While building the GT4 1/4 Mile Guide Andy R worked on the following drifting guide which should hopefully enable you to become a master at drifting, or at least on the way to becoming one!

DRIFTING IN GT4
By Andy R

With the mechanics of car physics having changed once again (from GT3) it is now a bit different if you are building a car specifically to drift for GT4. However, armed with the right knowledge, tune-up parts and settings it is possible to get the majority of FR cars in the game to drift well.

IN THE GAME ITSELF

I have personally tried drifting with all the different views and settings and controller configurations there are, and I have found that the most helpful and easy-to use configuration is the behind car view. This allows you to see exactly where the front and back ends of the car are positioned on the track, something that isn’t possible with the front and roof mounted views. Whilst it isn’t impossible to drift with these views it is hard to judge things like when to counter steer to stop the car spinning out.

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THEORY + CAR REQUIREMENTS

Drifting involves entering a corner at a sideways angle whilst moving at speed, where the rear of the vehicle “hangs out” towards the outside of the corner and the nose of the car is pointed in towards the apex (inside of the corner). The ability to get this angle before, during and after the corner is due to several factors, of which some or all can be utilised to drift a car. Those factors are

~ Application of Torque (twisting force)
~ Suspension setup (bounce, rebound, stiffness)
~ Tyre grip (or lack of)
~ Use of handbrake (if needed)

For example, I have a very well setup drift car in my 1970 Chevrolet Camaro 302. This early 70's American car comes standard with a 5 litre V8 (187 kW/420Nm), good chassis layout and is RWD. However, the car has sloppy suspension, a 4 speed manual gearbox with wide ratios and a standard (not LSD) diff. Not good for drifting, unless first gear skids are your thing.

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MAXIMUM TORQUE

After going on a shopping spree at Chevrolet, I found myself with a much more powerful Camaro that now had the ability to drift almost any track in the game. The car itself hasn’t been excessively modified for horsepower, more for a strong torque curve than anything else. The supercharger bolted to the engine provides a massive boost to the (previously sluggish) low RPM area, and the car can generate a strong 775Nm from 3000 rpm. What this means is that the car can be shifted up gears whilst drifting higher-speed tracks without the rear wheels gaining too much traction - each gear change drops the revs back into this huge torque surge and the car can continue to defeat traction even at high speeds. As it is, 5^th gear will wheel spin all the way up to 165mph in a straight line, which is testament to the supercharged V8’s torque.

If I found that the car needed more however, I could go to the extent of playing with the individual gear ratios, but generally speaking I just play with either the final drive (diff) ratio or move the auto settings for gears up or down. This isn’t drag racing, so it doesn’t need to be that precise! Also, if you do choose to drift high speed tracks its wise to install a Nitrous setup, as this can assist with breaking traction at higher speeds, due to its massive torque assistance properties. I usually enter corners in third gear to start drifting on small/medium tracks but on large tracks i'm sometimes entering the corner in 4^th or 5^th gear, with the Nitrous on to get the car sideways.  As the Camaro makes approx. 1050Nm at 3000rpm with the Nitrous on you can see why it’s not hard to get sideways!

Special Note
~ If you are turbo-charging the engine you wish to use, then remember - a stage 3-4 turbocharger is going to have a large torque deficiency at low-mid rpm if used on a smaller engine, but if its available buy the stage 5 turbo as it provides the same top end as the stage 4 but with huge low-end response (torque). Horsepower however is not critical here - I have a 230 hp (stage 2 turbocharged) Toyota Sprinter that can out drift almost any car in the game - it does this by making excellent midrange torque for its given size/weight/layout.

Synopsis
~ Strong mid-range torque is better than a peaky top end. Make it so that each upward gear-change drops the revs back into the torque producing area of the rev range.

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SUSPENSION

Here’s where things can get tricky. The general consensus is that the front should be firm, the back should be fairly solid to help with loss of sideways (lateral) grip and the front wheels should have a bit of camber to help with steering at large angles. However, the setup of each and every car is entirely different, and it’s all got to do with traction and torque application (once again!). A good way to develop a driftable package is to go purchase a RWD car that you like. Equip it with the following parts and take it out to a certain track that you think will be good for drift. I am personally a big fan of Suzuka east section (the very small section) from the ”World Circuits” menu, as its got seven big sweeping corners that stay at the same radius and which link from one direction to another near the top of the course.

