Before we can start building our ACF Vehicle, you are going to need to install ACF. Now, ACF is a massive addon which has a filesize of over 1 GB, meaning it's to big to upload onto the Gmod Workshop, so you will have to download it from Github. I will show you how to install ACF in your game.

ACF Github Page [github.com]

Once you download it, you should have a file know as ACF-master.zip


Extract the zip file to anywhere you want, and you should get a folder known as ACF-master, which is what we are going to put in the folder.

Go to the Hard Drive your Steam folder is stored on and drag the ACF-master folder into this directory.

Steam/steamapps/common/GarrysMod/garrysmod/addons


Now that you've done all this, ACF should be installed on your Garry's Mod game. If your Garry's Mod game was already running then restart it and ACF should appear in your tool menu.

To use ACF properly, you need to have a few addons. So install all the addons and you should be able to use it. I will also leave a few addons I recommend for building ACF vehicles.


Wiremod
Make Spherical
Precision
Precision Alignment
SmartSnap
Advanced Ballsocket
Axis and Ballsocket Centre
Weight
SProps


Advanced Duplicator 2



After you are done downloading all of those addons, you are ready to start building

The first step to building an ACF vehicle is deciding the parts you will use, so that's the first thing you should do. Open the spawnmenu, go over to the Tools section and click ACF Menu, and expand the Mobility folder.

Now you can see options for Engines, Gearboxes, and Fuel Tanks, we will start off with the engine.


Once you expand Engines, you can see many different types of engines such as V4, V6, V8, V10, and V12, but you also have access to electric engines, for beginners I recommend just staying with regular gasoline engines. Since this is your first ACF Vehicle, don't go for anything crazy like a V12, stick to something small like a nice V4.

ACF engines have fuel ratings, which are how much fuel they need, and the type. Fuel ratings are listed in litres. The 3 types of fuel are

• Diesel
  
• Petrol
  
• Electric

Most ACF engines will run without a fuel tank to a certain point, but a few do. All electric engines require a fuel tank, or in this case it is called a battery. I will go more into detail in the Fuel Tank section


Next up is Gearboxes. Gearboxes are what you will use to connect the engine to the wheels of a car, and shift gears. Many of the different gear speeds you can choose are

• Differential
  
• 4-Speed
  
• 6-Speed
  
• 8-Speed

All ACF Gearboxes are manual gear shifting except for the ones under Automatic, which will shift automatically.

Automatic Gearboxes come in the following speeds

• 3-Speed
  
• 5-Speed
  
• 7-Speed

Differential Gearboxes are extremely simple having only 1 Gear thus, you don't need to shift. Differential Gearboxes are useful for vehicles that don't need to shift because of their low speed.

The last is Transfer. Transfer Cases have 2 gears and are used to connect an engine to another gearbox that is aligned differently.

A very important part of choosing a gear box is the size and type. Gearboxes come in 4 sizes, which are

• Tiny
  
• Small
  
• Medium
  
• Large

ACF Gearboxes also have several different types which are

• Inline
  
• Transaxial
  
• Straight
  
• Dual Clutch

A Transaxial and Dual Clutch have 3 ends, 2 on the sides for connecting to the wheels, and one that connects to an engine or another gearbox, they look like this




An inline gearbox has 3 ends, 1 on the back, and 2 on the front. They can be used to connect an engine to another gearbox, but can also be used to turn wheels aswell. An inline gearbox looks like this



A straight gearbox has only 2 points, 1 on each side, and is used to connect an engine directly to another Gearbox, most likely because of its range. Straight gearboxes look like this




As I already listed, Fuel Tanks come in Diesel, Petrol, and Electric.

When you expand the folder and click on the fuel tank selection, you have the boxes for tank size and fuel type. The fuel tanks have tons of different sizes, which all hold different capacities, so you have a lot of options.

That is all you need to know about ACF parts, so now we can get on to building

NOTE: Do NOT change the weight of an ACF part with the weight tool. It will make the ACF Part no longer work.

Before you start building, make sure you are building face to the north. You can find out what direction you are facing by placing your spray on the ground. You are facing north if you can see your spray in the right angle.

The first part of building an ACF Car is getting a baseplate that is a good size to fit all the components of the car.



Next, we are going to put wheels on the car. When facing north, spawn 4 wheels that are all the same size and use the make spherical tool on every wheel.



Next, select the Precision tool from the tool menu and set it to move. Now snap to the middle of the wheel and left click it, and then snap to the middle point on the end of the baseplate and left click again. Repeat this for every wheel you have and it should look this



Take out the Axis Centre tool and axis each of the back wheels to the centre of the baseplate, because we are making a back wheel drive. Left click the wheel, and then left click the centre of the plate.

