hey everyone.. this isn't really WRX specific.. but oh well.. i'm still a rookie at all wheel drive drifting.. so i was just wondering what the best technique for a good drift is and when the best time to drift is.. i have fun slidding the car.. i know its not good for the tires.. oh well.. hehe.. gotta have some fun!

The best time? On the track.

the best time is whenever you think its clear and you have confidence with the car.

I would assume, oversteering, lift throttle, turn more, punch it, and enjoy.

EJ20WRX

drifting on ramps is my personal favorite, i usually use the e brake.

This thread is a good example of why you do it on a closed course.
Oops, I crapped my WRX (http://www.i-club.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69705&highlight=idiot)

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1688216&a=12956937&p=51569334

Be careful

DON'T - You will stuff it and all of our insurance rates will rise exponentially. I am sick and tired of all the Hero Boys thinking that they are Burns. Go back to playing video games!

to each there own. of course you do it and think its acceptable til you get caught or you F___ up thats jsut the way it works. then when you come to terms and learn your lesson, you are total opposite before the incident. the ways in which the world turns.:o

sorry it had to happen to you

EJ20WRX

DO.

On a closed course--autocross, track, your own, uh, private parking lot. Nowhere where you'll be near another car, and don't claim insurance if you smack into something.

Check out www.drivingtechniques.co.uk (I think, do a search here and you'll find the site) for more info.

--M
Who does not have the hang of drifting.

Drift is fun and I'm planning to build my car into a drift car rather than a roadrace or drag car.
AWD drift is harder than RWD drift for sure but if you set it up right it is awesome since it can achive high speed drift. Characteristics of AWD drift is the amount of counter steer. AWD drift usually doesn't need any counter steer. Steering is straight.
Drift, in my term, is sliding IN a turn before apex not sliding out of a turn. Sliding after the apex is what I say Power slide and it is simply waste of power, it's not any quicker, anybody can do it with RWD. But turning into a corner sideways is harder to master and I am thrilled about watching/driving like that.

Best place? Canyon roads. Yes, closed circuits are safer, but how many runs can you do in a week? And, other road race people tend to piss off watching drifters bringing dirt in the track.
Best time is late night time or early morning before sunrise. Easier to see the cars coming from opposite lane by headlights, and there are not much cars.

Drift is the ultimate vehicle control, i believe.:)

Of course absolutely
NO passenger. NO showing off. NO screwing other people.

go go go

now you are talking japanese, and i likes that.............

late night time or early morning before sunrise

reminds me of the hardcore japanses racers!!;)

EJ20WRX

ha ha ha
I'm not that nuts, though.
A friend of mine is a good drifter,
here's the link to my firends website "slide squad" (http://www.davescholz.com)
take a look if you are interested,
He loved drifting so much that he decided to move to JPN.
Now he is back to US with roll cage/rims/ bumper CARRIED with him on the flight.

Woh, you know the slide squad guys? I remember reading about them in Super Street. Man, that issue is currently my bathroom reader. I thought they were both moving to Japan for good. That's cool.
I think one usefull tool for drifting an all wheel drive vehicle would be the expensive and difficult to find **adjustable center differential** That way you could set the torque bias to the rear. A proper suspension set up is also nessecary. You need a stiff swaybar in the rear as well as stiff dampening/spring rate. You could technically do a drift setup in the WRX, but... I don't think the car will do it half as well as say, a 240sx with Silvia swap (we are doing one in my friend's car next week). Mabey a drift setup won't be the most efficient use of the vehicle, I think this car screams grip style. But if you want to be different than the mainstream and go drift style with this vehicle, and you have the funds to do it right, then I applaud that. If you are creative in scouting locations, I'm sure that you can find a safe area to do this. It will probably be at night. Avoid blind corners, know the road before you go, take a buddy with a walkie that can watch for traffic, and have a good run off area on the outside and inside of the corner. We always go to this super well-lit parking lot out in the country in a public park that is open till 1:00am, we use cones and walkie talkies. We make sure the only cars in the lot are our own and out of the way. That way, the only car you put at risk is your own. Be smart.

don't smack up the front of the car!! like i did, i just called the body shop to see how my car is doing, i was expecting it back this week. the guy said that they fininshed with the body but they realized that as a result of the engine layout that the cam sprokets and timing belt are on the front of the engine and in a front end hit the timing is likely to f up and the valves get munched and so the engine had to be taken out and sent to subaru to do the head work. so its still going to be some time before i get my car back.

the most important part when drifinting that no one mentioned is that when starting the drift you need to be near redline because the drift will scrub speed and you will want to be in the upper rev range when you apply the throttle again to pull out of the drift you don't want any turbo lag. turbo lag is very bad for drifting. what will happen is when you apply the throttle there wont be much torque at the initial application of the pedal (thats why people say the 2.5 RS is torquier, evan though the WRX has more torque. its really the throttle response that makes it seem that way) so you wont be able to pull out easily with the benifits of AWD. as an added dissadvantage when the boost finally builds the sudden turque boost will likely upset the ballance of the car.

