- 271
- United States
- The__Ghost__Z
This is not about 4 wheel drive.
Being that it is the holiday season, I'll give you guys the gift of a new phenomenon I've observed by drifting.
As of late, using the same tunes as normal, I've come to adjust some aspects of my driving, and as I approach better and better speeds and angles, there's a particular technique that I want to share. I've seen it in the last few weeks, and it's quite interesting. I feel it might be a bit unrealistic in terms of real life drifting, but it is very very real in terms of GT5.
Under most circumstances, when entering a drift the front tires grab the road and countersteer while the rear tires spin and force the car sideways. The problem with this however is that the rear tires are not helping counteract the lateral force trying to push the car off the road as much as they are during grip driving. Direction of the car's movement is determined solely on the front tire's ability to hold the car on the road, and the more of their grip is used to keep the car from spinning out (higher angle) the less they can use to move the car along the path of the road. This is the speed vs angle trade-off. More weight on the tires means they have more grip, and under most drifting, the front inside tire has the least grip, since all forces point away from it, toward the outside and rear. This is all known and a given.
However, I have noticed a different phenomenon happening under extremely balanced cornering without varying inputs from the wheel or pedals. Because I tune my cars for perfect roll balance no matter what car I use, this phenomenon has showed up in cars ranging from 200-600 TQ and 800-1400 kg. Since it is not apparently dependent on the weight distribution, weight, downforce, or other factors inherent to each car, I figure its importance is huge given that it is not a property of a particular car (as I initially thought it was) but an indicator of a well-tuned suspension. This means that understanding what is going on could improve drifting speed and angle.
And yes, my tuning sheet does provide this balance, but I didn't realize it until I improved my technique enough to capitalize on it.
The Phenomenon:
Through most drifts now, three (all but the inside front tire) or possibly all four wheels smoke, lose traction, and drift. Initially I thought this would be a bad thing, one of the front wheels (specifically the front outside) losing traction would cause understeer. But it is also improving my speeds drastically. This doesn't make sense, since the three, or four tires are losing grip, and thus the ability to counteract cornering forces. I already knew about four-wheel drift on corner entry, slowing the car down faster than a power-over drift in the event you enter a corner too fast, and using the understeer caused by the front wheels sliding to counteract the rear wheel oversteer, so that you can brake later and have more angle. But that is entirely different from this situation.
This is four wheel drift on mid-corner and corner exit. I believe this is from better throttle control getting a consistent weight transfer. Instead of fluttering the throttle or using it fully and shifting, there is a constant "light" throttle usage that maximizes the G forces through the corner. It must maximize them, both because of the higher speed I"m seeing (almost grip speeds, with all four tires "red"). What it looks like is simple: Upon entry, the car slowly rolls toward the corner and begins to drift with barely any throttle input, and then the outside front wheel loses traction as it approaches the apex. The closer to the apex the car gets, the more the wheel slides, until it reaches the apex and the front outside wheel is sliding an the car rotates around the front inside wheel. Instead of pulling to the outside, as one would expect, the whole car stays right at the edge and continues to rotate. The car is perfectly still through this, until the steering wheel unwinds and starts to accelerate out of the turn. Then, the front inside wheel loses traction as well as the car straightens out. No actions are sudden, and it can be maintained for long drifts and short drifts.
What is Happening:
In order to do this, the body's suspension does not move up or down. It produces slight lean, but much less than from corrective or sudden changes in the car's drifting. When all inputs are held constant, in conjunction with a perfect roll balance all four tires will go past the limit at the same time with no throttle input. But with throttle input, the rear tires go a little farther past the limit and sooner, starting the rotation. In this case, the throttle is not being used to create angle. The throttle is being used to just keep the rear tires from completely grabbing the road. You must give it just enough torque to "float" the tires through the corner with minimal loss of grip. While this would normally reduce cornering ability, it is outweighed by a second effect.
While during most cornering, the weight transfer front to rear changes a lot, first off the rear in braking, then smoothing out, and then on the rear for acceleration. But this drifting does not do that. This is particularly observable on long corners, where the body has time to "flatten out" before exit. In fact, it is not flattening out, it is maintaining just the right amount of roll produced by the maximum G forces. Racing theory of approaching the max grip of the tires applies to drifting as well.
