Assetto Corsa Competizione Car Setup Guide

Below is a complete car setup guide for Assetto Corsa Competizione. This includes a detailed description of every part of your ACC car setup. Including tips on which parts of your car setup you should be changing, and what the outcomes will likely be. This is the perfect guide for new sim racers or those who want to learn how to start creating ACC car setups.

Jumping into Assetto Corsa Competizione for the first time is a daunting prospect. There is a reasonably sharp learning curve. From the extremely realistic, and hardcore driving physics. To the daunting driver and safety ratings. There is a lot to get your head around as a new ACC player. Check out our complete ACC beginners guide for our top tips.

And then there is the prospect of having to learn how to create your own car setups. Unlike some racing games such as the F1 series, which bridge the gap between arcade racing and full-on simulation. ACC has a much higher amount of car setup options for you to play around with making it much more realistic.

If you are jumping into ACC for the first time, and don’t fully understand how each setup tweak affects the car, don’t panic. Our ACC setup guide breaks down every aspect of your car setup. It will show you how to tweak your car properly and explain how each tweak will affect your car’s performance. It also gives you a great understanding of what you should be aiming for, such as ideal tyre pressures and more.

For those who are looking to download or buy ACC car setups, you can find a wide range of professional and community-made ACC car setups on our website. These include both free and premium car setups.

How do ACC car setups work and do they make you faster?

When racing any form of motorsport, you can generally make tweaks and adjustments to how the car is configured. (other than fixed series) This is your car setup and has a big impact on how your car behaves on track. A good car setup can make your car easier to drive, make it use tyres more efficiently and can even make you faster.

With your car setup in Assetto Corsa Competizione, you can adjust various parts from the tyres, suspension, electronics and more. Adjusting a single area can affect specific handling characteristics, however, any adjustment generally has a knock-on effect on other parts of your car.

This means that most car setup changes require a few other adjustments to be made at the same time. Before you know it, you have adjusted most of your car setup and have a completely custom setup.

The goal with any car setup ideally is to make your car both easier to handle and faster on track. A car that handles well will allow you to push it harder through corners with more confidence that the car can handle what you’re throwing at it.

Tyre setup: PSI, Toe, Camber, Caster

Your tyre setup affects your overall car setup a huge amount. They are your only contact point with the track surface, so setting your camber, toe, caster and pressures incorrectly can greatly affect how much ultimate grip you have. Not only do the mechanical changes affect your overall contact patch with the track surface, they also affect your tyre temperatures.

Tyre temperatures are so crucial that if they are just outside the right working window just a little bit, it can greatly reduce grip. All of your tyre setup will have an impact on the overall tyre temperatures, but the PSI is the setting that lets you really tinker and tailor your temperatures.

Tyre PSI (Pressures)

Once your car has been driven around a few laps and everything is up to the correct temperature, you should be aiming for tyre pressures between 26.0 and 27.0 PSI during a dry race for optimal performance. 26.7 or 26.8 PSI is optimal. This has changed since Assetto Corsa Competizione was first launched as they changed the tyre model when they released the 2023 GT World Challenge update.

If you are racing on a wet track, you’ll want higher tyre pressures. Higher pressures will allow your tyres to heat up better on the colder track surface. The optimal tyre pressure for a wet race in ACC is between 30 and 31 PSI.

Your tyre pressures should be one of the first changes you make to your car setup in ACC. To test how your car is behaving before you make any further setup changes, you should see how it handles after a few laps with the correct tyre pressure. Then, you’ll have a good understanding of what needs to change. I’d also recommend adjusting your tyre pressures a few times throughout the setup process to ensure they’re still in the correct working window.

Tyre temperatures

You will notice that when you first leave the garage, your tyre temperatures will be much lower than ideal. You should be aiming for tyre temperatures of between 70-100°C. Below and above this, you will not have the optimal grip levels. This will result in your car sliding more on track which in turn will wear your tyres out at an increased rate.

