Gran Turismo 4: The Ultimate Guide

Thanks for watching! Video chapters are in the description. I've made two documents to accompany this video: a 'cheat sheet' the summarizes everything shown along with a few extras, and a 'tune list' that has 300+ tuning setups for a variety of cars. Cheat Sheet: docs.google.com/document/d/10mhPkPcvtET5pGUwy7YTL6… Tune List: docs.google.com/document/d/1ClCpRVUgQrDWdh-e78sgTn… Some things I didn't mention in the video: - The '95 EA21R Cappuccino has slightly more torque and better acceleration than the '91 EA11R. If you can find the EA21R for 5,102 credits, go for that instead, but otherwise, the EA11R is better value. - The races at Tsukuba can be extremely difficult if there's a Cappuccino EA21R in pole, as it can build a huge lead. Exit and re-enter until it's further down the line-up, or buy a racing flywheel to make the race easier. - When buying a used Impreza, try to go for the Ver. V, Ver. VI, or the bug-eyes. The older Impreza's have much worse grip modifiers, on top of having less power. The Spec C from the Subaru dealership has the most grip by far of any Impreza, so it's worth saving up for. - There can be situations where you don't want to max out the downforce with the rear wing. For many MR's, especially lightweight ones, setting the front downforce to 30 can make the car feel very unbalanced when braking into corners at high speeds. If the car loses grip too easily and collapses while entering corners, try lowering it. Some rear-heavy cars like the Alpine A310 work best with 0 / 30 downforce. El Capitan is a good choice for testing downforce settings due to its many elevation changes. Meanwhile, many FF's and 4WD's will understeer less with reduced rear downforce. - My explanation of camber was very over-simplified. Front camber, on top of increasing front wheel grip, also increases the car's corner entry and braking stability. This is great for cars that feel unbalanced while entering corners. It creates understeer if set too high, however. Rear camber increases grip mid-corner, preventing loss of speed from skids. It can reduce corner exit traction in RWD's if set too high though. Generally, most cars work well between a range of 1.4 to 2.0. - On NTSC-U, when doing the B-spec training route shown in this guide, you need to buy the stage 4 turbo instead of the stage 3 for the 350Z Concept LM. The Fairlady Z LM in PAL and NTSC-J gets much more power from its turbo upgrades than NTSC-U's 350Z counterpart, and the stage 3 isn't enough to bump it from D1 to D2. - There are a lot of hidden variables contained in the car's chassis, downforce and tyre data that heavily affect how the car handles. For example, each car has grip modifiers for front and rear, and cars with wider tyres will also grip more and wear less. All cars also have a wind drag stat, and some can cut through air better than others (the GT-One Race Car is the second-most aerodynamic car in the game, while the Formula Gran Turismo and Esucdo are both tied for the least). If you're interested in learning more, I put together a spreadsheet by querying SpecDB, a car info database extracted from the game and included with Nenkai's GT4SaveEditor: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DtAPfe5YhuQ4p1mdoP… - I've also made a follow-up video that primarily focuses on tuning and how to reduce understeer. It goes into much more depth than this video's tuning section and explains many things that I didn't elaborate on here. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zydfobtVlWw - A lot of the setups I showed in this video were somewhat sub-optimal. The Corvette Z06 tune has way too much rear camber, and while it grips well mid-corner, it has less traction out of corners than it could have. I also realized that it's possible to tune LMP's with soft springs to make them easier to drive on Opera Paris. The cheat sheet has updated tips and tunes for most of the cars shown in this video. - I also added a tune for the Formula Gran Turismo to the cheat sheet, it's in the Other Tunes section. Like with my LMP tunes, it runs the softest springs and highest heights possible for the smoothest ride on bumpy tracks, with a lowered front downforce for better stability. Removing the toe-out and lengthening the gears with the gear trick will greatly reduce rear tyre wear. Also, it can't get rigidity or engine wear. - Hard sports tyres are almost never worth it, even in endurances. The grip decrease is so large and the durability increase is so small, that they end up wearing just as fast as mediums because the car skids and loses traction much more often. I suggest using mediums instead, particularly for the El Capitan 200 Miles endurance. - I added some 'endurance tunes' to the cheat sheet. These are basically optimised builds for B-spec'ing endurances. The Suzuki GSX-R/4 is one of the best cars to use in endurances, as it's extremely lightweight and has very high grip. The Motul Pitwork Z excels in most other endurances thanks to its 50 / 70 downforce, 51 : 49 weight distribution, wide tyres and high grip, while the Minolta 88C-V is ideal for Sarthe, Fuji and Super Speedway. - The Audi R8 has better grip and cornering ability than the Pescarolo's, and generally feels nicer to drive. However, the Pesca '04 wears its rear tyres less quickly, which makes it well-suited for the Sarthe endurances. - Qualifying (or "practice" as it's called in-game) will make many championships much easier, particularly the Hong Kong and Opera Paris races in GTWC. You can also exit before starting a championship race to either go to GT Auto for an oil change, or to the garage to save your game. - On some versions, the game's completion percentage can get messed up if you do the missions in a random order. It's believed that, in early versions of NTSC-U, Mission 1 always needs to be completed first to avoid this issue. Make sure to start with Mission 1 to be on the safe side. - GT4 Online (a rare version of GT4 that includes online play, and the preferred version in the modding scene) has unusual AI behaviour in many events, especially Mission 23. The AI cars are extremely random and will slow down or crash into walls unpredictably. There isn't much advice I can give for completing this mission, other than to persevere and get the lucky run where the AI co-operates.

