Which is easier to drift with, a 4WD or an FR?

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Originally posted by Ryen49
But Wait, what about the fact that a higher front balanced brake setting, gives you more weight transfer to the front, giving you more grip on the front tires and less on the rear. Of course this only applies(atleast the strong front brakes) in gt3 since if your brakes are too strong in the front and you lock (in Real LIfe) up your front wheels you can't turn and understeer.
Ethier way I set my balance ethier torwards the rear or the front depending on the car.
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You have to think of it in terms of traction percentages.... A front bias does not give more traction to the front, especialy in a drift setting......

TruenoAE86...... Where are you man?..... I need you to explain this one, as I am a little rusty on my physics.......

Well, I'll PM Trueno, because I want to give an answer with actual percentages behind it, so you can understand it thoroughly......


;)
 
Originally posted by Ryen49
But Wait, what about the fact that a higher front balanced brake setting, gives you more weight transfer to the front, giving you more grip on the front tires and less on the rear
Click to expand...

by shifting the load to the front tires, you give it LESS traction...
think about it...
 
But the point of transfering weight to the front reduces the weight on the back tires making them easier to slide and giving more traction to the front wheels since more weight on the front wheels = more traction on the front tires.

Weight_Distribution_AE86.jpg
 
It all depends on what you started off on and if you use a wheel or not.

Pad people, disregard, as you cannot relate. Wheel people, we can feel weight shifting rather well with force feedback (its not just a lame jumbly thing in our hands). If you started off on FR, you've trained yourself to countersteer in the flow of that weight shift. Over time, this isnt something you think about, its just something your hands are trained to do, an automatic response.

Switch gears to AWD for a second. You've been driving FR for ________ (insert years/months here). Your hands have this automatic response triggered by the feel of weight shifting on the wheel. You try to drift AWD, but you need to break yourself of this habit. You feel like Pavlov's dog trying not to salivate. This makes the process of learning AWD much harder, as you're doing 2 things:
1) Killing instilled instinct to react to your wheel's feedback from weight shift.
2) Learning the basics of AWD drifting.

As stated before, pad people are excempt from this.
 
Originally posted by Ryen49
But the point of transfering weight to the front reduces the weight on the back tires making them easier to slide and giving more traction to the front wheels since more weight on the front wheels = more traction on the front tires.

Weight_Distribution_AE86.jpg
Click to expand...

I don't know where you got that pic, but it is an over simplified example, and thus leaves out a few key things.......

When you are travelling at high speed into a corner and hit your brakes, you lose traction in the front, no matter what you do. This is due to the rear of the car trying to pass the front of the car (weight transfer).... So, this means you have a deminished traction percentage. You have more traction than the rear, but a deminished traction percentage in the front, nonetheless..... If you set the car for a front bias, you are now creating too much weight shift to the front, which causes an even bigger loss in available traction...... Once again, your weight will shift forward, when you brake, no matter what you do..... If you set up your brakes to the rear, your car is more balanced going into a corner, because your brakes are counteracting the weight shift a bit, so you don't have all the weight at the front of the car......

Balance is the key.... You don't want all the weight of the car over the front wheels... You want the rear wheels to have some grip, otherwise you can't control the drift with them......


Switch gears to AWD for a second. You've been driving FR for ________ (insert years/months here). Your hands have this automatic response triggered by the feel of weight shifting on the wheel. You try to drift AWD, but you need to break yourself of this habit. You feel like Pavlov's dog trying not to salivate. This makes the process of learning AWD much harder, as you're doing 2 things:
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe that drifting AWD with a Dual Shock is quite easy, because you can just let go of the stick, and control the drift with the throttle..... With the wheel, you wuld have to hold the wheel as close to the center as possible.... This adds to the realism, but adds another step, also....


;)
 
flohtingPoint: Then I would take it that a wheel is borderline essential for drifting?
 
Originally posted by Swift
flohtingPoint: Then I would take it that a wheel is borderline essential for drifting?
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No, not at all Brother. There are many people that dont use a wheel that can drift. Some of them quite well =) The wheel makes learning initially to drift easier. With the wheel, I was able to feel the weight shifts much greater than with the dual shock, and counter-steer accordingly. The wheel, besides giving you a better range at which you can turn you wheels, gets you intimate with your car. You can really feel your settings at work, unlike with the dual shock, where if you cant see it, you're done for.