Below is a cheat sheet with optimal tyre pressures and the optimal temperature that you want your tyres to be at after they’ve warmed up.

Your tyre pressure setup process should be;

1. Ensure your tyres are between 26.0-27.0 PSI after a few laps and your tyres are warm.
2. Use the tyre temperature telemetry to tweak the camber and toe setup.
3. If you struggle to achieve the correct tyre temperatures and you are in the PSI range above, you can make adjustments to your brake duct setup. Adjusting these so your brakes run hotter can send more heat into your tyres and vice versa.

Toe

Your toe angle dictates the angle of your wheels when viewed from above. Changing this will angle the front of your tyres to point closer in towards your car or away from it, and doing both of these things can have positive and negative effects on the car’s handling.

You may think that in ACC, you’d want all tyres to be pointing straight in front of you. However, if you angle the front tyres out from the car, it can become more responsive. This in turn will allow you to turn more aggressively into corners and allows your car to feel more agile.

Moving to the rear tyres, typically you will want to have some toe-in. This points the front of the rear tyres in towards the car. Doing this will improve your overall stability, especially when accelerating out of a corner.

Camber

Your camber setup in ACC adjusts the angle of your tyres much like your toe setup does. However, your camber affects the lean of your tyres when viewed from the front. Adding negative camber will make the tops of your tyres point further toward your car, making it look as though they are leaning.

This approach is beneficial in a few ways but also has some drawbacks if you push it too far. Negative camber can reduce rolling resistance resulting in higher top speeds, and it can provide a larger contact patch mid-corner providing more grip.

This works due to your car leaning to one side while corner. As the car leans, the weight of your car shifts to one side of your car which pushes the tyre into the track. If you had no camber in your setup, all of the car’s weight balance would be pushed towards the edge of the tyres. With negative camber, your tyre almost becomes straight with the road whilst your car is leaning providing better mid-corner grip.

If you add too much negative camber, however, it can lead to your tyres wearing unevenly. They will be warmer towards the inside of your car and colder on the outside. Ideally, you’ll want no more than around 10°C difference in the inside and outside tyre temperatures.

Caster

Your caster is possibly the trickiest part of your overall tyre setup to understand and adjust in ACC. It affects the front-to-rear angle of how your suspension is mounted when viewed from the side. Increasing the positive caster will lean your suspension further away from vertical and can have an impact on overall stability.

Making adjustments to your caster will affect how heavy the steering feels as well as stability at different points of a corner. It can also cause your car to steer to self-center more aggressively.

The caster setup is linked directly to your wheel camber and adjusts the characteristics of your car when the wheels are turned. Higher caster results in higher camber when wheels are turned.

Caster is equally important during the braking phase of a corner as well as it affects how the wheels react whilst braking. High caster is good on the initial turn-in phase, but setting it too high though will cause your car to understeer mid-corner.

Ultimately, you’ll want to set your caster as high as you can before you start to experience mid-corner understeer. As soon as you start to feel this, you can start to reduce the positive caster setup.

Read our Assetto Corsa Competizione Beginners Guide for tips on getting started with ACC.

Electronics setup: TC, ABS, ECU

The electronics part of your ACC car setup lets you adjust any elements that are controlled by the electronics system on your car. These include the traction control, the ABS (anti-lock braking system) and the engine map. You can also use the telemetry laps to record data to analyse after your session.

Traction Control

The traction control setup is the first part of your electronics setup in Assetto Corsa Competizione. This is essentially an electronic assist that combats wheelspin by reducing the engine power delivery while accelerating.

If you accelerate too hard out of a corner, you’ll start to lose traction, normally at the rear of your car. The traction control can detect this happening and it starts to reduce the power being sent to your driven wheels. This will slow your ultimate pace, however it can prevent a big spin.

You shouldn’t look at traction control setup in Assetto Corsa Competizione as a driving assist that you want to turn off. The real-world GT3 cars use traction control to varying degrees to help maintain control of their car. You should look to do the same in game.