the whole concept behind a car being a grip type or a drift type is ridiculous. thats for video games. setting a car up to be a grip type will always be faster around a course than a car set up to be a drift type. drifting purely for fun. and any car can be set up to drift even FWD but its not that fun. as a note the drifting i am talking about is not the kind in japan that absolutely reqires RWD. i am talking about the kind that when entering the turn you swing the rear out and drift through the turn sideways. a perfect drift would be when the car rotates exacly enough that when exiting the turn it is straight and did not require extra steering inputs to either finish the turn or correct for over rotating. note that doesnt include any counter stering that is neccesary to keep the car from over rotating. the japanese drifiting that requires RWD is also cool but really cant be done with a wrx like driving down a straight with the car continously drifting by changing the direction of the drift many times as the car moves down the staight away.

i have to agree there is no place to practice drifting other than on some kind of public place. findin a place that you can drift safely in second gear is not that hard because the car will only need to get to ~60 mph but third and fourth gear drifting is much harder to find. i tried a fourth gear drift for the first time on a public highway and look what happened. 4th gear drifting requireds speeds greater than 100 mph and bad stuff can happen very quickly at that speed.

PS don't kill anyone

i usually use the e brake.

Giving people advice to do something like this on an on-ramp is very irresponsible.

Most of the "first month" WRX accidents are people who wanted to try a "4 wheel drift just like the rally cars do".

When you're doing something like that you have very little understanding of how much space you'll take up doing it, and the streets don't allow for that margin of error. Also the response of the car can be very unpredictable.... as soon as you're off throttle and upset the balance of the car with ebrake, brakes, sudden turn etc Subarus become your worst nightmare unless you know what to do.

When driving on the street, I always keep my car "on rails" rather than drifting - the risk isn't worth it.

The racetrack and autocross or rallycross course are a great place to try it and learn how your car reponds.

Glenn

Get a big rear sway-bar and forget about the e-brake. Get a feel for the car w/ the new sway bar before trying anything. Find an open p-lot or local auto-x event and push her a little. Once your comfortable w/ the new feel, the back end should come out much easier.

BTW-there is nothing wrong w/ the e-brake, but it's bad for the car. Try to avoid it.;)

Go to www.driftclub.com to learn how to drift a car properly.

DON'T practice on public roads. DO practice on parking lots (preferably wet or covered in snow to save your tires) with NOTHING at all to hit (including light posts).

Once you get the feel of it, take it to the track.

TurboBoxer and Technic messed up their cars drifting. To tell you the truth, I will NEVER drift, too many random variables to account for. You are sliding the car sideways for crying out loud. I wouldn't want to try 3 seconds of fun with 5000+ dollars worth of damage that is for sure. Do it where someone can teach you how to drift, and at a safe place (just in case you slide out of control and hit something) such as a track or a really big and empty parking lot.

Finally, I really good subject. Drift on Dudes

Thank God you live in NJ...far away from the streets I drive on...

Drifting techniques???? You think a few comments over the web are going to teach you how to do a 4W-drift, and to do it properly???!!! And where would you be planning to do most of your "drifting", in a parking lot, or through an intersection??? :rolleyes:

Did you learn how to drive a car through correspondence, or was it through countless hours of practice in an actual car??!! I think we all know the answer to that...and that was to essentially learn how to keep the car on the road and how to parallel park.

If you want to learn how to drift...and drift well..., go to a rally school, there are plenty out there, and you may actually be supprised as to how much is involved, and the even bigger supprise will be that they probably won't even teach you your first time out.

I think this may have been said before, but this WRX image is turning into a double edge sword! Great car, great performance, but the advertisers are selling the car by making all the morons out there think that AWD alone is this magical power that will turn the average commuter into Collin McRae, or Richard Burns...whoever their idol is. :mad:

Mark my words folks, if you thought there were a little too many accidents involving WRX's lately, then wait till the first snow hits, we will be needing a new forum to deal with all the "Oh, I drifted and hit a curb, cracked my rims, bent my suspension..."! And I am not even trying to be negative here, just wait and see...

i don't think technic messed up his car thats my car in the picture.
i can't believe that if you go to a track and try to drift the track officials will think thats ok. i like to think of it this way racing is to skiing as drifting is to snowboarding. and skiers don't like snowboarders because they can mess up the slope and snowboarders don't like skiiers because they restrict where they can snowboard. i just can't imagine that the people serious about improving there driving skill on a track would appreciate a drifter that is potenially a saftey hazzard.

