Drifting

[SidewaysGts]

Im aware that most skyline arent the gtr awd beast many have come to know. Its much easier to get your hands on a rwd one from what i am told (never looked into this my self as i have no interest in buying one here in the states).
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Why did i think you were saying the more front heavy a car is the better it will drift?

So basically... heavy front end for drifting=good.

I am saying, purely drifting... a front biased car is a good thing

that heavy cars are easy to drift

Much of your explinations also defend what the argument was about, which are too long to bother to quote.

I originaly said a slight weight bias in the rear OR the front is better for drifting. This entire time youve come across as defending extremly front heavy vehicles.
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So far your only counter point to my (and other peoples) theories is that old domestic Muscle cars dont drift, therefore we are wrong

No ive stated how extremly front heavy vehicles are known to understeer, and when they do manage to exceed their traction the transition to drift it is quick and violent, rather uncontrollable and its likely to spin out(of course driver skill comes into play, but in comparison to other cars that is the case). If thats all you got fro my my posts i suggest you read them again a little more closely.
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you might as well get a Hachi

That is actualy what i drive.

[SidewaysGts]

Sorry to double post, edit is giving me an error page

Ill argee with you on being front heavy CAN actually be better for drifting, understeer actually has its advantages in drifting comapred to oversteer (At least its what i prefer, slight weight bias in the front).

i believe however there is a certain "limit" as to how far that advantage can go in relation to how front heavy a vehicle is.

Thats been my point, if you agree greta if not then that is your choice. You said yourself each driver has their own personal preference when it coems to driving, this is one of them.

[_PG_]

I suggest you re-read what I wrote and stop quoting out of contex!

Dude, i never said "extremly front heavy vehicles" like you claim. You even quoted me saying: "I am saying, purely drifting... a front biased car is a good thing". Front biased. AKA not 50/50! I never said anything about wanting a 80/20 car or some *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored*! I dunno what youa re assuming, but BlueDragon understood me perfectly well...

AS for: "that heavy cars are easy to drift" I said it because it was true! Have you drifted a heavy car with a long wheelbase? (most heavy cars do have a long wheelbase... if they don't, i would stay away from them for drifting). Becuase everyone i know that drifts them says they are not hard when setup properly. How many other fcuking guys do i need to go talk to and quote for you to believe me... Alex already posted in those SC300 threads... next time he comes over, I will video tape him telling stories about drifting his SC300.. would that be good enough for you?

Much of your explinations also defend what the argument was about, which are too long to bother to quote.

I'm sorry... next time i will stop trying to help people understand the reasons for tuning their cars a certain way and jump right into the theories. Do you go to any sort of school? Don't you know that theories are nothing without substantial research and facts?

I figured you drove a hachi... Its the completely other end of the spectrum. Light, short wheelbase, poor suspension, no power. You have to ddo so much stuff so differently than a heavy, long wheel base, powerful car. Much respect to BOTH kind of drivers if you can pull it off. Me? I suck because i drive a fairly powerful S13 which is too easy right? Hehe. No honestly, i think for my style i would rather have a JZX or R32 GTS-t. course we don't get those, so whateva. I couldn't deal with a hachi. Not my style.

[_PG_]

Originally posted by SidewaysGts
Sorry to double post, edit is giving me an error page

Ill argee with you on being front heavy CAN actually be better for drifting, understeer actually has its advantages in drifting comapred to oversteer (At least its what i prefer, slight weight bias in the front).

i believe however there is a certain "limit" as to how far that advantage can go in relation to how front heavy a vehicle is.

Thats been my point, if you agree greta if not then that is your choice. You said yourself each driver has their own personal preference when it coems to driving, this is one of them.

Holy crap, that's what i am talking about! I think just to make a point, i perhaps implied that i was talking about a supre front biased car. Im not, I am simply talking about leaving some weight up there. Koguchi told me that he moved the engine back forward in his green 180sx (after moving it back a lot for a 50/50 split) because it didn't give the front tires enough grip in the "back" position. (Yeah, THAT Koguchi. Do i need to have him srite up a statement and have it notorized for you? )

Anyways i think we have concluded that we agree on the same thing, whether you said that in the first place or not (i don't see where you ever came close to agreeing with me until just then, though).

