What do these drifting terms mean?

  • Thread starter The Prime
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The Prime

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I know I am exposing myself as someone who is a newbie to drifting, but there are a few words I don't understand. I looked at the drift faq's and I couldn't find a definition of them.

1. Camber - something to do with the tuning, I know that, but i never tune my cars I drift in and, quite honestly, I don't know how. If you guys wish to, you can explain how the LSD and brake controller settings also affect the drift.

2. Oversteer
3. Understeer

Before anyone calls me a super noob, take a look at my vid in my sig and you'll know I CAN drift. Its just that I like getting into any car and making it drift, w/o messing around with its settings.

Thanks guys
 
^^^
Camber- alot of negative camber in the front reduces the angle on ur drifts, I use 2 up front and 0 out back

Overstear- is basicly a drift but drifting is an art form of overstear.
Understear- when the front of the car keeps going straight and won't turn in the desires direction.
 
camber is the angle of the wheels
/------\ is negative camber
\------/ is positive camber
[]-----[] is 0 camber

Oversteer is when you come into a corner and the back end comes around
Understeer is when you come into a corner and the front end seems to plow through the corner..basically it won't turn
 
just to be more specific...

camber... i often say chamber so forgive my typos... is the angle the wheel makes with the vector that is normal to the ground ( angle from verticle)... It compensates for bending and deformations withint he strut of hte suspension... If no bending were to occur then a 0 angle would be best for maximum grip... however this is not the case and initial angle must be present so at high cornering loads ( such as in racing or drifting) the wheels actually utulize the entire tire tread... and are not at some angle... int he game i believe that by setting camber between 0 and 3 with a higher angle on the front than the back... oversteer will always be created becuase the front has more of hte tire flat to the ground than hte rear under the same load... What ethix showed as positive camber is what reults for a 0 degree wheel initially under corner loads... you can see y negative chamber you be useful to compensate for this naturally occuring angle...

oversteer is when the rear tires loose traction first and the front tires still have traction... becasue the tire has a greater friction coeff than at loss of traction teh car will swing in hte direction of the turn... and a slip angle is created

understeer... when the front tires loose traction first... this basically prevents the front tires from turning in the vehicle any further than at hte point of traction loss or limit...
 
brakes can be staggered like tires... lower in the front higher in the back to loose traciton in the rear first and casue oversteer... i leave mine even becuase it lowers your braking distance when compared to staggered ones...

lsd limits the wheel spin between two axles in acc and braking as well as between the two sides in turns... it really doesnt matter for drifting becuase your whole goal is to tloose traciton... it is important for racing however...
 
while we're on the subject of newbie questions, can some please explain why certain cars spit out fire? i watch lots of drift videos and periodically one of them will spit out this awesome fireball.
 
Bengee is da man lol...mad smart...In all his post i always learn something new THANX BENGEE!!


Oh btw, Nice freakin video Prime..i like it! you should make a video an put the song "a place for my head" by linkin park in the video...thats a good driving fast song lol
 
LSD is very useful in my opinion, even in drifting. It can, for example, be used to control how far the rear-end will come out on a RWD car. If you increase the Accel, when you give it a bunch of gas, the initial set-in will be farther out. If it's too far out, you will have a hard time breaking the tires loose. If it's too far in, you won't be able to stay on the gas the whole time. And that's just one of the three settings for one of the four drivetrains, so it takes a while to figure them all out. I haven't even figured them all out really, but I have a basic understanding.

* Just to clarify, LSD alone can't control anything, the whole car has to be tuned together. The springrate also greatly affects the set-in so it has to be tuned to match the set-in of the LSD in order to get good response.
 
I usually dont full around much with spring rates or lsd for drifters... because there are other ways to control in my opinion... however for racers or 4 wheel drifting i do mess with lsd... i find that lsd is the most difficult thing to tune... i tune everything else first and then perfect inmy spare time... so far i have only done so for my pseedster and ctr2...

i figure the comps know the physical characteristics of a certain car better than i do... so i usually leave spring rates stock unless something is real real bad...
 
Originally posted by slide-wayz
while we're on the subject of newbie questions, can some please explain why certain cars spit out fire? i watch lots of drift videos and periodically one of them will spit out this awesome fireball.
Click to expand...
anyone?? :confused: :confused:
 
In most cases it's the wastegate opening as the turbo just hits its peak boost. Sometimes in the case of some rally cars, it is a misfire system that intentionally causes a misfire in order to spool up the turbo.
 
w0rd, misfiring for turbo cars is when u shift gears..turbo spooling slows down..when you aren't stepping on the gas. No gas = no exhaust gas to spool the turbo. With a misfiring system, you don't have that problem and the turbo keeps spooling even when you're shifting.
 
ohh. i see. so its like tricking the turbo into thinking you're still giving it gas right? so you dont lose time while the turbo spools up.

thanks guys

i'll watch/listen for it the next time i watch the WRC races
 

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