Outlaw

I am looking for information of any kind leading to a book/article/website with information on AWD drifting. I do mean specifically about AWD drifting.

Dont flame either, Im just researching.



Note to mods: I apologize if this is in the wrong forum...I didnt think it belonged in the Autox forums, definatly not the drag forums, so I figured it would be suited best here being that it will (hopefully) end up leading to drifting tips for AWD cars.

urbanknight

iTrader: (14)

We have an autox forum??? Anyway, this is the right place. Someone mentioned a video called Drift Bible, I've seen it and it's very halpful. It's not just AWD, but it includes techniques for all kinds. I would pay special attention to anything on AWD or FWD, as the handling characteristics are very similar.

metaphysical

iTrader: (3)

Ok, drifting your car is not going to be easy. Your going to need power and your suspension setup proper. My simple way to do it would be to get an alignment and a 25mm rear sway bar. This won't allow you to "drift" the car, but if you can take a corner hot and crack the throttle (and don't do this with traffic or where you can wreck into something) you can get the rear end to come around. BE CAREFUL, things can get sloppy if you overcorrect the rear end. And if you want to have some fun try autocrossing, you'll get to find out how to make your car do all sorts of things. And more importantly you'll find out drifting makes your car lose to prepped civics.

urbanknight

iTrader: (14)

sore about something? It depends on how you drift I guess. If you're just oversteering, you can make it handle better than most Civics. But yes, we know that STS cars are consistently beating STX and STU cars. But take both of those cars on a track with wider turns and see who's boss. There's a reason Civics run at Streets of Willow and Evos run on the International Raceway.

metaphysical

iTrader: (3)

Yes, I got my a** kicked by two Civics. One happened to have his 67WHP dynosheet lamenated and plastered on his hood. The other was a 93 Civic HB with a header and nothing else, it beat every car there except for 3 race cars. Yes, squeeling your tires sounds cool, but it slows the heck out of your car. The trick is to be able to handle a car that oversteers and find the limit before it starts "drifting." (So hopefully more practice and instruction and I'll find this medium)

urbanknight

iTrader: (14)

I think it depends, though. I believe it's Taka in a Corolla GTS that never lets off the throttle through an autocross course. He drifts to slow himself down for he turns, gets very sideways, and still gets 1st place. Depends on the car, driving style, and the type of racing I guess. But in general, I agree that slight oversteer is the fastes way.

Oh, and if you want to know, I named my car Underdog (see avatar) because of what the National and So Cal STS drivers think of my car competing against their Civic hatchbacks. I still beat one of them (when the slow driver is in it)

g6civcx

iTrader: (6)

Different people have different definitions of what a "drift" is. Nowadays, any time the rear comes around people think it's a "drift."

For me, though, the terminology is not important; the technique and principles behind it are. The fastest way around a race track is by using the maximum amount of traction the tyre has to offer.

Tyres have maximum traction under certain conditions, and one of those conditions is the slip angle. The slip angle is the difference between the direction the tyre is pointing, and the direction the tyre is going.

Tyres produce maximum traction with a slight slip angle. So that means the tyres have to slide a little bit to get the maximum traction.

This is what started drifting, I believe.


So you have to get all 4 tyres slipping slightly to get maximum traction out of the car. This depends on car setup, but generally that's the principle.

How do you get the car to drift? It depends largely on the setup of the car. You have to tune the car just right to be able to maintain the slip angle.

The Evo's stock setup is NOT, repeat, NOT good for "drifting," whatever that means. You need to have a precise setup to be able to sustain the slip angle. This can only be done through experience and a lot of money. The cars you watch on TV has a lot of money invested in them to be able to pull off those dirt drifts. On top of that, the drivers has many years of experience.


My best advice to you is to drive your car, and to drive it a lot. This is the only way you will develop a feel for the car. Read up what you can and practise a lot, but do take it easy because race cars break quite often. Do it safely and enjoy the ride

plokivos

iTrader: (3)

damn, we should have an autoX forum.

That would be cool.

Or do we?

Xionicfire

Easy 180" U Turn "drift" in an Evo 9

Get 240-340 threadwear DIRECTIONAL FOOTPRINT tires (Dunlop SP-2, Nexen 3000 or Nankang NS2 will do nicely, DO NOT use anything like a Bridgestone Potenza S0-2 or RE-011, those are KICKASS for grip haha but will do you no good for drifting (140-180 threadwear)), just make sure you use a DIRECTIONAL footprint tire, this is VERY important, these tires dont have as good side grip while sliding sideways as normal tires, and they will allow you to control the slides direction just by slightly twisting the tire where you want to go instead of twisting the entire steering wheel (which would bring you out of the slide)

Inflate Front to 45PSI, Rear to 39PSI

Set your ACD button to SNOW, this will delay the ACD unlocking enough to allow you to spin the crap outta the entire wheelbase, this will not cause a "drift" per se but more of an entire full car slide, (all 4 wheels slide and spin while sliding) if you can record this and play it back in slowmotion its downright badass, ill see if i can upload some footage of me riding Bane (JDM Evo IX MR - Mexico Version) doing a U turn side slide, if you want to get an idea look for ken block's gymkhana 2 videos, the footage looks a lot similar.

