is there a secret to drifting? I use a low powered handbrake turn, but that's splashy and doesn't last the whole turn.

Thanks

~Blades~

Try regearing the car a bit to work more power to the lower gears (faster accel), this will keep the wheels spinning longer.

Try not to rely on the handbrake, use it more for situations where you might be overspeeding and need to slide earlier than usual, or if you're understearing into a corner you can use the handbrake to get the rear out.

What tire pressures are you using? The harder your tires, the easier it is to slide the car, but they also heat up faster.

Try using a locked differential. This puts equal amounts of power to both drive wheels and is usually easier to keep them spinning as you wont have one tire catch grip and slow your drift.

It would help if you could post a replay of your attempts though, that way someone can look at it and suggest a different method of drifting that particular corner. As is, I'm not sure which corner you're talking about. There's many smaller corners that you can drift with the XRG just fine, and the longer ones where you might get half way around the corner before regaining all grip.

Hope that helped a bit

Quote from lionhead333 :

is there a secret to drifting? I use a low powered handbrake turn, but that's splashy and doesn't last the whole turn.

Thanks

~Blades~

Try not using the handbrake at all, it isn't required. Use a feint technique or just lift off for a moment while turning, these methods are the best ways to intitiate a drift. The rear wheels should be pushing the car through the corner as you drift through the turn.

You may want to check out Keiichi Tsuchiya's drift bible, you can find it on youtube. he pretty much describes everything about drifting in there..
here would be the first part of 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-PGsUUzmQ0

Hey,
What I do is my car (XR Turbo), I normally have a low set up, but not too lo with hard suspension, but not too hard so there is room for movement. The tyre pressures are abou 3/4 of the way up and the back and a little less at the front. Front suspension settings should be a little less hard and more grippy so that the front can guide your car around the corner.

Gearing as said above, should me more acceleracting on the first 3 gears but 4th and 5th should be abit more speed so you can go fast on straights. The diff is really up to you, when u want to lock it. I use locked diff when i jst want to turn in and drift.


The technique to drifting is up to you really. I use the feint technique. I acccelerate hard into the corner, just before i trn either side creating a sliding motion.The, just before i hit the corner during thr fient i lift off the throttle and dab the brakes a little IF needed. When i am going round the corner i accelerate full(digital controller )and only steer slowly, not quickly as that will upset the ballance of the car.

You can use the handbrake if you want, BUT it creats anasty looking drift . I only se the handbrake if the car is going to xit the drift before the corner finshes. So i put the handbrake on, center the steering and it slides more then i re-gain the drift


Hope this helps you

Quote from herki :

You may want to check out Keiichi Tsuchiya's drift bible, you can find it on youtube. he pretty much describes everything about drifting in there..
here would be the first part of 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-PGsUUzmQ0

It is important to note however, that Keiichi-san suggests the hanbrake method for beginners to become accustomed to the more advanced techniques which barely use the hand brake at all (if ever). By the time you get to the final stages of the drift bible you get to see a better representation of his style and execution. Many people who have watched the Drift Bible (especially young people) assume that drifting is reefing on the hand brake and skidding the car around a corner.
Initialising a drift is more likely to be done by shifting weight and/or adept use of the clutch, throttle and foot brake. Maintaining the drift is usually done without the aid of the hand brake except in the case of small corrections to angle.
I've heard so many young guys saying "the drift bible says that you should use the handbrake for drifting". But that's not really the goal.
It is also important to note that the vehicles used in the Drift Bible (which is actually not a new film at all) are lightly modified for the most part and do not neccessarily bear any resemblance to the performance and handling of competition drift cars.
Watching the first few sections of the film will not give an accurate appraisal of the topic. Unfortunately.

First of all thanks Gunn for clearing it up, because I watched the whole drift bible I was aware of the things you described, but didn't think there could be some misunderstanding
I just didn't want to post the links to all 8 parts on youtube, because it's not to hard to find out yourself, of course you have to watch all 8 parts

About the modified cars: The XR GT Turbo isn't too different from the specs of the Silvia he uses most of the video and the XR GT could be useful for maneuvers he did in the AE86. The fact he does use pretty lightly modified cars proves also that you don't need insane amounts of steering lock to do showy drifts (that should be around part 6~7).

Also note: he is only drifting on closed racetracks - remember kids, when you drift, only do so on race-tracks where nobody is around

Quote from Gunn :

Maintaining the drift is usually done without the aid of the hand brake except in the case of small corrections to angle.

not really true for high level drifting ... while as you said nobody uses the handbrake for initiation its pulled a whole lot for angle and speed control

Hey guys... I think I figured out why I can't drift.

I'm using a car with front wheel drive

Quote from lionhead333 :

Hey guys... I think I figured out why I can't drift.

I'm using a car with front wheel drive

The XFG, bcause the other two cars in the demo are rwd.

Quote from Shotglass :

not really true for high level drifting ... while as you said nobody uses the handbrake for initiation its pulled a whole lot for angle and speed control

"A whole lot"? No. I know that in the states they like to use speedway tracks to reach rediculous speeds but y'know....:sleep2: I mentioned angle already, you quoted it.

*edit: I suppose in tandem runs they need to use it to avoid hitting each other, but that's a relatively lame event anyway and isn't truly representitive of drifting as a sport or genre.

you do realize that drifting is pretty much all about twinning these days ?

i found, that at the start when learning how to drift. it's useful to practice for about 20 mins on the blackwood carpark. try to hold a drift for as long as you can. and because there are no real corners, you can get to the tricky part of car and throttle control. then try drifting on fe green reverse (i think) it is a very good track for drifting.

drifting twin imo is not as good as solo drifting, because the two drifters can be (and usually are) at different skill levels. and this means as one car gets a nice long drift, the other car is just chasing it. but this is not always the case, there are some really good twin drivers out there. but i am not one of them lol.

but when you get your drift perfect, the smile on your face just gets bigger and bigger

Quote from Slopi :

What tire pressures are you using? The harder your tires, the easier it is to slide the car, but they also heat up faster.

Tyres should heat up slower, not faster when using higher than normal pressures. At least in real life that is what happens because the tyre has less contact with the road and also does not scrub as much.

Good advice so far. One thing I would add is to try the skidpad. Start circling the skidpad around the middle or towards the outside in 2nd gear, get to the limit of grip, then hit the throttle and practice controlling oversteer in there. With the XR GT, I often keep it at full throttle while drifting, as it doesn't have much power. With the GT Turbo, I usually lift off the throttle a bit to avoid spinning, especially at lower speeds. Try and keep roughly in your lane. Once you really have the hang of holding it at the right throttle and steering angle to maintain your course, you should be able to do laps of the thing sideways It's a nice place to practice because there are no bumps to throw you off, and lots of space.

I never thought to use the skid pan, I'd been practicing on the series of corners at the end of the straight at Blackwood but I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've managed to succeed.

Quote from Shotglass :

you do realize that drifting is pretty much all about twinning these days ?

Only in your mind. "These days" drifting is degrading into a silly spectacle for ricers. It may be a good idea for you to distinguish between the actual action of drifting and the rediculous carnival of stupidity that some people call a "sport". The topic starter wanted to know how to drift a car, not how to look like a knob in front of thousands of brain-dead motorheads.

Herki rightfully suggested Tsuchiya's Drift Bible as a good guide to technique, no twinning (tandem) there eh? The discussion was about technique. Twinning (as you call it) is only one part of the circus anyway and hardly what drifting is all about these (or any other) days.

as a motorsport twinning is the sport
whatever your opinion is on the way drifting made its way into organized motorsport and pop culture theres no denying that

If you say so...