Next, pull out Ballsocket Centre, and copy these settings.



Use Ballsocket Centre on both of the front wheels and centre them to the centre of the baseplate. So left click wheel and then centre of the plate.

Finally, get a chair and weld it to the baseplate, and place down the Pod Controller on the baseplate. Right click the Pod Controller with the tool and then right click the chair you want to link it to.


The next thing we are going to do is add a steering system. Now, you will need an E2 (expression 2) for this so go to this download link and copy every line from it.

EZCarSteering E2 [pastebin.com]

Once it is all copied, re-open Garry's Mod and go to the Wiremod tab on the tool sidebar, find Expression 2 from the list or search for it and click "New Expression" from the menu. You will see a code box pop up that looks like this.



Clear the page and paste the lines of code you copied earlier into the box, and click the save button and name it whatever you want. Select the E2 and then place it down, it should be a thin 4x4 yellow SProps plate. Pull out the Wiring Tool from the Wiremod menu and hover over the E2, you should have 3 inputs. I will tell you what to wire the inputs to.



Chassis [ENTITY] to the baseplate
Chair [ENTITY] to the chair if you want (I don't recommend it because it is very buggy)
Pod [WIRELINK] to the Pod Controller

You will notice that the E2 plate will reposition itself aligning with the baseplate.

After this you want to pull out the Ballsocket Advanced tool and copy these settings



Once you have copied those down, left click the front wheels and then left click the side of the yellow E2 plate for each wheel.

With Advanced Duplicator 2, copy the car and paste it to another area. Unfreeze the car, sit down in the chair and press A and D. If the wheels turn properly, then you have done it right, if not then you must have done something wrong.

After completing the setup your car should look like this.




Congratulations, you are almost done! But before your car is finished we have to do the most important part, the engine. This is what will power the entire car so make sure you pick a good engine. For this guide, I am going to use a V6 3.6L Petrol because of its light weight in comparison to the other engines.

Make sure the weight of the baseplate is high enough to support the engine. SProp baseplates have a weight value of about 24 while regular Garry's Mod baseplates have a weight of 15.99. My V6 engine has a weight value of 190 and my gearbox has a weight value of 120, so I will change the baseplate weight to 320. NEVER change the weight of an ACF item because it will not work if you change it. Nocolide your ACF engine and gearboxes to the baseplate so they don't cause any issues. Now that we have gotten through all that, we can start building.

Take your engine and move it to the back of your ACF vehicle, the end with the hole should be facing out.



For the gearbox use a Transaxial or a Dual Cluth and for your speed, choose something simple like a 4-Speed, Automatics are harder to setup than Manual. For the size choose a Medium or Large, if it is too small the engine will have too much torque and can snap the connection cable, and it won't be enough to get the wheels turning. Place the gearbox on the back of the baseplate in between both wheels, the top hole facing towards the hole on the engine.

Once they are facing eachother, pull out the ACF Menu tool and right click the engine and then the gearbox. This will link them together.



Now, we are on to the last step. Wiring.

Go into the Wiremod Menu and search for Constant Value, click on the tab and copy the settings I have below.



Place this Constant Value down on the baseplate.

Next, open the Wiremod Menu and find the gates tool, a tab will open with a bunch of different gates. Search for the gate Multiply and place it down on the baseplate. I will explain how to wire it now.

Wire A on the Multiply Gate to 100 on the Constant Value
Wire Active on the ACF engine to Active on the Pod Controller
Wire B on the Multiply Gate to W on the Pod Controller
Wire Throttle on the ACF engine to Out on the Multiply Gate

The car will now be able to move but before it is fully finished, you have to wire the gear shifting. Head over to the Gearbox and set wire Gear Up and Gear Down to any button on the pod controller, so when you press that button it will shift up or down. If you want, you can add brakes by wire Brake on the gearbox to any button on the pod controller.



I highly recommend wiring a Gear indicator on your car so you know what gear you are in. I will show you how to do it.

Search for screen in Wiremod and set it to 1 value and name it Gear. Place this down and attach it to the front of the car so you can see it.



Finally, wire A on the screen to Current Gear on the gearbox.

Congratulations, you now have a fully working ACF Vehicle! All that's left is to save it with Advanced Duplicator so you can spawn it whenever you want. Give yourself a pat on the back for completing your first ACF Vehicle!

You have completed your first ACF Vehicle, don't you feel great now? Well if this helped you give it a thumbs up and a favourite, know I helped atleast 1 person is good enough.