what is drifting ???

Sideways In Control With Style

Yes, what is drifting??? Drifting would be described by most people as going through a corner with your car sideways while keeping the throttle floored.

The sideways part is correct, but it takes a little more to explain what drifting really is all about. It’s not just flooring the throttle; it takes a delicate balance to “keep” the car sideways......

Racers use the term oversteer to refer to going sideways. This basically means steering too much. Or rather, even without the driver’s steering input, the car steers more than you would like to.

Usually if the car has a natural tendency to oversteer, when you steer the car either too hard or too fast into the corner the rear starts coming out and and in no time you'll lose the back tires from gripping to the surface. But there is a way to still be in control when you're sliding...

The solution to this “oversteer” is to keep the front tires into the direction of where you want to go (countersteer or “opposite lock”) and throttle your way out of the corner. Of course this is more than just countersteering and flooring the throttle.

It’s a precise balance of steering, accelerating, braking, shifting and pulling the e-brake to remain in the state of oversteer, or as it is now known; drifting. It really is driving almost beyond the limit of control, right on the edge!

Special drifting techniques are used to get or keep the car into a state of oversteer. In drifting as we know it today these racing techniques have really been taken to the extreme, pushing the boundaries of what a car is capable of to the limit.

WHAT IS DRIFTING? IT’S NOT FOR THE NOVICE DRIVER!

It might look easy, but it takes incredible car control to a drift. Only dedicated drivers, who have been practicing for years can control the car how they want. When driving on the very edge of control one small mistake can end up in a serious accident.

Saving Weight

Saving weight is a very effective way to improve the car’s driving and drifting abilities. It improves just about everything a car has to offer: Acceleration, braking, handling and fuel economy are all improved.

Weigh The Car

Before you start with your weight saving program the first step is to weigh the car as-is. Don't be surprised if the total weight is different from what the the specifications sheet is telling you. Factory spec. sheets don't include the liters of fluids, oil and gas.

You can also find out how much weight rests on each tire. This is important information to find out the factory stock weight distribution. There are special weight scales to corner weight an object, found at any professional tuning workshop.

WEIGH ALL FOUR CORNERS INDIVIDUALLY

Grip is a function of weight so an important aspect of tuning is the amount of weight pushing each tire on the road. And since your only contact patch with the road are the tires it's really important that you take weight distribution into account.

Weigh the car first to verify the total amount of weight you've stripped out. Then corner weigh your car to get valuable information for later in the tuning process.

Strip Your Car

The cheapest way to tune a car is simply to strip it. Take out anything you don’t need. All the parts added up together will bring down the weight significantly.

If a car weighs 1500 kilograms and has 200 HP the power-to-weight ratio is 7,5. So for every 7,5 kg removed you should gain about the same as adding 1 HP. The same formula applies to torque, but saving weight is more than just more power. It really improves everything in terms of performance.

Don't just take out random parts. Investigate and plan ahead on the things you would like to remove and consider if they are worth removing.

There's plenty of stuff you can take out.

Saving Weight Simple:

•   Stereo / Speakers
•   Tire Floor Cover
•   Spare Wheel and Jack
•   Front & Rear Floor Mats
•   Carpet
•   Rear Seat
•   Rear Hatch Cover
•   Passenger Seat
•   Door Panels
•   Sound Deadening

Saving Weight Advanced:

•   Air Conditioning
•   Passenger Airbag
•   Most Electric Options
•   Excess wiring

All of this can easily add up to 100+ kilograms. At 7,5 kg/HP power-to-weight ratio that's about 13 HP power gain. And the improved handling, braking and fuel economy.

The rear seat, stereo, spare tire, AC, etc, it’s totally up to you how much you want to strip out. Just remember that if you would also like to use your car as a daily driver I suggest you leave the interior intact as much as possible. Because you really do sacrifice comfort and practicality for performance.

Saving Weight & Lightweight Material

If you think that stripping the car is not enough than you're going to have to buy aftermarket lightweight parts. The most popular material used in car tuning is carbon. It is very lightweight and super strong. And even though it's very expensive this material is in shortage all over the world. Alternative options are kevlar and fiberglass, but these aren't cheap either.

It's true that every bit of weight counts but with such expensive materials you should carefully think it over. While a carbon hood looks great and improves performance by reducing the overall weight, buying one sets you back around $1000 to $2000.

If we go back to our above example of the 7,5 power-to-weight ratio, at 25 kg of weight reduction you should have the same as a 3 1/3 HP increase. At $1300 paid for the hood that is $390 per HP!

