90 honda hatch

[driftkid]

hey i just got my first car ive been into drift for along time i was introduced to it by a friend of mine who used to live in japan,but any ways i was just wondering do you have any tips on how to drift,mod,and practice with the car ive already done the 180 ebreak but thats about it i need help pleasehelp out a young drifter

[UberSpeed]

First off, not to flame you, but please make use of capitol letters and periods. This will make your posts much easier to read, and you'll get less responses like this one! Anyways, I think everyone will tell you that first you should dial in the suspension, then go out and "learn the car." Of course, for a little extra grunt you could throw on intake, exhaust, and headers, but I would stick with learning how do drift first.

[Munch]

http://www.drifting.com/forums/showt...&threadid=5911

search button is quite the excellent. theres probly more topics but out of the few i looked at, this was the best.

[SidewaysGts]

Some basics to make it easier:

Higher grip front tires then rear, so the rear "swings out" easier.

Try to make the back much stiffer then the front- FFs understeer but this CAN help create oversteer a little.

Im not possitive about this one: but i hear pro racers and drifters who use the FF layout also only put a strut bar across the rear, instead of the front.

Check your hand brake make sure its tightened. you could adjust it easily enough to make it "grab" sooner too.

Other then that- just practice.. and make sure you ignore the "flames" people will give you for trying to drift with FF, most will call it fake or *Censored**Censored**Censored* dragging and put your down for it (me included sorry lol, but i know it can be fun and ill still help if i can)

[Drift For Food]

Yep, learn the feel of the car first. You should get comfortable with the limits under normal grip driving. Then work on drifting. Work on throwing the car's weight around some. Since you can't use the throttle through the corners much with a fwd, if at all even, you really need to drift with weight transfer and oversteer.

For weight transfer, feint is your friend. Work on swaying side to side and getting the rear end to slide out. Try to work on connecting one into the other. It's all timing, timing with the steering and the motion of the car. With feint, you can basically rotate the car as needed for any corner prior to the corner entrance. From there, you can basically coast through the corner sideways to the exit. Just modulate the front/rear weight balance with the throttle and brake(light throttle and brake work). You don't need to worry about catching the rear end on a fwd. It will snap back by itself. You can pretty much keep the steering wheel straight or even turned into the corner a little if you're going to use the throttle some to help pull the car to help keep up speed. Just a note: heavy throttle may be counter productive. It may add understeer and make the car stop sliding, so be careful how much you use. The biggest thing with this technique and using a fwd in general is to learn how the rear end comes out and snaps back. Learn it, prepare for it.

Another one I worked on with my fwd was braking drift. This is where you brake lightly into a corner to produce oversteer by transfering some weight forward. You bring more weight up front and gain front traction while at the same time take off weight from the rear and lose rear traction. This will make the rear end want to come out. For this technique, you're going to come in a little fast into the corner. Since you'll brake into and maybe even part way around, you want a little extra speed to bleed off. Start off slow and work on it. When starting out, you may find yourself turning into the inside corner because of too little speed. It's a start though. As you gain entry speed, your slide will begin to miss the inside corner and make it all the way through the exit. As you gain more speed, you can enter on the outside, rotate, graze the inside corner(apex), and slide back to the outside on the exit all in a nice long arc. It takes a little time to work up to this point. You'll need to be very careful at those speeds cause you don't have extra room to work with.

If you're car is kind of stubborn like mine was, then you may find it good to combine the above two together to both move weight and to gain some oversteer. In combination, they can essentially drift any vehicle.

Those where the two methods I worked on with my fwd. If you're wondering, it was an old '89 Buick Lesabre, a boat of a car, but was fun to toss around on gravel. I didn't have a hand e-brake in that one, so e-brake techniques were something I couldn't fall back onto. Even now, with my current car, I still hardly use the e-brake. I do it once in a while for tight corners, but most everything can be done with the above two techniques, and they work the same on any platform, be it fwd, rwd, or awd like I have now.


Now onto a second note, car setup can do many wonderful things. With the right springs and swaybars, you can pretty much make your car handle any way you want. You might want to look into what's available for your car, find some Honda forums to discuss on, and do some general research into car suspension, gain some knowledge on the subject.

Something to try would be a setup with soft springs in front and stiff in rear. This will start you off with the oversteer you need to keep a fwd sideways in a corner and to give you some extra front grip to allow you to use some throttle. Adding a large front swaybar will bring the car back to the real world when you start to put heavy sideways loads on the car. It will actually offset the soft front springs when cornering hard. A medium or adjustable rear swaybar that can be set from light to hard will allow you to tune some final understeer/oversteer when sliding. The soft front/heavy rear spring setup will give you the turn in and oversteer you need to get a drift going. A heavy swaybar will keep the car in check when you start to get it sideways(will offset the oversteer under heavy sideways load) and an adjustable rear swaybar will allow you to dial in the understeer/oversteer of the car in a slide. If set up right, you should have a ton of front grip availabe when turning into a corner, but under heavy cornering, the balance should become more neutral or progress to maybe a little understeer for safety. Don't get too wild with suspension stuff. It takes a ton of tuning to get things right. This means a lot of real time practice.

Do one thing at a time, work with small changes. If you know the stock form well, you'll be able to decide how you want to find tune it. Most cars in stock form are setup well for normal driving...usually with a little understeer built in. I wouldn't deviate too far from stock if you want to keep it a daily driver. This is why I say small changes. It's also very helpful to understand what the changes do. This is why I say to do some research and find one what everythind does. Understanding what you're doing with the car is a very important part.