I Give Up...

LightningLord

LightningLord

319
United States
Colorado
Hello Everyone.

So I have a little story to tell about myself. I was playing GT5 one day and I met someone. I saw him drifting around in a Nissan R-34. I asked him how did he do that. He said he would tell me some basics on how to drift. He became my friend and he told me how to drift. He showed me how. I gave it a try and no luck. I tried by myself. Failed. Again. Failed. Again. For nearly two years. Every time I came home from school I went straight to GT5. To master the drift. No luck. No improvements. No matter what car I used. No matter what track. Countless times going to do races to build a new drift car. Nothing worked. I didn't stop. I kept trying. I built drift cars that were things from old 80's cars like a Mitsubishi Galant to a Ferrari 599 and a Formula F1. All kinds of drift cars. Mustangs, GTO's, STI's, S13's, Truenos, Celicas, nothing. It didn't stop me. I kept buying different cars in hopes of building the perfect car to perfect my drift skills. Nothing. I was about to throw my game away. I had it. The frustration. The trial and error. The endless tuning. Endless practice. All for nothing. I was just going to give up on the game. Then GT6 was announced. I pre ordered it and started playing it. After I got some cash, I bought a car...and tuned it for drifting. I tried to forget about it. I couldn't let it go. I try drifting for the first time in GT6. I crash. I bought a couple more cars and tried again. Same result. Failure. I gave up. I sold the cars. I will never drift. Trying to do this over the span of 2 years. For nothing. I was a failure. I can't do it. All I can do is just watch on the sidelines. Watching people drift like its a child's game. An easy task. While I'm out there just sitting there. Watching. So...now I ask. How can I drift? I can never get it down. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
 
Touching story young one, but you came to the right place.

The first piece of advice I'll give you is this.

Get a RWD road car, preferably something cheap like a silvia.

Trying to drift anything that isn't RWD will only hurt your progress.

Now you've bought your car, slap some CH tires on it.

I assume you're using manual transmission, so wheel or controller?
 
Streeto
Touching story young one, but you came to the right place.

The first piece of advice I'll give you is this.

Get a RWD road car, preferably something cheap like a silvia.

Trying to drift anything that isn't RWD will only hurt your progress.

Now you've bought your car, slap some CH tires on it.

I assume you're using manual transmission, so wheel or controller?
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I tried once with wheel and was horrible at it. Worse than before. It's impossible. So I try to stick with controller. And which Silvia? (S13, S14, etc.)
 
I would say the premium S13 would be a good car to start you off with.

Car getting too much angle? Dab the throttle and adjust steering angle to recover.

Also, you should never have to use 1st gear, nor 2nd depending on your transmission.

If you're banging on the limiter, change up a gear. If, when you change up, you start to lose power and drift, make that gear slightly shorter until the problem is gone.

Always look ahead, don't stare at your car. Plan where you're gonna transition (change direction during a drift).

The Suzuka East S-turns are great for practicing transitions, and getting a feel for your car.

The best way (in my opinion) to transition is to come off the throttle, let your car turn to the other direction by using its own momentum and get back on the throttle immediately as your car is in the right position to drift the other way.

Don't forget to catch the counter steer, too late and you'll spin, too early and you'll snap back the other way and crash.

Edit: If you have an hour to spare, sit back and watch this;



(I know he's using a wheel but the basic theory still applies)
 
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Streeto
I would say the premium S13 would be a good car to start you off with.

Car getting too much angle? Dab the throttle and adjust steering angle to recover.

Also, you should never have to use 1st gear, nor 2nd depending on your transmission.

If you're banging on the limiter, change up a gear. If, when you change up, you start to lose power and drift, make that gear slightly shorter until the problem is gone.

Always look ahead, don't stare at your car. Plan where you're gonna transition (change direction during a drift).

The Suzuka East S-turns are great for practicing transitions, and getting a feel for your car.

The best way (in my opinion) to transition is to come off the throttle, let your car turn to the other direction by using its own momentum and get back on the throttle immediately as your car is in the right position to drift the other way.

Don't forget to catch the counter steer, too late and you'll spin, too early and you'll snap back the other way and crash.
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Ok. Going to try this later.
 
If you spin around a lot, try the active steering aid. It has helped me to achieve gold on a few drift seasonals :)

Other than that, I know nothing about drifting...
 
1. I accidentally ended up buying an S15 instead of the S13 like @Streeto said. And I have no Cr. left.
2. Still not getting it. My car keeps going towards the outside of the the track and going off road. Or spinning out. :(
 
LightningLord
1. I accidentally ended up buying an S15 instead of the S13 like @Streeto said. And I have no Cr. left.
2. Still not getting it. My car keeps going towards the outside of the the track and going off road. Or spinning out. :(
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Try less speed on entry. You are aiming to maintain a fairly constant momentum through the corners so if you go in a lot faster than you can come out of a corner then you will just get understeer
 
DolHaus
Each to their own
I'm not a fan of driving aids for drifting, but if that works for you then that's great 👍
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Driving aids is for learning. It can be a very steep challenge to tackle everything at once. Aids takes control of some aspects of driving so that you can focus on one bit at the time. As you keep practicing, you will get better and better and eventually you'll be able to turn off the aids and practice without them.

