Four Wheel Drift

[dustin-19]

How do you do the four wheel drift which should make faster lap time?

 

[Speeding drifter]

4wd cars can do a four wheel drift easly. i have a 3000gt that does it and the times are a little faster not much because 4wd cars have a lot of understeer so u drift to turn sharp.

 

[Duke]

That's actually not the four wheel drift that dustin's referring to, Speed. What he means is the true racing version, which is the granddaddy of what passes for drifting today.

dustin, welcome to GTP! The true four-wheel drift naturally occurs in GT3, if you watch the replays. What it means is that the car is slipping sideways a bit under the influence of cornering forces, but without actually sliding. At perfection, the car rotates through the turn even though the wheels are pointed pretty much straight ahead, or tuned slightly into the turn, and balance is maintained by throttle. To do this the car must be slighlty understeering, or 'tight'. This means you are cornering at the limit of adhesion and therefore you are going as fast as possible for a given radius.

If the slip angle increases to the point that you have to countersteer, it has turned from a proper drift to a skid, and you are losing time and speed. This is what 99% of the people here refer to as 'drifting', and is done purely for show, and if you are hooked on Initial D.

 

[Speeding drifter]

so what u mean is that u don't turn the wheels? cus if thats what u mean thats what i meant.

 

[Duke]

The way to do it is to late-apex your turns, meaning that you brake early, and turn in so that you sharpen the first half of the turn in order to open the radius of the second half. You should start from the outside, come closest to the inside edge after the midpoint or apex of the turn, then allow the car to cross the track to the outside edge. If you carry as much speed as you can, the car will edge sideways a bit so that your path does not exactly parallel the axis of the car.

As I said above, if you have the wheels steered opposite to the turn, you are sliding, not slipping. That's not always possible to avoid, and there are certain cars that are faster when driven that way, but theoretically oversteer sliding is not the fastest way through a turn.

 

[Speeding drifter]

but is that acutly drifting? my 3000gt it verry tight but i get it sidways a bit and it turns but i'm not turning me wheels during the turn just before and after.

 

[Duke]

Yes, that is actually drifting. If you are proceeding through the turn, but your front wheels are pointed straight ahead or turned just slightly in, then it is a true four-wheel drift. It's a good fast way to drive, but not all cars can be driven that way.

Too much understeer and you can't get enough rotation at limits adhesion speed, and too much oversteer brings the back end around and forces you to countersteer, meaning your not in a four-wheel drift any more.

 

[Speeding drifter]

ok thats what i thought.

 

[DrifterBR]

Four-Wheel-Drift is also known as Neutral Steer in the racing scene, it's the fastest way through a corner, and it occurs when both front and rear tires lose grip at the same time, same speed and same slip angle. The optimal slip angle to provide the best traction is between 6º to 10º, more than that you are loosing time and putting to much stress on the tires and less than that you're just going too slow on the corners.

 

[Speeding drifter]

ok thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

[dustin-19]

Whoa, thanks for all the information, but can it simplified for a movice to do it in a Trueno? Also, is this how Takumi drifted or another way?

 

[advanR]

you must be like 10 years old. why dont you go marry him.

 

[DrifterBR]

Originally posted by dustin-19
Whoa, thanks for all the information, but can it simplified for a movice to do it in a Trueno? Also, is this how Takumi drifted or another way?

Takumi's drift are more exibition style, like the ones you see on real touge in Japan, with lot's of countersteering and very sideways. But being so much sideways you can't go as fast as he does in Initial D, so it's just unrealistic.

You can drift fairly easy with the Trueno in GT3, but of course you won't be doing tight corners at 100kph like Takumi.

 

[Vasco]

Isn't a Trueno FR?

 

[Duke]

Viper: Yes, it is.

dustin: OK, here it is in a nutshell, but really this is just the way to take a fast turn in general.

1) Approach the turn, as far to the outside as you can get without going onto the grass.

2) When the red 'suggested gear' number flashes, this is your braking point. Brake hard in a straight line as you approach the turn-in point.

3) As you ease off the brakes, turn the wheel into the turn. These should be smooth but quick motions. The idea is to keep weight on the front wheels to make the car rotate into the turn, allowing the rear to begin slipping (NOT sliding with the accompanying tire smoke and screech) outward slightly.

