Questions involving Set-Up and Technique

[winnerslayframe]

Hey all, first allow me to say hi to the great GTPlanet community! I'm glad to be a part here, for however short or long I may stay.

I wanted to go ahead and ask a few questions involving drifting using my current experience. I recently picked up a well set up S15 from a friend that focuses on the rear tires grabbing traction and stability, much like how I hear a proper drift car should be presented. However, despite this very well done set up, I am having issues, whether they may be related to the car or driver. Mainly, my issue is breaking traction - with higher grip tires (SH), im having issues producing transitions without losing all traction whatsoever or regaining all traction - my other issue at hand is the sharper turns, where I find e-braking to be of good use, but whilst rapidly flicking the handbrake, i most often lose all speed, to be expected when the e-brake is incorrectly used. I was simply wondering if I could receive knowledge of how to correct these driving missteps or tune the car more effectively for my style.

Another small question, if I may, is how the properly turn into a corner, where I must ask whether a drift should focus on out-in-out, or solely focus on turning wide out, and staying on the outside of a turn into the exit.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Dan]

I think one of your problems might be your tire choice. I think you should progressively go down tire compounds. If you feel like you can move to comfort softs, by all means go ahead. If you still need practice on sports hards, that's perfectly fine. I say, within a few weeks, try to make it to comfort hard tires and see how it works out. Also, if you need to, tweak your suspension and torque settings to get better angles and speed through turns.

 

[winnerslayframe]

In all honesty, I do much better with comfort hards and even softs, where transitions, while still difficult due to getting adjusted to the new set up, are excellent, and only braking is the main thing I need work on. It's just the jump from comfort to sports compounds is a rough adjustment, but a necessary one for some events.

 

[Aquarelle]

What are the toe and camber settings at the moment? if your rear toe is too high it can make it more difficult to break the rears.

Also, run on lower grade tyres. If your problem is too much traction and you're not on comfort hards that's likely to be the biggest offender Up to you, if you're that determined to use sports tyres for competitions (I've never seen any requiring this so I don't know where you're finding these) adjust the suspension to let go sooner.

Alternatively, keep at it and work around the car you have.

 

[winnerslayframe]

Thanks for the heads up, I shall completely take up your word on not needing sports tyres and will optimize myself for comforts based on the impression left, thank you

Regardless, a misunderstanding on how to break traction and a proper drifting line still remain prominent.

I will further explain my set up though, and include downforce for good measure.

Downforce:
Front 0 Rear 15

Suspension:
Front Camber 5.5 Rear Camber 6.0
Front Toe 0.0 Rear Toe 0.20

Running at 457 hp and 1051 kg.

 

[Aquarelle]

Thanks for the heads up, I shall completely take up your word on not needing sports tyres and will optimize myself for comforts based on the impression left, thank you

Regardless, a misunderstanding on how to break traction and a proper drifting line still remain prominent.

I will further explain my set up though, and include downforce for good measure.

Downforce:
Front 0 Rear 15

Suspension:
Front Camber 5.5 Rear Camber 6.0
Front Toe 0.0 Rear Toe 0.20

Running at 457 hp and 1051 kg.

I'm not the best at explaining ideal drift lines, people like GhostZ are probably the better to ask.

Put your rear camber down to 0.5 and see if that will sort it, higher rear camber doesn't help 👍

I'd personally put the front camber down to between 2.0 and 3.0. but that's my own driver preference, I find over that unruly (and ugly)

If fixing the camber doesn't solve your issue; Reduce the rear aero to 5 and /maybe/ reduce the rear toe to under 10.

 

[GhostZ]

Your setup works to start a drift, but doesn't really offer that much grip during a drift. If you're using SH tires however, low grip may work to your advantage. What are your spring rates and differential settings? Those are more important than camber, weight, and power.

Most people will tell you that you need to add power or just drift on low grip tires. However, there are ways to setup a car to drift well on high grip tires, if you can adapt your driving style.

Basically, there is one problem. If you're having trouble drifting at higher grip tires, that means that as the tires grip goes up, you're not exceeding it in the same manner.

