Help...... is it me or my settings??

[gts167]

Hey, I'm bit of a noob round these forums, but been long time GT3 and GT4 fan anyways..... need a little drifting help.
Like most people here seem to have, I found GT4 pretty different to drift, I used to enjoy blitzing Deep Forest and Trial Mountain in 450 HP 180sx, 2-3 laps totally sideways - fun! Not so in number 4... damn it. Anyway enough crapping on, I've found the R31 GTS-R pretty nice so far, suits my style, just can't get it right!
Settings
Race exhaust, pt/polish, engine blance, stage 2 turbs, sports cooler
Standard road tyres, stock brakes, brake controller, all weight reductions and stiffness
Custom diff, race suspension, full spec everything for drivetrain. All aids off, stock weight dist.
Suspension:
Springs 5.2/4.2 : Height 112 all round : Dampers are bounce 8/9 at F/R, and rebound is 9/10
Camber 2.6/1.0 : Toe 0/-1 : Stabilisers are 5/4
Diff:
15 - 48 - 16
Gear ratios I put to 9, then dropped all of them back except for 1st/2nd so that the top was a little shorter and they were all generally a little closer together

So I find that it's not bad, I like a bit of power now, I started off with this just not so much power, and a few other little bit lower powered cars. It hangs out pretty well, can be a little bit snappy when correcting, but I find I'm at a point of either having it pretty snappy but able to control most of the corner and pull out of the drift when I want.... or softening it up a little and backing off the camber but then it understeers a bit, particularly when halfway through a drift and backing off so as not spin out. I use a hand controller, got no wheel unfortunately, but I've got a pretty good feel with the button for throttle control, and can hold constant smooth throttle on drifts, so I don't think I'm losing it there.
I've tried a few other cars, silvias and all variants of that..... few skylines, M3's, sprinters. I find I like turbo cars for the nice hit of torque..... I like to lean the car into a nice big sweeper, give it a squirt to break traction and hold on from there!!

Anyway if you can be bothered giving me any tips that would be great..... I've had a fair read around here, read the drifting guide, played round with my settings a bit more and I'm still stuck. I guess my main prob is that I'm finding it snappy and/or understeering....... cheers 👍

 

[Boundary Layer]

well, nothing is ever fully the settings fault. I just wanna let that fly right from the start.

At a glance, your settings look pretty reasonable to me - though I haven't tried them. The damper setup would probably be a little bit stiff for my own tastes, but I do not belive that they are contributing in any large way to the problems you've identified.

The snap will be coming from violent weight transfer at the rear of the car. To start with, I'd try setting the front and rear stabilizers to the same value (4-4, or 5-5) and see if it helps any. You might even find a stiffer rear or softer front to help in your case - this will create greater oversteer midcorner, but with a possible loss in steering response and greater difficulty turning-in. Also beware that with your current damper settings, extremely stiff stabilizer settings will make the car nightmarish on curbs and undulations, so run over a few curbs if you change anything and figure out what you can tolerate.
Anyways, this is where I'd start.

I also think you could try using the spring rates here to help you out. They look just a little bit on the soft side. The R31 I used in Centrifuge 3 had spring rates between 6.5 and 7.5kgf/mm on the front, 6.0 and 7.0 on the rear (I changed them slightly from track to track). Stiffening it up will make the car feel a little more agile. From there, take similar steps as those I suggested with the stabilizers. By bringing up the rear spring rate you will likely experience greater difficulty initiating a drift - more drastic methods of weight transfer may be required. But it should also become easier to maintain a drift (greater oversteer mid-corner) as long as power exists to keep speed and wheelspin up. The vehicle’s rotation is more easily controlled by the throttle. And the car should also be less prone to snapback at corner exit due to somewhat improved sense of stability and milder weight transfer at rear of vehicle.
[I pulled these last few lines from the Revised Drift Reference I have sitting on my computer]

The last thing I want to say is that I'm not sure how long you've had GT4, but from your post it sounds like you've more or less recently picked it up based on the references made to GT3 (if I'm wrong, don't take offence, I don't have a whole lot to go by). The snap and understeer is just something to become used to. Everyone struggles with it at the beginning, but you gradually adjust to it and get to the point where you expect it, or can predict when it will try to rear its ugly head.

anywhoo... Give that a shot and see if you find anything helpful. 👍

 

[Sheron]

I'd suggest to drop stabilisers to a low value. Same with dampers (bound and rebound), the car is too stiff, you don't let the car roll (I set stabilisers always to 1 both, and dampers to 5 all round).
Rear toe really hepls to slide, I always set it to -2.

 

[gts167]

Cheers for the tips guys..... that helps out a bit, I'll have a play around some more.
I've had GT4 since it came out, but haven't gotten into heaps of drifting.... I'm at about 65% and have ****loads of cash so am at that fun stage where I can go get get any car, do whatever I want - so drifting it was!

Reckon I'll go for stiffer in the rear, if it's harder to cause a slide well I can alwways throw it in harder! Dunno 'bout going too soft in dampers or stabilisers though.... I'll see how it is. I prefer to be able to flick it nicely and link up a few good corners in a row, bit hard when it's soft, I figure that will give me some nice big slides though.
I think the toe angles might help me out some too, haven't played around with that heaps, I reckon camber is about right.

Cheers for the noob-tips.... and give the GTS-R a go anyone who hasn't, it's pretty good slider, awesome power band!
Haha, go R31...... I'm such a huge fan, got a nice one myself