trying to drift in my 87 accord

[Buddyworm]

I used to do that in a Civic, not really drifting but fun.

Anyway, the appropriate way to do it would be to turn the wheel THEN pull the ebrake a splitsecond after, the tail should come out nicely. If you wanna add the feint it should be feint-turn-ebrake. Try giving it a nice hard pull too. Also, stay on the gas so the front wheels pull you through the slide.

B-Wurm

[pom_sandhu]

o man dude....i tried drifting today and i did it with the accord!!!!

i figured out the problem: the turns i have been trying to do it on had too high of an turn angle. Buyt this time i went to a different spot, and i did it!!! (with the help of your guys post ofcourse)

thanks guys

[Drift For Food]

Sharper turns do require a little more persuation to get the car sliding. With fwd cars, you really have to throw the weight around to get it to work as you can really just apply gas to get the rear end sliding like a rwd can do. This leaves you with a lot of grunt work. The sharper corner still is doable, but you'd have to work a little harder to get the car sliding, stronger braking, heavy feint, e-brake with sharper steering.

I think something interesting to try...if you have an open area to play with...is to try to get the car to do some quick 90 degree turns and maybe push for 180 degree spins if you can do it. Basically, start off light and get the car starting to slide. When you feint, brake, or e-brake, the amount of rotation is based off the turn and the exit direction. A 90 degree turn requires a 90 degree rotation of the car. This rotation is done durning the slide time.

Feint can essentially rotate the car in a straight line with no use of throttle or brake. The limitation is front tire grip. As you gain all the momentum by steering back and forth with the front tires, this is the limiting factor as far as how much angle rotation you can get and even if it's possible to rotate the car at all just with feint. With a fwd platform, I like to think of this as the rotation control. If your corner is 90 degrees, you feint just enough to rotate the car 90 degrees, so it comes out of the corner straight. Steering inputs, braking, or throttle can fine tune the amount of rotation after you've feinted. You tell the car to rotate this much and then later correct for errors. With this technique(well, I guess any fwd techniques), I also don't like to countersteer. The rear end will regrab after a few seconds. That's a given. In fact, you're relying on it to stop the car from spinning out. The feint depends on your rear end regaining traction automatically. You apply just enough rotation to get the car turned the right number of degrees by the time the rear end recatches. Play with it and see if you can control the number of degrees the car rotates. Shoot for certain amounts, say 45 degrees, 90 degrees, try to push further. See how much you can get out of it.

Braking should work if you can get the rear end to slide out on you before the front tires break traction and just slide forward. With a stock car, this may be tough to do. Most are set up in a way that allows you to be safe, even when pushing the limits of the car. This means lots of understeer and possibley a lot of front braking power. It's a nice technique to try. See if your car slides the front or rear tires first when braking and turning at the same time. Try different amounts of braking and different sharpnesses of cornering(steering). You might find heavy braking and light steering may get the car to slide or perhaps a lot of steering and just a hair of braking does the trick. It's a balance of both together. As well, as I stated in the previous post, doing the steering and braking seperately can do the same thing but have a better effect. Brake hard, let off, and then steer. Also try a quick stab while turning. It can sometimes get the rear end to come out. Once you get the car to slide, you can actually reapply or if you are already holding the brake, keep applying the brake to keep rotating the car. Try this: brake hard, let off, steer. Once the rear end starts sliding, reapply light to medium braking and countersteer. You should be able to hold the slide just with the braking and countersteering. Adjusting the amount of braking and the steer angle will allow you to adjust the line of the car as well as how fast it rotates. The braking technique is a waiting game. Once you start it, you wait it out till the car rotates enough for the exit of the corner. Once the car is facing the right way, you let off the brake while straightening the wheel and then throttle out of the corner. You should be able to play with angles under braking as well. Brake, rotate, and let off. You can try to shoot for 45, 90, etc. degrees and play with how tight or wide of a turn you take. You have a good ability to control the car through this technique while you are doing it. Unlike feint, this is a real time technique. As well, you have more control through two systems: steering and braking. The combination of both allows you to control what the car does and where it goes.

The above two techniques will allow you to do anything you want with a fwd car. Combined, in my mind, they are capable of making any car drift if done right.

Also notice that I have yet to mention anything about using the gas pedal durning any of these techniques. From my learning experiences, the gas pedal was always a bad choice when trying to drift a fwd. It takes away traction from the front tires and usually just adds understeer. That doesn't mean it's not actually useful in a fwd car when drifting. In fact, it can be. I just never made it work for me when I was learning. My fwd techniques didn't rely on it short of minor corrections or exiting the corner. A lot of people like to use the pulling ability of the front tires to help drift the car. You can steer heavily into the corner and apply heavy throttle to help pull the front end around the corner. Either by starting the drift prior or using the e-brake mid corner, you should be able to drift under throttle, even with a fwd car. You just have to find out if it works for you. If all you get is understeer and the car going straight, it's not helping. If you find it can pull the front end around and keep the rear end sliding, then it may be of some use afterall. It's kind of car dependent I think.

The last one is the e-brake. Again play with this and see if you can control the amount of rotation. This is a technique I've rarely used. My fwd car had a foot e-brake with a rusted cable, so it was useless for me. Even my first rwd had the same useless e-brake setup. It was nice that it didn't become a crutch to rely on, but it also made it one of those techniques I've had little practice with. I personally use it only for tight corners. It's simple to use and if the e-brake isn't too weak on your car, it should always work. Just pull and steer or steer then pull, whichever works better for you or the corner. Maybe try both and see how they vary and get used to working either way. You can try several things with the e-brake. First you have set amounts of rotation, a quick 45, a sharp 90, or maybe even a 180 spin out if you can get it to whip you around that far. Try to get consistant and get a good ability to control how much you rotate the car. Two things are important: duration of e-brake and amount of steering. Both of these inputs will determing what happens. Again, there's a lot of control here. You can turn very sharp and use a quick 1 second pull or turn lightly and hold the e-brake for several seconds(or perhaps pump it quickly over several seconds, if that seems to work better). Try to hold a turn using the ebrake. Turn in, pull, steering and pump as needed to keep the rear end out. Adjust your steering to control the line and pull the e-brake as needed to keep the rear end loose. You should be able to adjust between a sharp and wide turn. A third thing you can play with is throttle. As the e-brake has the ability to keep the rear end broken, it's possible to maintain throttle during a slide. As you corner, pump the e-brake while giving gas. Use the throttle and steering to control the line and pump or hold the e-brake as needed to keep the rear end out.

If you have an open area you can play in, it would be best. As with real roads, you are bound by the corner and an error could mean ditch time. An open area allows you to play around safely and to try many things in the same place. Try the above techniques seperately and try combining them for different results. Work on control and work on making the car do exactly what you want it to do. Get comfortable and get consistent. When you move to a rwd car, all of these techniques will transfer right over. All that changes is the ability to use on-throttle techniques, and the ability to control the rear end through the gas pedal. You gain techniques and abilities, but the above techniques will still apply and work just the same.


Hmm, all this talk about practicing makes me realize how little time I've personally put into such things...ah long, life force sucking hours of a working man, lol.