- 271
- United States
- The__Ghost__Z
Part 1 - On the nature and purposes of Drifting
Part 2: Precision - More complex factors in drift physics
Part 3: Weapons - Novice Drift Initiation Techniques
Part 4: High Caliber Weapons Advanced Drift Initiation Techniques
Part 5: Mid-Corner Drift Physics - Executing a drift at a speed and angle.
On an aside note, leave discussion on each individual topic, in its individual thread. They are distinctly unique ideas, but they do relate to the series as a whole.
=====================
It is often regulated officially, and unofficially, that higher power drift cars are faster, with more angle, and more difficulty in controlling than low power cars. Stock suspension drift cars with low Limited-slip-differential numbers are improperly handling and either cannot drift, or cannot drift well. Drift suspensions should be dropped to the lowest possible setting (or close) and a relative amount of camber is necessary to maintain "Fast" drifts or "High angle" drifts. Some amount of power is necessary to drift. Comfort Hard tires are the only tires that can be truly drifted on. 4WD cars cannot drift. FWD cars cannot drift.
That entire paragraph is a lie, and every sentence in it is false. Eventually, I will explain ever one of them, but for now I want to focus on higher power vs low power drift cars, and their cornering speeds and angles.
To explain this, I'll define drifting as a "Controlled slide where the rear slip angle exceeds the front slip angle". This is a very basic description that is based on the physical properties of a car during drift, rather than subjective measurements. It can already be assumed that, under no power, any four-wheeled vehicle is going to behave based on its weight distribution statistics and suspension, regardless of which wheels give it power. (a 4WD car and FWD car have no difference from a RWD car effectively, if they have no power through their wheels. Engineering differences and weight distribution are their own facts, and not absolutely related to how the drivetrain is setup) then if a car of the same dimensions, weight distribution, Center of Mass location, second moment of inertia, tires, suspension configuration, unsprung weight, aerodynamcis, brakes, and overall weight is able to drift without applying any power with a "tail out slide" (which corresponds to the preceding definition of drifting, free from the bondage of subjective judgement) Then any drive train configuration will not affect the outcome of its drift by any amount. The differences only appear when power is applied.
The power of a car has no impact on its drifting ability, as a numerical stat. Whether a car has 700 HP or 100 HP, its ability to drift is determined by a number of variables and ratios, and therefore no drift car can be measured merely by its power. These variables are simple. Torque affects drifting, because drifting involves placing "work" (horsepower, Watts, Joules, Calories) against resistance (Grip and Weight) and finding an acceptable and controllable balance between the two.
What makes a car drift faster in the corners is the following: Higher lateral and longitudinal acceleration. Just like normal driving. Therefore, a car that can corner faster than another car should theoretically drift faster than the other if given the same situation and relative inputs. In other words, when a car simply slides through a corner without any throttle (which, given the relative position of the car's wheels and tires, is still considered a drift, and it could be argued that the car's engine produces power all the time to keep moving, so long as it can overcome drivetrain resistance) a car with a higher ability to corner under gripping scenarios will be able to slide the same line and same position at a higher average speed. The amount of power they have does not matter. What makes this misconception exist is that higher-power cars usually have heavier engines with a more poor weight distribution for cornering, as well as more overall weight that stresses the tires. This, however, is not a constant fact and is grossly misunderstood by anyone without knowledge of suspension physics.
When power is applied, it is often assumed that a more powerful car is liable to break traction in the rear wheels faster, with more spin. This, also, is not true. What produces the traction loss (and by proportion, the amount of smoke) from the rear wheels under acceleration is the work done beyond the limits of the resistances. If a tire can take 1G of acceleration before losing traction, than that means that the tire can take the total work per second produced by the engine so that over distance (number of revolutions and wheel circumference, in feet) and how low the weight of resistance (lbs) do not exceed the acceleration limits of the car, at a given time (RPM). This is noted as work, as it involves both a form of force and distance, measured over time. However, we do not want to know how to exceed the traction of the tires over a period of time (as during the period of time, the tires may only exceed traction temporarily, so long as the average acceleration still exceeds the limits of the tires) but we want to know how much power can break the tire's traction instantaneously. Removing time, or Per Minute, from a HP calculation provides torque, as Horsepower is a derivative of Torque doing work over time.