If you are transferring weight: Higher grip tires actually transfer weight more effectively, however, if as the grip goes up your weight transfer technique doesn't make use of the higher limits, then you won't lose grip when expected. Since you have toe-in, under corner entry your outside rear tire (which is pointing inward to the direction of the corner, so the respond will be to 'straighten the car out' under throttle until the tire points in the direction the car is going) more throttle (which is necessary to brake traction if your weight transfer isn't high enough) is going to fight the angle of the car, assuming you have enough power to make up for what you're losing in weight transfer. Since the car has little weight, but decent power, chances are you are not. Thus, your problem arises. If your differential is set too low for high grip tires, then power won't be at the same distribution you are used to, thus you will also have less power to overcome the grip of the outside rear wheel.

Solution: Reduce rear toe-in to 0, 0. + Decrease weight over the rear wheels, or change your driving style to take advantage of the weight you have. + Tighten differential settings (higher acceleration sensitivity).

If you are brake drifting: Same thing, but if your brake pressure is too low or you aren't threshold braking, then the car won't slow down as fast and could have less weight transfer, meaning more weight on the rear, meaning more power (which you haven't changed) to create the loss of traction.

Solution: Higher brake pressure + change driving technique and threshold brake.

You don't need more power or less weight really, your transmission ratios might need to be increased to improve RWTQ if you can't adapt your driving though.

Additionally, if you decrease your spring rates and dampeners all around, you will more easily exceed the grip of the tires for the same suspension, as it displaces the center of gravity more and reduces the evenness of the rear traction.

If you tune a car right, you can grip better while drifting than cornering normally, in my experience. Your speed may be slightly lower, but the grip is there.

 

[winnerslayframe]

Differential Settings:
Initial Torque Rear 60
Acceleration Sensitivity 60
Braking Sensitivity 40

Suspension:
Spring Rate 5.0, across front and rear
I also lowered the camber angle to rear 0.5 while keeping front at 5.5 and received excellent results while achieving some minor but helpful resistance in transitions, whilst when i change the camber to 3.0 in the front i received excellent balance.

And I don't know if it plays into effect here, but I'm also using a brake distribution of 5 in the front and rear presently. I typically let the set up into a drift with the flick technique reduce much of the speed, using moderate braking before setting up the flick and then just slapping the brakes to initiate the transition.

What I am seeing so far with my technique is that I am adapting very well to having much grip in the rear tyres in the sense that drifts dont seem so out of control as perhaps throwing a viper sideways with 800hp, but for the most part initiating the drift seems the most difficult, as slapping the throttle and hammering the e-brake produce mixed results at this point, up until i modified the camber settings which made the process much easier.

I appreciate all the help that has been presently given, to be frank I'm not the best at understanding the portions of suspension and differentials but I hope to be better soon!

 

[Aquarelle]

I recommend 0-10 brake bias, if you're having trouble under braking however, try 2-10

 

[GhostZ]

Having grip, and having control, are different things. Usually, more control means that you're not approaching the limits of the vehicle.

Good brake bias depends on the weight distribution and tire grip, how the front and rear brakes vary in strength, and how close to threshhold you can brake. I use 7-8 on the front, and 6-8 on the rear usually, but it changes based on a number of variables that I measure for my tuning to get optimal effect.

Your flick is not going to work on high grip tires, because while you're generating the same G force in a direction change, the tires have a much higher proportional resistance to that change. They grip instead. You have to throw the car proportionally higher out of direction to achieve the same slip at the rear.

Here's some basic info about the settings:


Tires:
Grip coefficient. It's the resistance to force that the tire exerts proportional to the weight on it. More weight on the tire, more grip, but higher force, so it equals out as weight is added usually. CH tires are around 0.85, SH tires are around 1.05-1.10. This is measured by the little G meter down at the bottom of the screen.

Suspension:

Spring Rates - How much force is exerted up on the car at max cornering. Lower values mean more body roll at max cornering, and front to rear. Roll is based on how much weight is on the wheel, so flat cornering can be achieved with spring rates in the same F/R ratio as the weight of the car.