Parts you DO need
~ Custom suspension - Infinite adjustability
~ Custom gearbox - Infinite adjustability
~ Custom differential - Set initial and acceleration both to 60 (“locker diff”)
~ Stage 1 or 2 flywheel - To help make gear-shifts quicker
~ Triple clutch - Make gearshifts more solid, helps maintain wheelspin on up-shifts
~ All weight reduction mods - Stops car from sliding out on corners (inertia)
~ Nitrous - Big torque multiplier, assists with loss of traction in all gears
~ ‘Sports’ tyres -  Easy enough to spin, but still provide decent steering response
~ Stage 1, 2, 3 or 5 turbos - These turbos have good low rpm response
~ Superchargers - Although restrictive up top, they produce huge torque at low rpm

Parts you DON’T need
~ Stage 3 flywheel - Makes engine response very on/off
~ Stage 4 turbos - Lack of torque at low rpm, any other turbo is better
~ All standard drive-train parts - Gearbox, clutch, diff etc. Not adjustable!
~ Slicks - Too much grip, won’t get enough angle
~ Ballast - Weight = too much pull towards outside of corner

For the 302 Camaro, here’s how I turned it into a drift weapon.
~ Spring rate: 50% front, 75% rear
~ Dampers: 4 for bounce and rebound front/rear
~ Front Camber: 2.7 degrees
~ Rear Camber: 0.5 degrees
~ Swaybars: Front 5, Rear 7
~ Differential: 60/60/20
~ Gearing: Auto Setting 7, final drive ratio 3.23
~ Front Tyres: Soft Standard
~ Rear Tyres: Medium Standard
~ Nitrous: Set to 50 hp (est. 1050+Nm with Nitrous on!)

As can be seen, I moved the suspension to a state of firm springs for the front, and equipped the front with soft compound sports tyres. This allows for nice precise turn in, coupled with the camber adjustments that help steering stability at large angles of steering lock.

The rear is designed to step out under power, with the harder set springs, solid rear sway-bars, less grip (medium) sports tyres and the tightened-up diff. Doing these adjustments to the diff makes the inside wheel try to rotate at the same speed as the outside when entering a corner. As soon as throttle is applied both wheels rotate at the same speed as each other, and due to the inside wheel breaking traction first the car steps out sideways quickly and can hold large drifting angles for longer.

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TECHNIQUE - HOW IT ALL COMES TOGETHER (OR COMES UNDONE!)

This is the part that matters most, and is the part that most people have problems with. In GT4, the physics engine is quite advanced, yet it displays a few weird tendencies, one of which is that it seems to always try to straighten the car up. This is why most people have trouble with spinning out, as they hold opposite steering lock for too long, the car slows down, the drift angle becomes very shallow and the car flicks out the opposite direction. The following is a list of what I do as i'm about to drift a corner. *This is regardless of the type of car i'm using!*

1. Remain out wide, maintain normal cruising speed
2. Approaching the start of the corner, turn in with a sharp flick motion (lots of steering) and simultaneously give it full throttle to break traction
3. As the rear swings around, keep accelerating, and if possible shift up a gear or two. While doing this, counter steer to stop the car spinning out, but only for a short while
4. As you are sliding through the corner, do not hold full steering lock - go from full steering lock to neutral to full lock etc
5. If you want more tail out, use less counter steering - the back will keep going round, if you need to stop it going around too much, hold the steering on lock for a little longer
6. As you exit the corner you can either back off or straighten up (or both) to stop the drifting motion, or you can keep going and try to drift into the next corner in one continuous motion (this is called “linking”)

As a general rule, the higher the wheel speed is in relation to the road, the longer you can hold a drift, and the less traction the tyres will have on the road, making bigger sliding angles easier to get. The only downside is that higher rear wheel speed means that the car may become a bit unstable (hard to balance in a controlled drift), whereas with a lower gear it isn’t so bad. If you find a particular gear to be a bit of a “knife-edge” to drift with then you should probably drop down a gear to provide more stability. With higher wheel speeds the car will be less resistant to straightening up as well, which helps when trying to link corners with large distances between them as the car will stay “loose” as you exit the corner.

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TIME FOR SOME HANDBRAKE ACTION!

Cars with smaller capacity or non turbo/supercharged engines may find themselves lacking in torque, therefore getting that initial sideways motion can be hard as the car doesn’t have enough torque at cruising speed to simply spin the rear wheels. Enter the handbrake. This wonderful device is purely there (in game terms) to get the back of the car around sharp corners, and as such its great for snapping the back around quickly to initiate some drift. This helps less torque-productive cars to drift by allowing the driver to quickly lock the rear wheels as they turn into the apex of a corner - as the handbrake is applied the engine disengages from the gearbox (i.e. as if you put your foot on the clutch) and can be allowed to free rev as hard as it wants, usually bashing against the rev limiter.

When the sideways motion/ loss of grip has been achieved the handbrake button is let go, and the engine then starts powering the rear wheels - the sideways sliding motion coupled with the high engine revs is usually enough to get the rear wheels spinning quite well.

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TROUBLESHOOTING

Try these remedies one at a time to see how each one works.