One of my friends is a track instructor in Northern CA. He was out with a student in the Novice run group at Laguna Seca, and they saw this fly-yellow S2000 absolutely making a mess of every single turn, missing turn-ins and apexes, drifting and sliding everywhere, and generally presenting a hazard to other drivers. After 2 laps or so his instructor pulled him in and basically asked him what the heck he was trying to do out there.

autoXes are to narrow and tight for drifting. finding a parking lot that is evan and large enough is also hard but is probally the safest bet. but the best place is on the road but is inherently dangerous. the road should have run off on the outside of the turn but also the inside as well
and should not have cars on it and not be blind turns as well.
i did it on a road with cars on it (evan though there were none in the area) and a road that had zero run off on both sides. those are things i will never do again and more likley than not i won't be drifting any more because its not worth it if you mess up. but i'll see how i feel when i get my car back.

drifting is very dangerous and needs to be taken seriously. i did not take it seriously and messed up as a result. but anyone that tells you to take it to the track is really saying don't do it at all.
if you take it seriously start slow read as much as you can about it as much as possible. find a safe road and don't hurt anyone. difting altough is very fun and challenging and really is just a thrill can't be taken light heartedly.

Learning to drift on public roads in your new car... Darwin's work in fast forward...

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Take it to the track!!! ...where the instructor will tell you how slow drifting is on a paved road...

/bill

Im not selling anything here, just saying that is the method i use, from now on i think i should post a disclosure so i wont be held accountable, lol.

anyways slide squad is tight. its a 240 and a 90 honda hatch painted camo.

I use to drift on the on ramps with the same car 90 si hatch 97 gsr motor.


to each there own

EJ20WRX

Yeah, go ahead and drift on Public roads, but make sure these conditions are met:

1: Only do it on twisty mountain roads.
2: Make sure there are no guardrails.
3: Black Ice will make it much easier to drift
your car.
4: Do it only in the dead of night,
5: Miles from any emergency vehicles, hospitals, or other medical assistance.
6: Be sure to drink at least 4 double shots of 100-proof Vodka before going out.
7: Don't use your headlights, you'll be much harder for the cops to spot.

Once you get really good, try it blindfolded! :rolleyes:

Yeah, my car is happy and safe. I don't think I've even heard the tires complain yet, but I just passed the 1000 mile mark so they may start. :)

Nah Dave sold that Hatch a while back. No more primered ZC turbo hatch for him. I do it on onramps some times, early in the morning. I don't use the e-brake though. I mostly do it on cool back roads, late night/early morning. But really for the most part I'm just into going fast hugging those turns. Drifting is fun, but there is more to driving fast.

Ken

Being new to an AWD vehicle, I am taking baby steps in learning how to drift and slide it. It is quite diffirent from any other vehicle I have owned.

Yes, I learned about drifting on tracks and dirt roads from some good instructors, and have since then learned to drift every car I have ever owned. However it takes some time to learn each cars eccentricities.

1)smoothness counts, there can be big inputs, but they got to be smooth.
2) Do not panic in the middle of a drift, hang in there and don't quit If you lift suddenly, or worse hit the brakes. (had a frind do this in His uncles German spec 911 Porsche, never seen anything spin that fast) you will lose the car, as others have said keep the revs up.

Of all my cars, my 1981 VW Scirocco was the best sliding machine I have ever owned. it was highly modified, and it never ever bit me, no matter how stupid I got. We will see if the Subaru lives up to it.

Another thing, I like the Bridgestones that came with the car. They are cheap tires that release grip smoothly and predictably, just the thing when you have to learn a new cars sliding patterns.

Last thing, judgement, judgement, judgement. It is not inherently unsafe to slide a vehicle, as long as you are smart about it. No other vehicles, romm to err. etc. It is also best to learn on a track or an empty parking lot.

autoXes are to narrow and tight for drifting

I disagree, I have drifted more in WRX on an autoX course than I care to admit.

With AWD in autoX'ing, if your not drifting, your going too slow or going too fast. I have drifted many times autoXing AWD, but I remind the guys that experiment on the street, the worst I have done is hit a few cones! I have not even scuffed the finish on my rims or paint as a result, but I have trashed my race tires learning how this car handles at it's limits.


Like others have said, you can put a huge swaybar on the car to make it spin happy, but that just leads to evil handling on the street if you don't balence the suspension as a package deal.

to each his own. If you really really feel inclined to use the street (on/off ramps, canyon roads, what ever) your an idiot, IMHO.

TurboBoxer, you have figured this out already. Save your aggressive driving for Limerock, and watkins glen.

I understand why people want to do this a) it's fun, B) it helps you understand the car at its limits. Be paitence, wait until winter time when it snow, then you will have all the drifting you can handle, hopefully those of us who own this little gem will have enough appriciation of it limits before playing in the snow.

OH MY LANTA!?



SLR!

If you like to watch drifting, you should check out Initial D. Gotta be the best anime car racing video I have ever seen.