Max per wheel (Nm)
Maximum braking force. Higher number brakes faster but also locks up the wheels faster. Locked wheels cannot be steered and, like in space, will keep going in the same direction it was before locking up.
Balance rear-front
Allows you to distribute the braking force between the front and rear. When braking, weight transfer to the front makes the rear end lighter and easier to lock up. Generally, FWD cars have close to 80% braking on the front, while RWD cars, mainly because of the better weight distribution from the tranny, can stand more rear bias (0.00 = rear, 1.00 = front)
SUSPENSION
Ride height
Remember physics? Remember torque? A car has a roll axis determined by the suspension. The force is the weight, Cg (center of gravity). The Cg naturally wants to turn around the axis making the car roll in turns. The idea behind lowering ride height is mainly to reduce the force by diminishing the distance (lever arm) between the two which reduces body roll. Theoretically, if the Cg is bellow the roll axis, the car will lean into a turn like a motorbike ! Lowering too much has a side effect of limiting suspension travel and therefore decreasing the grip from your tires. A tire is meant to be on the ground, the more time it spends there instead of in the air, the faster and more controllable your car will be. This also applies to body roll as it unloads the inside tires and ultimately lifts them off the ground.
Stiffness
Spring stiffness. Springs are mainly there to control body height in steady situations. They need to be stiff enough to hold the body up, also when other forces are applied like turning (g-force) braking and accelerating. Springs control how MUCH your car rolls, dives (braking) or squats(accelerating). Springs and dampers need to be matched.
Compression damping
Dampers, shock absorbers. This controls the resistance from the shocks when compressed. Raise when lowering ride height. Damping controls how FAST your car rolls, dives or squats. When rolling, the inside shocks are streched while the outside ones are compressed, same with dive & squat, the front compress while the rear strech under dive, etc.. You want them as stiff as they can be while allowing the wheel to follow the road surface, in other words bumps. Springs and dampers need to be
matched.
Rebound damping
Dampers, shock absorbers. Controls the resistance from the shock when it is streched. Controls how FAST your car returns to it's initial state (dictated by springs btw). Usually rebound is higher (often double) than the compression rate, this is mainly because in rebound, the weight is lifted from the car. It keeps the car from jumping back, rebounding which would obviously upset the car balance and throw you into the woods. You want it high to keep the body movement nice and smooth but not too high because it will make the car 'hook' and slower to react, can you say delay!
Anti-roll
Ah, anti-roll bars, or anti-sway or stabilizer (eeeessshhhh, pretty destabilizing for stabilizers...). I'm not a fan of anti-roll bars, but hey, they are there for a reason. Anti-roll bars do what it says. They limit body roll. They have one major flaw. They make independant suspensions less independant. When taking a bump on one side only, the anti roll bars interpret this as roll and straightens the body. It makes the car more jumpy. Anyways, they can be used effectively to fine tune your setup. I suggest not using them at all and when you have a good setup, use them to dial in a bit of understeer (stiffer front) or oversteer (stiffer rear).
STEERING
Maximum lock
The maximum angle at which the wheels will turn. This is very usefull as I often find myself steering too much in this game. An angle of 30� is plenty and the Turbo can handle as low as 22-23� no problem. In fact, the Turbo is easier to drive that way as you don't get bitten by that 45� countersteer you're holding and waiting to kick in, it always does and never recovers. Driving very slowly around the course should help you find the angle at which the car is more controllable but still takes the turns without going full lock. Also, you should note that reducing the maximum lock also changes the joystick/mous/wheel sensitivity. For the same travel, you have more precise steering.
Caster
This is the steering axis, the axis that the wheels turn on. Caster should be though of like a bicycle. The more you lean it back (positive), the less it turns but the more steady (less nervous) it is. Also, caster will affect camber when turning. Positive caster leans the wheel adding to the existing camber. It can be used to keep close to 0� camber for straight line traction while having negative camber when taking a turn (FWD mostly). Beware of terminal oversteer when setting too much caster...
Inclination
This is quite technical, but here we go. This is the inclination towards the middle of the car of the steering axis (like caster's camber !). I'm not too sure of the effects so i'll update when i'm sure :)
Scrub Radius - Updated!
This is the distance between the steering axis and center of the tire where they meet the ground. Logically, the ideal distance is 0. In practice, it makes the car very nervous and gives no feedback to the driver. Usually, cars have a slight positive scrub radius (steering axis inside of the tires center line). This gives the driver some more usefull feedback (and resistance) and makes the car easier to drive, more forgiving. What it does is force the outside tire to lead the car into the corner, therefor making it feel more stable because there is less weight transfer, however, it also moves the inside front wheel further back, which may hurt the car on exit because if the increased weight transfer to that corner.
WHEELS
Toe: TOE-IN is when the front of the tires are closer than the rear. Look at your feet...Toe-in reduces wandering at high speed with a slight loss of steering when entering a turn. Toe-in slows down the car, increasing tire wear, but can be used to control the car balance. Toe-in at the rear will slow it down and keep it from trying to pass the front. In the front it increasing understeer and at the rear it decreases oversteer.
TOE-OUT is when the rear of the tires are closer than the front. Walk like a penguin ! Toe-out might look ridiculous at first but has a good reason to look that way. When turning, the inner wheels of your car are rolling along a smaller diameter circle than the outer wheels. This means, the inner wheels turn at a greater angle than the outer ones. Using toe-out so that each wheel is traveling along their respective path/circle will feel like riding on rails. Unfortunately, in a straight line, toe-out makes the car wander around and very hard to track straight.
Camber: How much the tires top lean towards the car. Negative camber is TOWARDS the car, and positive is AWAY. 0� means your tire
is perpendicular to the road. In a straight line, you want 0�. When turning though, you want the tire to have a bit of negative (sometimes a lot!) to compensate for the tire's deflection. Camber controls the amount and shape of your tire's contact patches. You want the most traction at all times. You can't, so find a compromise in between :). Strat from 1�-2� in front
and 0.5�-1.5� in rear.
Track: This is how wide apart, measured from the tire's center line, the front or rear wheels are. Wider is generally better. Narrower track will reduce steering and probably understeer. Think of dragsters. Wider makes the car very agile but sometimes nervous at high speed.
TRANSMISSION
Final drive ratio: Higher numerical value is shorter, lower is wider. The age old compromise between acceleration and top
speed. Shorter gearing helps acceleration at the cost of top speed. Set it so you hit top speed (before braking) before redline, then fine tune so the gearing matches the turns.
LIMITED SLIP
Differential(LSD): Back to the idea that, when turning, the inner and outer wheels turn along diferent paths, they also turn at different speeds. The differential allows two wheels to turn at different speeds. 0 means it is 'open'or'loose'. 10 would mean it is 'locked'or'tight'. I'll use tight for now because it is not clear if 10 is the maximum in LFS. Tigher LSD for traction in straight line with loss of steering. I find 9-10 is ideal in most cases as the last thing a spinning wheel needs is MORE power.
4 Wheel Drive: Front and rear should both be set high along with center diff. All at 9-10 is fine. Front-torque Split is the setting you want to play with. (0.00) means it has no power going to the front wheels and is basically RWD. (1.00) is FWD. I suggest (0.60) for a FWD feel and (0.40) for a RWD feel.
TIRES
Type: Well, road tires for the road, knobby tires for rally. You can also change to harder front tires to reduce
oversteer, or harder rear to have more.
Pressure: Lower to increase grip at the expense of response and stability. Higher allows the car to react quicker and recover predictably.