Thursday, June 23, 2011

Drifting a front wheel drive car


Today we will discuss drifting a front wheel drive car. Wait what? Don't you need a rear wheel drive car for that?
A lot of people will call drifting a fwd car not drifting. This is because you only can use the hand brake to initiate the drift. This in contrary of rear wheel drive cars, which can use several methods to get their rear wheels to break traction.
However, in Japan, the home country of drifting, they do not agree with this. If you are going sideways and having fun in the process then why not? The D1 drifts even have a special class for ff cars to compete, such as the Honda civic pictured above.

Drifting a front wheel drive goes as follows:
Make sure you have a lot of speed before entering the corner and aim for the inside most part of the corner. This is because the cars tend to understeer a lot.
Brake for upcoming corner.This transfers vehicle weight to the front wheels for traction while lightening the rear end (similar to the brake drift) '
Steer away from the corner before steering towards it as a scandinavian flick.
Pull the e-brake. If you have done it correctly you can let it go quickly and the car will keep going sideways for several seconds before you have to pull the ebrake again. If you have done this wrong then you have to keep the rear wheels locked to stay sidewaus. 
Whilst drifting you have to keep countersteering.
Now wait until the car is facing the corner exit and floor it. Smoke those front tires! How hard you step on the gas depends how much you are countersteering and sliding. Good thing about FF cars is that the car will follow the front wheels – hence the “ass dragging.”


If this front-wheel drive drift sequence seems complicated, just practice and it will go allright eventually. Some people may interpret a front-wheel drive drift as a powerslide, but the definition of powerslide in reference to motorsports refers to a Power Over Drift – or excess use of throttle to induce oversteer when exiting a corner. If you are having fun with drifting your front wheel drive car you shouldnt care about what the rest sais and just continue doing it.

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