iRacing Ford Mustang FR500S Setup Guide
Published October 18, 2010 | 
Feel free to drop a comment folks, let me know if you like the guide, what you’d like to see added or if you see something that doesn’t looks right.
I still use the Setup Tweak Guide a bunch, but there are things missing from it that are peculiar to road cars in general and the Ford Mustang FR500S in particular.
*Let me know what track you’d like me to do a baseline on and I’ll see what I can work up*
Ford Mustang FR500S adjustments.
The following information is taken from the Sachs Damper Guide for the real FR500s.
Basic Shock Tuning Suggestions
| Front | Rear | |||
| Comp | Reb | Comp | Reb | |
| Straightaway Bouncing – all damping levels are generally low. In some cases the adjustments could be too firm if the car is overreacting to small inputs | + | + | + | + |
| Straight Line Braking – Front Lockup | - | |||
| Straight Line Braking – Rear Lockup | + | - | ||
| Trail Braking – Slow Turn in Response | + | + | ||
| Trail Braking – Understeer | - | + | ||
| Trail Braking – Oversteer | + | - | ||
| Turn In (No Braking) – Understeer | - | + | ||
| Turn In (No Braking) – Oversteer | + | - | ||
| Steady State Turning – Understeer | - | - | + | + |
| Steady State Turning – Oversteer | + | + | - | - |
| Corner Exit – Understeer | - | + | ||
| Corner Exit – Oversteer | + | - | ||
| Straight Line Acceleration – Lack of Traction | - | - |
* – Once the vehicle is steady-state (no pitch/roll) in a turn, damper movements are no longer influencing the behaviour.
These are basic, general guidelines on how to tune different issues with dampers. There are other items to tune that can also help with your optimal set- up in different areas. Tire Pressures, alignment settings, ride heights and sway bar adjustments can also address some of the same issues. Every track will be a series of compromises in different areas to get the fastest vehicle set-up for the racing conditions, remember weather and the time of day can also be variables.
Just getting into iRacing and am now just starting to race with this Mustang and so far I love it. I’m going to give one of your setups a try. It’s Lime Rock this week. And I’m going to try several different things. I’ll let you know how I make out. I’m a noob so don’t take what I say to seriously! Thanks!