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How to steer to drift.

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  • How to steer to drift.

    This is something I tell everyone I ride with at drift events, but I've never seen it discussed on any forums and I think a lot of the newer drifters could benefit from it.


    Number one for you guys and girls out there who do not have a lot of experience with high performance driving: you will save yourself a LOT of time and money if you go to some local autocross events. Some autocross events offer 2 courses one being a timed competition type course and the other usually being a driver education/novice course. Coming to terms with how a car reacts to throttle, brake and steering inputs is KEY to controlling a car in any form of racing but it is PARAMOUNT to drifting. Learn your cars limits and especially learn how to feel understeer and oversteer.

    A big part of this is good tires that are properly inflated. For high performance driving it is usually best to look at the manufacturers recommended tire pressures located on the door jamb usually below the latch or on the door itself near where the latch is. Once you find your cars recommended tire pressures (usually between 32 and 38psi for passenger cars) I recommend you add about 4-6psi. The manufacturer recommends pressures that are designed for safe driving and also comfortable ride. When you are pushing the cars limits you need more air in the tires in order to stop the tires from flexing too much and the 'contact patch' changing shape.

    For a 240sx or other 2500-2800lb car 38psi is a good starting point. for something between 2800-3200lbs 40-42psi usualy works well, For a car heavier than that, maybe 44-46psi, but DO NOT exceed the maximum pressure on the side of the tire. Very light cars like Miatas, MR2's or stripped 240sx's can sometimes get away with 32-36psi.

    Ok so now youre ready to go drifting, you've learned what understeer and oversteer feel like and you want to master oversteer.

    What I see a lot of people do at events is enter a turn and have a lot of understeer and then turn more because the car isnt turning as much as they want. This wont fix the understeer.

    From the drivers seat there are 2 cures for understeer:

    1-Slow down by either letting off the throttle or light brake application. Too hard on the brakes and you're going to understeer again by transferring too much weight to the front tires and overloading them.

    2-Turn less.

    The tires have a limit of how much friction they can provide. If the car starts to understeer you have reached that limit. Turning the steering wheel more will NOT turn the car any more and you will just keep understeering. So when you feel understeer, turn a little bit less and you will regain the tires maximum traction. If by turning less you are not going to make the corner, you need to slow down until the car can turn tighter without understeering. This is also where a slight brake application can transfer some weight to the front tires giving you a larger contact patch and some more grip, but dont slam the brakes or you will transfer so much weight the front tires cant handle it.

    A tire has a certain amount of grip it can provide and 100% of this grip can go to braking, or 100% can go to turning.

    Of course you can turn AND brake at the same time, but only in proportion to each other. 60% turning 40% braking or 50% and 50% etc etc

    Now another thing I sometimes see drivers doing when understeering:

    Use throttle to break the rear tires loose in order to start oversteer and get rid of the understeer. This might work, but if you dont break the tires loose, it will actually make the car understeer more since the car transfers weight to the rear when you accelerate and that takes weight off the front, meaning less traction in front, meaning even MORE understeer.

    Here's another problem with this approach:
    Lets say that of you are in a left turn and understeering, you steering is turned hard to the left and you use throttle or maybe even a clutch kick to make the rear tires break loose. Now the car starts to slide sideways and you need to countersteer by steering to the right and maintaining the slide. If you were steering all the way to the left when you started the slide, now you have to turn the steering wheel fast to the right (maybe 3 full turns or more)to try and catch the slide. Usually in this situation the car snaps sideways so fast that it is hard to catch and it ends in a spin.

    You are much better off to initiate the slide with a feint, some e-brake, or a quick turn-in combined with clutch kick. Now you only have to turn the steering wheel half as many times to catch the same slide.


    Once you've mastered your entry and you are able to hold a nice slide though your first turn, the hardest part is going to be transferring from a slide in one direction to another direction. The reason this can be difficult is the same as the understeer-to-clutchkick scenario.

