Forza Horizon 5 money: Tuning tips & tricks

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While the Forza Horizon 5 money trick still works, here is how to tune your own cars for best results.

With the Forza Horizon 5 money trick still making many players a lot of money – oh look, 250,000+ tune uses that I am no longer getting paid for – I thought I would show you how to tune your car for success (press play above).

Even if the Forza Horizon 5 money glitch is patched, these tuning tips will still be relevant. Firstly because the AI AFK (away from keyboard) Drivatar dislikes oversteer and having the throttle fully down at all times makes it an even bigger problem.

Secondly, because it is a handling trait that can make driving frustrating. You want some because it means the car is eager to rotate for a corner. Too much understeer makes turning a pain, after all. But too much oversteer is likely to make you crash a lot and waste time skidding.

So let’s get straight to it. Not all cars and tunes will work for AFK Goliath (the biggest road race in the game). Instead, consider using a custom blueprint at the Los Jardines or Llanuras road races or something else and let the AI Drivatar AFK up and down the lengthy highway instead.

Yes, cars can still crash or get stuck especially at the roundabouts. But it can be more reliable – just watch out for those grass bits. The downside is that 50 laps here is not going to last all night like 50 laps of Goliath.

Pro tip: Using rain in a custom blueprint can help with AFK reliability as the AI seems more cautious with braking.

Anyway, pick your favourite car that you want to race AFK. Or just want to make easier to drive. I would suggest something not too prone to oversteer, but then part of this guide will fix that. Hopefully.

Also make a custom event to you benefit from zero Drivatars that can slow you down or make you crash. But set to one lap so you are not missing out on XP and money during car tune testing. Ready?

Struggling with controller connection issues? Try a data cable here and here. And check out my Forza Horizon 5 money making tips & tricks video for other solutions.

Custom upgrades

Engine upgrades are done last because speed is one of the biggest enemies of AFK success. Unless you do something silly like use snow tyres on tarmac.

Although rear-wheel drive (RWD) is less troublesome now, all-wheel drive (AWD) is still king especially when it comes to reliability and fast starts. So I tend to use it but feel free to try without.

Conversion, as with power upgrades, should be done later. Once your tune survives Goliath AFK or wherever you are racing. The last engine in the list is usually the one with the most horsepower potential so go with that if you want maximum speed and acceleration.

Aero and appearance is also useful. Some of my AFK tunes and fastest setups for racing use the front bumper and rear wing. If you can fit something adjustable, do it. The loss in top speed and extra weight is minimal compared with the AFK reliability improvement and cornering speeds.

You can actually max this out and away you go. However, it is usually best to have a difference between the front and rear downforce amounts. Too much at the rear can make it harder to steer and therefore more likely to drive off the road such as at that horseshoe and the bridge.

I usually try the default setting and run the car up to the horseshoe bend to see how well it does. If it goes off at the bridge before or hits the cliff, then more tweaking is needed. If it passes these areas, consider letting it run a full lap to check for any other problems.

In Tyres and rims select the grippiest tyre for tarmac available. In this case, it is race. Sometimes the default is the grippiest option so watch for that. Maximise the tyre width at the front and rear for maximum grip at the expense of some extra kilograms.

Choose the lightest alloy wheel style. I favour this gold option as it looks okay and it appears to be the quickest to access with the most weight saved. Track width at the front and back should be as wide as possible. This seems to not add weight, which is good.

Next is Transmission. You want a gearbox with the fastest shift time and the fewest gears so you or the AFK driver spends the least time shifting. However, sometimes you may need to use a transmission with an extra gear to let you reach a higher top speed. So 7-speed instead of 6-speed.

Drivelines should be the best you can get as it saves weight. The differential should be one relevant to road racing where possible, but using another type is still preferable so you can adjust the differential settings. The stock differential may not have any or enough adjustment.

Springs and dampers should be of the Race variety or Sport. Stock can work too, but basically you want the lowest you can get with adjustment potential.

Front and rear antiroll bars are great as they usually reduce the overall weight. I have not tested out rollcages enough to see if they are worth the effort, but you are adding extra weight to a car so be weary. I typically avoid bothering.

Weight reduction is a big plus for any car tune. It helps with cornering, acceleration, top speed, efficiency, no that you have fuel bills in Forza Horizon 5, and a whole lot more. I prioritise weight reduction in almost all of my tunes.

Also fit the best brake system you can. Race is best or whatever your car can fit beyond stock. In this case, I cannot upgrade them although they are basically bicycle wheels at the front as standard.

Finally, conversion and engine upgrades. If you are trying to create a normal build or AFK tune, I would prioritise non-induction parts. As in, not a turbo, twin-turbo or supercharger.

There are exceptions, but generally naturally aspirated upgrades work out best unless you simply want all the horsepower and are not trying to reach a certain PI number for, say, S2 or A class.

Better still, fit upgrades that add horsepower and do not increase the weight of the car. So anything but the intercooler and oil / cooling. At lower classes I would say this is especially useful advice.

Play around with engine upgrades until you have maximised your horsepower without going over the PI limit you are aiming for. Assuming you are not maxed out with other upgrades already. Open your cheque book, install the upgrades and now we get tuning.