So yes, this entire explanation (long, though necessary) says that whether a car will overcome its rear tires is entirely not dependent on Horsepower, but on instantaneous torque. Once a tire has lost traction, how -fast- it will spin depends on Horsepower. But whether or not it will spin, is based solely on torque. It can be understood however, that to achieve greater horsepower a car must either rev higher or produce more torque. Due to mechanical limitations, most cars choose the latter route as high-revving parts are prone to failure and remove an engine's usability as low-end torque relatively suffers as an engine is required to push its peak torque higher.
However, when given more weight, tires produce greater grip. This can be observed as both downforce and weight distribution statistics. Therefore, if a car has the same torque, with the same grip tires, but more weight, it may not spin its tires. Therefore, Lighter cars can produce the same torque/grip ratio that heavier cars can, and with less power. This puts one nail in the coffin on this misconception.
The last factor involved, is that this is not dependent on engine torque. This is dependent on rear wheel torque. Thus, a transmission setting can not only affect how a drift car drifts, but whether or not it will lose traction under power at all. Rear Wheel Torque is multiples by the ratios of the sizes of various gears between the engine and the ground. Therefore, a light car with properly tuned gears can and very easily spins its tires
Another note must be made to draw attention to cars which can drift, but cannot break rear traction in a straight line under max power and lowest gear. During a slide, which does not need power to be introduced, tire grip becomes reduced due to overall weight transfer of a car. Therefore, instead of increasing power or decreasing weight to achieve a loss of grip, these cars can use weight transfer. It is essentially selectively decreasing weight. This is one of the keys to making a properly tuned drift car, or drifting more effectively behind the wheel.
So far I've explained how to make a drift car be able to drift with the use of power (either in maintaining or initiating) and adjust it to necessary levels regardless of what a car's engine is capable of. This, objectively, dismisses the notion that higher-powered drift cars are inherently faster than lower-powered drift cars, as the acceleration capabilities and drifting character is exclusively determined by a series of ratios and groups of stats, rather than a single one.
But, there is some validity to the claim.
First off, is the effect of a car under a higher rear slip angle. Because of the higher rear slip angle of the rear in a car during the drift, the rear end of a car has a tendency to have a greater lateral speed than the relative to the front of the car upon entering a corner, due to the fact that the tires are expending less grip (as they have less overall grip due to the over-the-optimal slip angle, as well as possibly from weight transfer or lower rating tires) to move the car along the route of the corner, and more grip to move the car to the outside of the corner.
What gives a car its "angle" in a drift, has to do with the level grip on the rear tires moving the car forward, in relation to the level of grip on the tires overall moving the car in a needed direction. Whatever amount is not moving the car forward in a meaningful route results in greater sideways movement. In a car under normal corner, this is just tendency of cars to move to the outside if they try to corner too fast, or understeer. In a car under drifting conditions, however, the grip being used to move the car along the corner in the rear is less than the grip being used to move the car along the corner in the front.
Under drifting, a car's body essentially becomes a lever. The amount (aka, "Angle", measured as car's longitudinal axis's deviation from the direction it travels) that it swings depends on vectors of force on this lever. The car pivots along its center axis. How fast it pivots depends on the individual parts' ability to resist changes in motion, or second moment of inertia as I explained in Part 2. How -far- pivots (what we really want to know) is based on the distance from the Center of Mass and either the front or rear of the car. This means that a longer car will angle more for a given ratio of front-rear grip and slip angles. This means that a car with a center of mass farther from its geometric center will angle more for a given ratio of front-rear grip and slip angles.
So why does a car "angle" more under greater power? This is because it reduces the rear's grip and thus more sideways force pushes the car out as it has less counteracting resistance. Therefore, the angle increases. In a car with a center of mass far from the rear, the rear tip will move slower (as the angle remains the same, and the amount of time it takes to achieve the angle is the same, but the tip of the lever is farther from the pivot) and as the second moment of inertia increases in a car (chassis strength, location of parts to the CoM) it will pivot faster. So a car with a short distance from tip to Center of Mass will "swing" the same angle, but have visually less distance covered as the rear of the car moves, much how the longer second hand on an analog clock travels more distance at its tip than the shorter minute or hour hand.
