FF Drift...help, newbie and FF, uh oh

[Liro]

i know this topic has been out there, but im really talking about transferring what i can do on snow to pavement...

this is the first season ive been pulling ebrake drifts in the snow in my 01 civic, and its not bad but im still limited to what i can do in a FF.

any tips on progressing to normal dry pavement, there isnt gonna be snow here forever...do i even stand a chance at being able to do this?

also, im really impressed with the acceptance of FF on this site. im a huge fan of the s13s and s14 but when i made my choice i didnt know about drifting....oh regrets...haha

search the site a little bit and you find some posts by me about FF drifting... i drift on pavement never have on sno

[Drift For Food]

I a basic sense, it's the same but faster and with higher forces. The same concepts still apply, but you have to do it at higher speeds. The added forces will change your car's behavior though. It will lean more for one, and you'll probably be working a little harder with the steering wheel also. I'm not sure how much feedback the civic has.

Yes, do some searching too. People on this forum don't like repeated posts too much. Be kind and search a little first.

[plinker]

I have seen a lot of JWRC cars (FF 1600cc NA) drifting to clear hair-pins and integra type-R drifting in an elk-test in a TV.
so it's possible. but might be hard with stock set- ups.

if you are serious about drifting get an FR.
if you are serious about drifting in snow, get a 4WD.
if you are serious about driving an FF or have to keep
what you have now, get a clutch type LSD while there is snow.

see the picture
this is my senpai's EK. completely stock.
his driving is good, but this is what happens to an FF
at the exit of a corner.
the inside front wheel is barely touching the ground,
and the engine power goes only to that tire
if you don't have an LSD.

[Drift For Food]

^yep

Behold the power of a regular diff, lol...and stock suspension. That thing leans a bit. It reminds me of my Lesabre...sniff, memories.

[180sx2nr8u]

the best i can tell you is that you wont know how your car will react until you take it out on the pavement and see. find a parking lot and set up cones or something. although it is very different, the snow should have taught you how to 'fell' your car. you should know when your car loses traction, but it wont slide as much on pavement as on snow, so dont get all the counter-steering in at once. take it a bit slower. but like i said, just go out and cut it loose as if you never drifted before.

[Liro]

thanks for all your advice. i will definately do a search for related topics.

also, im not running a stock setup so the roll isnt as dramatic, its been lowered with race springs and tie bars are installed...

i managed a little better results last night by exaggerating my technique on snow.

ive found so far that i need to brake much harder to shift the weight to intiate the drift and its still hard to really get it sideways. i will also try using a bigger out turn while using the feint motion to start the ebrake drift. i will keep working at it though, thanks everyone!

[S13_Steve]

switch ur whole powertrain...get a FR and switch it backwards on ur civic soo the engine is in ur trunk and the rear tires are in the front of your..... put ur car in reverse and go reverse drifting/ civic lolz i dunno what im talkn about....came outa my mind.....

^^lmao makesd me wanna go buy an EK and do that now

but really let the car countersteer itself... well i dont really know how to explain that... but when i do it... it kinda does just that... the steering just kinda counters on its own... is that not normal?? is my car possessed???

[Digital Sol]

The idea about making a civic MR isn't too far off from reality. A long time ago in Super Street the featured the Top Secret Del Sol. Which is what I have except no MR and not Top Secret. They Stuck an H22 in the trunk and put a turbo in and it was rear drive and they only ran the quarter with it. The only issue is the weight balance because it turned out to be like 20% front 80% rear. so yeah lots of strange scattered thoughts in one post.

[Digital Sol]

its also by Top Fuel not Top Secret. Mid Engined, Turbo-Charged, Used to be FF, total goodness.

[Drift For Food]

quote from Liro:
"ive found so far that i need to brake much harder to shift the weight to intiate the drift and its still hard to really get it sideways. i will also try using a bigger out turn while using the feint motion to start the ebrake drift. i will keep working at it though, thanks everyone!"

Yeah, that what you need to do in a nut shell.

There's not much else you can do except for suspension adjustment. You could think about softening up the front suspension, lower rate springs or softer shocks, get a little more weight to the front easier.