When the option is to try and fail, try and fail, try and fail and then give up, I'm all in favour of driving aids. Of course it's more fun without aids - when you're ready for it.

Streeto
Considering the majority of drift rooms don't allow aids, it's not gonna help him in the long run.

There's no point learning the wrong way.
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Tour the France doesn't allow stabilisers, but they can be pretty good if you've never been riding a bicycle before.

trainingwheels.jpg

Take it one step at the time instead of trying to learn everything at once.
 
LightningLord
Anyway I can upload a clip of me attempting to drift my car with an iPod?
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A cell phone would be easier, record the replay using your phone and then post on Youtube, you can then link it here. Its the easiest way if you don't have a capture card
 
Some of it looks fine, some of it needs work. I don't really see much to comment on except that you need practice to learn the track and the lines.
It would be easier to see if you used the behind car view, the fancy replay camera looks good but we can't get a good reference as to what you are doing.
 
Take that wing off, it's not helping you, in fact it's most likely causing more understeer.

The reason you go to the apex of the corner so soon is because you didn't carry enough momentum into it.

When you go to the outside and clearly understeer, that's because you went too fast and tried to initiate by power-over. A feint technique would of been better then.

Your wing will be giving you stability on the rear at such speeds which is why it is harder to initiate a drift in that situation.
 
Streeto
Take that wing off, it's not helping you, in fact it's most likely causing more understeer.

The reason you go to the apex of the corner so soon is because you didn't carry enough momentum into it.

When you go to the outside and clearly understeer, that's because you went too fast and tried to initiate by power-over. A feint technique would of been better then.

Your wing will be giving you stability on the rear at such speeds which is why it is harder to initiate a drift in that situation.
Click to expand...
Ok. Going to try again this time without the wing.
 
A few tips copied from my tuning garage thread, might help.


Tips to improve your technique:

Driving line:- This can be a little tricky to adapt to, you need to stop thinking about the fastest way through a bend and start thinking about the longest and smoothest way through a bend. You are aiming for the same basic Out-In-Out but instead of following it with the front of the car, you are following it with the rear, the front wheels are just there to stop you going past 90 degrees.
The idea is to keep as much momentum as possible, you want to be going sideways but still progressing forwards. If you are going sideways then you are going to start slowing down, drifting was originally used as a braking technique so that passes could be made later in the corner rather than in the traditional braking zone. The more angle you have, the more you slow down, the less you have, the more momentum you keep.
You want to be turning in about a car length before where you would normally and much more aggressively in order to bring the rear around. Turn in hard, feel the rear step out, get on the throttle to encourage it and start counter steering to catch the slide. Use the throttle to balance the rear, smooth inputs to make sure you don't unbalance the car, if you lift off too suddenly the load will transfer onto the front wheels and you will pirouette around them.
Once sideways the major steering is done by the rear wheels, more throttle to get more rotation, less to straighten up. The job of the front wheels is just to follow the inside of the curve via counter steering.

Techniques:- There are 3 basic techniques to master that suit different situations but these are frequently mixed together simultaneously.

Handbrake- About as simple as it gets really, turn in to the corner hard, lift off the throttle and grab a fistful of handbrake to speed up rotation. The rear wheels will lock up and lose grip making them rotate around the front axle. Suited best to tight hairpins where you need to be facing the opposite direction quickly. In order to maintain the slide and momentum you will need to get on the throttle as soon as you let go of the handbrake.

Power Over: Again very simple, more akin to poor racing technique than drifting. Enter the corner as you would normally, slowing to the apex before picking your line and powering out. The idea is to wait until weight is transferred onto the rear wheels and then give it a big boot full of throttle and breaking traction.

Feint/Scandinavian Flick: A personal favourite of mine, I'd say I use it for 90% of drifting, a very effective way of changing forward momentum into sideways motion. Enter the corner about a car width from the outside edge, lift off the throttle and turn sharply away from the corner before turning back in and getting back on the gas. This basically shifts weight aggressively from side to side meaning that the break in traction happens quickly without losing too much forward momentum. This means that you can enter a corner already quite sideways without having to sacrifice speed which maximises efficiency and score.
 
I have made the following changes to my car:

- Removed the spoiler/wing.
- Slightly increase ride height.
- Changed both front and toe angle to "0.00"
- Increased Horsepower from 319 to 373.

When I removed the wing the car had severe under steer and lack of power. So I changed it a bit.
 
eran0004
Driving aids is for learning. It can be a very steep challenge to tackle everything at once. Aids takes control of some aspects of driving so that you can focus on one bit at the time. As you keep practicing, you will get better and better and eventually you'll be able to turn off the aids and practice without them.

When the option is to try and fail, try and fail, try and fail and then give up, I'm all in favour of driving aids. Of course it's more fun without aids - when you're ready for it.



Tour the France doesn't allow stabilisers, but they can be pretty good if you've never been riding a bicycle before.

trainingwheels.jpg

Take it one step at the time instead of trying to learn everything at once.
Click to expand...
When it comes to drifting don't use aids.
 
So I just finished tuning and trying out the S15. I only managed to make one clean lap...one. The car is now incredibly tail happy and loves to spin out when I step on the throttle. I have a replay saved. Do you guys want to see it in the cinematic camera view or the behind the car view?
 

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