Tyre choice for drifting

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Only had GT4 for 3 days (PAL) so i'm still experimenting with settings and tyres to see what works well for me. so far the HKS D1 car is proving difficult to set up for my style, possibly because i'm just getting used to the DFP wheel as well. anyhoo, i was just wondering what tyres everyone is using? at the moment i'm on sports medium at the rear and sport soft at the front
 
I use racing TIRES for any car over 400 HP, N3 in the front and N1 in the back for anything under 400. :sly:

But I love race drifting, so I'm weird. Most people stick to the N1-3 for show drifts, and they are probably the best to learn with.
 
As Ryen was saying, it depends on HP and weight. I would say stay in the N's for anything under 300. Once you start pushing that, except for rotary engines, you want to get into the sports category. 500+ HP may want to go into the slicks.

It's a personal thing. But please, don't mix tires if you wish to learn good technique. I know that beginng drifting IRL do this, but it's a financial thing. Not because the want to. So please, don't mix your tires. You're giving your self a crutch that will be very hard to get rid of down the road.
 
Swift
It's a personal thing. But please, don't mix tires if you wish to learn good technique. I know that beginng drifting IRL do this, but it's a financial thing. Not because the want to. So please, don't mix your tires. You're giving your self a crutch that will be very hard to get rid of down the road.
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Uh, as a real drifter, I can tell you that my friends and I definitely don't do it for cost efficiency. Unless you're a rich bastard and have a 240 with an SR or RB in it, you need less traction in the rear. Drifting at any speed over, say, 50 miles per hour is scary as ****, and those are the only speeds when you really need decent traction in the rear.

I drift with radials in the front and slicks in the rear, practically no tread. Once the front tires are worn down enough, I switch those to the rear and buy two new radials for the front.

Maybe it's different for drifters in different areas of the world, but that's how we roll :sly:
 
burnout060
Uh, as a real drifter, I can tell you that my friends and I definitely don't do it for cost efficiency. Unless you're a rich bastard and have a 240 with an SR or RB in it, you need less traction in the rear. Drifting at any speed over, say, 50 miles per hour is scary as ****, and those are the only speeds when you really need decent traction in the rear.

I drift with radials in the front and slicks in the rear, practically no tread. Once the front tires are worn down enough, I switch those to the rear and buy two new radials for the front.

Maybe it's different for drifters in different areas of the world, but that's how we roll :sly:
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fine, do what you will in real life, I can somewhat understand that since suspension setup is limited, if not fixed, and where money is a consideration

however, we're talking about a game where it is possible to do extensive suspension tuning. You can generate the necessary slip in the rear by tuning/settings alone, without resorting to mixing tire compounds and completely alterning the car balance in the process.

I can see both sides of the argument here, I know the pro's and con's of each. I just ally myself with the single compound side because that's how I tune.
 
TankSpanker
fine, do what you will in real life, I can somewhat understand that since suspension setup is limited, if not fixed, and where money is a consideration

however, we're talking about a game where it is possible to do extensive suspension tuning. You can generate the necessary slip in the rear by tuning/settings alone, without resorting to mixing tire compounds and completely alterning the car balance in the process.

I can see both sides of the argument here, I know the pro's and con's of each. I just ally myself with the single compound side because that's how I tune.
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Hehe, yeah, I should have pointed out I was talking IRL, I DO NOT SUGGEST DOING SUPER HARD IN THE REAR AND SUPER SOFT IN THE FRONT.

I should have emphasized that further before, I hope I didn't cause confusion for anyone, but no one should be taking GT4-drifting tips from me anyway :crazy:

But, yeah, in real life when you've got (mostly) fixed suspension and braking settings, and slightly under 200 hp... you get the slipperiest tires you can. In fact, here in New England, snow drifting after a big snow storm is VERY popular. You can't go as fast and there's a better chance of crashing, but it's everything you can do to maintain a drift in a real life vehicle, so we take advantage WHENEVER possible 👍
 
burnout060
Uh, as a real drifter, I can tell you that my friends and I definitely don't do it for cost efficiency. Unless you're a rich bastard and have a 240 with an SR or RB in it, you need less traction in the rear. Drifting at any speed over, say, 50 miles per hour is scary as ****, and those are the only speeds when you really need decent traction in the rear.

I drift with radials in the front and slicks in the rear, practically no tread. Once the front tires are worn down enough, I switch those to the rear and buy two new radials for the front.

Maybe it's different for drifters in different areas of the world, but that's how we roll :sly:
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I hope you do this at a track because doing on the streets or a parking lot is illegal and dangerous, not to mention it would violate the forums AUP

AUP
You will not use these forums to violate any laws nor to discuss illegal activities.
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Anyways back onto topic, when I do a little drifting for the helluva it I just use the normal sports tires. They work fine.
 
BlazinXtreme
I hope you do this at a track because doing on the streets or a parking lot is illegal and dangerous, not to mention it would violate the forums AUP
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Nah, we go to drift events for the most part, and certainly never anything obscenely unsafe or illegal. The last drift even I was at, however, was at Beaver Run in Western Pennsylvania, many moons ago (it's still winter :crazy: ).