If you want to get some oversteer or get rid of some push in the corners, a lower front spring rate will help. Less front sway or more rear sway will do the same when cornering.

Weight transfer is dependent on the spring stiffness and the amount of dampening of the shocks. So if you want to get the rear end to come out in a corner during braking, make the weight shift easier. Soften the front suspension and lower the dampening of the front shocks or even both the front and rear.

The hard part is that it's really a balance of everything to create certain car characteristics. It would take a bit of drive time and a lot of trial and error with parts to fine tune the suspension. You'd love it in the end, but it's a hastle, not sure how expensive either. Do places let you take springs and shocks back after you've used them?

You also have the factor of safety. For example, if you make the rear end loose when braking, you have to worry about it under normal driving as well. If someone stops hard in front of you at a light, you better be careful when slowing down hard to keep that rear end straight.

[ProjectD]

um, drifting in the sow, is alot different from dry surface in that in the snow, you can break traction alot easier, like in the dirt. in pavement, well, good luck *Censored**Censored**Censored* dragging.

[Liro]

i like the idea of changing the components of my car to create a more drift friendly FF. but thats no longer and option for me, much like the purchase of my civic, im stuck with what i got now.

i know its best to change to a FR, hell i want to very badily....but i cant. if i ever do find an FR when its time to get rid of the civic though i will definately do it...then return here to seek out help again.

thanks all for you input. FF cant really drift, i have come to realize that too....so i will just do the best i can to get close

[HasNoTiresLeft]

heh im a little late on the input... but ff can drift trust me...i had two ff cars... wrecked one, sold one. As a matter of fact theres a clip on this site of a ff civic drifting and hes damn good.... I dunno where though u gotta use da search.

As for going from snow to pavement... parking lot is the best place.... nice open one... just try what u did in the snow... if u get no slide... increase speed and try more e-brake... dbl tappin the old e-brake is good to initiate the slide, and you dont have to kill the cord by holdin it up... Once you get the feel of how the car slides on pavement, youll want to try longer drifts... they require more speed and you have to use the e-brake to keep the angle... I learned alot with ff drifting... specially the limits, but if you want to know more, my AOL messenger is xxdriftaxx cause i get tired typin all this stuff at once.

[Liro]

im definately interested in knowing more, im not on aol though...are you on msn?

i will pm you with my info....

yeah, i will keep at it....i do feel like im getting closer to being able to drift on pavement....more ebrake and more speed are definately helping....

thanks

[fwdrift]

you got a perfect civic to drift in. and you don't really need that e-brake. when the snow goes away go look for a BIG parking lot hopefully away from major roads or anything that could get you into trouble. then go there late at night and practice drifting.

and i can tell just how to do it without that e-brake.

what you do is you slightly steer towards one way and then yank it in the other way. and then when at the right moment when the steering wheel is tunred the other way while your in the dirft hit the gas in a low gear to give high rpm and it'll bring you right back out with hopefully no trouble. and you can do this at speeds ranging from 40-50+mph. which in my mind is a some what low speed. i'll take most likely a couple of nights of pracicing but once you get it down you'll making people think you driving i RWD car. that's what happened twith my old 86 honda prelude DX.

[Drifting_turtle]

well, sry this is kinda rude but FF cant drift, or at least not real drifting. You can pull that e-brake all you want but no it wont be a real drift. Sure it works on dirt and snow because drifting originated from rally racing and the techniques they use are mostly for FF and AWD.

Make it a track car, drifting is a technique for FR and most of the time isnt faster that grip.

Making it an MR would take to much time and money when you could save and just buy an old FR car.

[fwdrift]

drift_turtle: your talking about power sliding. drifting is were your going around a corner too fast for your tires to grip and thus they loose traction cuasing your rear tires to slip and enertia (can't remember how to spell it) takes over sending your back end of you car towards the outside of a turn. if your good enough to contorl how far it slides you can come out of a corner in a perfect drift.

so if your moving around a corner at a reasonably fast speed and your back end slides out while your front is in that is a drift. it doesn't matter what kind of car it is you can still get it to slide. it's really easy when you know how to do it.

the only real ? is which hanldes better in a drift. FR or FF?

[Drifting_turtle]

too me FR, never tried FF so i dont have much to compare it to.