TC1 vs TC2

Some cars in ACC also have an additional traction control setting called TC2. This sets the level at which the engine power is reduced based on the TC setup. It is always recommended to keep the TC2 value within 1 of the TC1 value, either up or down.

For example, if you have your TC1 set to 3, your TC2 value should be set to either 4 or 2 (3 +/- 1) . I wouldn’t recommend trying exaggerated values Ike TC1=2 and TC2=10.

ABS

The ABS (anti-lock braking system) is another driver aid that is designed to prevent your brakes from locking under heavy braking. Much like the traction control, real-world GT3 drivers use the ABS to help manage their brakes throughout a race session. I would recommend doing the same, and ensuring you don’t reduce the ABS right down to 0.

Increasing the ABS setup in ACC will increase the impact that the system has on your car under braking. You will find that the ABS will kick in earlier, which you can see from the flashing ABS icon on your car’s dashboard or on screen HUD. This will make braking more stable but increase your braking distance.

Lowering your ABS setup has the opposite effect. It will give you more control over your brakes on the entry to a corner, and allow you to have shorter braking zones. However, it comes at the cost of decreased stability. You are much more likely to lock your brakes with lower ABS values, however, if you can manage your braking well, you can improve your braking efficiency with lower values.

ECU Map

Your ECU map changes the engine mapping of your car. Adjusting this will affect various elements such as fuel usage and your throttle map. More aggressive ECU maps will use more fuel and give you better throttle response which can result in faster lap times. However, you will need to manage this setting during a race to ensure you get the mileage out of your on board fuel that you need.

The above assumption is safe to make for most cars. Generally, a lower engine map, the faster your car will become. However, in reality it is a bit more complex than that. Many cars have specific engine maps for different scenarios. For example, you may have a few engine maps for dry conditions, and a few for wet conditions.

Fuel & strategy

Your brake pad setup can be found in the fuel and strategy setup screen. In here, you can adjust various elements of your strategy including your tyres, your starting fuel load and your brake pad setup.

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This part of your setup is important when planning for a race, with your fuel load and pitstop strategy being a vital part of your overall race strategy. However, your brake pad choice will impact your overall performance as well.

Brake pads

You can choose which brake pads you wish to use on the front and rear of your car indepently. Each brake pad is designed for a specific scenario and race length. So choosing the correct pads will result in the correct amount of temperature build up and wear during a race.

Below is an overview of each of the different brake pads in ACC.

• Pad 1 – The first set of brake pads use an aggressive friction coefficient. This leads to the best braking performance at the cost of a shorter lifespan. These are designed to be used in hotlap and qualifying sessions as well as sprint races under 2-3 hours. For a race over 3 hours, these pads will start to wear badly resulting in reduced braking performance.
• Pad 2 – The second set of brake pads is designed to be a longer lasting set compared to pad 1. These still provide good performance, although not as good as pad 1, however, they can be used for longer races. These are great for endurance race events and should be your choice for any dry race over 3 hours. These can easily make it through a 12 hour stint in an endurance race.
• Pad 3 – The third set of brake pads in ACC offer a brake pad that can be used in colder conditions such as a wet race. They offer a medium level of performance meaning they aren’t as efficient as pad 1 or 2 during a dry race. These brake pads shouldn’t wear as fast as the first two pads and allow you to run smaller brake ducts.
• Pad 4 – The fourth set of brake pads offer extremely good performance that matches pad 1. However, they come with a reduced lifespan making them ideal for sprint races under 1 hour in length. After around a hour, they will start to wear badly and will reduce your braking performance.

The below table shows you a quick overview of which break pad to use during which racing condition in ACC.

Read more: The best racing wheels for Assetto Corsa Competizione

Mechanical Grip setup

The mechanical grip part of your setup adjusts a big part of your overall car setup. Here you can change elements of your suspension such as the bumpstop and anti roll bars. You can also make adjustments to your brake bias and power.