On to the powerslide instructions

1: Come into the corner slightly to the right of the center of the road (if its an 4 or 5 lane road then stay on the "fast" lane 3rd or 4th lane)

2: Just as you are going to enter the curve (youll have to practice this) enter with the clutch all the way down and your shifter on 2nd (will not work on 3rd unless you got like 450+ HP)

3: Do a scandinavian flick (quick snap right then left and grab the wheel real hard cus the bastard is going to fight you)

4: Once on the apex of the flick (again youll need to practice this) slam the throttle ALL THE WAY, since the ACD is set to snow, the diff will take a few secs to unlock.

5: Once your revs hit around 4.5-5.5k, do a full out clutch dump (and i mean full out SLAM), the sucker will angrily but surely spin out due to the diff being locked, the ACD computer will now enter a "rally mode" state kinda like "Ahh all 4 wheels are spinning and im going sideways, i must be on a snow or dirt road (rally style) Ok, i will not release the diff lock untill i regain traction", now heres the KEY part.... DO NOT UNDER ANY REASON RELEASE THE GAS, it will instantly give you back control of the car.

6: Control the drift using your clutch and MINIMAL steering wheel turn, The only way to maintain the drift (and drift control) is to constantly keep your car at max boost and redlining it untill the redline protector kicks in (AKA MAX POWER) at all time during the drift, you can only do this by slightly clutching it during all the drift as you see it loose power, push the clutch in if you are understeering the turn, and release if you are oversteering, you will be able to practically control the drift to an inch with enough practice (and avoid sliding out of the road)

You may have had experienced something similar to this when you do a high rpm launch and the entire car goes sideways while all 4 tires spin, you can see your rev needle going 6.5-7k revs back and forth redlining while the tires spin for like 1 to 2 seconds then it grips and the revs drop down to 3-5k, well the trick here is NEVER let them grip or let the rpm drop below redline cap for the entire drift, the reason this happens is because while side sliding the wheels have a harder time gripping than when you are going forward (your side grip is lower than your front grip because all the tires i just recomended you have a directional pattern, which wont grip while going sideways)

The key here is MAKE SURE ALL 4 WHEELS ARE SPINNING DURING THE WHOLE DRIFT, otherwise if even a single wheel gets grip, the ACD will screw you over and terminate the slide, its CRITICAL to maintain max power during the entire maneuver.

The ENTIRE maneuver is based on the fact that your 4 tires must all be spinning at max revs of your second gear, by using 2nd you ensure that by maintaining the redlining of the 2nd gear you will be doing the correct speed and torque to maintain the slide properly throughout the whole turn

7: Once you are out of the curve get ready to control the lash, since all 4 tires are going to be spinning you need to slowly regain control to avoid a whiplash, also takes a helluva long time to practice.

Basically this is why its so hard to AWD powerslide, all 7 steps must go flawless, ALWAYS and CONSISTENTLY or the car will stop the slide (drift)

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are doing everything right but the car still gets grip, all you need is either crappier (tougher) tires (400 threadwear or higher) or more TORQUE (NOTE, NOT HP, TORQUE!), usually you AT LEAST need an ECU reflash (cobb accessport) Air filter (K&N Typhoon) & a turboback exhaust, to pull off a GOOD powerslide/drift., im not sure if a stock EVO can do it, youd have to be REAL good or your street REAL crappy, (like the oil/silt covered, polished marble, 18wheeler pounded, 140F sunbathed, Mexican Asphalt roads)

Important notes:

NEVER EVER EVER practice where you can spin out and hit the sidewalk, it wont be preety.....

NEVER EVER EVER try a drift on a 2 or 3 lane street/road, unless uve done it a million times on a larger street first. (YOU WILL SPIN OUT GUARANTEED)

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, Slam the clutch full in and release ALL the gas, car will regain control INSTANTLY, (just be ready to grab the wheel, cus the lash is gonna break your wrist)

CLUTCH:
Dont worry about your clutch, its 100 bucks a plate for an OEM replacement clutch, and its better to smoke the crap out of your clutch and get a new one than wreck your transmission

Clutch :100 bucks shipped, Tranny 6500+ (I go through 3-4 clutch plates/flywheels a year, and boy do i have a lot of fun hahahaha)

REDLINING: Use Royal Purple, Change it every 5000 miles. we have a basically spankin new engine here weve punnished to the extreme and its basically new, royal purple kicks serious ***.

QQ: Yes this will probably mess up your evo badly, you will be wearing out all use-wearables in the car (tires, oil, tran oil, diff oil, clutch, LSD plates) at an accelerated rate, but thankfully they are cheap.

As long as you follow the royal purple tip and you dont clutch dump unless you are already mid spinout your tranny will be fine.
50k miles STOCK 6 speed tranny and not a single problem so far, and boy do we punish the crap out of it

RESULT: one BAD *** Maneuver that has gotten me massive claps and cheers from random guys walking on the sidewalk or waiting for the buss, TOTALLY worth it, one guy even called the shop to tell us how badass that looked.