    Let's take the same left hand slide and you have a nice angle and the next turn is a right hander. If you are at or near maximum angle when you need to transfer into the right hand turn, and you ease off the throttle to regain rear traction, when the rear end grips and your counter steer is at full lock, the car is going to snap VERY HARD to the right. You are going to have to go from full lock one way to near full lock the other. Again maybe 3full turns or more.

    Going from lock to lock is a fairly advanced technique and you will see the pros do it a lot, but when you are learning, the best way to do a transfer is this:
    Reduce your slide angle before you regain rear traction to throw the car into the right hand turn. This will make the car transfer a little softer when the rear tires grip and you will be able to follow the slide with the steering and apply throttle as you slide through the right hand turn and increase your slide angle.

    Once youve become comfortable with your transfer then you can start to push the limits of transferring at big angles.

    Hope this helps all of you getting into the sport.
    Last edited by FreeThinker; 03-10-2012, 03:15 PM.

  • #2
    good post man

    lots of good info for beginners, I see the same things when I ride with new people

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    • #3
      very good post. a lot of begginers understter a lot. so i'm glad you covered that thoroghly (sp?) i also push people to run correct tire pressures. whether its personal prefernce or recomendation. i like to run 40 psi in all 4

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      • #4
        very nice write up.

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        • #5
          very good write up...A++++++ for u

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          • #6
            Here's another thing I think is important.

            Try and avoid a "death grip" on the steering wheel. Drifting requires you to let the steering wheel respond to what the rear of the car is doing. Your hands should help the wheel in the right direction, but shouldn't get in the way. A light grip on the wheel may help, allowing the wheel to slip through your hands when it needs to, but still allowing you to grab it and control the car when the time comes.

            An autocross instructor told me "always drive giving yourself 2 thumbs up". What he meant was, don't get your fingers stuck in the wheel, especially when it's spinning. Ouch.

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            • #7
              One other thing that alot of people don't think about is positioning.

              The ideal position for your seat relative to your steering wheel. The way you go about setting this up is put your seat where you think it should be. Then take you arms, straighten them all the way out. In the ideal setup your wrists should lay across the top of the steering when when your arms are fully extended.

              Then drop your arms down, lock your seat in place and you have tthe ideal position for driving. This way your arms don't get in your way while you are letting the wheel go to and fro and your are close enough to take positive control in the event of a screw up.

              Hey Penny, RB25 in my White Z. In the shop as we speak getting the swap-a-rooni.

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              • #8
                good thread!!!

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                • #9
                  Nice writup. +1 to the smooth transitions. You shouldn't always thing of what you're doing now but also what's going to happen next. How do you set it up? Even early on, I always felt smoother was better. I got into the idea of less is better very early.

                  I'll add one idea when we think about steering. Driving underpowered cars, this is a must, but I'm not really sure how many new drifters think about it. By "it" I mean drifting with the front tires. Throttle is only half the equation. What you do with the steering has as big an impact as what you do with the throttle.

                  Let's say your entering a corner, start to drift, but you can feel the car start to understeer and break the drift. If you have enough power, you mash the gas, or you can clutck kick, stop on the gas a few times, whatever you can think of to keep the rear tires broke loose. However, you have a second option. Just change your steering. Turn in a little(counter steer less), and drive the front end farther into the corner. The pull from the front end will keep the rear end out and drifting. It would be the same thing as if you came in hot, and wanted to maintain a drift without throttle. You drift via steering. Doing so allows you to work with less countersteer and less throttle, giving you wiggle room for more or less of either if needed. It's kind of that "as much as needed" kind of idea, not just WOT and full lock.

                  I remember a somewhat old post of a miata drifter having issues with a particular S curve. He could never get the second one, but the one blaring thing that stuck out was that he was coming into the first with the throttle mashed and the steering a full lock. It was no suprise to me why he couldn't get the car to transition well. Like you said, full lock to full lock is a good 3 turns or more. That takes time. As well, WOT doesn't leave you a lot of wiggle room for fine grip control. I wonder what he ended up doing...

