Okay, I understand why the CVT gearbox was replaced. It is more fascinating, but it only adjusts its ratios on-throttle, which effectively means you're entering the corner in one to three gears too high, causing terminal understeer, then you stomp the throttle, the engine wakes up, and you lose control of the car, having begun the drift much too late to end it before the road curves the other way.
However, with the transmission equipped, and with typical behaviour restored, the tuning itself is pretty impressive, giving a remarkably controllable drift instrument, considering the handicap of the car itself being nearly incapable of drifting. The car's very low power and reasonably high cornering ability mean that you must push it to the limit -somehow- even more than normal drifting. In a corner where a powerful Honda S2000 would be comfortable sideways, you're in a struggle to keep the car moving, and the short wheelbase/low power/MR combination means that it's directional stability is in short supply. Surely, with lots of practice, a driver will be able to adapt to this weakness, but there is one distinct flaw in the tune: It seems that the majority of the oversteer is throttle-oversteer. Which would be just peachy, if only there was any power. At high speeds, the murderous feeling Leo described... isn't. In fact, the car calms down quite a bit at speed (And at quite a bit of speed). At high speeds on the N-Ring, it feels like a low-spec racecar with a bit of attitude, and decent cornering ability at all speeds. Actually, I thought the setup would use camber to reduce grip fore and aft, to raise the power/handling ratio to a more driftish level. It seems that it was tuned for grip, then for oversteer.
I'm always assuming that MFT's driftable cars are built exclusively for drifting, only to find that they are oversteery implements of speed. And thus, I am confused to think the opposite for this car: By its specifications alone, it's clear this car is built for drift, but I now suggest that it was tuned for pace, then oversteer.
This car is slightly odd: It is specialized for drift at low speeds, and for oversteering pace at high speeds. It does both rather well, but trying to overstep either of those boundaries will result in a failure of motion. It is billed as a pure drifter, but it doesn't apply very well to the typical drift in GT4: high-speed inertia drift. Instead, it is a nearly useless, but enjoyable, mixture of the two: A chassis with adequate grip at high speed, and power-oversteer at low speed.
Ummm... I like the setup, but my reasons for liking it don't translate well into text. Actually, I like this setup for the same reasons I like the BMW 120i M-Sport. But, the BMW is more predictable, faster, more grippable, more driftable, and less... ugly. If you must be unique, this is an acceptable drift car to use, but I wouldn't actively recommend this tune, even if it is crippled only by the car's abilites.
No worries, we'll publish something significantly faster next week.
I'll just keep telling myself that.