In our shop we also have an 06 STI and a 08 STI, its basically the same principle to slide the car as with those 2 except with the cheap cheat button the STIs have to shift the load rear, its basically stupid proof to do it in the STI, in the evo? damn watching the maneuver properly done looks like you are a damn cirque du soleil acrobat on your evo.

I hope this clears out how to "drift" an AWD evo, while its not as you guys probably know it or have heard it done i can assure you it works and its really badass to look at.

Toxin

iTrader: (2)

To the guy above me - I understand all your ideas and principles and I've tried them all before, but the way you wrote it, someone is going to roll their car off a bridge...


My advice to anyone that wants to learn how to drif is - learn on snow. It's slow and basically the same principle.

Once you know how to - do it in the wet.

Dry drifting/powersliding the evo is fun, smokes tires but at the same time has to be done at speeds where there's no fender benders anymore

MBellRacing

Oooookay, here we go...

This is Petri dish showing how bad information can breed on the internet. First of all, drifting is not fast on dry asphalt. It's just not and never will be, all things equal. When things get very slick (read: mud, snow, gravel) the hardest thing to do with your car is get it to rotate, therefore rally guys will get the car turned early with some oversteer so their job is easier on the exit. This is especially true with intrinsically front-heavy cars like the Evo. That ton of engine, transmission, and drivetrain up front will always be a weak link in the platform.

Have you ever seen a bunch of professional drivers winning races sideways on pavement? Not very often. There's a popular V8 Supercar video out right now where the whole field is slipping and sliding around. I think that has more to do with the issues those cars have in the wet-- a spool diff being top of that list-- than does a proper driving technique with the average race car. I do have a good amount of experience driving production-based race cars in the wet and dry. I can assure you, it is definitely not faster slide the car than it is to drive under the limit of traction.

Now, if you were so inclined to get your Evo sideways, you will see a lot of step-by-step lessons on how to do it, but none are very good at explaining why. I've worked at the Evo X school in Sonoma from its conception to its demise, and can attest to the fact that Evos will go sideways based on a formula, not because all the stars aligned and you hopped 3 times on your right foot facing due south.

Here's the thing, when you brake, you load up the front of your car. This means there is a lot more weight, and therefore useable traction on the front tires than the rear. The Evo has a lot of wheel travel to emphasize this factor. If you weren't exceeding your front tire traction from braking alone, and you were to turn the wheel, the front would likely bite the road relatively well compared to the rear. Another way of saying this, is that by braking, you have induced a possibility for oversteer. With enough energy in the equation, you will see the back end step out. At high enough speed, with most Evos, just a lift of the throttle is enough to see a notable drift.

Now, the Scandi Flick, which is used to aggressively get a car sideways, uses spring rebound to do some work for you. When you're turning right, the left side of the car is loaded up. When you suddenly snap the car back to the left, and if you combine the "flick" with some throttle lift or brake, the massive amount of spring rebound throws all the weight to the opposite side, severely under-loading the inside rear tire. It is not uncommon to see an Evo lift the inside rear 6-8" off the ground with a good flick. It is NOT a fast technique, however, but it is fun.

Here's another myth: Throttle makes an Evo slide. Nope. Not without a whole bunch of understeer first. Just as I've explained how brakes load up the nose of the car, throttle loads up the rear. In the same way, a bunch of weight is removed from the front tires, which are trying to change direction in a corner. It is possible to see a slide on slick surfaces with nothing more than a bunch of wheel and WOT, but not without covering a lot (or parking lot) of real estate. You need something to set the rear free before you stop on the go-pedal. The throttle alone will NOT make an Evo slide.

The key, for me, driving Evos on the track or in Autocross, was always to try and time braking and steering so that I'm forcing the car to loosen up. That is to say, as I enter a corner on the brakes, I may trail off the brake a bit slow as I turn the wheel. I may even turn the wheel 5% more aggressively than I normally would. There may even be a secondary dab of the brake just prior to the apex of a corner, if the car didn't rotate as much as I needed. This is not proper race track technique, but does work for the Evo. All Evos, in my experience, when driven on the limit are capable of seeing oversteer. Does a front-heavy AWD car intrinsically understeer? Yes. But Mitsubishi did a lot of work on damper and alignment for the Evo to make it a bit more lively than the average Yukon Denali.

Robevo RS

iTrader: (16)

very tight turns the drift is faster with the Evo because the AWD platform.
Looser turns are not.

It is all about balance, there is a technique called Scandinavian flick, look it up. But on tarmac in a very tight turn you might need an e-brake help at the right moment.

You shouldn't drift if the turn is lesser then about 160 degrees. in my opinion.

MBellRacing

It would take a VERY tight turn to make a drift be faster on asphalt.

VanduzerWilliam

iTrader: (2)

+1 For GO TO THE SNOW AND LEARN THERE IN A BIG PARKING LOT!

Spitfire9966

Hahaha this give me hope for my DD. I don't think I'm even making 70 to the wheels though... But you are absolutely correct. The slowest sounding cars are usually posting the best times.