To increase this angle, obviously, one would reduce the available rear traction through heavy weight transfer or power application, or having it with lower grip tires. Perhaps having it on a lower-grip surface, even? There are many possibilities.
However, this is not a one-sided lever. As the rear moves, the front does too in the opposite direction, swinging in proportion at the exact same angle. The angle may differ, at some observable instance, if the chassis flexes noticably, but it will "Catch up" with any change in rear angle. Therefore, when the rear of a car loses traction available to send a car along a desirable force during cornering, and the front wheels maintain the same traction, then the angle will increase. Success. But not yet, as the front of the car swings to an appropriate angle, which means that the car's angle, relative to its old position, has increased, but it's angle relative to the direction of travel or as very technical people like to call it... the road... has remained the same. The car is now moving off of the track. A car with a Center of Mass farther from the front than it is from the rear (say, a Mid-engined car) will actually have the front wheels travel more distance than the rear under the same angle. Adjusting the location of the Center of Mass can produce various visual effects when drifting, and a car can appear (with a Center of Mass far from the rear) to be drifting at a very high angle with relatively little countersteer but be traveling on a path that will send the car off-track.
There are two distance angles, then. The angle of the car, relative to its desired path, and the angle of the car relative to its actual direction. In order for a car to successfully drift, it must maintain these angles to be identical.
This means that as the ratio of rear grip moving the car along a desirable track decreases relative to the front, the car will still not magically travel along the desired path. Therefore, countersteering must be utilized. The front wheels, which are movable, must require more grip and face the direction (relative to the current front wheel slip angle) of the track. This means that the front wheels, under some slip, will not be pointed where the car is "supposed" to go. Rather, it will be pointed at the angle of the car relative to the desired line, minus the front slip angle. This is why Four-wheel-drifts are relatively more difficult, as a driver must also know the slip angle of the front, to properly countersteer.
So countersteering doesn't obtain more grip, but it changes the direction of where the available grip is going. This analysis confirms common sense. One notable thing however, is that the rear tires cannot change their path during a drift. Thus, if angle is increased, countersteer must be necessary. However, this also means that there is less acceleration being transmitted from the rear tires to the road. Therefore, the car, with less overall grip (as the rear tires have less grip, even if the front do not) and less acceleration grip, will lose speed. It may maintain itself at a new, lower, speed, but it cannot achieve the same speeds as at a shallower angle. How you optimize your speeds at that higher angle, I will leave up for you to figure out, I cannot explain all of my techniques to the public just yet.
But this shows the advantage of four-wheel steering, as well as four-wheel drive. Four wheel steering is able to produce a faster drift by allowing the rear tires to lose more grip, but also utilize a greater proportion of their grip in a meaningful direction. The opposite can be done to provide stability. This is particularly noticeable in cars such as the Nissan S14 and S15, with its Super HICAS four-wheel steering that changed the steering angles based on speed, and necessary stability. Four wheel drive cars are able to provide a faster drift by making up for lost acceleration forces at the rear (which were at an angle to the wanted direction) by using acceleration force at the front, which are facing the desirable path of travel for the car.
So now I'll sum up what we need to know. For a car to drift "Faster", it must have the same properties as a car has when gripping faster, as in, it must have greater lateral and longitudinal acceleration through a curve. For a car to have a greater angle relative to path of travel, it must have less rear traction (and thus greater slip angle as the rear moves farther to the outside of a corner than the front, as it cannot resist the forces as much) relative to the front traction. In order to have greater angle, and travel a desired path, the grip on the four tires must be sent proportionally toward the direction of the car's desired path, whether it is through countersteer or reduction in angle (requiring less countersteer to travel the same path) In order to produce less grip in the rear tires through power application, greater rear-wheel torque numbers must be produced. Because the weight of the car on each tire adds grip, cars with more weight on the rear tires require more RWTQ. This does not necessarily mean that they have more power overall, but just greater RWTQ. To increase drift speed, more force must be able to send the car in its desired direction. This can be done by increasing overall grip (minimize weight transfer and power usage at the wheels) or can be done by adjusting the grip in the desired direction. (More weight on the front wheels, more accurate countersteering, less overall front slip angle). How quickly your car reacts to the changes in direction and angle is relative to its second moment of inertia. How far, in distance and proportion, a car's edges pivot from its Center of Mass depends on measurable distance from the center of the mass to the edges of the car.