[HX-50]

Hello all, new to the forums, got a introduction post in the general forums for any interested. Currently i have a 2004 mazda protege' which i drift quite well here's how i do it, first off i had to play with my brake setup a bit ***WARNING!!! do not attempt this if you are new to working on cars, please see someone who knows what they are doing before trying*** ok that said i have my front balance set slightly stronger than my back brakes, also i have a stiffer than usuall suspension, please do not ask me for ratios and the like, i do not really work on cars, but i know many who do, i know enough to tell a mechanic what i want done in layman's terms, he does the rest for me. Now what setting my brakes like that has done is when i depress the pedal the front wheels slow down slightly faster than the rear wheels this creates a temporary rwd car which if i brake hard right before turning into a corner initiates a drift. now here's where it get's tricky, i usually have to heel and toe before entering a corner because when the rear wheels stop spinning faster than the front ones i need to be in the torque band to pull it out of it. This is how i drift my fwd mazda, it does take a lot of practice and you're going to kill a lot of tires, also i do not use this technique often i usually use it in low speed corners, if done properly i find i can carry around the same speed out of a corner as i can going into it. Again, this takes a lot of time and patience to get right, but if you find a nice parking lot to practice in you should get it in no time.

My advice to anyone trying to learn any drift ... make friends with the local tire shop.

Ok well that's my $.02 if anyone would like to know more my contact information is

AIM :bdwaggs40
MSN: bdwaggs@yahoo.com
e-mail: bdwaggs@yahoo.com
and i also rarely use the yahoo messenger, also bdwaggs

[Drift For Food]

Hmm, cars are usually designed to have the rear wheels brake first. It's actually controlled by a valve between the front and rear brakes, a "metering valve" if I remember correctly. Now since yours is disc brakes front and rear, I don't know if they use this anymore.

I kind of thought the Proteges have a good brake balance to begin with, my bro's Protege 5 works very well.

It's true that a stronger front brake will get the front end slower sooner but you lose some braking power by having the front lock up first. Basically, you'll lose steering ability. Setting it to stronger rear braking would make it act more like an e-brake. The rear would tend to lock of easier and slide the rear out. For drifting, braking is more of a method of transfering weight than locking up tires though. With a front strong brake, it probably help to try to slow down the front faster. The rear end would want to overtake the front in a sense. If you start pushing the car hard though, you'd probably find the front locking up some which would make the car just go straight.

The tire shop thing is a good idea. I'll have to remember that, maybe work part time at one, lol.

actually cars are set up to have more braking power in the front... how would you like to have someone slam on their brakes in front of you and you have to hit them harder... which locks the rear first making the whole back end swing around? youtr brakes are set up for 70% of braking power to the front and 30% of braking power to the front... so i think you are mistaken...

[Drift For Food]

I understand that the primary amount of braking is done with the front, 70% plus. There are set up this way, I know. Still he mention setting them more towards the front that that, say 75-80% maybe. Under heavy braking, this will result in the front locking up a bit before the rear creating a loss of steering.

My truck does this. I hate it. I either brake light to keep the front from locking up or slam the brakes and lock up all of them to actually stop fast. Besides that, yes it's good for safety. Yes it does keep the rear end from sliding out on you when braking, very unsafe. However, too much just isn't necessary. You'll sacrifice braking performance because you can't brake as hard and still maintain steering.

I basically mentioned it cause my brother's Protege 5(hatchback/wagon version of Protege) brake setup is actually pretty good. It was more of an observation than me telling him or anyone it's wrong. I personally like all 4 to lock up at the same time. If it does that, I'm happy.

[HX-50]

Ok to answer the questions about my setup, yes it's at 75% balance. A lot of people really hate this setup, but i like my car this way although it does make my car a pain to anyone who wants to drive it besides me. I use this car as a daily driver but i also autocross it so i have made modest adjustments to help but nothing that will knock me out of stock class. basically as i stated this is how i like to drive but it's not for everyone, also my car is not equipped with an abs system, this means that i have to be a lot more aware when i break. I had to really get to know this car for about 4 or 5 months before i even dared to try any advanced techniques. again this is just my setup, i haven't really seen too many like it, but that's ok to me, i seem to do alright