This balances the weight so that the inside front tire has the most grip - the outside front tire would normally have considerable weight on it during an aggressive drift or if the suspension rocks from correction, however, this time the different from front inside and front outside tires is lessened. The outside front tire now, with less grip than in aggressive driving, can be pushed along by the rear wheels (who lose some grip, but lose very little compared to the loss from aggressive driving) Consequentially, this is the tire with the greatest cornering force in proportion to the grip it has. The outside front tire is under constant "past its limits" push as the car rotates it around the front inside tire. It is changing direction beyond its limits, while the inside tire dictates where it goes. With toe-out, the inside tire now has greater control over where the car would go otherwise, as the car's path relative to its angle is determined by the average of the slip angle between the two front tires. I believe that if you increase toe-out on the front, this effect is amplified, as the inside tire continues to act as the center of the circle which the car rotates around, now at a better (more "square" to the desired path, less "Diamond") contact patch, and the outside tire "drifts" past its limits over the ground as the weight of the car move around. If the suspension has any harmonic motion, from fluttering the gas, changing angle, or moving the wheel, during the corner, then this balance would not happen.
Then, four wheel drift happens.
On corner exit, the front inside tire loses grip and it becomes a 4 wheel drift. This is happening because as the steering wheel unwinds an throttle is increased, more weight transfer to the rear pulls the weight off of the inside front tire and puts it on the back. That inside front tire that has been dictating the car's motion suddenly has its limits lowered, and thus begins to slip. This understeer effect is excellent, because it allows more throttle to be used to pull the car out of the drift and increase speed for the next corner.
A very simple example is the circle in Autumn Ring. Three tires constantly red, the front inside with grip. Speed is held at a constant 43-44 mph throughout the corner in the Z, and a little higher in my new car. (If the 240Z is a ghost, I refer to this new car as the Demon Z, and if I find a drifter who can keep up with the 240z, I'll pull it out sometime to show off. I finally committed to a drift car that isn't for nostalgia and style but pure performance!) Speed benefits are most seen on corners with a longer mid-section, and relatively small entry and exit zones.
Why does this increase speed?:
Because the tires are consistently warm, relatively even on weight distribution, and without harmonic motion in the suspension, the tires grip is maximized throughout the drift. I believe this is a key reason why the 240Z, AE86, and other lighter cars have such good drifting characteristics, when the same drift is done in both cars: They can approach this balance easier. This is an insight into what I believe some drifters refers to as the "Balance" of the car. Not just some vague notion of tuning, but a car's real ability to approach this equilibrium of G-forces. A car with too much power, too little weight, or too tight (or too loose) suspension would never be able to approach this.
If you do this right, you need the least countersteer, the least throttle, and the least reduction in speed, to maintain a drift through the corner. Then, logically, if you can drift an X angle with more speed, you should be able to drift as X+N angle with more speed than before. This means that it improves speed across the board with no sacrifice in angle on any car with proper settings. That is what makes it such an important technique to use. However, prerequisites for the tuning require that the car have very even roll through the chassis, and minimized weight transfer while still being able to have enough weight transfer to initiate the drift.
This dispels the preconception that the way to drift fastest is to keep the front wheels with the maximum grip possible, or that the rear wheels need to have less grip in order to achieve more angle. It also explains some of the weakness in using the ebrake to drift, or extreme power-over techniques.
One difficulty in approaching this balance is tuning the LSD. For the car to properly rotate around that front inside wheel, the two rear wheels need to have a difference of spin, but at the same time both be spinning faster than they need to be. A finely balanced LSD setting, based on the total torque before the wheels, and the weight of the car on the wheels is vital. This can be done with an open differential, however, I find that the speed is reduced because the inside rear tire loses more traction than necessary, which is unfortunate because the outside rear tire is the one that needs the least traction. I have found that for some cars, changing the "initial torque setting" by even ONE point will lose the maximum cornering ability. It frustrates me because its so vague that it is not something that can be mathematically represented in my tuning sheet. However, the relationships are there, I just have to be more precise with my selections if I want to tune other cars to gain this speed advantage.
I challenge other people to go out and try this technique out, now that I am confident that it is not restricted to a single car. Tuning would be a slight toe-out, perfect roll balance, moderate damper settings, low LSD settings (depending on the weight of the car) and very very stable car control.
