Open Diff

[Murray_Calavera]

When drifting a car with an open diff is it highly likely that the driver will spin out?
My car has an open diff and I have never spun out (not that I have been getting Serious angles).
I heard that with an open diff the driver is unable to control which wheels are spinning there fore there isnt control which leads to easy spinning without the ability to recover.

any coments? (besides buy a LSD...)

[SilverGhost]

i learned on an open diff 280zx, and it was suseptable to spin out, but thats the nature of z's, they are heavy oversteering cars like mr2's... but with an open diff, it wont make you spin out more, what it will do is limit your slide. once you start sliding, its hard to keep it going because one wheel isnt spinning, its just sorta dragging so that causes the car to straighten out. hope that helps

[180sxdorift2]

from my personal experience, i dont think having a open diff will cause u to spin out more. u just have to go a little bit faster and have quick steering work and throttle control to control the slide. when i started out, i would spin out if i didnt countersteer quick enough and countersteered too much. i know a guy that has open diff on his 240, and he can drift just like he had a lsd on it. hope that helped in some way.

[SilverGhost]

yeah, at our Drift Showoff here in CO the guy taht won the amatuer comp was in an open diff 240...it looked really good sideways, couldnt tell he had open diff, until he did a standing burnout....the wheel facing the croud was just sitting there while the this huge plume of smoke came up the side of the car...lol. just proof you dont need an LSD to drift well

[Pennyman]

That makes me feel better, hehe. All early Datsun Z's have open diffs and I'm in the process of looking for an LSD that will fit. I do think however that open drifting is the final frontier of drifting, because you have to visualize what the rear end is doing, not only in terms of angle, but how much you can modify throttle input before the inside rear hooks up and throws you the opposite direction.

[CrazyHawaiian]

Nah it wont cause you to spin out. It anything it will slide a little bit different on throttle (left vs right), and you wont get as much speed as the guys with the LSD's, but its still driftable. In fact a lot of local drifters here lay a lot of smoke with their stock open rearends in the skidpad.

[GRiDRaceTech]

The open diff can also make the act of catching the car a little harder; it'll tend to do a tank-slapper or fishtail.

[Pennyman]

I do think drifting without an LSD is more unpredictable, but it does take more skill I'm pretty sure. The methods of initiating the drift are significantly different because you can't jam on the throttle and expect the car to stay sideways as long. It takes more feint technique because you have to overload the outer-rear tire for as long as posible because that one won't be getting as much as the inner-rear when you get o the gas.

[malcolm]

yeah, the handling has to be perfect when you don't have an LSD. You want to have good balance so you can feint with ease, but not have the body roll enough that the inside rear tire has a lot less traction than the outside rear tire (and hence have it send all the drive to the inside rear tire).

Couple that with a MR layout, and you've got one heck of a difficult car to drift.... I love drifting my open diff MR2!

[BenR]

Originally posted by SilverGhost
yeah, at our Drift Showoff here in CO the guy taht won the amatuer comp was in an open diff 240...it looked really good sideways, couldnt tell he had open diff, until he did a standing burnout....the wheel facing the croud was just sitting there while the this huge plume of smoke came up the side of the car...lol. just proof you dont need an LSD to drift well

Uh, no. Scott has a WELDED locked diff. I have a weak viscous in the miata.

[_PG_]

If you want to drift get an LSD. Everyone who says you don't need one is rationalizing why they suck at life. Saying its harder to drift..... yes it is. Does it take more skill? No, because the same things cannot be performed in an open diff car. You cannot cary long drifts, start super early, drift at a high speed and carry it, etc etc... Sure, SLIDING the car is harder, but that isnt drifting. With enough practice, anyone cna learn how to keep a car sliding. What takes skill, and to me, considered drifting is the driver's intuition and attitude about where to initiate, how much angle to hold, where to brake, ebrake, gas, clutch kick, downshift etc. All those decisions, combined with the driver's ability and control over his car in a limited amount of space AKA being a MANIAC and getting close to walls, clipping apexes, etc. all factors in to being a good drifter. Sicne you can't do half the things im talkign about with open diif due to mechanical and physical laws, how can you be a "better drifter" than someone who has the proper machinery? For instance, drifting a open diff to LSD takes relearning how to drift. It is such a drastic change. The car behaves so differently its not even like drifting in the open diff.

