I've read the stickies but still have questions

[iten]

Hi all, I'm new here, but I have been reading a lot in those sticky threads.

I have a more specific question. When I try to drift that first turn in Deep Forest(normal), my car would always drift to the outside of the curve and hit the outside wall. My car would drift till the apex of the turn and continue to drift in the tangent direction without coming back. sometimes goes off in a tangent before hitting the apex.
I really don't know why, but I think that I need to spin my tail out a little further, but for some reason, I can't seem to do it by pressing the throttle during the drift.
I'm using N1 tires FR car untuned, all aids off (i'm really looking for drifting the car without tuning the car for drifting). Corner entry speed is about 80mph (is this too fast?) Did I miss something in the technique? (i use the feint method) Or am I getting this completely wrong?

Another question,
it seems that I lose a lot of corner exist speed when I exit the drift. Is there a way to eliminate that or am I not exiting the drift correctly? (countersteering and regain grip)
i usually notice that I pass cars around corners but they pass me exiting corners.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Boundary Layer]

well... without being willing to tune your car, your options here are limited. It will all come down to your technique.

Either decrease the angle of your drift and maybe ease off the gas slightly - that should get you around the corner a little bit better. But it won't look as showy.
I guess you could try decreasing your entry speed, but if you are managing to get halfway around the corner then I don't necessarily view that as a problem. Only if you are going straight off at the entry would I really urge that you slow down.
Stickier tires might help - they'll offer you more grip with which to push the car back towards the apex during the drift (even if they are spinning).

What I thnk you really need is some LSD tuning for both of your questions.

 

[iten]

Hi boundary layer. well first off, let me say that the guide you guys made has helped me a lot.

A few more questions on your reply.
wouldn't decreasing the throttle decrease the angle? That was my problem, the car can't increase its angle during the drift. Are you suggesting that decreasing the angle help me turn? I can't picture it, but i'll try. My concern is that with a decreased angle, i can't even make it to the apex.

My car only has 170 HP and it comes with the S2 tires. What kind of tires should I get?

thanks for the LSD advice. I guess if there's no way to fix this, then I'd be forced to get some LSD tuning. I guess I should say that I'll drift with minimal tuning.

I am, though, getting the basic ideas right, yes?
if, yes, I'll go back to practicing. I'm just concerned that I might have missed something obvious.

 

[Boundary Layer]

Well, from the brief description I'm assuming you're doing something right. You are making it part of the way around the turn.

Now, I hope I am understanding your question correctly through all of this. I might not be picturing exactly what is happening to you. I'm picturing you initiating drift with a lot of angle, clipping the apex a little bit early, and at that point you have little/no control over the car's rotation and minimal rear traction so your momentum pulls you into the big grasy runoff.

Yes, decreasing throttle decreases your angle. My thinking is that if hitting the gas isn't working because you aren't left with enough rear grip to hold the car in the corner, then decreasing the throttle might cut the wheelspin a little bit and let your tires grab a little more and push you through.

I had [have] similar problems on that corner on xlink. If I'm too aggressive on the entry I go off exactly as you have described. If I ease the car into the corner with a little less angle at the entry, and just try to maintain that angle with delicate throttle things usually work out much better.
Hairpins require a little more consideration than your typical sweeper or 90* bend.

Oh, and what car is it?
If you have the ability to post a video it'd be a trememndous help. But it might be worth your while to check out some of the videos posted by Drift Dojo [DD]. They drift stock cars online, and Deep Forest is a popular track choice.

Time for some lunch.

 

[Boundary Layer]

I found an old video on my machine. Looks like it's from March 17th '05.

It's a S15 doing the first little bit of Tsukuba. It does have a few mods done to the suspension and LSD (no idea what those settings were anymore), but the power is left stock.

The video isn't really all that impressive. And I'm using the DS2, not the DFP, so my steering work is a little bit crude [as you'll notice ont he exit of the 2nd hairpin]. But it might give you some tips.

http://www.bgj.ca/GT4/BLvids/BL-Old_Hairpin_Sample.wmv

 

[Suzuki]

you need to decrease your steering as you get to the apex, then increase your steering after that. just play around with it for a while and im sure youll figure it out.
and maybe go a bit slower. i drift that track every now and then on xlink, but i never look at my speeds. its just a feel thing for me. all i need is the tach and im good to go.

and you havent mentioned the car... what is it that only has 170hp? i know a 170hp car that drifts wonderfully. can drift DF without any fear from that little thing. with decent angle and speed.

 

[iten]

Boundary Layer:

It's really a shame that I can't post a video. (I don't even have the equipments to transfer my pictures out. sorry.)

The car is a Nissan Silvia (S13). I bought it in the historic showroom.
And your desciption is accurate. I have a lot of angle enter the drift because I thought that with the speed I'm entering, I need a lot of angle(don't know if this is right, but it seems right).
Clipping the corner is right too. I usually go on the white/red strip a bit. And then is the tangent part where increasing throttle won't give me more angle.

