Drifting and weight reduction

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In terms of drifting in real life, usually the lighter the car the better. However in GT4 i find that sometimes reducing weight in some cars has a negative effect. If a car is already light, i don't normally perform any weight reduction coz it feels like cars become too twitchy and it seems harder to hold constant, long exhibition drifts.

How do you guys normally go about reducing the car weight when setting up cars for drift? Do you prefer heavier cars or lighter cars? Have you stuffed up some of your drift cars coz you made them too light?

From my understanding once you perform weight reduction you can't remove it, so i find that i have to tred with caution. Im kinda worried that im about to distroy some of my fav drifts cars by performing stage 2 weight reduction.

Thanks in advance.
 
Delphic Reason
Not to mention, You should always lighten the car all the way... It's a common misconception that you need a bit of weight to help with weight transfer.

Look at it this way...

Say you have a vehicle that weighs 2500lbs... Now, say you have another identical vehicle that weighs 1500lbs...

The 2500lb vehicle is obviously heavier than the 1500lb vehicle... Now, put both of these vehicles in motion...

When the time comes to utilize weight transfer, the lighter vehicle will have less inertial mass, and thus, will be easier not only to iniate a drift, but also to recover from said drift (exit)... The heavier vehicle will have more inertial mass, and thus, will be harder to intiate motion, as well as recover...

Make sense?...

It almost seems logical to have a heavier car, but when you get down to the science of it (physics) it just doesn't pan out... Anyone who races professionally can tell you... Lighter is better...

Drivetrain matters not, when it comes to lightening a car... The lighter the vehicle is, the more power to weight it will have, and any racer can tell you the power to weight ratio is much more important than the HP numbers....

BTW, the engine being mounted, just in front of the rear axle (MR) puts more weight over the rear axle, making it more difficult to slide... This is the exact reason why the MR layout is favored in racing (LeMans, F1, Indy, etc...)


I hope that helps...
Click to expand...

What DR said.

Fo Sho,

</Vin>
 
While I do agree that lightening definitely helps in racing, drift tends to add a "feel" dimension to car tuning as well. I've just started drifting the Blitz Skyline D1GP. With mostly stock settings, I felt that the back was too twitchy. I just didn't have the dexterity necessary to keep it under control. So I added some weight to the back, and it has considerably helped. If I had a wheel, as well as tons of practice, I might take the weight off to explore the rest of the vehichle's potential, but for now I'll keep the weight there for drivability.
 
Hot4
In terms of drifting in real life, usually the lighter the car the better. However in GT4 i find that sometimes reducing weight in some cars has a negative effect. If a car is already light, i don't normally perform any weight reduction coz it feels like cars become too twitchy and it seems harder to hold constant, long exhibition drifts.

How do you guys normally go about reducing the car weight when setting up cars for drift? Do you prefer heavier cars or lighter cars? Have you stuffed up some of your drift cars coz you made them too light?

From my understanding once you perform weight reduction you can't remove it, so i find that i have to tred with caution. Im kinda worried that im about to distroy some of my fav drifts cars by performing stage 2 weight reduction.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

yup, all your understanding is correct. you cant undo weight reductions.

If you've got a car setup how you like, I'd hesitat to change it. The suspension will likely need to be retuned.

Anyways, when i get a car, i always give it stage 1 and 2 lightening. I'd do stage 3 if it werent so expensive. Paying $30000 to shed 15kg doesnt make a lot of sense to me.
This gives better responsiveness to steering etc for the obvious reason that you have less momentum for the same given speed. Its also much more forgiving in its lightened state. But to make it through longer corners you may have to go in carrying more speed (depending on pwer and the angle you attack the corner at). This is far more apparent in GT4 than it was in GT3. Some tradeoff to consider there. Generally though, I'd very much suggest that lighter is better for drifting - this is a definite truth in racing,

So make of that what you will. It does depend on the car a bit and the way you want it to respond.
Hope that offers some insight....I could go on longer but i think my lengthy posts bore some readers.

edit: Read that quote of Vinsion's - i think it holds even more water here in GT4 than in GT3 land where i first saw DR post it.
 
Yeah I gotta say The lighter the better. If your car gets too light for your tastes you can add weight with Weight Balance in settings. 💡 Just raise the Ballast Weight to desired amount, and leave the Balance at 0. Or if like in my case where I felt the cars booty wasn't big enough adjust it to where ya want it 💡
 
Ahhh thats a great point. Sorry for the late reply.
vinsion
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TankSpanker &
HammerShot

Thanks for your help, i will be exploring your ideas.
 

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