Being that it is the holiday season, I'll give you guys the gift of a new phenomenon I've observed by drifting.
As of late, using the same tunes as normal, I've come to adjust some aspects of my driving, and as I approach better and better speeds and angles, there's a particular technique that I want to share. I've seen it in the last few weeks, and it's quite interesting. I feel it might be a bit unrealistic in terms of real life drifting, but it is very very real in terms of GT5.
Under most circumstances, when entering a drift the front tires grab the road and countersteer while the rear tires spin and force the car sideways. The problem with this however is that the rear tires are not helping counteract the lateral force trying to push the car off the road as much as they are during grip driving. Direction of the car's movement is determined solely on the front tire's ability to hold the car on the road, and the more of their grip is used to keep the car from spinning out (higher angle) the less they can use to move the car along the path of the road. This is the speed vs angle trade-off. More weight on the tires means they have more grip, and under most drifting, the front inside tire has the least grip, since all forces point away from it, toward the outside and rear. This is all known and a given.
However, I have noticed a different phenomenon happening under extremely balanced cornering without varying inputs from the wheel or pedals. Because I tune my cars for perfect roll balance no matter what car I use, this phenomenon has showed up in cars ranging from 200-600 TQ and 800-1400 kg. Since it is not apparently dependent on the weight distribution, weight, downforce, or other factors inherent to each car, I figure its importance is huge given that it is not a property of a particular car (as I initially thought it was) but an indicator of a well-tuned suspension. This means that understanding what is going on could improve drifting speed and angle.
And yes, my tuning sheet does provide this balance, but I didn't realize it until I improved my technique enough to capitalize on it.
The Phenomenon:
Through most drifts now, three (all but the inside front tire) or possibly all four wheels smoke, lose traction, and drift. Initially I thought this would be a bad thing, one of the front wheels (specifically the front outside) losing traction would cause understeer. But it is also improving my speeds drastically. This doesn't make sense, since the three, or four tires are losing grip, and thus the ability to counteract cornering forces. I already knew about four-wheel drift on corner entry, slowing the car down faster than a power-over drift in the event you enter a corner too fast, and using the understeer caused by the front wheels sliding to counteract the rear wheel oversteer, so that you can brake later and have more angle. But that is entirely different from this situation.
This is four wheel drift on mid-corner and corner exit. I believe this is from better throttle control getting a consistent weight transfer. Instead of fluttering the throttle or using it fully and shifting, there is a constant "light" throttle usage that maximizes the G forces through the corner. It must maximize them, both because of the higher speed I"m seeing (almost grip speeds, with all four tires "red"). What it looks like is simple: Upon entry, the car slowly rolls toward the corner and begins to drift with barely any throttle input, and then the outside front wheel loses traction as it approaches the apex. The closer to the apex the car gets, the more the wheel slides, until it reaches the apex and the front outside wheel is sliding an the car rotates around the front inside wheel. Instead of pulling to the outside, as one would expect, the whole car stays right at the edge and continues to rotate. The car is perfectly still through this, until the steering wheel unwinds and starts to accelerate out of the turn. Then, the front inside wheel loses traction as well as the car straightens out. No actions are sudden, and it can be maintained for long drifts and short drifts.
What is Happening:
In order to do this, the body's suspension does not move up or down. It produces slight lean, but much less than from corrective or sudden changes in the car's drifting. When all inputs are held constant, in conjunction with a perfect roll balance all four tires will go past the limit at the same time with no throttle input. But with throttle input, the rear tires go a little farther past the limit and sooner, starting the rotation. In this case, the throttle is not being used to create angle. The throttle is being used to just keep the rear tires from completely grabbing the road. You must give it just enough torque to "float" the tires through the corner with minimal loss of grip. While this would normally reduce cornering ability, it is outweighed by a second effect.
While during most cornering, the weight transfer front to rear changes a lot, first off the rear in braking, then smoothing out, and then on the rear for acceleration. But this drifting does not do that. This is particularly observable on long corners, where the body has time to "flatten out" before exit. In fact, it is not flattening out, it is maintaining just the right amount of roll produced by the maximum G forces. Racing theory of approaching the max grip of the tires applies to drifting as well.
