OOPS!

Guess I didn't notice those big red letters that said "Don't post here". Sorry!
Anyway, someone posted the old forum about drifting. I think we should all be thinking about getting into drifting because our cars are almost perfect right out of the box. All you really need is a closed diff but I drift mine without one. For those of you who havn't the means, drifting is about as much fun as you can have in a car. We REALLY should talk about getting together somewhare.

I think drifting is a good way to tear your car to pieces in at least two ways:

1. You are a good drifter. You go through lots of tires and trannys and engines and just generally beat the crap out of your car.

2. You are poor drifter, and you throw your car off the road, resulting in the destruction of your prized vehicle.

Do whatever floats your boat, but I think its a bad idea.

Michael

Feel free to post replies on the old board, but start all new threads here.

Link to the old board:
http://pub122.ezboard.com/bturbobricks

"I think drifting is a good way to tear your car to pieces in at least two ways:"

Aw, helps you decide what to upgrade next/what the weak links are!

"You are a good drifter. You go through lots of tires and trannys and engines and just generally beat the crap out of your car."

Why tranny's again? You'l kill tranny's much faster doing drag racing than drifting. Tires sure, but if you want to be a drift King I suggest a set of cheep, hared tires that let you drift at lower speeds due to their lower traction limits and also be more resistant to flatspotting.


"2. You are poor drifter, and you throw your car off the road, resulting in the destruction of your prized vehicle."

Well, public roads and places with immovable objects in close proximity are another issue. But i think as long as you're somewhere open there ain;t much harm. Best bet to to buy a beater 2423 or 142 and participate in rallycross imo. Seems like fun.

I'm not incredibly talented, but i drift the hell out of my car! It's the greatest fun I've had since I got my license. I am proud to say i haven't noticed any damage anywhere on the car...yet. I have however come close to hitting a few trees and other things that seem to jump into the roads, (of course I do this legally!),. We always check with our local law enforcement to make sure it's okay. I'm in VA and can drift decently. Where were you interested in meeting?

"It's the greatest fun I've had since I got my license."

Famous last words.
Sorry couldn't resist.

no, i'm talented enough NOT to run into anything except deer. and that's no fun!

To my knowledge, drifting is especially hard on your clutch, but it's definitely worth it b/c it's sooo much fun.

I'm in upstate NY. There is no where to practice legally. I usually wait 'till no one is looking (not too hard on these back roads). I drifted my wifes 745 today. SHHHH! I bigtime slipped my moms BMW 735i last week going fast. :shock: SCARY! The only thing you could wear out is your tires. It's hard to drift expensive tires anyway so it really isn't an issue.

I can't see how drifting is hard on the clutch. It's just throttle steering basically.
Again, a couple nights at the dragstrip will put much more wear on your clutch than a month's worth of drifting.

If you really want to wear your clutch out AND induce a drift at the same time, you can grab a lower gear coming into a corner without matching revs and then engage the clutch in a violent manner to make the rears lose traction. Drifting is huge in Japan using this technique to get sliding... seems easier to just hammer the throttle though! The PZeros on the back of my 744 TI slide pretty progressively, but in the dry they will regain traction REALLY fast if you drop off on the throttle mid-slide... also they don't squeal ever, so there is not much warning as to when they'll break traction. Winter tires are the best for sliding around.

Hahah, snow fell today in Toronto and this is the first winter that i'm driving a RWD car thats mine. (didnt dare to drift moms 760 cuz she would be stuck with no way to get to work cept getting up at 4 in the morning).

lest just say i was lauging at my friend actually trying to make his car drift (FWD)...hell i just give it gas and it starts going sideways...

but on the other side it was very dangerous.....ice formed under the snow and stopping was non existent, even braking with the engine was showing mediocre results at best as the wheels would be rotating slower than me traveling...
still lots of fun seeing ppls :shock: faces as a Volvo enters a street as a true rally car.

CaptainBondo said:

I can't see how drifting is hard on the clutch. It's just throttle steering basically.
Again, a couple nights at the dragstrip will put much more wear on your clutch than a month's worth of drifting.

Click to expand...

These are a couple quotes from a local forum and I've heard variations of them around:

"...the only drawback is if your car has a posi traction rear end (LSD), drifting and doughnuts in parking lots wrecks the clutches in the rear-end if you do this alot."

"...it would only be bad for the lsd clutches if they slip and you keep on the gas, boiling one tire while the other isnt spinning, which would be similar revving your car to 7g and slipping the clutch..."

So, yea you're right that if its done correct it shouldn't be too bad on a clutch.

um, that's the clutches in the diff, which are different. Not the trans clutch.
If you did it lots in the dry it'd wear things some yeah. Again how this is really any more stressful than drag racing I cannot see.
If you push your car to its limits and drive it hard things will wear faster, but that doesn't make drifting an evil destroyer of vehicles.

CaptainBondo said:

um, that's the clutches in the diff, which are different. Not the trans clutch.
If you did it lots in the dry it'd wear things some yeah. Again how this is really any more stressful than drag racing I cannot see.
If you push your car to its limits and drive it hard things will wear faster, but that doesn't make drifting an evil destroyer of vehicles.

Click to expand...

Ok so I was wrong.

regardless of how much it destoys my car, I'm a drifter for life!

Drifting was initially a term used in motorsports, not stunt driving. It is the technique of intentionally losing traction on either axle, or both axles, to change the line of the corner or the attitude of the car through the corner. Good race car drivers drift a lot. They're often on the limits of traction, working to balance and adjust the car between neutral, understeer and oversteer with brake, throttle, and steering wheel inputs. The downside to drifting is scrubbed speed and wear and tear on tires and/or overheating the tires. Flatspotting may or may not be a concern for the stunt version of drifting, I don't know -- with racing, flatspotting is really only a concern with locking up the brakes, race drifting hammers the tires equally around the circumference of the tire.

Power-oversteer is the act of fishtailing out of a corner under hard throttle in a RWD car. This usually happens at relatively slow speeds, around sharp corners, and is easiest for us sub-300hp drivers on roads with loose traction (rain, dirt, sand on the road). If you're on a higher speed corner that isn't a right angle (like most tracks and many roads), if you stomp the throttle on a neutral car, you will see understeer, not oversteer. It's a common misconception that giving hard throttle will always lead to oversteer (kicking the rear end out).

Travis Roy
www.Project242.com
78 242GT B23E winter beater
79 242 B23E project car, occasional track toy
84 245 Wife's car

One clarification, race drifting will not wear the tires equally across the tire, just around the circumference. You can end up with a mis-shapen tire, it just won't be in the form of a flat spot.

- T