Dampeners - How quickly/slowly that max (from the spring rates) is reached. So high spring rates, because they have a low max of body roll, with low dampeners will 'flatten out' suddenly when cornering, but not roll much. High spring rates with high dampeners will slowly approach a very low limit, which is why they grip well. Low spring rates with high dampeners will very slowly approach a very high body roll. Low spring rates with low dampeners will approach a high body roll quickly.

Compression is the rate that they resist the weight put on the tire, extension is the way they resist the springs expanding when weight is removed.

Anti-Roll bars - Dampeners for Left/Right motion. Compression and Extension are the same for them, but they allow you to adjust the rate that the car reaches is roll max on the front or the rear.

Camber: Pretty self explanatory. During cornering, the roll of the car means that the center of gravity isn't perpendicular to the wheel, so giving it camber allows the center of gravity to push on the "flat" part of the tire. Since all cars have a center of mass usually higher than the wheel (except maybe F1 cars) some amount of camber is almost always beneficial. This will create uneven tire wear though. More roll means more of a benefit from camber.

Think of camber like a Unicycle. The person sitting on it is the weight. As you go around a corner, the body of the cyclist moves to the outside, so if you want to keep riding, you need to change the angle of the tire so he is still having his weight push down against it.

Toe: Adjusts the angle that the wheels are pointed. Normally, toe-in gives better straight line performance (because the wheels have a wider section across the tire in a straight line, giving it more grip) and toe-out is better cornering performance (because the inside tire and outside tire point in toward the corner better when steering). However, during drifting, you want the wheel with the most weight on it to be pointed as close to the direction you want as you can get it. Or rather, you want the wheels pointed away to have less grip and the wheels pointed toward to have more grip. The problem with this is that there is only one drift angle where the wheels are pointed perfectly in the right direction, and if you do any other angle, it diminishes. So driving style affects this as well. If you goal is to lose grip though, this may be a way to do it.

Differential:

Initial Torque: How much torque is necessary to activate the differential. Higher power usually means higher initial torque to achieve the same effect (so at the same gear and throttle input, the differential locks at the same 'time' as if on a lower power car with a lower setting)

Acceleration: number that measures distribution of power to the wheels. 60 usually means that before the wheels, there is 50/50 (NOTE: THAT IS BEFORE THE WHEELS, NOT AT THE WHEELS. The wheels still resist the power differently and the split isn't perfectly even when cornering) and at a low setting, there is little difference of power between left and right.

Deceleration: How the difference of rates of the rear wheels are slowed down under braking.


Hopefully that helps.

 

[JrDarknes]

I drift the s15 92% of the time. On my maxed out car like yours. I'm constantly e braking sharp corners but I don't lose speed. So I wouldnt say its you.

I just say tune for a lot of oversteer.

 

[You Drunk Bro]

Also, remember that the more angle you have the more speed you lose.

 

[winnerslayframe]

Thanks a ton guys, I'm learning a lot

Yeah, coming from Forza 4, I'm having to adjust to what I may argue is better grip physics and such, and not having a clutch kick to help kick the car out more often. I will continue to play with my suspension and differential settings and find that ideal tire coefficient. I may also tackle on a v8 for superior torque response.

 

[GhostZ]

Also, remember that the more angle you have the more speed you lose.

While I would have agreed with you, six or ten months ago, I can confidently say that it is possible to gain cornering speed at a 'higher' angle. Basically the farther your angle is from and ideal angle the more grip you lose, but a car can be setup so that ideal angle is relatively high, instead of at no angle or an extremely shallow angle. While it may not always be faster that cornering at high grip, no drifting cornering, it can certainly be faster to corner at a higher angle drift than a lower angle drift if you set up the car right.