Anti-Roll bars

Every car in ACC has both front and rear anti-roll bars and these are essentially big torsion springs that link the suspension from one side of your car to the other. These help with lateral stability primarily during cornering and weight balance changes.

Adjusting the anti roll bars at either the front or rear of your car can have a big affect on your car’s behaviour during corners. Essentially, if the front tyres have more grip than the rear, your car will oversteer and if they have less grip, you’ll experience understeering. Adjusting both the front and rear can counteract both of these effects.

Front Anti-Roll Bar

Your front anti-roll bar setup in ACC will primarily affect the car’s behaviour on corner entry and through the turn in phase. Softening your front ARB can result in less understeer, while stiffening it can result in more understeer and less oversteer.

Rear Anti-Roll Bar

While your front ARB has a bigger impact on the turin in phase of a corner, the rear affects the corner exit phase more. Soften your rear ARB to reduce oversteer, and stiffen it to reduce understeer.

Steer ratio

Your steering ratio adjusts the relationship between your steering wheel and the car’s wheels. The first number in the steering ratio is the degrees that you need to rotate your steering wheel to have 1° of steering input.

For example, a steering ratio of 13:1 means that you will need to turn your steering wheel 13° to obtain 1° of wheel rotation. The higher the first number, the slower your steering is.

Brake bias

Your brake bias controls how much of the overall braking force is sent to the front and rear brakes. Generally, the front brakes on a GT3 or GT4 car in ACC will be larger than the rear, meaning you will benefit from more braking force being sent to the front than the rear.

This is due to the weight of your car moving to the front every time you hit the brake pedal. With more weight over the front of the car, the more force is being sent through the front wheels and into the track. This allows you to have more braking force at the front before you lock a wheel compared to the rear.

• A more forward brake bias leads to increased braking stability, however, it can cause turn-in understeer.
• A more rearward brake bias means less stability in your car while braking and more chance of oversteer on the entry to the corner.

You may find that different corners around a track require different brake bias setups to really maximise your performance. I would always recommend mapping your brake bias input to your steering wheel so you can easily adjust it during a race.

Heavier, straighter braking zones generally allow for a more frontward brake bias. While shorter braking zones, and braking zones that require some turning input to be applied at the same time benefit from a less frontward brake bias.

Adjusting your brake bias setup during a race can also have a big impact on your fuel levels and tyre degradation as well as your overall braking performance.

Wheelrate

When it comes to your wheel rate, bumpstop rate, and bumpstop range, the higher the number, the stiffer the overall setup. These setup options will have a big impact on how your car handles elevation changes and bumps in the track surface, and will also affect your cars responsiveness and corner performance.

The wheel rate is the force needed to compress your entire suspension. A lot of the wheel rate setup can be down to the overall weight of your car, with heavier cars generally requiring stiffer springs and a stiffer setup. Large front-engine cars such as the Mercedes-AMG GT3 are heavier at the front, meaning a stiffer front suspension setup is required.

Bumpstop rate and range

The bumpstop of a car is the part of a suspension that stops the travel at a certain point. This stops the suspension from compressing too much. A bumpstop is an elastic rubber at the very top of the suspension.

The bumpstop rate is the overall stiffness of the bumpstop. Stiffer bumpstops will result in slightly more harsh reactions when your suspension compresses fully compared to a softer bump stop.

The range of the bumpstop stermines how far the suspension has to travel before it hits the bumpstop.

Making various changes to your car’s ride height and suspension setup will require bumpstop setup changes as all parts of your suspension are tightly connected. The softer your overall suspension setup, the more grip you’ll have, but having a car that is too soft can result in less responsiveness and a more floaty car.

Preload differential

Your differential is a part of your car setup that allows each wheel to rotate at different speeds and rotate independently of each other.

This is incredibly useful during cornering because the outside tyres have to travel further distances compared to the inner tyre. Therefore the outside tyre will be rotating at a faster speed to maintain traction with the track.