[SidewaysGts]

Drifting is about balance- something the drift king himself said (i cant think of anyone more creditable when it comes to drifting imo). It was something along the lines of 50/50 balances cars arent good for drifting (not the important part) but instead a slight balance to either the front or the back is(therest he important part)

In drifting you want controlability, you want one end to slightly "over power" the other end, not completley. the action of such cars is quick, violent and often uncontrollable

That was the first direct thing i said about it, but it was i was trying to imply from the begining.

I wont pretend to be an expert, im a mere novice in terms of seat time so until i can accumulate more i spend my free time researchign and trying to understand physics and how they relate to automotive.

My choice for slight understeer on drifting was a pretty simple one.

In an oversteering car such a midship car, the car is going to natrually want to tuck in. getting on the throttle is only going increase that angle greatly and increase your chances of spinning out while your at it.

With a slightly undertseering car however its the opposite; it resists the turn in and requires you to be heavy on the theottle to keep it sideways. This advantage only goes so far though, with too much of a weight distribution in the front turn in can become very difficult, and if trying to drift, when you do get it to drift i find the transitions is fast and a bit unpredicatable (comparable to the "snap" oversteer midship ars face)

[Craftsman]

I'm a *Censored**Censored**Censored**Censored*ing n00b when it comes to seat time homie. I suck at driving in general. But I do have the knoledge of driving and what it takes to drive. I don't have coordination to drive.

Anyways, heavier cars are easier to drift than light cars. This is because of inerta. They have a tendancy to try and keep moving straight rather than turn left or right. This allows for the driver to pitch the car into a drift then throttle out of the drift. Light cars have the advantage of being more sensative to driver inputs than a heavy car.

And the ideal car for going sideways is a car that is close to 50/50 weight distribution with a slight forward bias. This is because of weight transfer. This is better explained by talking about the opposite. Have you seen MR2s or NSXs drift? They have a severe tendancy to spin out because of their rear bias nature. You can test this out in video games too. They got the physics almost correct in Gran Turismo 3.

[SidewaysGts]

keep in mind the sw20 isnt what id consider "slightly" rear weight biased. Use a car like the s2000 as an example, its 49/51 and that thing drifts fine.

Ive never considered heavier cars better drifting cars, nor have i talked to anyone before who has said this. More weight is simply harder to redirect and throw around. When you think of drifting cars, cars like the Rx7s (fc or fd) the s2k, the 86, the 240sx come to mind (amongst others). Not say, the pontiac gto weighing almost 2 tons. Being nimble is a key feature to excellent drifting imo.

I wouldnt trust anything from a video game... because its a video game. GT3 is nice and all, but its still pretty off if youve ever pushed a real car.

Just to point out though: i use the sw20 and nsx with great success for drifting in gt3.

[240Haitian]

Thank you all for this info!!!

[_PG_]

Originally posted by SidewaysGts
Ive never considered heavier cars better drifting cars, nor have i talked to anyone before who has said this. More weight is simply harder to redirect and throw around. When you think of drifting cars, cars like the Rx7s (fc or fd) the s2k, the 86, the 240sx come to mind (amongst others). Not say, the pontiac gto weighing almost 2 tons. Being nimble is a key feature to excellent drifting imo.

THats because most people drifting heavier cars aren't in the US. One who is: Pfeiffer. Ask him how he likes drifting his SC300. He was the first one to tell me drifting heavy cars was easy. Brah will talk story for like 2 hours about drifting his SC300. Anyways, most people i know drifting heavy cars are in Japan. Also, liek i said, i have 2 firends here in the US who do very good drifting pretty front-biased cars, Mark and Mario... Rb25 in S13 coupe and 1JZ in S13 hatch respectively.

