240sx automatic drift- no hand brake

[na70sh]

yo i have a 240sx auto matic and i learned, with some practice and some balls you drift by puting it in (1) and turning no hand brake, my question is, is this safe for my tranny or should i go bake to the hand brake?

[R2K]

??? what the hell does hand brake got to d w/ ur tranny???

[Tercel_Drifter]

i think na70sh was asking whether it was better to use the e-break or the tranny, or possibly, that if using the tranny like that will kill it

[CrazyHawaiian]

Going full throttle is not any worse than guys with manual clutch kicking. Honestly drifting in general puts alot of abuse on your car, so dont expect everything to last forever. I wouldn't recommend shifting between 1 and 2 while on the throttle (or even off it).

[Drift For Food]

Hmm, shifting to (1) is quite limitted. You'll only have a short range of speeds to have it work well, say 45mph and under. The lower speed you go, the less engine braking you'll get when it goes down to first. As well, once you get low enough, you'll be in first automatically anyways.

Additional wear? Sure, but it's nothing more than putting it in (D) or (O) and flooring it through the gears. An automatic tranny is smart enough to shift when it should. It won't go into first at 65mph even if you put it down in (1). It'll wait till you drop down to a low enough speed.

It's an interesting concept about an e-brake replacement. However, it may be a bit more limitted and finicy than you'd like. I just thought up of a way to use it at higher speeds, but it would be quite difficult to use. For example, on a 60mph corner, you want to drop it into first. Well, you could technically brake hard enough to start locking up the rear tires and slow the speed enough to make the car think it's at 45mph and under. At that point it would downshift and you'd let off the brake. Now the problem with this is that you have no additional throttle or control of how the tires react. One will probably be spinning backwards a little. The engine may wind up more than it should as well. You'd essentially have to use it just long enough to break the tires free and then shift back up and apply throttle like normal.

In my personally opinion, you're pretty much out of luck for some techniques. The above thought just don't provide the control you need to work with. It's more of a thing you'd have to use a bit and get used to. You'd have to learn the amount of braking needed, the time it takes for the car to shift gears, how long you need to let the car stay in first, and then the time it takes for the tranny to shift back up after you put it in (2) or (D) or whatever. There's a lot of unknowns, and it sounds like quite a hastle. The biggest problem I see is that you may find it work only some of the time.

I'd say work on other techniques. I've been drifting for over a year and the e-brake is something I've hardly used. Unless you're working on very tight, very low speed corners, other techniques will work just as well. Braking and feint techniques are my two stalemates. These are my most used types of drifting techniques. They also work indepentent of car setup, be it automatic or manual or even rwd or fwd. They work for everything. I started on a fwd automatic with a foot e-brake, moved to a rwd manual with a foot e-brake, and am now on an awd manual with a hand e-brake. These techniques allowed every car to be driftable.

The method you're using is nice to have because it's very similar to shift lock in a manual tranny rwd car. It's one of those things that's easy to do and can generally get the rear end to come out. If it works, use it I guess. Expect a little less life of your tranny by doing it.

Drifting is tough on cars. A lot of forces are put on them. That's something you can't get around. Perhaps try to be as smooth and gentle as possible. Learn ways to drift that help eliminate unnecessary wear on the car. If wear and life are two things you worry about, how hard you beat on the car is something you always have to be self aware about. A car has its limits, not only for maximum forces, but also fatique. Parts weaken and wear out over a lifetime as well. Being gentle will maximize you time and minimize the drain on your wallet.

[Ris4drift]

put it in 2nd and leave it there. if your really drifting you will never use 1st gear, maybe 3rd, but once you get the car sideways the auto wont matter. you dont need to shift 1/2 the time anyways unless the track has a 3rd gear corner, but your car doesnt have enough power to just leave it in 3rd and i doubt its gonna downshift from d-2 when you want it to so i dont know. just leave it in 2nd and youll be fine.

[mechaniac]

My recommendation for anyone who wants to drift with an automagic.

Just buy a manual.

[prophet]

a-men

[CrazyHawaiian]

Auto can drift fine if you know how. No clutch kick, but you can still use weight transfer and throttle. I'm not saying Auto is better than Manual, but it can still be done.

[Tercel_Drifter]

possible, Yes definately, hard...most likely

[Gleetk]

I dont drive a automatic but a idea came to me... You could try to throw the center of ballance off.