This balances the weight so that the inside front tire has the most grip - the outside front tire would normally have considerable weight on it during an aggressive drift or if the suspension rocks from correction, however, this time the different from front inside and front outside tires is lessened. The outside front tire now, with less grip than in aggressive driving, can be pushed along by the rear wheels (who lose some grip, but lose very little compared to the loss from aggressive driving) Consequentially, this is the tire with the greatest cornering force in proportion to the grip it has. The outside front tire is under constant "past its limits" push as the car rotates it around the front inside tire. It is changing direction beyond its limits, while the inside tire dictates where it goes. With toe-out, the inside tire now has greater control over where the car would go otherwise, as the car's path relative to its angle is determined by the average of the slip angle between the two front tires. I believe that if you increase toe-out on the front, this effect is amplified, as the inside tire continues to act as the center of the circle which the car rotates around, now at a better (more "square" to the desired path, less "Diamond") contact patch, and the outside tire "drifts" past its limits over the ground as the weight of the car move around. If the suspension has any harmonic motion, from fluttering the gas, changing angle, or moving the wheel, during the corner, then this balance would not happen.
Then, four wheel drift happens.
On corner exit, the front inside tire loses grip and it becomes a 4 wheel drift. This is happening because as the steering wheel unwinds an throttle is increased, more weight transfer to the rear pulls the weight off of the inside front tire and puts it on the back. That inside front tire that has been dictating the car's motion suddenly has its limits lowered, and thus begins to slip. This understeer effect is excellent, because it allows more throttle to be used to pull the car out of the drift and increase speed for the next corner.
A very simple example is the circle in Autumn Ring. Three tires constantly red, the front inside with grip. Speed is held at a constant 43-44 mph throughout the corner in the Z, and a little higher in my new car. (If the 240Z is a ghost, I refer to this new car as the Demon Z, and if I find a drifter who can keep up with the 240z, I'll pull it out sometime to show off. I finally committed to a drift car that isn't for nostalgia and style but pure performance!) Speed benefits are most seen on corners with a longer mid-section, and relatively small entry and exit zones.
Why does this increase speed?:
Because the tires are consistently warm, relatively even on weight distribution, and without harmonic motion in the suspension, the tires grip is maximized throughout the drift. I believe this is a key reason why the 240Z, AE86, and other lighter cars have such good drifting characteristics, when the same drift is done in both cars: They can approach this balance easier. This is an insight into what I believe some drifters refers to as the "Balance" of the car. Not just some vague notion of tuning, but a car's real ability to approach this equilibrium of G-forces. A car with too much power, too little weight, or too tight (or too loose) suspension would never be able to approach this.
If you do this right, you need the least countersteer, the least throttle, and the least reduction in speed, to maintain a drift through the corner. Then, logically, if you can drift an X angle with more speed, you should be able to drift as X+N angle with more speed than before. This means that it improves speed across the board with no sacrifice in angle on any car with proper settings. That is what makes it such an important technique to use. However, prerequisites for the tuning require that the car have very even roll through the chassis, and minimized weight transfer while still being able to have enough weight transfer to initiate the drift.
This dispels the preconception that the way to drift fastest is to keep the front wheels with the maximum grip possible, or that the rear wheels need to have less grip in order to achieve more angle. It also explains some of the weakness in using the ebrake to drift, or extreme power-over techniques.
One difficulty in approaching this balance is tuning the LSD. For the car to properly rotate around that front inside wheel, the two rear wheels need to have a difference of spin, but at the same time both be spinning faster than they need to be. A finely balanced LSD setting, based on the total torque before the wheels, and the weight of the car on the wheels is vital. This can be done with an open differential, however, I find that the speed is reduced because the inside rear tire loses more traction than necessary, which is unfortunate because the outside rear tire is the one that needs the least traction. I have found that for some cars, changing the "initial torque setting" by even ONE point will lose the maximum cornering ability. It frustrates me because its so vague that it is not something that can be mathematically represented in my tuning sheet. However, the relationships are there, I just have to be more precise with my selections if I want to tune other cars to gain this speed advantage.
I challenge other people to go out and try this technique out, now that I am confident that it is not restricted to a single car. Tuning would be a slight toe-out, perfect roll balance, moderate damper settings, low LSD settings (depending on the weight of the car) and very very stable car control.
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