Yes, decreasing throttle decreases your angle. My thinking is that if hitting the gas isn't working because you aren't left with enough rear grip to hold the car in the corner, then decreasing the throttle might cut the wheelspin a little bit and let your tires grab a little more and push you through.

Is brake should be involved in any part of this. I sometimes try to break to prevent my car from going on the grass part/wall. But usually what happens is that my speed was high and I go on the grass anyway. Also, I noticed that during the drift, if I slam on the breaks without touching the steering in any way, the car goes exactly in the tangent direction. According to your guide, brake could be used, but I'm pretty sure I'm not using it right.

On the wheel spin, do you think I should just initiate the drift and then don't touch the throttle until I've made through the apex? In other words, I should just guide the car using steering only for the first half of the turn.

On reduced speed. I notice that with reduced speed, if I have a lot of angle on the drift, sometimes the car stops completely in the middle of the turn. I only thing happening is my rear wheel spinning and making smoke.

The video isn't really all that impressive. And I'm using the DS2, not the DFP, so my steering work is a little bit crude [as you'll notice ont he exit of the 2nd hairpin]. But it might give you some tips.

Great video. One thing I noticed is that you start your drift a lot later than I do. and you brake while doing the feint. I usually break before the feint. Also the gas is slammed a lot later.......maybe these are the things i'm doing wrong.

suzuki:
you need to decrease your steering as you get to the apex, then increase your steering after that. just play around with it for a while and im sure youll figure it out.
I can sort of picture what you're saying, but my car usually isn't that responsive. Maybe i'm not doing some things right, but to decrease the angle before the apex usually makes increasing the angle after apex very difficult. maybe you can explain a little further?



Thanks for all the great responses.

 

[Boundary Layer]

bare with me in this post. I just returned from a brutal heat transfer midterm exam...my head is feeling like mush

Comments about my example video:
Yes, the entry is quite late and certainly could be done much earlier (which is how I do it now). What I wanted to illustrate is that when you don't have tremendous amounts of power and grip, low angles are essential to long controlled drifts.

Braking can be done before the feint as you are doing, or during the feint motion [a dynamic approach]. I choose to do it during the feint because the forward weight transfer it causes provides a little more front end grip. If you've done your braking well before the point you turn in, any forward weight transfer has more or less neutralized by the time you initiate your drift. You're only using lateral weight transfer. Either way does work though.

The fact that you mention you sometimes 'stall' your drift when you decrease the speed is a little more confirmation for me that you are going in with too much angle for your current car setup, and that you would certainly benefit from a LSD (although the solution may be as simple as a countersteering issue as suzuki mentioned - but I'm assuming that is isnt for now). With the angle you are entering at, you are demanding a lot from your rear tires.

I'm going to explain this with a Cartesian coordinate system because I can think of no better way to do it [actually, polar coordinates would infact be a better way to describe it]. I hope you can follow me here, this is just how my mind works. You were describing tangent's and so forth, so I think you'll be ok.

If you enter the corner travelling in the +x direction, and exit in the -x direction, then you are asking your tires to translate all your +momentum into -momentum without bringing the car to a halt in between. That means you do not just want to whip the car around to face the opposite direction and hammer the gas - which is in essence what happens when you've stalled your drift. For this to be accomplished you have to allow for some acceleration in a new direction, y, perpendicular to x, and then gradually work through the corner.

I'll stop the geometrics here. I was about to go on with it for another four paragraphs, but decided at the last minute that this is enough and that the rest was only making things worse.

The jist of it is that it's easier to get through hairpins and 180* corners with a shallower angle than you might be able to tackle a 90* corner with because the thrust of the rear tires helps push you through the long duration of the turn. It is impossible to just slide into it and line up for the exit as you might in shorter corners.

I'd urge you to retry this corner at a much shallower drift angle and see how it goes. Once you are routinely making it through the corner, start increasing your angle until you've found your limit - right now I think you are exceeding it.

(I may be back to edit this tomorrow morning. I'm in such a state of mind right now that none of this what I've typed may actually make any sense).

 

[Suzuki]

The car is a Nissan Silvia (S13). I bought it in the historic showroom.
And your desciption is accurate.

you got s13 q's didnt you?
go back and get s13K's and it will be alot better for you. even modded the Q's isnt worth a .... yeah. trust me, i found out the hard way.

 

[nk4e]

Well, what can I say good job BL... but ill try a few stock cars and see if you might like them, ill do them before I go to sleep

 

[iten]

Boundary Layer:

If you enter the corner travelling in the +x direction, and exit in the -x direction, then you are asking your tires to translate all your +momentum into -momentum without bringing the car to a halt in between. That means you do not just want to whip the car around to face the opposite direction and hammer the gas - which is in essence what happens when you've stalled your drift. For this to be accomplished you have to allow for some acceleration in a new direction, y, perpendicular to x, and then gradually work through the corner.
That makes a lot of sense. Though I think now that I have to decrease corner entry speed to actually have that work. At higher speed and low angle, I can't even make the change from -X to Y given the widths of the road. Solution to that could be to start the drift early, but even if that happens, if the radius of the corner is small, there's not a whole lot of room for the Y direction to travel at the low angle and thus would leave me going off the track before returning to +X. Thus, decreasing entry speed is a must. Which is fine for me. Please point out if I misunderstood anything.