Having trouble getting drift into a corner
~ Use Nitrous to assist with breaking traction
~ Use handbrake
~ Adjust corner-entry gear to be right on torque peak at entry speed when powering into corner

Car spins out every time I get sideways
~ If possible, reduce weight further
~ Run softer rear tyres
~ Run softer rear spring rates
~ Slow your entry speed into the corner
~ Go for a lower gear (less wheel-speed)
~ Run less Acceleration setting on differential

Car won’t get enough angle, tries to run straight
~ Higher rear spring rate
~ Run harder rear tyres
~ Drop rear damper settings for bound/rebound by 1 increment
~ Increase rear camber slightly

Unstable when entering/ exiting corner
~ Lower car height to 20% of allowable height
~ Decrease camber on front tyres

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TECHNIQUES AND OTHER WEIRD STUFF

Fishtailing/car refuses to straighten up
~ When exiting a corner drifting a big power car you might find that the car refuses to fully straighten up, and it remains slightly sideways (this is if you are still on the throttle, and in a high gear). Even with enough steering input to straighten the car it remains slightly sideways while wheel-spinning, and whilst trying to correct it feels like the car is fighting your attempts to straighten it up. I found this is especially prevalent with hugely powerful cars (Supra, GTO etc.) that can rev out with long gearing. As you exit the corner the wheels are spinning at a huge amount more than the road underneath and the sideways inertia that the car had during the slide is continued by this huge amount of wheel-spin, forcing the car to continue turning.

Linking corners
~ This involves sliding through a corner, continuing the wheel-spin and ‘fishies’ up to the next corner, whereby you throw the car in again and keep going. Linking corners can be a hard thing to master, as it involves coming out of a corner with reduced traction and control and then having to put the car into position to slide through another corner, sometimes in the opposite direction to the corner last drifted. The main challenge comes from the fact that when exiting a corner that you’ve just drifted its most likely that you will have more speed than when you first entered it. This speed means that you might misjudge the entry to the next corner, overshoot or carry too much speed.

The way to go about this is to reduce the speed coming into the next corner - throw the car into the corner a little bit earlier than you would have the first corner and drop down a gear or two, letting the wheel-speed drop. This allows you to continue to drift through the corner, but with much less sideways momentum (which would normally pull the car off the track). A basic rule of thumb is that the faster you approach a corner to drift, the earlier you should turn in to initiate that drift.

‘Clutching’
~ If a car requires wheel-spin in the current gear at a given speed but it’s not revving hard enough or at the right rpm to do so, you can use the handbrake to give the revs a quick increase. This allows the car to flare its revs up to the point where more power and torque is made, possibly allowing it to wheel-spin… in essence it’s the same as a handbrake, but this is usually used on straight stretches of road, and its only when you briefly brush the handbrake button.

Grabbing neutral
~ Another handbrake button feature, this is something that can be used if you have a large corner to drift. It involves building some speed, getting into a high gear and then when you are just above your corner entry speed, quickly tap the neutral button and let go of the accelerator. The gear indicator (to show what gear you are in) will go grey, to show you haven’t got the clutch engaged. This allows you to then select a gear to drift into a corner with (if its too low a gear though, the clutch will engage and lock up the rear wheels) and you can then roll towards the corner and turn in. As you then hit the throttle, the engine will free-rev hard up to the point where the engine/gearbox speed is equal to the road speed, and at that point the clutch locks up solid, transmitting torque to the drive wheels. This is usually violent enough to generate wheel-spin even at higher revs.

However, this is little more than a gimmick unless you have tried everything else to drift at high speeds - its realistically just an alternative to handbrakies, whereby the rear wheels can continue to rotate. But if you get this ability down-pat it can make your initial turn in angles a lot more impressive, as the car can go from no power at the rear wheels to full power instantly, generating huge drift.

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AND FINALLY, ANDY R'S PERSONAL DRIFTING PICKS - IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Pontiac GTO
~ 770 hp/990Nm V8, very good for larger drift tracks. Massive torque peak at 3500rpm, sharp chassis handling.

FPV F6 Typhoon
~ 702 hp/878Nm turbocharged 6, also suited to large tracks. Has huge torque surge at 3000rpm, neutral chassis.

Toyota Sprinter/Trueno
~ 230 hp/325Nm turbocharged 4, suited to medium/ tight drift tracks, short wheelbase is great for precise, high angle drifting.

1970 Chevrolet Camaro 302
~ 485 hp/775Nm supercharged V8. Blown 5 litre V8 delivers strong midrange punch, with exceptional turn in and chassis stability.

Nissan Sileighty/200SX
~ 489 hp/472Nm turbocharged 4. Nice and responsive chassis, torque-productive engine. Short wheelbase is good for large angles.

Nissan Skyline GTS-t (R32)
~ 477 hp/465Nm turbocharged 6. Smooth ‘on-power’ drifting, due to wheel-base length and torque-curve. Very effective when using nitrous and close gearing.

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