You guys should try going to some local drift events. There's PLENTY in Cali, a few in the big southern cities in Texas and Florida. New England is ok for drift events, but only 6-8 months out of the year, usually only 6 (December-April it's usually snowing). The majority of the ones in the New England region are in New Hampshire, New Jersey (not in NE, but damn close), and New York state. Even if you can't drift or don't have a drift worthy car, you should still go to the events, they are cheap and fun to watch, and you'll get an understanding of how much different it is in real life, without all the settings and stuff. If you have a RWD vehicle capable of drifting on pavement, enter the event. I've seen people in at drift events in Volvos and BMW 300 series and Firebirds. We've gone in my friend's bone-stock 1990 S13. If you're car's RWD, Manual, and has a hand-e-brake (not the on-the-floor pedal parking brake), then drift it! 👍
 
S2's mostly; remember, the more grip, the better (usually), you dont want to be so loosely gripped that your car slides all over the place and have no grip, but not to much to where your sticking, so you gotta find a good ratio between power, weight, and grip
 
Well, looks like I'm the only one using R3's. I always use medium racing tires for drifting. Even on low hp cars, because I'm using DS2, it's hard to control the amount of throttle, and the R3' works great with DS2.
 
I have used nothing more than the N2's for my setups, even up to near 400HP. Just today I finally started practicing with N1's and they are seriously beginning to grow on me.

I tried the N1's on 3 cars, all drivetrain and weight upgrades, no power upgrades....
S14 Silvia K's, rounded headlights (race exhaust and engine chip too)
1993 RX-7 RZ
1991 Lexus GS300 (280 stock hp on N1's!)

I didnt really fine tune any settings, just used some basic setups, but I did get a very good feel for the N1 tires. It makes all the other tires seem too sticky, N1's are less responsive so the tires arent jerking you around as much. DEFINATELY only good for show drifts though.

For the record Im also using a DS2.
 
Well, if you want to go by the "official" (quote unquote) book, D1 regulations require street tires (usually using Falken Azenis). Try road tires, they're the softest of the N class tires. You would think soft is bad for drifting but b/c it's only for non-raccing dribing, it doesn't have that much grip to begin with; just enough to swing it around a corner. The economy/comfort (N2/N1) tires are way to hard and don't get enough power to the wheels.
 
Hahaha.

Azenis are cheap bastards! They are teh hax0r!

No, but seriously, Azenis are THE tires for drifting. Basically Falken came up with this ingenious rubber compound which expands to the road to a certain point and then snaps back. What this means is you have incredible gripping power to a certain point, and then they slide out, allowing for very stable and controlled drifts. I've drifted with Azenis once in my life, and it wasn't THAT much of a difference, but if you're really into the sport, they're worth the hefty, like, $400 price tag. Something rediculously expensive like that.

They're not good for under powered cars, though.
 
Sheron
Could anyone post all tyre names complete?

I have PAL version and my tyres are Ex, Dx and Cx.

Thanks.
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Oh wow, the same Sheron that did the AE86 Style vs. Racing Drift GT3 video? The one with the 👍 SICK 👍 trance song playing in the background?

Heh, I saw your video, like, last year and that's how I started drifting in GT3. You're my digital drifting idol! :dopey:

Anyway, in the North American version, the tires are broken up into Normal, Sports, Racing, Dirt, and Snow tires.

The standard tires come in N1, N2, and N3; or economy, comfort, and road tires, respectively.

Sports tires come in S1 (hard), S2 (medium), and S3 (soft).

And finally, the racing tires come in R1-R5 (1 being super hard, 3 being medium, and 5 being super soft).
 
I use any where from N1 all the way up to R4s depending on the car and track that I am on. My 88 Camaro Iroc (sp?) Has 500 HP and I use R3's on it most of the time. That is the car I use the most and have gotten the best at.
 
burnout060
Oh wow, the same Sheron that did the AE86 Style vs. Racing Drift GT3 video? The one with the 👍 SICK 👍 trance song playing in the background?

Heh, I saw your video, like, last year and that's how I started drifting in GT3. You're my digital drifting idol! :dopey:

Anyway, in the North American version, the tires are broken up into Normal, Sports, Racing, Dirt, and Snow tires.

The standard tires come in N1, N2, and N3; or economy, comfort, and road tires, respectively.

Sports tires come in S1 (hard), S2 (medium), and S3 (soft).

And finally, the racing tires come in R1-R5 (1 being super hard, 3 being medium, and 5 being super soft).
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Thanks for the info. 👍
 
N2 tires deliver the best results on all cars.

Unless the car is some insane exotic, most of the vehicles were 'tuned' to use N2 tires during the game's development phase, despite being equipped with S2 tires when you buy them.

Even the 350 some-odd horsepower BMW M3 is controllable on Nurburgring with N2 tires, although it doesn't quite deliver the lap times of it's real life counterpart.


It's just that sports cars are generally equipped with sports tires which makes them much faster, but equipping any car (under 400ps) with N2 tires makes it much more fun to drive.

*cling cling dingle*

There's my two cents.
 
im just wondering.... is their a set of tyres on GT4 (PAL) that will acheive more smoke.. as id like to hav a nice trail of smoke behind me while drifting around long corners
 
200SX_drifta
im just wondering.... is their a set of tyres on GT4 (PAL) that will acheive more smoke.. as id like to hav a nice trail of smoke behind me while drifting around long corners
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N2's are enough for me, create an ample amout of smoke. Just need to know how hard to push them.
 

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