[SidewaysGts]

You all seem to be into the physics of drifting; so i offer you this bit of information.

inertia and momentum are based on the speed of a mass correct? When cornering gravity pulls masses "outward". A larger mass will obviously be affect more? This means, no matter the weight distribution, even if its the same as a lighter car, will be forced to face more understeer while cornering.

heavier cars often have a great power:weight ratio due to the increased room for a power plant (Thus the increase in size), and that with a combination of good driver input can help deeat the understeer and break the rear wheels loose.

[_PG_]

I'm not in any physics classes since senior year in highschool. However, i do kow that gravity is a force of acceleration 10m/s/s downward (actually 9.8 m/s/s), it does not pull anything sideways.

Sideways pull is commonly called centrifical force. However, there is no force that exits that pushing objects outward. There is however centripital force, which resists the outward movement and is actually the force which holds and object inward. However, once that limit is reached and the object moves outwards, it is just overcoming its centripital force. But since we don't rationalize thatway in real life, since we actually SEE an object moving away, we assign a false force, cetriFical, to describe the occurance of overcoming centripital force.

Anyways, a heavier mass will have more inertia, and thus overcome its centripital force easier, aka understeer. But to reduce the amount of weight shift (weight=/=mass, btw... mass is matter, weight is, iirc, the affect of gravity on that matter) you can get stiffer springs and dampers. During cornering, this will keep the precentage of weight distributed over your suspension the same amount as a lighter car, lets say (assuming it was the same F/R %). So with bigger tires (which most big cars can handle) and wheels, you can have more friction aka grip and thus would not understeer any more than a lighter car with less friction (narrower tires)

So now that the understeering and grip of the cars has been levelled, all you have to worry about is transitions, or how you change the inertia from a left turn to a right turn, for example. A heavier car will most likely always transition slower, since you cannot escape that there is more mass to transition and you cannot change gravity (if you could, you could change the weight of your mass). This will always be a big car's hinderance. THUS, why i said for a DRIFTING big car, keeping weight distribution more towards the front, will help this transitioning of your rear end by making THAT area proportionally lighter than your front.

SO... if you bothered reading that, does it make sense? Again, i haven't been in physics class for a while, so little stuff i would love to explain more fully, i don't want to, in the risk i say something innacurate, such as an equation or something.

However, given the same tire size and same suspension, YES a heavier car will understeer more... like you were saying. But its not that simple. These are not just blocks of different mass being directed along vectors, there is supension, friction coefficients, friction areas, tire compouns and stuff to consider. I think this is what you are overlooking. BMWs are the best driving cars in the world. But they weigh a lot compared to a lot compared to older cars. By your rationale, a Gremlin would handle better or understeer less than an M3.

[Craftsman]

Heavier car is easier to drift. Neither one of us said that they were better to drift in. Initiating a drift in a heavy car is just a drift initiation away. Usually because of their mass, they want to keep their momentum and go straight even though the car is pointed sideways...

It's quite logical if you think about it. If you do that with a light car, what do you have? You have a car that is very sensative to driver input. Because it is light it has less inertia and momentum in turns. When you enter a turn, the car doesn't want to stay sideways...

Get our point? Geez...

[SidewaysGts]

If your going to upgrade a heavier cars suspension and tires why not upgrade a lighter cars suspension and tires too? that argument goes both ways :P. AS for the larger tires thing; not so true.. keep in mind you can put wider fenders on a smaller car, and putting larger tires onyl works to a degree before it becoems a bad thing (larger tires also increase your cener of balance which allows more weight trasnfering)

Gravity is what pulls yout "away" or "outward" in a turn, but its not the only factor as you stated there are many others. I only gravity was used for simplicity as many people can understand it as a "pulling force". Gravity doesnt always refer to a force which pulls down.
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as stated there are many many reasons behind a cars ability to corner. Basicly as you corner your momentum wants to go this way (in a straight line) but your tires are redirecting the mass to go another way. Tires are only capable of so much traction, as the speed starts to increase so does the momentum of the vehicle which will soon overload the static friction abilities of the tires thus forcing you to create a larger line in order for the tires to keep enough friction to redirect the momentum of the mass.

momentum is mass x veocity, mass is effected by gravity; so your momentum is affected by graivty.

not complicated, so if you understood that its easy to see why lighter cars corner better even when in equal proportions to a larger vehicle, but keep in mind smaller cars usually have larger tires in proportion to their size then larger vehicles.