[BenR]

Originally posted by _PG_
If you want to drift get an LSD. Everyone who says you don't need one is rationalizing why they suck at life.

Excellent ad hominine attack.

Saying its harder to drift..... yes it is. Does it take more skill? No...

Non sequester. Something that is harder does not take more skill? excellent logic there.

No, because the same things cannot be performed in an open diff car. You cannot cary long drifts, start super early, drift at a high speed and carry it, etc etc...

I can. Actually depending on the setup and the what kind of lsd it is, you could actually introduce understeer on turn-in to the cars handling.

Sure, SLIDING the car is harder, but that isnt drifting. With enough practice, anyone cna learn how to keep a car sliding. What takes skill, and to me, considered drifting is the driver's intuition and attitude about where to initiate, how much angle to hold, where to brake, ebrake, gas, clutch kick, downshift etc. All those decisions, combined with the driver's ability and control over his car in a limited amount of space AKA being a MANIAC and getting close to walls, clipping apexes, etc. all factors in to being a good drifter.

Ok so in your view sliding a car is not drifting, but clipping apexes, getting close to walls, knowing where to brake, ebrake, gas, clutch kick, downshift, etc. is drifting?

Sicne you can't do half the things im talkign about with open diif due to mechanical and physical laws, how can you be a "better drifter" than someone who has the proper machinery?

There you go using that "you" word again. I can. Tell me what a lsd has to do with clipping apexes, getting close to walls, knowing where to brake, ebrake, gas, clutch kick, downshift, etc?

In my mind someone that can do the more with less usually has more skill. Where is the flaw in that logic?

For instance, drifting a open diff to LSD takes relearning how to drift. It is such a drastic change. The car behaves so differently its not even like drifting in the open diff.

I think you give too much importance to what an LSD does. It's not like the differenece of a s13 and a cadillac.

[Cone]

I first started drifting on an open diff and now have an LSD. It's way easier!! If you sway the car, it's hard to predict what the car's going to do, and it's probably going to spin out. Going to LSD from open is pretty rad cause you already know how your car behaves, and it's so much easier, now I can drift a lot better.

[Slonie]

Originally posted by BenR
Excellent ad hominine attack.

Non sequester.

There you go using that "you" word again.

I think you give too much importance to what an LSD does.

Okay, please stop. Seriously.

[ohtagerbilhero]

bruce lee could take out an entire pack of ninjas with his legs bound together and one hand tied to his toes. ....but do you think he learned to fight that way? as a six year old kid he went to kung fu class bound up like a crying japanese girl in a bondage film?
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you know what's great? linking corners together...connecting drifts... sliding through an entire course. that's fun.

you know what's hard? drifting through a corner when only your inside wheel is spinning.

with an open diff, you can make sure your outside wheel is spinning, but it's REALLY hard to switch the power to the other wheel without getting rear traction again. i dunno how you'd do it. maybe if you were a diff-whisperer or something. you have mystical kung fu powers? please share them with me. i will drink them in a juice.

so then... linking drifts is really difficult with an open diff, yes?

if you can do it and keep up with a guy who has LSD....you have ultimate skill!

...but why would you hold yourself back like that when an LSD is 300-600 bucks? maybe even cheaper if you grab yourself a junkyard diff...

if you really want to go far in the drift world, you should have an LSD. you wouldn't bring brass knuckles to a gun fight, wouldja?
--------------------------

so, good for you if you can drift with an LSD. a drift is just a controlled four wheel slide. if all four wheels are sliding, you're drifting. you don't have to clip an apex, scrape a wall, seduce a race queen, or beat Benny Moto at checkers to drift. you just need to slide all four tires.... but there's a lot more you can do out there, and some of it...you can only do with an LSD.

get an LSD when you can afford it. i swear you'll love it.

just think of it this way.... if you get really good at drifting with an open diff... and you beat all the kids who have LSDs... and get sponsored by RS*R or Apex'i or HKS or something... they're gonna give you a car to drive. ...it's gonna have LSD. ...once you have throttle control, you're gonna look like a doofus out there....CAUSE YOU NEVER LEARNED IT.

why shield yourself from learning valuable skills? why are you hiding from LSD? EMBRACE THE DIFF! EMBRACE ITS LOCKING POWER!