Because a carbon hood saves a lot of weight and has quite a high center-of-gravity, a carbon hood or trunk lid might help a little, but if you aren't in a fortunate financial position you start to wonder if there aren't cheaper ways to gain extra performance.

But with enough money to spend, why not? Because still every bit of saving weight helps, even those $1800 racing seats. Carbon just happens to be very expensive so if you don't have the money you should really consider to go after another upgrade first.

CARBON HELPS REDUCING THE WEIGHT SIGNIFICANTLY

For some cars there are even full carbon bodykits available. Listed below are more examples of carbon parts.

•   Carbon Front Hood
•   Carbon Trunk Lid
•   Carbon Racing Seats
•   Carbon Side Mirrors
•   Carbon Doors
•   Carbon Interior Panels
•   Carbon Diffuser

There are also other parts available made from other lightweight materials, much lighter than their stock counterpart.

•   Steering Wheel (without airbag)
•   Lightweight Aluminum Racing Wheels
•   Aluminum Racing Exhaust
•   Aluminum Fuel Cell
•   Lexan/Acrylic Windows

There's not much more that you can do about the weight, saving weight is no magic formula. Just remember that for tuning your car to race or drift on the track weight distribution is much more important than the total weight.

Drift Tuning 101

Drifting With A Stock Setup

If you're new to drifting you might need this short drift tuning 101. Because not even the best sports car is made to drift, chances are that you find it hard to keep the car sideways. Manufacturers and tuning companies tune their sport cars to keep all four tires sticking to the road, rather much like a race car.

Not that most RWD sports cars aren't capable of drifting, but you get the idea. A car simply isn't designed to withstand the forces generated when it's driving sideways. For a bone-stock factory car and especially the cheaper ones the suspension usually is not up for the job and way too soft. The engine often has insufficient power and the differential is always too open.

After reaching the limits in your stock car, which shouldn't take you long, it's time to address each of those areas and buy some new drift parts. Firm suspension, a locked differential and enough engine power is the perfect recipe for a good drift setup.

If you're still early in the process of learning how to drift a big advantage of drifting with a stock setup over a tuned setup is that you can really get a good feeling for the physics involved in drifting and can develop a reaction to the weight transitions. It is beneficial to develop your drifting instinct in a (near) stock car, because it will be much easier to drive on the car's limits. Besides, driving is expensive as it is already, you are better off investing your money in driving time than in new parts. The basic message of this drift tuning 101 is basically to spend your money wisely!

If you install drift parts beyond your skill level you will not be able to get the maximum out of the car so easily. It's a personal opinion, but you will learn a lot more from this approach. Anyway, to each his own strategy but I would like to recommend only to upgrade certain parts if you really feel it's necessary and maxed out the current car's capabilities.

As you can see in this old video of myself, drifting with an open differential isn't easy. I didn't have a lot of experience back then but that is just the point. By doing it wrong you learn what you should do to get it right. I have learned a lot since then and you should expect to see some footage here on DriftingStreet eventually, but I am currently without a drift car and camera.

Stock VS Tuned

This drift tuning 101 focuses on outlining the differencesbetween a tuned car and a bone-stock factory Car.Although some cars need a little tuning to get them sideways, usually not much is required for some serious drifting fun. The goal is to get it sideways with no or few modifications. Getting sideways and controlling the drift in a stock car is not very easy. Still it's important to get comfortable with the car's behavior when drifting. You will need to develop a natural reaction to the weight transitions.

Just as any other high performance motorsport there's very little time to think while drifting so you will have to learn how to react to the sudden changes in direction without thinking. Eventually everything should go subconsciously, giving you space to focus on the rest. Upgraded suspension also means that everything responds faster so you will have to react quicker.

DRIFT TUNING 101: PRACTICE WITH STOCK SETUP

If you practice drifting in stock cars first you might have a hard time getting it right, but the lesson learned from figuring out how to drift with stock suspension will help you a lot later on. Stock suspension is a lot softer than the suspension you find on tuned cars, so the car will respond slower to your driving input.

If you can't reach the car's limits in stock form there's no point in buying parts to upgrade, a car is only as good as its driver. However, as soon as you get better you’ll realize that drifting in stock form certainly has its limitations. Once you get familiar with weight transitions you are ready to take it to the next level by upgrading parts.

Every rear wheel drive car can drift in theory. But some cars just don't have enough to get it properly sideways so they need some basic upgrades. Usually the spring, dampers, differential and engine need some work. Read more on which cars are good for drifting in our drift cars section.