Another advantage to smaller and lighter cars is they have a shorter wheel base, this greatly affects the turning radius of a car. i wont bother getting into proportions here, since tracks are built to proportions for vehicles.
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Anyways i can go on but i think you get the idea. Final result: Lighter cars are better at cornering work plain and simple so their driftability depends largely on driver input rather then power, where larger vehicles will need increased power to bridge the gap. Once gain we are back at the start; where it all comes down to driver preference.

[SidewaysGts]

Originally posted by Craftsman
Heavier car is easier to drift. Neither one of us said that they were better to drift in. Initiating a drift in a heavy car is just a drift initiation away. Usually because of their mass, they want to keep their momentum and go straight even though the car is pointed sideways...

It's quite logical if you think about it. If you do that with a light car, what do you have? You have a car that is very sensative to driver input. Because it is light it has less inertia and momentum in turns. When you enter a turn, the car doesn't want to stay sideways...

Get our point? Geez...

Sorry to double post like this.. .But:

Keep in mind theres more to drifting then just getting a vehicle sideways, and theres a couple flaws to this.

First: keep in mind your less able to redirect the nose of heavy vehicle in the first place. You can turn the tires but due to a lack of enough friction to actually redirect the momentum of the vehicle, they will just face the way you pointed them, and the car will keep going in that direction, without actually changing the angle/direction of the car itself. (this is what understeer is, something heavy and nose heavy vehicles are known for)

2nd:

Usually because of their mass, they want to keep their momentum and go straight even though the car is pointed sideways

Drifting IMO is not just getting a car sideways, thats more of a power-induced slide. Drifting TO ME (this is where it gets different, as everyone has their own defintion) Is getting a car to slide across a "curved" line. Heavier cars dont have the same ability to curve that line (for reason mentioned above) Keep in mind even when your drifting your tires still have traction. a heavier drifting vehicle no longer has the needed traction to add "arch" or "curve" to that line it is on.

Theres more but i hope ive made my point. Once again as mentioned already, this returns RIGHT back to the begining; of driver preference.

[_PG_]

Sideways GTS you have a lot of misinformation and flaws. Gravity is the acceleration of objects towards the center of the earth (or other planet). Gravity does not pull outwards, it only pushes objects downwards.

Like i said, the pull outwards is an observation, to which we assign the term centrifical force, or the overcoming of centripital force.

As for the tire sizes... no, you are not correct, i am sorry. Even an S14 can fit wider tires than an S13, because there are more room under the fenders. Can you fit 235/40/17 on the front of your hachi? No. Can i fit that under the front of a JZX110? hell yea. In fact, i can fit 18x10 0 offset with a 245+ on the front of a JZX car, if i wanted to!

Fender flares are great... you could have a fender flare on a hachi or S13 lets say that can accept a 12 inch wide wheel up front, bu the rest of the wheel well wouldn't fit it. You would hit the front and back of the wheel well very very quickly.

What Craftsman said is correct, getting a car sideways is no big deal. and your trajectory, or vector in a big car is also curved just like a light short car. You just hvae to chose that vector before/as you get sideways. You can hold a long slide and start earlier in a big car much easier. Look at Nomuken for instance. Or AGAIN the Nightwalkers/Devilz guys. ....broken record.... broken record.... broken record..... broken record.... I think i have said this before.

Short wheelbase cars? Hard to drift. They are twitchy and rotate in a small arc. Yeah, good for a super tight corse. Not good for high speed long slides or versitility. Thats why S chassis are so desireable. Not super long, not super short, just inthe middle, good all around drift cars on tight courses as well as high speed long courses.

Dude, seriously, i am talking from experience and stuff... its not as hard as you think.

And yes, it is proven and done, suspension tuning on a heavy car will NOT make it do what you claim they all do. You have been so rational for the whole discussion up to the last to posts. WTF. Now you just sound really ignorant. Sorry.