Introduction
I saw that this game lacked a proper guide for time attack, so I will atleast try to make a guide with the experience I have gathered during my time playing.
To start things off, if you are aiming for the map achievements for clearing all the challenges, it might be good to know that you don´t have to get the gold trophy on all of the challenges to unlock the achievements. All you really have to do is clear every challenge, even if you only get the bronze trophy on them.
With that out of the way, let us continue on to the guide.
How To Clear The Time Attack Challenges
The easiest way I have found to clearing the different Time Attack challenges in career mode is to use stock cars. This means that you shouldn´t set the car up for drift at all, you just have to buy the car and do the challenges with a newly bought stock car.
Easy enough, right?
Well, it may still be tricky on some of the challenges, even with stock cars. The trick I found that works the best is to be conservative on the throttle in the corners. If you power through the corner too much, you will most likely end up sideways and thus making you lose a lot of precious time.
The first time I cleared the challenges I only tried them with the stock e46, and it was very well-balanced and easy to control. It should obviously work great with the other cars too, but in my experience it is atleast good to have a car with a relatively high amount of horsepower from stock, meaning the Mazda mx5 is not really ideal because it lacks the power to get you forward fast enough on the straights (as a stock car). In this guide I will write which cars works great at each track coming from my own experience.
Another thing to notice is that some tracks have special requirements for you to be able to enter the track. One example of that is Ebisu School, where you have to have a car at stage 1. I did this with the E46 with the inline six and a stage 1 upgrade, and it went easy enough.
More on all of this comes from the list in the next section.
Handling And Performance Of The Stock Cars
This list consists of my experience with the different cars completely bone stock.
* E30: Well-balanced, easily controlled. A little underpowered on the straights but overall a good car.
* E36: Well-balanced, easily controlled. A little faster than the E30, but still underpowered when you have long, high speed straights.
* E46: Well-balanced, easily controlled and enough power to get you through the straights quickly without getting sideways.
* E92: Well-balanced but wants to go sideways if you dont control the throttle enough. Got a lot of power if you manage to keep it under control.
* Ford Mustang: Almost the same amount of power as the E92 but easier to get sideways, still needs you you to manage the throttle a lot to keep it straight.
* Mazda RX-7: Well-balanced, easily controlled and has enough power to get through the straights quickly without getting sideways. A worthy contender to the E46. At higher speeds you need to be sure to manage the throttle to not lose control
* Mazda MX-5: Well-balanced but underpowered. Dont get me wrong, it´s a great car but as a stock car it is too underpowered for the challenges with long straights
* Mazda RX-8: Well balanced but easy to spin out if you don´t control the throttle enough. It is a little bit snappier than the Rx7.
* Nissan 180SX: Well-balanced but a little bit underpowered on the straights. Better than the Mx5 stock but I would recommend another car for these challenges if my guide doesn´t say the opposite on a special track.
* Nissan Silvia (S15): Well-balanced and more power than the 180sx, making this a better alternative for the challenges.
* Nissan 350Z: Well-balanced and just a small amount of better power on the straights than the Silvia (S15)
* Subaru BRZ: Well-balanced, slower than the S15 and the 350Z but faster than the 180sx. Not the most ideal for challenges that require speed
The Tracks And Their Respective Requirements
Below follows a guide over the requirements for each track and what kind of car is preferable to use at each track tuning/stage wise;
* Ebisu Driftland: Stock car.
-This track mostly requires straight line speed but a few of the challenges require tight turns and precise driving.
-Easy gold: E46, E92, Mustang, Rx7, Silvia (S15), 350Z
-Gold is doable with a few tries: E30, E36, Rx8, 180sx, BRZ
-Too underpowered: Mx5
* Training ver.1: Stock Car
-Fast straights which require power, some tighter turns on the later challenges.
-Easy gold: E46, E30, E36, E92, Mustang, Rx7, 350Z
-Gold is doable with a few tries: Rx8, Silvia (S15)
-Too underpowered: Mx5, 180sx, BRZ
* Training ver.2: Stock Car
-This track has a lot of turns which require control over the car without spinning. Some straights exist but a high power car isn´t really needed here
-Easy Gold: E46, E30, E36, Mustang, Rx7, 180sx, Silvia (S15), 350Z, BRZ
-Gold is doable with a few tries: E92, Mx5, Rx8
-Too underpowered: -
* Ebisu School: A car with Stage 1 upgrades is needed for the track.
-The earlier challenges on this track requires speed and ability to control in bigger corners. The later challenges have tighter turns and requires maneuverability.
-Easy Gold: E46, E92, Mx5, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries:
* Parking: A car with Stage 1 upgrades is needed for this track
-A tight map that requires a lot of tight turns. Recommended to use easily manueverable cars
-Easy Gold: E46, E92, Mx5, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries:
* Stadium ver.2: A car with Stage 1 upgrades is needed for this track.
-Short but fast straights. Has a lot of big turns but you need to have speed through the turns without losing control. The last challenge requires some more tight turns and precision.