I hope this short drift tuning 101 has helped you understand what the consequenses are of installing aftermarket parts on your car. Every newly added parts changes the behavior of your car and it is essential that you understand what it does.

Drift Parts

Tune It To Slide

As a drifting enthusiast putting on new drift parts is exciting. But since most of us don't have an unlimited supply of money it can get ridiculously expensive. So instead of just buying random parts you should make a plan. This tuning plan will be based on the amount of time, effort and money you're willing to put into your project.

If you just started with drifting read our Drift Tuning 101.

The information listed for each of the tuning parts is far from complete, but you'll get a general idea of what each part is and does, and what to look for when you go shopping for drift parts.

Drift Tuning

There's no better way to start your tuning adventure than by saving weight. I assure you that it helps a lot to remove a few pounds! After removing as much weight as possible you could continue installing new parts.

All the aftermarket modifications listed below are used in drifting, but of course you don't need everything. Just upgrade the parts one at a time so you can learn what each part does.

Want to know more about car tuning? Stay tuned for more drift parts, or check out Torque Cars and Cartuning-guide (Dutch) for more information on this subject.

Car Drifting Explained

The Car Drifting Explained section will shed some light on drifting.
 

Here you can learn:
 

•   What drifting is
  
  
•   History of drifting
  
  
•   Learn how to drift
  
  

  

Read along to learn all about the myths of drifting...

Balance & Control!

Don’t know what drifting is ? You’re not the only one. Most people never even heard about it. Still though, bit-by-bit it’s becoming more and more mainstream every day now.

It doesn’t matter how big of a petrolhead you are, we’ve all seen the car chases on TV where cars overspeed in corners and go sideways.

They lose the back-end and spectacularly manage to speed through the corner with the car completely sideways. (or not)

Remember those car chases on TV?Drifting is just that! The term refers to the car being in a condition of oversteer.

Rather than just simply losing the back end and correcting it to save yourself from crashing, like on TV, it's all about trying to remain in a state of oversteer, sliding the car throughout the whole corner. By taking the most exciting elements from motorsports a complete new type of sport took off!

After the history of drifting of 30+ years or so, it has become tremendously popular across the whole world.

It’s most definitely the most exciting way to express yourself in motorsports, because it demands just so much car control from the driver! Going through a corner sideways just fills you with adrenaline and gives you an incredibly rewarded feeling. Unless you mess up of course!

Car Drifting Explained

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What Is Drifting
What is drifting? Learn all about this new form of motorsports, how it works and why it became as popular as it is today.

Japanese Drifting History
The history of drifting and the art of oversteer! Who is the legendary drift king Keiichi Tsuchiya? Read all about the history of drifting here...

Learn How To Drift
All the info you need to learn how to drift here. If you are considering taking your car out drifting then look no further! With the drift information here you will be drifting in no time!

Drifting Through Life!

Drifting can only be mastered over a long period of time, dedication, practice, tires and money. You have to study the physics of racing and drifting techniques to be able to throw the car into oversteer mode.

It’s not something you learn in a day, however the car drifting explained section here, and the rest of this website, contain all the information you'll need to start drifting.

So why would anyone want to drive like this? Well, the answer to that is very simple; Drifting couldn't be more fun and exciting!

Drifting your car is the most exhilarating feeling you'll ever experience, it's just such a thrill! The best combination of man (or woman) and machine!

Of course, don't forget that racers are a competitive breed of people. Everyone has its own reasons and motivation to practice drifting, but usually everyone simply wants to become better at driving and controlling a car.

If you would like to learn how to drift then all you need is a RWD car, a passion for driving, some patience, and a whole lot of and tires.

Want more car drifting explained? For more information about drifting check back regularly and watch this space for more articles covering all assets from the art of oversteer!

Braking Technique 

Introduction

Your braking technique can be the difference between winning and losing. Brakes can be far more effective if you know how to control them; the pedal isn’t just there to slow down.

If operated correctly you can use the brakes to shift the weight to wherever you need it. Again, it takes a lot of practice to get a good feeling for applying the right amount of braking pressure.

It’s important to be aware of the grip level. Different surfaces and different weather conditions such as tarmac, gravel, rain or snow, etc. all provide different grip levels.

Get to know the limits of the surface you're
driving on before trying to brake hard.

The best braking technique is to gradually, but quickly build up braking pressure. If you would simply slam on the brakes, the weight transfer will be too sudden for the front springs to cope with, locking-up the front tires.