Like I stated above, alot of stuff becomes an automatic response, like breathing, or swallowing. If you develop habits, they can be quite hard to break, because you'll base those habits upon how your wheel is acting, and they happen without thought.
 
Originally posted by silviadrifter
That is incorrect, but it is a common misconception....... By setting your brake bias to the front, it causes the front to lose more traction...... You have to remember that you are traveling at a relatively high speed, so if you have a front biased setup, when you hit the brakes, it is going to decrease the percentage of traction to the front, and as a biproduct, it will make the car more difficult to control........ I think TruenoAE86 explained it best, so if you're listening, Trueno, speak up.......

About the e-brake/foot brake.......

I use both when drifting AWD's... It just depends on the situation...... When you use the foot brake it will pull you in towards the apex, and also slow you down a bit. So this is best for any situation where you need to fix your angle and/or speed.......

Using the E-Brake will adjust your angle, without losing much, if any, speed. So this is best used when you want to keep all of your speed, but still want to adjust your angle a bit.......

Of course the E-Brake can also be used to initiate drifts, especially in tight hairpins....


;)
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off topic but cool avatar SD
 
Ok....Well then would you suggest learning FR first then going to AWD with a controller? I'm probably going to get a wheel, but not for a little bit. Have to make a good desk setup for it.
 
Originally posted by Swift
Ok....Well then would you suggest learning FR first then going to AWD with a controller? I'm probably going to get a wheel, but not for a little bit. Have to make a good desk setup for it.
Click to expand...
do what u think that benefits u, then if u don't like it, ask us the question
 
Hey guys, you have to remember the traction circle too. I don't have time to go find a more expert source to explain it, but the idea is that a tire can only provide so much force in any direction. I may get some details wrong here but the concept is simple. Say a tire can provide 1 g of force. If the car is fully balanced, front to back 50/50, and there is theoretically no chassis flex, a car will be able to use that full 1 g in grip through a corner. Start changing balance or using that 1 g "allotment" for other things such as braking or accelerating, and you lose potential cornering grip. Ask your tires to brake at .5 g, and the tire will only be able to provide .5 g of grip to pull you through a corner. That's why cars with higher front brake bias understeers, and vice versa. Ask the rear tires to do more braking work, and overall braking distance will increase, front wheels will grip harder, and rear wheels will grip less causing them to lose traction first. Just test it - turn your bias all the way forward and see how hard it is to turn at all while braking after a straightaway. Then turn it all the way back and see hard it is not to spin out.
 
I'd say 4wd is alot easier because you can lose a drift and get more than perpindicular in a corner and floor it and recover which is stupid to me. Some people may like that because of the crazy angle but its not realistic and take a low-level of skill.But then again FR could be considered easier cuz' it takes very little set-up.
Oh well.. I'll alwayz be a FR guy:)
 
It just seams to me that FR takes more precise handling then AWD. Because you can't use the front tires to pull you through. But I could be wrong.
 
Originally posted by pressure
Hey guys, you have to remember the traction circle too. I don't have time to go find a more expert source to explain it, but the idea is that a tire can only provide so much force in any direction. I may get some details wrong here but the concept is simple. Say a tire can provide 1 g of force. If the car is fully balanced, front to back 50/50, and there is theoretically no chassis flex, a car will be able to use that full 1 g in grip through a corner. Start changing balance or using that 1 g "allotment" for other things such as braking or accelerating, and you lose potential cornering grip. Ask your tires to brake at .5 g, and the tire will only be able to provide .5 g of grip to pull you through a corner. That's why cars with higher front brake bias understeers, and vice versa. Ask the rear tires to do more braking work, and overall braking distance will increase, front wheels will grip harder, and rear wheels will grip less causing them to lose traction first. Just test it - turn your bias all the way forward and see how hard it is to turn at all while braking after a straightaway. Then turn it all the way back and see hard it is not to spin out.
Click to expand...

Yes... Thankyou...... a bit simplified, but you made the point.....


;)
 

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