-Easy Gold: E46, E92, Mx5, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries:
* Ebisu Minami: A car with Stage 2 upgrades is needed for this track.
-A few straights but this track mostly has a lot of turns that requires precision instead of high speed to make it in time.
-Easy Gold: E46, E92, Mx5, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries:
* Ebisu West: A car with Stage 2 upgrades id needed for the track.
-Pretty straightforward track. Fast straights and big turns that require you to control the throttle.
-Easy Gold: E46, E92, Mx5, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries:
* Stadium ver.1: A car with Stage 2 upgrades is needed for the track.
-Less turns than stadium ver.2 which in turn means higher speeds. The last challenge is a tricky one that doesnt need speed since it´s a tight map and rather needs precision driving.
-Easy Gold: E46, Mx5, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries: E92
* Ebisu North: A car with Stage 3 upgrades is needed for the track.
-A track with a few straights where you need speed but also a few tricky turns that requires the car to be nimble.
-Easy Gold: E46, E92, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries:
* Koszalin: A car with Stage 3 upgrades is needed for the track.
-A track that has both high speed straights but also a lot of technical parts with tight turns. This map requires a car that you can easily manuever both on the straights and in tight turns and sudden changes of direction. Speed is key on the straights.
-Easy Gold: E92, Rx8
-Gold is doable with a few tries: E46.
* Ebisu East: A car with Stage 3 upgrades is needed for the track.
-A fast track with long straights where you want a lot of power that you can still manage to control on straights. This track is extremely fast and requires precise driving to help you manage to clear the challenges.
-Easy Gold:
-Gold is doable with a few tries: E46, E92, Rx8
* Ebisu Touge: A car with Stage 3 upgrades is needed for the track.
-Fast straights, a lot of uphill and downhill depending on the challenges. Tight turns which require a car that can really put the power down without spinning too much.
-Easy Gold:
-Gold is doable with a few tries: E46, E92, Rx8 but it will take a lot of tries and a lot of patience since this is the trickiest track in my experience.
Important Information/good To Know
All of the stage 1/2/3 cars are tested by upgrading each cars stock engine, so the info does not give any insight in the other engine choices.
Also, don´t overbuild the cars for each stage since the car just wants to go sideways more and more the more you upgrade the steering and suspension (and of course the engine).
I found that most cars only needed some mild upgrades (lsd, adjustable gearbox and maybe some easier suspension work) to be able to manage the time attack challenges.
The lsd and the adjustable gearbox is just so you can adjust gear ratio and differential ratio if you feel the need to.
Keep in mind that different challenges on each track might need different cars depending on the layout of the challenge. My guide on the stock cars a little bit higher up in this guide might give you some help in choosing the right car. I have only had time to try all cars on the first of each challenge on each track, but the E46 has been my personal favorite overall, no matter which track or challenge it was.
Also, my guide over cars for each track is for getting the gold trophy, almost all of the cars can manage to get bronze on each challenge if driven right.
It takes a lot of time to build every car to each step so if I feel like I want to try another car on each of the tracks with different stages I will update this guide.
I felt the need to add some info on fine tuning when it comes to the time attack. It is most likely needed to change some things on the higher stage cars when doing the challenges, and the tuning might be hard for some. This is my "go to" tuning settings on time attack cars.
Tires: Around 1,3-1,5 Bar in both rear and front tires, the lower the pressure the more grip you´re going to get. Tried to go lowest pressure on the rx8 when trying on Ebisu Touge, but that map is still very tricky even though I got a lot of grip from the lower pressure.
Gear ratio: This is more about the drivers preference, in my opinion the gearings aren´t that weird for most of the cars so I just leave it as it is.
Brakes: ABS "might" help you on some of the cars, but it isn´t very effective on high horsepower cars so I usually don´t touch it. Brake force etc depends on your preference, I haven´t even touched it on most of the cars.
Differential: Also more of the drivers preference, most of the cars have nice ratios already so I haven´t played around with it yet.
Steering: When upgrading the cars suspension arms, you will most likely get a lot of toe.
This is my preffered settings for toe:
Front: 0,45°
Rear: 0,00°
Like always, I haven´t really played around with anything else.
Suspension: I leave this as it is most of the time, so this is something you will have to play around with yourselves.
Outro
Thank you for reading through my guide.
Feel free to leave tips/and or feedback that you have in the comments.
Do you feel that I missed some important info in this guide or have you found anything else that would make this guide more useful? Feel free to write your suggestions in the comments and I´ll implement what I can into this guide.
Have you tried the challenges with upgraded cars to different stages and want to give feedback on how easy or hard it was to do so, leave a comment so this guide can get some more info updated.
Hope this guide helps you in clearing the challenges, and if you like the guide a like and/or follow would be greatly appreciated.
Also, as soon as I get all achievements in the game I will make an achievement guide for the game as soon as I get the time.
ENJOY
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2538183432