How To Install Setups For iRacing

Installing setups on iRacing is very straightforward. You just have to know where the folders are located and what files to drop into them.

To install setups in iRacing simply drop the setup file that you have (this will be a file with a .sto extension) in the correct cars’ setup folder. By default, this folder is located in the setups folder within the iRacing folder. The default location for this folder is Documents -> iRacing -> Setup.

Some of these iRacing setup services will allow you to auto-install setups straight into these files which is convenient. If you’re looking for somewhere to get consistent iRacing setups I wrote an article on some of the better places to start.

File Type

All iRacing setup files will have an extension type of .sto irrespective of the class of car or type of race. Apart from having the .sto extension, they can be named anything you like. You will usually see most setups named something like ‘SEASON_CAR_TRACK_TYPE.sto’, e.g ’20S2_F3_Imola_Qual.sto’ which would be a qualifying setup for the Dallara Formula 3 being run in season 2, 2020 at Imola.

Folder Location

All the iRacing folders that you’ll need are, by default, located in your Documents folder. On my computer, it’s located at C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\iRacing – obviously replacing USERNAME with your own name.

The iRacing folder contains a lot of useful content.

Here you’re going to see a bunch of useful folders. Check them out and see what else might come in handy here. Things like replays, paints, and lap files are all located here. It’s good to keep that in mind for when you’ll need them later.

The folder you’re going to look for is the setups folder. Open the folder up and you’re going to see a lot of new folders. Each of these folders are individual cars within the sim.

In the setups folder, you’ll find an individual folder for each car in the sim.

You’re going to want to find the folder for the car that you have a setup ready to be installed for. Take a bit of care when you’re looking for a car though as they aren’t always labeled as you would think. For example, the car that everyone knows as the Skip Barber or Skippy is an RT2000 which refers to the actual model of the car itself. Keep it in mind if you can’t find the car that you’re looking for. It’s in there but maybe not by the name you know it by.

Keeping Things Tidy

After you’ve been on iRacing for a while you’ll start to accumulate a lot of different setups. If you’re putting them all in the same folder this is obviously going to start to become a bit of a mess and may get confusing if you don’t stick to some good naming conventions for them.

Avoid having your setup like this. I don’t even know what half of these setups are for anymore so they’re essentially useless.

Given that a car can change entirely between seasons you want to avoid accidentally using a previous season’s setup in the current season. This means that you’ll need some organization to keep things tidy.

You can really order them however you want. Name them by season and keep them in one folder, or have them in multiple folders. Personally, I’ve started organizing my setups by track, and then season.

Folders are organized by track so I can quickly find setups that I’m looking for.

Folders are then organized by season so that I don’t accidentally use an out-of-date setup.

Ordering them like this means that I can go straight to the current season without having to sort through a sea of setups that I don’t currently need.

Whatever way you choose, just make sure you can identify what setup you want easily when you’re in the game.

If you’re using a service for your setup such as Craig’s Setup Shop then there should be options to automatically download the setups and put them in the correct folders with a single click. I know that Craig’s Setups Shop has this functionality on their application. It makes this super simple to just get racing.

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