This post explains rather basic physics of a car maintaining a drift, and how to change the angle (and adjust the angle) in mid-drift. It does not explain the use of mid-corner E-brake use, which I will elaborate on a later post.
Part 2: Precision - More complex factors in drift physics
Part 3: Weapons - Novice Drift Initiation Techniques
Part 4: High Caliber Weapons Advanced Drift Initiation Techniques
Part 5: Mid-Corner Drift Physics - Executing a drift at a speed and angle.
On an aside note, leave discussion on each individual topic, in its individual thread. They are distinctly unique ideas, but they do relate to the series as a whole.
=====================
It is often regulated officially, and unofficially, that higher power drift cars are faster, with more angle, and more difficulty in controlling than low power cars. Stock suspension drift cars with low Limited-slip-differential numbers are improperly handling and either cannot drift, or cannot drift well. Drift suspensions should be dropped to the lowest possible setting (or close) and a relative amount of camber is necessary to maintain "Fast" drifts or "High angle" drifts. Some amount of power is necessary to drift. Comfort Hard tires are the only tires that can be truly drifted on. 4WD cars cannot drift. FWD cars cannot drift.
That entire paragraph is a lie, and every sentence in it is false. Eventually, I will explain ever one of them, but for now I want to focus on higher power vs low power drift cars, and their cornering speeds and angles.
To explain this, I'll define drifting as a "Controlled slide where the rear slip angle exceeds the front slip angle". This is a very basic description that is based on the physical properties of a car during drift, rather than subjective measurements. It can already be assumed that, under no power, any four-wheeled vehicle is going to behave based on its weight distribution statistics and suspension, regardless of which wheels give it power. (a 4WD car and FWD car have no difference from a RWD car effectively, if they have no power through their wheels. Engineering differences and weight distribution are their own facts, and not absolutely related to how the drivetrain is setup) then if a car of the same dimensions, weight distribution, Center of Mass location, second moment of inertia, tires, suspension configuration, unsprung weight, aerodynamcis, brakes, and overall weight is able to drift without applying any power with a "tail out slide" (which corresponds to the preceding definition of drifting, free from the bondage of subjective judgement) Then any drive train configuration will not affect the outcome of its drift by any amount. The differences only appear when power is applied.
The power of a car has no impact on its drifting ability, as a numerical stat. Whether a car has 700 HP or 100 HP, its ability to drift is determined by a number of variables and ratios, and therefore no drift car can be measured merely by its power. These variables are simple. Torque affects drifting, because drifting involves placing "work" (horsepower, Watts, Joules, Calories) against resistance (Grip and Weight) and finding an acceptable and controllable balance between the two.
What makes a car drift faster in the corners is the following: Higher lateral and longitudinal acceleration. Just like normal driving. Therefore, a car that can corner faster than another car should theoretically drift faster than the other if given the same situation and relative inputs. In other words, when a car simply slides through a corner without any throttle (which, given the relative position of the car's wheels and tires, is still considered a drift, and it could be argued that the car's engine produces power all the time to keep moving, so long as it can overcome drivetrain resistance) a car with a higher ability to corner under gripping scenarios will be able to slide the same line and same position at a higher average speed. The amount of power they have does not matter. What makes this misconception exist is that higher-power cars usually have heavier engines with a more poor weight distribution for cornering, as well as more overall weight that stresses the tires. This, however, is not a constant fact and is grossly misunderstood by anyone without knowledge of suspension physics.
When power is applied, it is often assumed that a more powerful car is liable to break traction in the rear wheels faster, with more spin. This, also, is not true. What produces the traction loss (and by proportion, the amount of smoke) from the rear wheels under acceleration is the work done beyond the limits of the resistances. If a tire can take 1G of acceleration before losing traction, than that means that the tire can take the total work per second produced by the engine so that over distance (number of revolutions and wheel circumference, in feet) and how low the weight of resistance (lbs) do not exceed the acceleration limits of the car, at a given time (RPM). This is noted as work, as it involves both a form of force and distance, measured over time. However, we do not want to know how to exceed the traction of the tires over a period of time (as during the period of time, the tires may only exceed traction temporarily, so long as the average acceleration still exceeds the limits of the tires) but we want to know how much power can break the tire's traction instantaneously. Removing time, or Per Minute, from a HP calculation provides torque, as Horsepower is a derivative of Torque doing work over time.
