth a look.  They're typically small, low-hp cars that will fit lots of grip upgrades for technical or flowing track builds.

[Spiny Anteater]

Just to add to fndrs comments, his Roadster is a very fast car - on the twisty stuff I don't have anything in my garage which can catch it.

He's right too about tunes being individual. For example, I usually start with feuerdog's v5.11a calculator - many others start with the tonka toy. Both methods seem to be good, it's just a case of finding which suits you best...and then fine-tuning it from there to your driving style.

[MinimonsterZ]

Excellent! Thank you both for the comments. Seems I'll be building many D cars and trying them out. Which is my curse. I love putting cars together and painting them up a little. Then I drive them, change them, drive them, change them, drive them... But before I can perfect one I want to move on and try another. SO MANY CARS!

Must focus...

Mini

[fndrbndr]

That's the fun of the game, at least for me.  I'd also like to add that, at least IMO, some of the best racing in the game can be found in D class.  Other than the MK2, the cars all seem to be pretty close, and you can't get too terribly far from the intentions of the manufacturers because of the low PI.  Just my two cents.

[Spiny Anteater]

... but his cars are usually fast...

...unless you see the words "Challenger" and "Concept" in the name

Seriously, there are 348 cars in the game if you include all the DLC and specials, and 72 of them can be run in D Class. If you were to build all of them out you'd still be going next year, so asking for advice is a good idea. Oddly enough, although it's a fun class to race, I think I've run that class less online than any of A, B or C. So, by all means, get yourself a nice stable of cars (if you run into me online you'll notice that I rarely stick with the same car for 2 races in succession, and hardly ever 3 races in a row), but if you intend to run online get a few in some other classes as well. But, like you, I get sucked into building a load of different cars. The trouble is most aren't particularly good

[fndrbndr]

Thanks, but the credit for the miata goes to the community.  If you'll look carefully in that thread, you'll notice that my basic tuning method at that point was to apply FDog's version 3 calculator, soften the rear ARB a bit to help with wheelspin, and call it a day.  I didn't even attempt to put slicks on the car until someone else pointed out that I might be able to, nor did I know that FDog's bump settings were, let's just say, unique. 

It's my personal opinion that the lower classes are where you'll find the best racing online.  This may be because other than the MK2 and Chevelle, the D-class racers seem well-matched.  Car choice matters less, and driving/tuning/building can matter more.  Of course, Dirt will tell you almost the exact same thing about B class.

[BarbecuePete]

It's my personal opinion that the lower classes are where you'll find the best racing online. 

This is very true.. There's a group of guys I usually race with that I met on Forza, good clean racing with damage on and we go up and down the classes, usually from D to A but we do go up through to R1 sometimes too, if we are on D / C class we rarely get anyone join and if we do 95% of the time they are a good driver and can race cleanly, as soon as we hit A Class though you get loads of people coming in and nearly always someone ends up getting wiped out on the first corner by the new guy flying into the turn at 100mph then saying 'oh I didn't expect you to brake' 

Even worse is S and U class which is usually accompanied by an endless torrent of 'Do Speedway, Do Speedway!'
Ermmm.. no thanks, I get bored after half a lap...

R classes can be good too though as not many people seem to race them either and so again you can get some good racers join, especially in R4 although sometimes R1 does get the 'I wanna go as fast as possible but have no idea how to race alongside someone' loonys turning up...

I could go on (for hours probably  ) about racing cleanly, letting people know you are alongside them and not turning in on people... but i'll try and be brief..

Racing is a lot different to hotlapping, you can't expect to take the racing line every time and its best to back off and follow someone through a turn if your not that confident in your driving or your cars grip, remember that real people get a lot more annoyed than CPU cars when you take them off the track... 
Once you get the hang of it though and can race side by side with someone else it is the best racing you will ever have, a lap of Tsukuba side by side... now thats some intense racing!!!

Edit:- Just re-read this after posting, will now step down off soapbox and stop rambling...

[fndrbndr]

I hopefully have some pics of me going side-by-side with another muscle, inc. driver (Detrick, IIRC) through most of a lap of Tsukuba in either C or D class.  It was a blast.  I was just referring to the quality of the matchups, not the clean racing.

[Snyder005]

How about that one race in the d-spec muscle inc cars at Sebring Long.  I forgot which two drivers were involved, but they were neck and neck the entire 5 lap race.  Was it fndr and Detrick? 

[fndrbndr]

If you're talking about the series Detrick sponsored, I crashed out pretty early in that one and limped to about 5th of 7 or something like that.  I've had a lot of good races with Detrick, though, and it wouldn't surprise me if he and I did have one such encounter at some point.