the peak of gaming, send me back, beam me up stop this modern madness I want to go back

I've been playing Gran Turismo 4 since it came out, yet you managed to cover stuff that I was unaware of such as the impact of mileage and rigidity on the car's performance, thank you!

My nine year old myself is crying for happiness. Thank you for make this masterpiece. When I was young i don't understand english, and doesn't understand what to do, so i only play arcade mode. (i'm from Hungary). Nowadays I try GT4 again but it's still hard for me. With this guide i try to finish the game first time on my life!

little tidbit for automatic trans users. holding the upshift button (r2) if i remember correctly will hold the gear

Gosh man that intro gave me goosebumps. Reminded me on why this is still my favorite racing game of all time. Thank you for this guide. Makes me like the game a ton more.

This was the pinnacle of gaming for those back in the day, utterly brilliant game and well beyond its years at the time. I’m 32 now this had me dreaming of owning some of these cars and many years later I have owned some of the cars I wished I had back then , incredible nostalgia here

This guide is like a gold mine. Like you learn for real how to play this masterpiece of a game. Thanks!

Fantastic guide as always. You got me into GT and racing as a whole. Cheers

I just managed to buy a computer monitor, buy an HDMI AV convertor, dig up the PS2 and started a new GT4 save. Been years since I last played. The best game of all time for me, and watching this guide brought back many memories, but also learned a few new things along the way. Best game guide I've ever seen. Very detailed and easy to understand at the same time. Well done my friend :)

these guides are so god damn good it is worth watching again, thank you very much for compiling all the info in a very handy and easy to access video! :) hope the algorithm gives you a well deserved boost

Really nice to have cohesive tuning info on this game without having to dig through old forums. Thank you!

The intro made me cry. I've been playing GT games for pretty much my entire life, starting with GT2 and playing every main GT title up until GT7 (except GT1 and GT3) so hearing the remixed Moon Over The Castle and the mashup of replays during the intro got me feeling really emotional. The intro is about as perfect as the guide itself. Absolutely spectacular work 11/10. Would recommend this guide to anyone looking to pick up GT4.

This is a really, REALLY good and comprehensive guide. You give tips that I didn't even know after playing this a lot every year for 18 years

Incredible work. Never knew this game was so complete and detailed

This was masterful work. You have my undivided respect for this work of art in video form.

This video has single-handedly improved nearly everything for me about Gran Turismo 4. An absolute must-watch if you want to get better at this game!

Coming from your GT3 guide, just wanna say was very surprised by the depth of it and learnt quite a lot. Looking forward to this one.

This is top-tier content. Appreciate the time you spent to make this!

I've never played this game, but the chill tunes, excellent explanations, thorough details, and nice editing had me enraptured all the way through. Definitely need to pick it up eventually.