 

[Reddee]

While I would have agreed with you, six or ten months ago, I can confidently say that it is possible to gain cornering speed at a 'higher' angle. Basically the farther your angle is from and ideal angle the more grip you lose, but a car can be setup so that ideal angle is relatively high, instead of at no angle or an extremely shallow angle. While it may not always be faster that cornering at high grip, no drifting cornering, it can certainly be faster to corner at a higher angle drift than a lower angle drift if you set up the car right.

And if you enter the corner at the right speed.

 

[ReDMySTiC]

Lower then 1.0 camber on the rear is usually and 1.5 - 3.0 camber in the front is usually a good way to go in terms of camber.
After fiddling around a reading a few things i have found that toe settings are quite useless and in most competitions in real life competitors run with 0 toe, and it seems to work out fine in the game for me.
slowly remove points in your rear aerodynamics until it feels right to you, the aerodynamics really just comes down to personal preferance, but if the back end of the car will not swing out removing most of the points in the rear aerodynamics is a good place to start.
With tyres, deffinately go with comfort mediums/hards, unless you want to go into timed drift laps, which is a completely different thing of its own and requires different setups.
With the LSD, in most cases that ive found that give the car great responsiveness, set the initial torque to 15-30 and then put acceleration and breaking sensitivity all the way up to 60, this is an LSD setup thats run in real life cars and also works really well ingame.
Transmission can also be a problem, but it would only be a small one, just tweak the final drive around until you get that to feel right, again, its down to personal preferance really.

And driving lines, in drift competitions there are clipping points (the inside of a corner, and the outside of the corner on the exit) if you ever want to get into competition drifting you will need to learn a line that will hit these clipping points consistently, it gets you a large amount of points in most competitions.

these are just some tips that i'm not expecting you to use, im not saying these are right because these are some stuff that 'I' use and everybody drifts their own way and requires their own setups. But hopefully i have helped to some extent

 

[Gonales]

Lower then 1.0 camber on the rear is usually and 1.5 - 3.0 camber in the front is usually a good way to go in terms of camber.

Yeah, this is about right.

After fiddling around a reading a few things i have found that toe settings are quite useless and in most competitions in real life competitors run with 0 toe, and it seems to work out fine in the game for me.

BS. I use toe on every single car. It's one of the dominant aspects handling wise, in my opinion. (Besides LSD.)

slowly remove points in your rear aerodynamics until it feels right to you, the aerodynamics really just comes down to personal preferance, but if the back end of the car will not swing out removing most of the points in the rear aerodynamics is a good place to start.

Aero? Get rid of it. Never use Aero, it's close to useless...

With tyres, definitely go with comfort hards

Corrected.

With the LSD, in most cases that ive found that give the car great responsiveness, set the initial torque to 15-30 and then put acceleration and breaking sensitivity all the way up to 60, this is an LSD setup thats run in real life cars and also works really well ingame.

Go for 5 initial torque. Don't need later locking levels, it's easier to learn on full lock. Plus, speed shouldn't matter at his level, so... point made.

Transmission can also be a problem, but it would only be a small one, just tweak the final drive around until you get that to feel right, again, its down to personal preferance really.

Just make sure you have a decent amount of torque in 3rd, 4th and 5th gear all the time.

And driving lines, in drift competitions there are clipping points if you ever want to get into competition drifting you will need to learn a line that will hit these clipping points consistently, it gets you a large amount of points in most competitions.

(the inside of a corner, and the outside of the corner on the exit) = wrong. Clipping points are where the judges place them, nothing more, nothing less. has nothing to do with racing line.

If you want to be good at drifting, firstly get a smooth run down. Then, practice so much you can do it 5 laps in a row without making a mistake. When you can do that, you want a car pressuring you, and still you should be able to do it.

Last but not least you learn to chase. Which requires the skills to adapt to different situations.

these are just some tips that i'm not expecting you to use, im not saying these are right because these are some stuff that 'I' use and everybody drifts their own way and requires their own setups. But hopefully i have helped to some extent

Only the first bit was really helpful. I know some people will disagree with my feeling towards Diffs, and Aero... But as a beginner, you should stick to the basics.

 

[Reddee]

I agree 100% lock that diff and remove that wing enter a comp and win ha ha.