So yes, this entire explanation (long, though necessary) says that whether a car will overcome its rear tires is entirely not dependent on Horsepower, but on instantaneous torque. Once a tire has lost traction, how -fast- it will spin depends on Horsepower. But whether or not it will spin, is based solely on torque. It can be understood however, that to achieve greater horsepower a car must either rev higher or produce more torque. Due to mechanical limitations, most cars choose the latter route as high-revving parts are prone to failure and remove an engine's usability as low-end torque relatively suffers as an engine is required to push its peak torque higher.
However, when given more weight, tires produce greater grip. This can be observed as both downforce and weight distribution statistics. Therefore, if a car has the same torque, with the same grip tires, but more weight, it may not spin its tires. Therefore, Lighter cars can produce the same torque/grip ratio that heavier cars can, and with less power. This puts one nail in the coffin on this misconception.
The last factor involved, is that this is not dependent on engine torque. This is dependent on rear wheel torque. Thus, a transmission setting can not only affect how a drift car drifts, but whether or not it will lose traction under power at all. Rear Wheel Torque is multiples by the ratios of the sizes of various gears between the engine and the ground. Therefore, a light car with properly tuned gears can and very easily spins its tires
Another note must be made to draw attention to cars which can drift, but cannot break rear traction in a straight line under max power and lowest gear. During a slide, which does not need power to be introduced, tire grip becomes reduced due to overall weight transfer of a car. Therefore, instead of increasing power or decreasing weight to achieve a loss of grip, these cars can use weight transfer. It is essentially selectively decreasing weight. This is one of the keys to making a properly tuned drift car, or drifting more effectively behind the wheel.
So far I've explained how to make a drift car be able to drift with the use of power (either in maintaining or initiating) and adjust it to necessary levels regardless of what a car's engine is capable of. This, objectively, dismisses the notion that higher-powered drift cars are inherently faster than lower-powered drift cars, as the acceleration capabilities and drifting character is exclusively determined by a series of ratios and groups of stats, rather than a single one.
But, there is some validity to the claim.
First off, is the effect of a car under a higher rear slip angle. Because of the higher rear slip angle of the rear in a car during the drift, the rear end of a car has a tendency to have a greater lateral speed than the relative to the front of the car upon entering a corner, due to the fact that the tires are expending less grip (as they have less overall grip due to the over-the-optimal slip angle, as well as possibly from weight transfer or lower rating tires) to move the car along the route of the corner, and more grip to move the car to the outside of the corner.
What gives a car its "angle" in a drift, has to do with the level grip on the rear tires moving the car forward, in relation to the level of grip on the tires overall moving the car in a needed direction. Whatever amount is not moving the car forward in a meaningful route results in greater sideways movement. In a car under normal corner, this is just tendency of cars to move to the outside if they try to corner too fast, or understeer. In a car under drifting conditions, however, the grip being used to move the car along the corner in the rear is less than the grip being used to move the car along the corner in the front.
Under drifting, a car's body essentially becomes a lever. The amount (aka, "Angle", measured as car's longitudinal axis's deviation from the direction it travels) that it swings depends on vectors of force on this lever. The car pivots along its center axis. How fast it pivots depends on the individual parts' ability to resist changes in motion, or second moment of inertia as I explained in Part 2. How -far- pivots (what we really want to know) is based on the distance from the Center of Mass and either the front or rear of the car. This means that a longer car will angle more for a given ratio of front-rear grip and slip angles. This means that a car with a center of mass farther from its geometric center will angle more for a given ratio of front-rear grip and slip angles.
So why does a car "angle" more under greater power? This is because it reduces the rear's grip and thus more sideways force pushes the car out as it has less counteracting resistance. Therefore, the angle increases. In a car with a center of mass far from the rear, the rear tip will move slower (as the angle remains the same, and the amount of time it takes to achieve the angle is the same, but the tip of the lever is farther from the pivot) and as the second moment of inertia increases in a car (chassis strength, location of parts to the CoM) it will pivot faster. So a car with a short distance from tip to Center of Mass will "swing" the same angle, but have visually less distance covered as the rear of the car moves, much how the longer second hand on an analog clock travels more distance at its tip than the shorter minute or hour hand.