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now, a bit about the writer:
my first AE86 came with an open diff... i learned to drift with it... i was sliding EVERYWHERE with that thing... mostly left turns, cause power almost automatically went to the right wheel (i didn't know how diffs worked at the time, so i didn't know this was why i was so comfortable with left turns).... so i went and did Drift Day 1 (Drift School) with my open diff. it was fun. i rocked that left turn like nobody's business. no clutch kick, no power over... my tires were bad, so i just used the brake. i learned braking drift!

when you're not doing fancy clutch kicks, the drift entry goes by the same principles...so you can still learn stuff.

i didn't waste my 60 bucks. i had a great time. ...but after i had that great time, i went out and spent 590 bucks on a Kaaz 2way. i've been using that thing for two and a half years now...it was the best 590 bucks i ever spent.

now, maybe i copped out... maybe i didn't spend enough time learning to drift with an open differential... yeah, maybe. but when i went to Drift Day 3 with my Kaaz...i had ten times as much fun as i'd ever had with my open diff.

so okay....you don't need an LSD.... but, for the sake of fun...get one. they're lovely.

[_PG_]

You cannot carry the same distance drift with the same speed in open diff and LSD. it is NOT POSSIBLE. No matter how good you say you are, its a physical inability to propel your car in the same velocity (velocity has direction, not just speed) with an open diff versus LSD. The open diff's outer tire, where the majority of your weight transfer goes aka your tire with the most grip, is not getting any power. It just gets dragged along for the ride while all your engine's efficiency gets wasted on an unloaded, trailing inside wheel with no traction. How the f.uck you you suppose you can start at the same point, carry a long drift and keep up speed? You wouldn't even be able to keep a line! (You being used broadly here, Mr. Fu.cking Semantics). YOU can't! And on a track, or any road that is not a mile long straight away, there is only a limited amount of space leading up to the turn. Onlyx amount of feet, many times that is taken at full throttle, full acceleration up to the initiation point. The only way to carry a slide in an open diff car is enter with more speed so by the time you scrub it all off by that dragging outside tire, you are going the normal speed for the turn. Then what? What happens after the turn? Where in an LSD equipped car you accelerate as you drift through the end of the turn, a sucky diff car won't get traction to accelerate until you aren't drifting, and both wheels have equal traction. AKA gripping AKA you aren't drifting anymore therefor you did not perform as good of a drift as you would with LSD. Back to a previous point: Limited amount of space means at the MOST in the MOST powerful car, you could only be going a certain speed. So in equal cars LSD vs. Open, the initiation speed caNNOT be any higher. Therefore, with open diff, since you scrub speed a lot quicker and can never accelerate through the turn, there is NO WAY Newton and his laws of Physics will ever allow you to go as fast or as far (in the same amount of time).

Ohhhh... but you are a better drifter right? This is not talking about horsepower or damper tuning or tire selection---factors that can seperate top notch drivers by slight amounts--- we are talking about a peice of equipment that is the most integral part of drifting. It's function allows you to perform the basics of upper level drifting, which are, like stated, not physically possible in an open diff car. I don't care what you say. You say you can hold a slide for 300 ft in an open diff car lets say. Ok, cool, if you can, great. But what speed? Its not inpressive to go out and slide as long but at 20mph less than everyone else. And no way to accelerate through a corner?

What happens if you have lets say a 90 degree, then straight then hairpin. And the 90 degree gets slightly narrower as it leads into the straight, which then opens up, and gets narrow again for the apex. Oh and lets just say the straight is over a slight inclined crest. So, you initiate, slow down for the reduced width (can't carry too much speed into that rocky berm), then get back on the gas full throttle for the straight, carrying the drift out of the first 90 all the way to the outside edge, cresting the hill and then coming back in slowing down again for the tight downhill apex. Cool. How are you going to do that in open diff? You can't accelerate through that straightaway while holding a drift. If it were short enough where your momentum would carry you, you may complete it, but again it would just be a progressively slower speed. Anyway you look at it, you would not be as good of a "drifter" as the guy who made it. Is it harder for you to drift the open diff? Um i guess... but you aren't doing the same thing, so how can you know you would be able to drift at a high level in a car with LSD.