4) Accelerate smoothly and unwind the steering as you near the inside of the corner, slightly past the apex or midpoint of the curve.

5) Accelerate as hard as possible without causing the car to slip too wide through the second half of the turn. Here the car will be moving slightly sideways though the front wheels are pointed almost straight ahead. The rate at which the car slips sideways can be controlled with the throttle. Ideally you should reach the track-out point when you are parallel with the straight with the outside tires just brushing onto the rumble strip.

Hope this helps.

 

[dustin-19]

Thanks.

 

[aznrocket]

Originally posted by DrifterBR
Four-Wheel-Drift is also known as Neutral Steer in the racing scene

Then what's a power-slide?

 

[Vasco]

I think that's on any surface other than tarmac.

 

[DrifterBR]

Originally posted by aznrocket
Then what's a power-slide?

A powerslide occurs when you accelerate too hard during the corner in a rear or all wheel drive car, making the rear wheels lose traction, then recovering by countersteering. It's basically an oversteer caused by excess of throttle.

 

[halfracedrift]

hmmmmm
yeah what BR said
and
if we go according what neon duke says is true drifting
that means i've been doing it since day 1 w/o knowing it
haha

oh and for ppl who wants to find out more about drifting, there IS a thread thats "read" on this page
its at the very top..

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by halfracedrift

if we go according what neon duke says is true drifting
that means i've been doing it since day 1 w/o knowing it

Well, you have to be carrying enough speed and acceleration on corner exit that understeer is making the car crab a little bit... like DrifterBR said, 5-10 degrees is optimal. If you're just following the wheels around without slip, you're not going fast enough.

Remember there's a difference between slipping (a slight lateral motion of the tire as a result of deflection in the tire itself, with traction maintained) and sliding (lateral motion caused by loss of traction, caused by too much cornering force, braking, and/or acceleration).

 

[halfracedrift]

yeah i know..
its only in the second part of the corner that you slip just a tiny bit right?

 

[Duke]

Well, pretty much any time during the turn, but it becomes most apparent during the acceleration phase, which was why I called that out specifically. The turning/accelerating phase should be much longer than the turning/braking part of the corner.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[halfracedrift]

that means i'm doing ok... hehe

 

[DrifterBR]

Here is some graphs that may be usefull.

edit: the alphaF is the slip angle.

 

[Speeding drifter]

thanks that helps me a lot

 

[Thio]

i have a replay that shows my skyline sideways on the 180 turn on Tokyo R246, the 4th turn. the way i controlled that "drift" was that i modulated the throttle and it naturally oversteered and i never countersteered. but when i cleared the corner, i floored the gas pedal and it straightens out.

is that powersliding?

 

[DrifterBR]

Yes, I think that was a powerslide, in drifting you lose the rear wheels traction before entering the corner, so you already enter it sideways, then you control the drift modulating the throttle and countersteering.

 

[Blue Optics]

Originally posted by neon_duke
That's actually not the four wheel drift that dustin's referring to, Speed. What he means is the true racing version, which is the granddaddy of what passes for drifting today.

dustin, welcome to GTP! The true four-wheel drift naturally occurs in GT3, if you watch the replays. What it means is that the car is slipping sideways a bit under the influence of cornering forces, but without actually sliding. At perfection, the car rotates through the turn even though the wheels are pointed pretty much straight ahead, or tuned slightly into the turn, and balance is maintained by throttle. To do this the car must be slighlty understeering, or 'tight'. This means you are cornering at the limit of adhesion and therefore you are going as fast as possible for a given radius.

If the slip angle increases to the point that you have to countersteer, it has turned from a proper drift to a skid, and you are losing time and speed. This is what 99% of the people here refer to as 'drifting', and is done purely for show, and if you are hooked on Initial D.

 

[Thio]

Originally posted by DrifterBR
Yes, I think that was a powerslide, in drifting you lose the rear wheels traction before entering the corner, so you already enter it sideways, then you control the drift modulating the throttle and countersteering.

the thing is though, the rear end did lose traction, but i mostly controlled the oversteer by modulating the throttle and countersteering once.

im so confused now .....