To increase this angle, obviously, one would reduce the available rear traction through heavy weight transfer or power application, or having it with lower grip tires. Perhaps having it on a lower-grip surface, even? There are many possibilities.
However, this is not a one-sided lever. As the rear moves, the front does too in the opposite direction, swinging in proportion at the exact same angle. The angle may differ, at some observable instance, if the chassis flexes noticably, but it will "Catch up" with any change in rear angle. Therefore, when the rear of a car loses traction available to send a car along a desirable force during cornering, and the front wheels maintain the same traction, then the angle will increase. Success. But not yet, as the front of the car swings to an appropriate angle, which means that the car's angle, relative to its old position, has increased, but it's angle relative to the direction of travel or as very technical people like to call it... the road... has remained the same. The car is now moving off of the track. A car with a Center of Mass farther from the front than it is from the rear (say, a Mid-engined car) will actually have the front wheels travel more distance than the rear under the same angle. Adjusting the location of the Center of Mass can produce various visual effects when drifting, and a car can appear (with a Center of Mass far from the rear) to be drifting at a very high angle with relatively little countersteer but be traveling on a path that will send the car off-track.
There are two distance angles, then. The angle of the car, relative to its desired path, and the angle of the car relative to its actual direction. In order for a car to successfully drift, it must maintain these angles to be identical.
This means that as the ratio of rear grip moving the car along a desirable track decreases relative to the front, the car will still not magically travel along the desired path. Therefore, countersteering must be utilized. The front wheels, which are movable, must require more grip and face the direction (relative to the current front wheel slip angle) of the track. This means that the front wheels, under some slip, will not be pointed where the car is "supposed" to go. Rather, it will be pointed at the angle of the car relative to the desired line, minus the front slip angle. This is why Four-wheel-drifts are relatively more difficult, as a driver must also know the slip angle of the front, to properly countersteer.
So countersteering doesn't obtain more grip, but it changes the direction of where the available grip is going. This analysis confirms common sense. One notable thing however, is that the rear tires cannot change their path during a drift. Thus, if angle is increased, countersteer must be necessary. However, this also means that there is less acceleration being transmitted from the rear tires to the road. Therefore, the car, with less overall grip (as the rear tires have less grip, even if the front do not) and less acceleration grip, will lose speed. It may maintain itself at a new, lower, speed, but it cannot achieve the same speeds as at a shallower angle. How you optimize your speeds at that higher angle, I will leave up for you to figure out, I cannot explain all of my techniques to the public just yet.
So now I'll sum up what we need to know. For a car to drift "Faster", it must have the same properties as a car has when gripping faster, as in, it must have greater lateral and longitudinal acceleration through a curve. For a car to have a greater angle relative to path of travel, it must have less rear traction (and thus greater slip angle as the rear moves farther to the outside of a corner than the front, as it cannot resist the forces as much) relative to the front traction. In order to have greater angle, and travel a desired path, the grip on the four tires must be sent proportionally toward the direction of the car's desired path, whether it is through countersteer or reduction in angle (requiring less countersteer to travel the same path) In order to produce less grip in the rear tires through power application, greater rear-wheel torque numbers must be produced. Because the weight of the car on each tire adds grip, cars with more weight on the rear tires require more RWTQ. This does not necessarily mean that they have more power overall, but just greater RWTQ. To increase drift speed, more force must be able to send the car in its desired direction. This can be done by increasing overall grip (minimize weight transfer and power usage at the wheels) or can be done by adjusting the grip in the desired direction. (More weight on the front wheels, more accurate countersteering, less overall front slip angle). How quickly your car reacts to the changes in direction and angle is relative to its second moment of inertia. How far, in distance and proportion, a car's edges pivot from its Center of Mass depends on measurable distance from the center of the mass to the edges of the car.
This post explains rather basic physics of a car maintaining a drift, and how to change the angle (and adjust the angle) in mid-drift. It does not explain the use of mid-corner E-brake use, which I will elaborate on a later post.
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