Now for some FUN reading:

Its like being the best baseball player in your leauge of people who hit using tree branches. It is harder to hit a ball using a tree branch? Yes. Can you hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium with one? No. But if you were givin a real bat, with the potential to hit it out of the stadium (look at Barry Bonds lets say... he uses a normal ole' bat) do you think you could? I dunno. Maybe? Maybe not. The dynamics of how a bat reacts in certain spots to the ball is completey different than a branch. You wouldn't know. Youa re comparing yourself mabes on assumptions and a limited view of baseball (or more applicably, WHAT DRIFTING is).

On top of that, lets assume different courses or turns are equivalent to different pitchers. You think that you could hit a little league pitcher out of the local sports feild with a branch? You probably could. You could also do it with a bat. It would be easier with the bat. This is what you are saying, that amongst the people who are only good enough to hit a little league pitcher out of the local park, YOU are better than them because you can do it with a branch and they have to rely on a bat. Yes, you are. YOU ARE BETTER.

So you stay there, perfecting the little league game till the point where you can hit it out almost everytime. You must be a good baseball player. And sh.it, you only use a branch. But here comes Rodger Clemens, and you are in a big league feild. Your branch ain't gonna cut it. No way in hell. Bonds couldn't even hit it out with the branch, how are you? So you grab a bat. You have been playing all the little kids for their milk money knocking them out with the branch. Not now hotshot, now you grasp that bat and you don't know sh.it. You gotta start from square one. Look at Clemens. You've never faced that speed before. You've never held your weapon before. But you said you were a good baseball player. BETTER than those kids with the bats. But you can't do sh.it with it until you learn how to hit a mjor league pitcher with a real bat!

Damn i must say i think that is one of the better analogies i have produced, especially for the LSD/No LSD topic.

[buudweizerr]

'drifting' without an LSD is not drifting, simple as that.

[/thread]

[naru]

what's a lsd??? is it that stuff to make you high and feel like you're "drifting" off to space??? if so, yes lsd helps you drift!!!

[Cone]

Originally posted by buudweizerr
'drifting' without an LSD is not drifting, simple as that.

[/thread]

Dude, you're retarded. I don't even need to say anymore.

[aither]

Ok, drifting on dry pavement wihtout and LSD is not drifting because you have no throttle modulation. This is what makes drifts look cool, and offers a great deal of predicability. No LSD = spining or understeer, or a complete lack of control, as mentioned above.

IMO, Anyone with an open diff who is serious about drifting but too poor for a nice lsd, should just p/u an extra open diff, weld it up, throw it in, and drive it untill it brakes.

[marshun]

you dont need lsd. but it sure does help. it is harder to maintain a drift with an open diff.

you guys raggin on the open diff guys, lame.

i believe in learnin with an open diff first. it promotes your steering technique. seriously.

[aither]

Originally posted by marshun
i believe in learnin with an open diff first. it promotes your steering technique. seriously.

How does it improve steering technique? In my experience learning with an open diff meant I had to re-learn everything.

[buudweizerr]

Originally posted by Cone
Dude, you're retarded. I don't even need to say anymore.

'Dude,' STFU. Obviously, you didn't read the novel above my post, so please, Uncle Sam wants YOU to STFU. I don't need to say anymore.

But I will.

The only even remotely good thing about learning to powerslide an open diff is that you might pick up a thing or two about weight transfer. But I won't hold my breath about that.

[naru]

Originally posted by buudweizerr
'Dude,' STFU. Obviously, you didn't read the novel above my post, so please, Uncle Sam wants YOU to STFU. I don't need to say anymore.

But I will.

The only even remotely good thing about learning to powerslide an open diff is that you might pick up a thing or two about weight transfer. But I won't hold my breath about that.

hey ryan, don't waste your energy bro, we all know who REALLY drifts here

[Cone]

All I know that is my Civic LX 2001 can outdrift any S13 that I've ever seen!!