If your setup is doing AFK racing with a few or no issues, then you can start upgrading the engine. And if at maxed out level with the stock engine all is well, then you can do an engine conversion and get even more power. But let’s work on custom tuning first.

Custom tuning

Now we get to see what happens when we run our AFK car. Or if we want to drive it ourselves, which is essential for making a car handle how you want it to. What works AFK can be universal, but my driving style will differ from yours. I personally prefer some oversteer but not too much.

Please note. Sometimes a custom tune will not apply even though you saved it. I sometimes changed the gearing before starting a custom event but my top speed would remain the same as before. To get round this, I saved and named the tune. Re-entering the event may work too.

Anyway, go to the AFK race you prefer. Los Jardines or Llanuras Sprint are common. Then go to custom blueprint and select one of many AFK races available. For now anyway. Or make your own or use mine.

Custom blueprint

If you make your own, select custom blueprint, ‘anything goes’, ‘open’ then go to event settings. Select Drivatar difficulty as ‘unbeatable’, number of Drivatars as ‘off’ (zero) and the number of laps as 1 if you make a custom route as you can adjust this later and will need to drive the entire route before it is publishable. If you are using a pre-made route, choose as many laps as you can cope with.

Then select dry season or wet if you want rain to help slow you down. Sunrise or dawn for time of day to help keep tyre temperatures down but mainly just choose what you enjoy. Weather clear or add precipitation. Rewind on and that is it. Now we see how the car drives.

Enter the race and change your difficulty settings before you start. If you are testing a lap, use manual settings. If you are wanting to test AFK setups, use what I have on screen. Exactly as it is here. It is possible in some cars to turn off TCS and ABS but that can affect AFK reliability. That is a lot of acronyms.

Car Mastery

Before you race, make sure you have invested points into Car Mastery. This will help reward you better – whether AFK or not. There is also a perk that helps you avoid broken skill chains. A car with a racing-based set of bonuses such as the BMW X5 M FE makes most sense.

Unfortunately for this video, the Bentley Continental Supersports did not go wrong during Goliath. Even when I did an engine conversion, twin turbochargers, all engine upgrades and default settings. I think generally slower and heavier cars are just more reliable. However, XP and money per hour are reduced.

So here is the Ferrari 599XX Evo. Forza Horizon 4’s king and still a weapon in Forza Horizon 5. Except as you will see on screen, the default tune is terrible. Default tunes can work well but there are exceptions and this is one of them.

As you can see, it loses traction at the rear in this quick series of Goliath bends and then it goes off on a forest expedition. Never to be seen again. For AFK this is a big problem and it is a big problem if trying to race normally. You lose grip all the time and it makes you slow.

So how did I fix the Ferrari 599XX Evo?

Well, in the case of sudden loss of rear wheel grip I reduced the tyre pressures. By reducing the PSI, the tyres became less prone to said grip loss.

I actually tried with the lowest PSI setting and it caused grip issues, as did too much. So despite my temperatures being sub-optimal, around 20 to 25 PSI proved reliable.

Gearing should be adjusted so that you have a decent top speed but also reasonable acceleration. Having the final gear line on the graph hitting the corner or just before there usually gives good results. Sometimes increasing acceleration can increase your top speed so watch the numbers.

I did not mess with alignment much as the default can work nicely. I will make a big tuning guide to see if Forza Horizon 5 camber, toe and caster angles work as they did in Forza Horizon 4. Things seem similar though.

Under antiroll bars it should be that reducing the rear number helps reduce oversteer. I actually boosted it to the same as the front, with the setting on 1 and maxed out at 65. All worked fine, but I found somewhere in the middle felt best to drive manually.

Springs, I kept as standard. The default is low for the rear and that is meant to help with reducing oversteer. Ride height I whacked up a few notches to help increase aerodynamic resistance and avoid bottoming the car out. Although Goliath here is smoother than in Forza Horizon 4.

Damping I kept the same as it was unnecessary to change for AFK and my tune felt predictable for normal driving. Aero, meanwhile, is important. I maxed this out and the difference of 55 between front and rear proved enough to avoid creating understeer.

If your car understeers hard, aero can be a culprit. Try at default, try with both as little as possible, try both maxed out and then try with front maxed out and rear reduced. You should find something that works – usually one of the last two examples.

As for Brake, well I would like to adjust a bit more towards the front to increase braking potency. However, I have not yet confirmed if the setting is backwards as it is in Forza Horizon 4. So at the moment I keep it at around 50 per cent.

And lastly, we have the dreaded differential settings. I avoid touching the balance but you can make it more front-focussed to reduce understeer. For front acceleration and deceleration, I increased the values to help the differential lock sooner. That helped with general cornering feel and ability.

For the rear, increasing the per cent can increase oversteer so I kept this low. Somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent.

The rear differential defaults typically matter less and so the default can work nicely. Too much and you will reintroduce bad handling and pesky oversteer. But it can make a car feel more agile. These defaults actually work nicely for me across a number of high-powered cars.

With all these pointers, you should be able to make your own Forza Horizon 5 money-making AFK beasts. Or cars that handle better for actual racing. You know, the thing where you take control. Crazy, right?

And that is it for this video. Tuning experts are welcome to offer their own tuning tips in the comments. It may seem like there are many ways to skin a cat in Forza Horizon 5, but a few basic methods are usually sufficient at making a car handle less chump and more champ.

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