drifting a 4wd

[4WD-4WD]

Re: drifting a 4wd

Originally posted by go2evo
just starting to get into drifting, not the best car for that purpose... but anyone with similar car can give me some advice. got a evo viii. i know heel toe and left foot braking well...how do i use that in drifting. pretty much able to do really well in grip. let me know ppl!!

I still need some more years (4) to be 18 but still I watch many drift videos and I watch a friend of mine who is a mechanic work so I guess I know something. And like some guy said FAINT isone of the best way to drift a 4wd



Um how much did you pay for the evo and if by any chance you check how much an Evo VII cost please tell me

[Hubert Young]

Drifting a AWD is tricky, even dangerous, for beginners. The main reason is that AWD tends to understeer and when you thought you could keep the rear of the car stepping out by punching the gas, the car would all of a sudden come to a understeer situation if steering input is not correct and send you straight off track, the wall, or the cliff...

Drifting a AWD requires constant "turn in" (as opposed to counter steering) to keep the drift going. And also, just like drifting anything, you have to use momentum of the car weight in order to drift nicely. EVOs are good trail braking cars (better than STIs in stock trim). Go into a corner hot, brake, and turn in, the rear steps right out, point the nose of the car to the apex of the turn and punch the throttle to the floor. How much you want the back end to come out depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If drifting, let it swing out more. If gripping, get the car to rotate just enough for the corner... this requies seat time to master.

[Drift For Food]

good points.

Yes, awd is somewhat tricky for a beginer. It's not hard to drive, but it's...unnatural. It doesn't quite do what you think it will, and if drifting vids are all you have to go on to this point, it would cause bad results as an awd drifter doesn't do much countersteering, if any, unless it's setup for oversteer or you're really tossing that rear end out.

I think the hardest point to overcome is the difference between on-throttle and off-throttle. Off-throttle is like any other car. When you start a drift, you can brake and/or feint and countersteer starting into the corner. However, when you get on the gas, things change very much. When the throttle is on, it behaves a lot like a fwd car. This means you have to go from countersteering to steer-in when you start laying on the throttle. This is the big difference.

As well, it becomes dangerous as well. While you steer-in when you're on the gas, the moment you let off, you have to quick go back to countersteer. If you don't, you can spin out or cut in too much and head off the road on the inside. This alternation between steer-in and countersteer makes drifting awd kind of tricky. It requires quicker hands to keep on top of things, especially if you like to alternate gas and brake a bit. This is why people generally say not to let off the throttle on an awd in a corner. You normally gun it and steer to adjust your line. ...but you don't have to. I usually don't. I'm quite used to letting off or hitting the brakes a touch to rotate the car and adjust my line. However, my car is stock and has a bit of understeer. Sometimes, just gassing it and steering doesn't work fast enough. It pretty much takes near lock steering under throttle to really get the rear end back out, and that for me doesn't feel natural. I'll let off for a second or give a quite brake tap to rotate the car more and give it some more gas. It's all personal style and preference. But if you drive an awd, you have to realize what you need to do with the steering. Realize an awd pulls and understeers under throttle like a fwd and you should be fine.

[go2evo]

so how long have you guys drifted for?? by the way, you guys are giving great advices. keep them coming. especially if you had experience drifting an AWD. thanks alot guys

[Drift For Food]

I've been into the drifting concept for almost 2 years. The idea started with Initial D, and my curiousity grew from there. As well, I was into PC racing games, and drifting was able to fall into that and a game called Live For Speed. That game actually became a tool for learning between concepts, car behavior, and what happened in real life. I've been pushing my driving abilities with my real cars since day one, going on 9 years. Drifting was just a natural progression. I've been drifting real cars for a year and a half. I don't have big $$$, so I drift what I drive daily.

I started with my old '89 Buick Lesabre. It was a boat of a heavy of a understeering machine, BUT it got fun when you started to really toss the thing around. Also, I knew it well enough after owning it 4 years that I knew every little behavior of the car and its feel that drifting came quite easy. Feint and Braking became my stalemates as it was a fwd with no hand e-brake.

After a problem with the tranny, not related to drifting, I moved into my brother's old '88 Ranger 2wd. That was my first rwd drifting experience. I must say, it was quite fun despite being a pile of crap and only have a 70hp rated(haha) engine. I had fun with that thing on the back roads and through the winter and went around few corners straight during the time I owned it.

Come spring, I moved into my current Scoobie, and the Forester has treated me well enough for almost a year. The awd was a bit goofy to learn, but in time, you get the feeling down. It's really just a mix between a fwd and rwd in what you do. The tecniques are the same although adapted to the behavior of awd. The only thing I don't like about it is that you lose the independent feel of front/rear control as you have with a rwd with throttle and steering. As the awd system run throttle through the front wheels as well, you lose some of the ability to independently control the line of the front and rear wheels. Steering still only affects the front wheels, but now throttle can not only break the rear end lose but will affect the front as well both in breaking traction and pulling force. The one thing I really do like with the awd is the ability to really lay down the power. The acceleration is nice and the pull from the front tires can actually be used to overcome the understeer that would normally occur in a fwd or even rwd car. It's actually capable of creating oversteer from a car that's tuned with understeer.

I've been playing with drifting for a while, not too long, but long enough to know what I'm talking about, lol. That and being an engineering major with a good amount of physics background really helps me understand why things happen the way they do. Things like weight transfer and traction circles were pretty easy to grasp. That physics background really helps in understanding how things work and why. It's not a shot in the dark as to what I do, it's science.

[exhaust_note]

i have an Evo as well and i have been pretty successful at drift.. if thats what you want to call it... The stock Advans are reallly grippy and do make it much harder to kick ou the rear end but it can be done. I have very little tread left and its becoming easier... I also have Tanabe GF210 they reduced some of the body roll...

I don't look at my car as reallly drifting it though, i get sideways through longer turns like circles and other longer turns... on the tight turns i just throw a quick jab the opposite dirrection just before entering the turn and the back end slides out just a little... no crazy hanging out like drifting a RWD car...

i stopped for a while but im back to it now.. one utrn i went through i was going fine and then i must have hit sand and all of a sudden push, i hit a concrete block and pished the lip of the front rim in about 2 mm but im back to it cause i love going fast through turns...

its really easy on like long loopy entance ramp to a highway cause u can 4 wheels drift the whole thing w/ ease cause AWD gives u wierd control... about months ago i was racing my friends civic with some bangin $3,000 protoype suspension and we were entering a highway... i wsa 4 wheels drifting the whole loop and i saw the highway comming up and i decided to give it more gas to exit w/ a higher speed... the back end kick out like (omg this *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored* is crazy never had it come out so far) 45 plus degrees or more but i still had control... but i pickked up so much speed by the end of the ramp my back tires had to come within 2 feet of a curb at the end of the ramp.. if i would have hit that i would have done lipe 10 barrrel rolls cause i was going qucik *Censored**Censored**Censored* hell through the ramp...

i recommend back roads w/ no curbs and away from houses...

a bunch of my friendss have crazy modded civic, intergra, and a RSX type-s which was sold for a civic hatch w/ type-r... but we always hit up the back roads away from houses... but one day we came around a corner, tires screatching.. all four of us inline and went right past a cop comming the other way.. we were scarred as *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored* but he didn't come after us...

just keep it to the back roads... i plan on makin a video this winter when it snows some so ill keep you guys posted....