I'd urge you to retry this corner at a much shallower drift angle and see how it goes. Once you are routinely making it through the corner, start increasing your angle until you've found your limit - right now I think you are exceeding it.
I'll do that...thanks a lot.

(I may be back to edit this tomorrow morning. I'm in such a state of mind right now that none of this what I've typed may actually make any sense).
Makes a lot of sense. Hope you did well in your heat transfer midterm.


Suzuki:
you got s13 q's didnt you?
go back and get s13K's and it will be alot better for you. even modded the Q's isnt worth a .... yeah. trust me, i found out the hard way.
one of the reasons that I picked the car was because of low horse power(and also initial D fan). my first car was AE86, but I had tuning done to it because I was using it to winning races in the game. It's at 170ish HP as well, but I wanted something untuned.(made the weight reduction before finding out that weight reduction cannot be reversed.....)
this is off topic BTW, but what's the difference between the K's and the Q's? From the selection screen, all that is different is HP. All other statistics seem the same.

 

[Boundary Layer]

That makes a lot of sense. Though I think now that I have to decrease corner entry speed to actually have that work. At higher speed and low angle, I can't even make the change from -X to Y given the widths of the road. Solution to that could be to start the drift early, but even if that happens, if the radius of the corner is small, there's not a whole lot of room for the Y direction to travel at the low angle and thus would leave me going off the track before returning to +X. Thus, decreasing entry speed is a must. Which is fine for me. Please point out if I misunderstood anything.

I'd urge you to retry this corner at a much shallower drift angle and see how it goes. Once you are routinely making it through the corner, start increasing your angle until you've found your limit - right now I think you are exceeding it.

I'll do that...thanks a lot.

Sounds like you got it. 👍
let us know how you're progressing with any changes you make to your technique

 

[Swift]

To be honest. I would say that a drift is 75% entry, 10% mid corner and 15% exit. What I mean is those are the area's where concentration is most important. As we all know, if you botch the entry, you can forget a clean exit.

So I would say start focusing on how your entry is effecting the rest of your drift(that's pretty much what you said earlier) and have at it!

 

[Suzuki]

but what's the difference between the K's and the Q's? From the selection screen, all that is different is HP. All other statistics seem the same.

the Q's has a weaker engine, more economy friendly. K's fits the sports car name better, because it comes with a better engine, with more torque, and hp. and you can also get more hp out of K's than Q's in the game.
i feel K's is more drift friendly.

 

[nomuken]

Can some body help , I have some drift pix I want to enter into the big angle drift competition but don't know how to send them in via image shack. can anyone help. thanks.

 

[Boundary Layer]

how is that the least bit related to the current discussion.... wouldn't the big angle DPC be a much more appropriate place to ask?

not only that, if you actually READ through the first post of any DPC there is the following link:
HOW TO POST YOUR IMAGESHACK THUMBNAIL.
And imageshack has a very useful FAQ HERE that should cover any difficulties you have using their service

You might want to investigate any difficulties you have a little more thoroughly in the future. Odds are the answer is right in front of you.


now enough with that,

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

BTW if there's still some problems I would suggest going up to around 300BHP and get N2's.
Part of coming OUT of a corner is greating enough grip in the BEGINNING to "catch" that drift angle and make half a loop.

These mods will probably need more throttle control or else you will spin out before you get to the exit.
But by controlling throttle (by using half to full all the time depending on simple judgement) you can limit your angle in the mid section Take note though, I dont bother drifting to the outter side either so just power all you can to increase your angle as much as possible when you are near the exit. Thats what I always do though

 

[Suzuki]

BTW if there's still some problems I would suggest going up to around 300BHP and get N2's.
Part of coming OUT of a corner is greating enough grip in the BEGINNING to "catch" that drift angle and make half a loop.

These mods will probably need more throttle control or else you will spin out before you get to the exit.
But by controlling throttle (by using half to full all the time depending on simple judgement) you can limit your angle in the mid section Take note though, I dont bother drifting to the outter side either so just power all you can to increase your angle as much as possible when you are near the exit. Thats what I always do though

good luck getting the silvia Q's up anywhere near 300. i think the power stops at like 250. and its still weaksauce.

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

Oh, I'm confusing the Q's with the K's here
Still, I think N2's are the best tyres for drifting, N1's slide too much IMO, and this proves it.

I've been addicted to N1's before but now I realize that N2's really drift and N1's almost seem to slide...