You should allow the springs some time to deal with the energy that it is being submitted to when the nose dives forward under braking. The weight should settle and stabilize itself on the front tires. If the springs compress too fast, too much force will be transferred to the front, locking-up your front tires.

BRAKE TOO HARD AND THE TIRES WILL LOCK

The same rules of smoothness apply to releasing the brakes. You should “feather” off the brakes, allowing some time for the front springs to decompress. Getting off the brakes too fast will release all the energy stored in the front springs in one blow. A smooth braking technique is fundamental!
 

Double Clutch Technique

The double clutch technique is an advanced follow up on the heel toe technique. It asks for precision shifting, but isn’t required for racing.

The heel toe technique removes excessive and unnecessary loads from the clutch. But even if the heel toe is performed and the clutch engages, the gearbox still needs to synchronize.

The meshes in the gearbox need to synchronize with the vehicle’s speed, i.e. the drive wheels. Otherwise, the dog teeth on the meshes fail to engage and make a nasty grinding noise.

Now if you put the car into neutral and let the clutch come up (so that the clutch is connected to the gearbox), you can control the speed of the meshes with the throttle. If you double clutch, all you do is adding an extra step to the heel and toe technique.

How To Heel Toe

What Is “Heel Toe Downshifting?”

To learn how to heel toe is not very hard, but it takes consistent practice, mistakes and a little bit of patience.

It is the most basic driving technique in racing and if you don’t learn this technique, you will never be ready to go racing or drifting.

“Learn How To Heel Toe

If You Don't Want To Be Slow”

If you learn how to heel toe you can become very smooth at shifting gears. The heel toe technique is meant to make shift transitions smoother, so as not to upset the car’s balance when cornering.

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Picture yourself driving...Normally if you’d like to shift down, you depress (disengage) the clutch, put it in the desired gear, and then release the clutch again. If you depress the clutch, the engine slows down right away. 

Try it for yourself: When you drive, hit the clutch... The RPMs drop instantly! Slowly bring the clutch up again, and it takes a while for the engine to get back up to speed. Notice the clutch slipping? When you’re releasing the clutch it is trying to engage with the gearbox, which is connected to the drive shaft and wheels.

Usually you’ll also feel some jolting of the vehicle, and it’s exactly this jolting that upsets the car’s balance. If you’re not sure what I mean here, try shifting down from second gear to first gear. You can’t miss the jolting here, there’s plenty of it!

Not only can it upset the balance, when you are going through a corner, and shift down to the higher RPM range, it can even momentarily lock up the wheels! If you learn how to heel toe you can overcome this drivetrain problem.

ANY JOLTING NOW CAN EASILY UPSET THE BALANCE!

Now how come the car is jolting?

If you depress the clutch, the engine speed slows down (as if it were in neutral). This is because the clutch disconnects the engine from the gearbox and driveshaft.

You probably knew that already, but I'm trying to make a point. The moving partsbefore the clutch (flywheel, crankshaft, engine, etc), and the moving parts behind the clutch (drive shaft, differential, etc) can operate at different speeds.

The moving parts behind the clutch are dependant on the speed of the vehicle (wheels). So if you release the clutch, by slipping the clutch the engine automatically adapts itself to speed of the wheels.

When you shift down you can help the synchronization of those parts. Using your throttle you can help the engine get back up to speed again and increase RPMs. If you learn how to heel toe you can brake, and give it some throttle at same time. When you're racing you constantly want to be in the high RPM range for maximum power. However if you brake hard and shift down without heel and toe (thus without helping synchronization) it would take too much time for the clutch to complete synchronizing. By the time the gears have a chance to properly engage you already need to be in a lower gear.

And I guess you don’t want to wear down your clutch like mad...

KNOWING CAR MECHANICS HELPS UNDERSTANDING HEEL TOE

There are several advantages to using the heel toe technique:

• Shifting goes faster and more precise
  
  
• It prevents the car’s balance to get upset by the downshifting. No sudden weight transfer occurs, which you really don’t want to happen when the car is exposed to forces working the car sideways. (Like in a corner)
  
  
• After you enter the corner you’re in the correct gear to pick up speed again. You constantly want to be in the torque band as much as possible.
  
  
• Engine braking is stronger in the higher range of RPMs.
  
  
• It reduces wear on the clutch, parts of the gearbox, etc.
  
  

When you learn how to heel toe your driving and shifting will be a lot smoother.