Example:
(right turn example)

When your going onto the right turn, take a quick and unexpected left turn, then counter with a hard right turn.
now your in a drift, then punch the power for all it has. And counter acting the turn.. That should work... Im a person for manual lfs tranmissions... I never used a automatic before..

I really dont think you need to use the ebrake, but if you do. You can use it a little so that no one knows

[Tercel_Drifter]

kind of a slight faint?

[spinitsidewayz!]

i always thought pulling the ebrake in an auto rwd car was bad.. idk i dont need to worry about that. i havent been here in a while... what happened to nissanguy? hes a cool guy. hes drifted his 240sx automatic. he could help you. if i remember what he said and what i think so too, it should improve your skills in areas like weight transfer and braking techniques that you might overlook in standard transmission. (gleetk has the right idea) rain can help too. just keep it in a safe area... off public streets please. so i'd say learn on the auto tranny till your ready to go manual. wait till your engine blows or something else breaks

[Mtndrifter14]

Manual is the only way to go in my opinion
for real drifting.

[CrazyHawaiian]

Yeah the rest of us are "fake" drifting hahahaha

[ph0xer]

I've pulled some nice drifts with my automatic s14 all you need to do is have it in 2nd gear going at a high rpm and then when you are ready to make it slide let the throttle go down and step on it and it should keep you in a good powerband. I've tried doing it on D but it shifts up 2 secs into a slide. 1 i only use when im going slow otherwise it still sucks because it dosent accelerate that fast.

If you use your ebrake your gonna end up blowing your tranny up because if you pull the ebrake and your tranny is still sending power to the back wheels and its going to mess it up unlike manual were you just clutch in before pulling the ebrake then when you put the ebrake back down you put it in gear. The best way i found to use the ebrake is to learn to quickly put it on N and pull the ebrake then put it down and put it in 2. It sounds hard and it is because by the time you put it back in gear you just wasted about 4 secs. It takes practice but you should go to a big parking lot and try some drifting techniques out that you dont have to heavily really on your ebrake or clutch. AT drifts are harder to control so you have to work on your suspension set up if you want to get better results. The only thing is that AT sometimes decides to shift up when it wants to, then realizing its too hard to power through then shift back down, this causes some understeer and if you try it in a street you might just end up hitting something like a curb.

Good luck

[drift180sx]

Originally posted by spinitsidewayz!
i always thought pulling the ebrake in an auto rwd car was bad..

pulling the ebrake on a rwd car is ok while drifting if u watch d1 videos u see in mid drift the rear wheels stop spining and thats because the drivers pulling the ebrake some examples are nomura, haruyama, keiichi... all of the d1 drivers do pull the ebrake 2 continue drift.

[CrazyHawaiian]

Well the manual cars lock better because you can clutch in when you yank handbrake. The auto drivetrain will always stay connected to the engine, meaning the engine will continue to deliver power to the drivetrain. This makes it harder to lock the rears when you yank handbrake.

[SILFORTY]

what would happen if it was in neutral, pulled the e-brake, then put it back to the previous gear it was in? would that totally screw up the tranny? or would it give that same ebrake action seen on manual?

[Tercel_Drifter]

should work, but you'll get wear and tear

[CrazyHawaiian]

Yeah that works, Revlimit used to do that when he was auto. I just say screw the E-brake, who needs it!! hahaha. Nah I'm joking, I wish I had an E-brake that worked good, I cant do any extended slides or anything with my gimp E-brake.

[SILFORTY]

Tercel,

You said there would be wear and tear, but where would that be?

for my crown vic (automatic) i always use feint drift because with the weight of my car weight transfer does the job an e-brake would then i just try to sort of "peel out" through the turn

[new_to_drift]

if you have an auto,do a mix of power over and braking drift.just right before the turn,push on the brakes so that the weight transfer is toward the front,and either yank the ebrake,cause since there is no weight on the back end,very ez to lock it up and slide.or right before the turn push on brakes so the weight transfer happens,then slam on the gas at the same time as turning the wheel in the desired direction,u should slide easily.

[Tercel_Drifter]

Originally posted by SILFORTY
Tercel,

You said there would be wear and tear, but where would that be?

the auto tranny isn't designed for popin gears like that, so its going to take a bit of a beating, but then again drifting in general puts wear and tear on the car...overall you'll just wear the trans faster imo.