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                  • #10
                    dang i got a lot more to learn. Thanks for posting the basics

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Drift For Food View Post
                      Nice writup. +1 to the smooth transitions. You shouldn't always thing of what you're doing now but also what's going to happen next. How do you set it up? Even early on, I always felt smoother was better. I got into the idea of less is better very early.

                      I'll add one idea when we think about steering. Driving underpowered cars, this is a must, but I'm not really sure how many new drifters think about it. By "it" I mean drifting with the front tires. Throttle is only half the equation. What you do with the steering has as big an impact as what you do with the throttle.

                      Let's say your entering a corner, start to drift, but you can feel the car start to understeer and break the drift. If you have enough power, you mash the gas, or you can clutck kick, stop on the gas a few times, whatever you can think of to keep the rear tires broke loose. However, you have a second option. Just change your steering. Turn in a little(counter steer less), and drive the front end farther into the corner. The pull from the front end will keep the rear end out and drifting. It would be the same thing as if you came in hot, and wanted to maintain a drift without throttle. You drift via steering. Doing so allows you to work with less countersteer and less throttle, giving you wiggle room for more or less of either if needed. It's kind of that "as much as needed" kind of idea, not just WOT and full lock.

                      I remember a somewhat old post of a miata drifter having issues with a particular S curve. He could never get the second one, but the one blaring thing that stuck out was that he was coming into the first with the throttle mashed and the steering a full lock. It was no suprise to me why he couldn't get the car to transition well. Like you said, full lock to full lock is a good 3 turns or more. That takes time. As well, WOT doesn't leave you a lot of wiggle room for fine grip control. I wonder what he ended up doing...
                      Right on the money! This is a technique that is diffcult for every beginner to grasp but once you get it it's just like balancing yourself on a balancing beam. This is why I think it's better for beginner to learn on an underpowered car since you have to do this technique in order to pull a long drift and not spoiled by power that the beginner can just mash on the gas and keep going.

                      However, in competition, the objective is to archive full angle at WOT at all times without adjustments (the technique described above is an adjustment you make during a drift) so tire smoke generated is maximum! Of course, no driver is perfect and minor adjustments are necessary. The way to look good in a drift and score high is to keep these adjustments to the minimum, maintain as much angle as you can, stay on the throttle as long as you can, and smoke the shxt of your tires. Lower powered cars in competition will usually be given a handicap and allow lower angle drift with less smoke as long as speed is there.

                      I feel like I am just going blah blah blah. Ask if you have questions of what I said above. Keep practicing!
                      Hubert Young
                      KORE 8 Films

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                      • #12
                        I think I understand. Im very new to driving and drifting but am so fascinated with the sport. I get my permit this weekend and I already wanna go out to the nearest speedway and practice....BUT anyways, I think I know what you mean but I am not clear on what understeering is, but i think i know what oversteering is: It sounds like it is just a counter-steer or turning more to the outside...Could you clear that up for me? Thanks! I also visualize what you are talking about when to do less counter-steer to keep your drift longer and give you some wiggle room. Just as your in a drift say a right turn and your in the drift and u begin to get closer to the inside you saying to kind of pull in the counter-steer and turn your steering-wheel right...Is that Correct? All this could be wrong but that's what beginners do! Help me out.

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                        • #13
                          About 6 years ago I absolutely loved drifting and read about it as much as I could, but at that time there was nowhere or way to do it legally here in the US so I didn’t go forward with it. Plus I was only about 13 and had a while until I could drive. Just this week I heard about a local drift event in my home town of Ocala Florida at the old go cart track. Unfortunately I found out about 3 days after it, but I decided to try to find the next event and found that there are quite a few, but it also seems the season is almost over.

                          I’ve tried the off-road scene but it’s not really all that great especially with all these new laws with our forest around here I can’t go anywhere. So I think I may sell my Jeep and pick up a cheap 240sx leaving me with a little money for suspension and lots of tires. I only wish I would have found out about this sooner.

                          These tips you guys are giving are great. All this drift talk is like a blast to the past. I can’t wait to get started. Keep the tips coming!

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