Drifting Suspension and other tricks

Oky, so maybe we can share some of our basic tips for the drifting?

Ok, so a few tricks ive found out savar, on S13:

On your ride height, You need 2.5cm + - Diff from front and back, The front higher, Cant remember exactly what the reasoning was behind it.

On the front you need to pull a bit of caster, The car will be more unstable, but more stable in a drift.

I heard from a few guys that you need toe out in the front, and no toe at the back.

also about 2 deg camber at the front, but no camber at the back on slow tracks, and a bit of camber on fast tracks.

Then, we have always thought hard suspension is the way to go, Aparently not, you need a bit of give, but no body roll, this is for the "fly", ie if you are hard on the trottle and the car is squating, you lift of in a switch, the car will shoot forward with more momentum.

also that helps alot, if you can make your nose as wide as posible, also stability in drift is much better.

I run those setting but my front to rear height diff is about the same, I'd imagine the difference is to transfer as much weight to the driven wheels for more grip (just like drag racing) as drifting needs grip.

Front is toe'd out with 4 degree neg camber and rear 0.3 neg camber (promotes even tyre wear better than 0 degree on the outer wheel which gets the most use as when you are sideways you get tyre wall flex and suspension movement which in theory makes the wheel sit at 0 when sideways), 0 toe on rear too.

As for the spring rates it is right, having the suspension allow movement allows for the car to shoot forward and is what makes lower powered cars run with higher powered cars because they can run less angle throughout the course (squating the rear on full power) then on the last corner they have so much momentum when they come off the power the end up shooting forward and can have as much (if not more) angel and speed as front runner car and makes for a better run when taking the power difference into consideration if the rest of the run was good.

Thx for the input! anyone else? we not only 2 drifters on here?

What it is for the height is to get the ass down for grip kinda like a drag car..

Iv found with my car the on the damper being 2 clicks softer in the rear helps me...

My height is set on tein recommended settings and the ass end is lower then the front.. Not sure by how much will have a look later

awesome thread!

i'll contribute my limited knowledge as soon as im sober

DriftZ wrote:

awesome thread!

i'll contribute my limited knowledge as soon as im sober

So next week thursday we should expect it 😉 hahahahaha

sweet, ill be glad if this can help someone!

Last thing, i am going to do a full suspension kit on my car soon, cant wait, will be all suspension arms including new hubs in the front, looking at 80+ degrees of stering angle...

Have you seen those geonuckles??

80 degrees? Wisefab kit I take it?
You don't need so much lock.

He wants to turn like a forklift hahahaha..

yep wisefab kit, but they expensive as hell....

there is a cheaper way to get close to that angle...

i wants it, wanna do reverse entry's often 😛

http://www.estperformance.com/products/Wisefab-Nissan-S13,-S14-chassis-steering-lock-kit.html

Looks like a very nice kit hey...

Thing is you don't need the wisefab kit or massive lock to do backwards entries...I've been learning the fundamentals of it. And if I can get some track time with the right type of corner to make it safe to practice ill nail it in a couple of days

i got it right once already, but was a lucky shot, but i know the car can do it, I just want to make it easier!

other thing, i think its nesasery, i was cought out twise now becouse the guy ahead of me in a tundum can run more angle than me. so what do you do? try and dail in the same amount of angle to slow you down and run the risk of spinning out? or keep on trimming on the HB, running the risk that the judges see it as inconsistentcy?

Look I don't know how the judging is done here, you need to always check what the judges are looking for but I would run less angel to get in as close as possible and use the whole launching forward thing on the final corner to have more angel and speed than the leader.

If judges are looking for angel more than proximity then you run as much angel as you can which will make you slower but you are giving the judges what they are looking for. They won't judge you down because your car has less lock, they will mark you down if you aren't putting your car on the edge as much as the leader if angel is what they are looking for on that particular competition.

Best is to get someone like stephen swanepoel on this thread to give his input on judging criteria.

all i can say, and i am apologising before hand, but in SA we have a serious judging problem, We asked a few times what do the judges want, and they say every single time this: We want speed consistency, angle, smoke, agresion. then we ask them what we want in tandum's, they say: the lead guy must run his run as in qualifying, the guy behind has to mirror him.

Now to realy mirror a guy perfectly you need to be less than a car length behind him, correct? so if we ask them if we can run as much angle as we can, even if he pulls gap, they say he is pulling a gap, so how are you mirroring him....

This is the most frustrating part of SA drifting, the judges think they know what to judge on, but unless you are a old drifter, like Bruno and them, they have no idea what it takes to keep a car within half a meter sideways from another car, they have no idea that a guy with less power cant run the same angle and speed as a guy with alot of power, ect ect.

just my 2c

Stephen, your input?

I've got a vid of mad mike.. Can't remember 100% he had changed his knuckles and some other stuff.
He was talking about the reverse entry that he was learning. Says he runs it till full lock goes past 90 in his angle the uses his power to steer it until he can see the exit then powers out it...