Adjusting your preload differential setup will affect how freely your wheels rotate compared to each other, and will adjust how your car behaves during cornering.

Damper setup

Your damper setup affects how your suspension handles during both the compression and rebound states. These are as your suspension compresses while riding over a bump or when the car leans on one side. The rebound is the part of suspension travel while it is rebounding back into its neutral position.

Bump

The bump affects the speed at which the dampers and springs will be compressed. A higher number will dampen the compression at a slower rate.

Fast bump

The fast bump setting is very similar to the bump setting, however, it affects how fast or slow the suspension compresses during high frequencies. This could be during fast and sharp bumps in the track surface.

Rebound

The rebound acts in the same way as the bump setting, but in reverse. It adjusts the speed at which your suspension rebounds back from a compression event. A higher setting will dampen the decompression as a slower rate.

Fast rebound

Much like the fast bump, the fast rebound adjusts the speed of decompression in the same way as the rebound setting, but for faster, more intense events.

Aero setup

Your aerodynamic car setup in ACC will affect how much downforce is generated from your car’s splitter and rear wing if it has one. You can also adjust your ride height which has a big impact on downforce and your suspension setup.

Ride Height

The ride height of your car controls downforce levels in conjunction with your front splitter and rear wing. However, if the car is lowered too close to the road it can add drag slowing you down. Any ride height adjustment will have an affect on your suspension, often requiring a suspension setup change.

I’d recommend starting with a higher ride height and then slowly keep lowering it until you feel there is no more benefit gained.

Rear Wing / Splitter

Both the rear wing and the front splitter control how much downforce is generated. Lower values will result in higher top speeds but less downforce resulting in a less responsive car with less grip during cornering. Higher downforce values give more cornering grip but lower top speeds due to drag.

Below is an overview of how changing your aerodynamic setup in ACC can affect your car.

Brake ducts

Your brake duct setup adjusts how much air is diverted to your brake discs and can control the temperature of your brakes. Setting them close to 0 will close them off completely and result in overheating brakes and increased brake fade and performance degredation.

Setting them to 6 will open the brake ducts up completely which will provide maximum brake cooling at the expense of increased drag.

Brake duct setup doesn’t just change the peak brake temperature, but also affects how quickly the heat from your brake discs are dissipated. Lower settings will keep your brakes hotter for longer, while more open brake duct setups cool them quicker.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want your front brake indicator in your HUD to show yeallow at the end of a braking zone. They shouldn’t ever turn red as this indicates that they are overheating during the braking phase.

Solutions to car setup related handling issues

Now that I’ve looked at how each part of your ACC setup changes your car’s behaviour, I now want to show you some common handling issues and how we can resolve them with car setup changes.

Braking issues

Below are some common issues under braking and some tips on how to resolve them.

Cornering entry issues

Below are some common issues on the turn in phase of the corner along with some fixes.

Corner exit Issues

The below issues are common on the exit phase of a corner.

Other car setup related issues

The issues below are more generic, but can be fixed with car setup changes.

Tips and tricks

Finally, I want to run through some key tips and tricks to finding the perfect ACC car setup.

Find the perfect ACC car setup

If you don’t fancy going through the car setup process, you can find the best ACC car setup bundles on SimRacingSetup.com. We have both free and premium Assetto Corsa Competizione car setups.

The premium car setup bundles include qualifying, race and wet car setups for every track and are updated weekly. Once you purchase a premium car setup from our website, you get access to free updates for any future releases.

Check out our ACC car setup bundles

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Article written by Rich

Founder of SimRacingSetups.com

Rich is the founder, F1 car setup creator and content writer for SimRacingSetups. With over a decade of experience as a graphic designer, marketing director, competitive sim racer and avid motorsport fan, Rich founded SimRacingSetup.com to share his passion and knowledge of sim racing and Formula 1 with other sim racers. Regularly writes for sim racing website SimRaceReviews.com

View all articles written by Rich