Need advice on tuning a drift car.

#1utordePosted 10/12/2009 11:01:30 PM
I've always been into drag racing and road racing in real life and know how to tune just fine to fit me when racing those disciplines, but I never really cared anything for drifting and I really don't know how to go about setting a car up. Looks like all the developers are going to be including drifting in pretty much every racing game from now on so it looks like I need to learn some things about it as I no longer want to skip drift events in my games any longer as i've been doing. Plus it does kind of look like it would be fun once you get the hang of it and also know how to tune for it so you'll get the best results.

So if any of you guys/gals that know what you're doing could fill me in on what I need to know that would be great. I'm not asking for anyone's tune, but if you want to list one that is fine, I could look at it to see what you've done, but I really want to know how to do it myself for this game as well as Forza 3 and all future games. So i'm wondering what kind of parts work best for drifting and what kind of adjustments to the suspension need to be done.

Using my knowledge of what tuning the individual parts do, this is how I assume you would setup a drift car, of course I could be totally off base:

1) Engine wise I guess it doesn't really matter. I'd say you would want to start out with low power until you learn how to drift well, then after that you could run more power and be able to sustain longer drifts.

2) I'm guessing you would want a soft front suspension to dig in giving you better control up front, and a very stiff rear suspension making it easier to break the rearend loose. Of course the springs, sway bars, bump stops, etc. all work together in this area, so what would be the best attack?

3) I figure you'd want quite a bit of negative camber up front with a little bit of toe-in and in the rear maybe a little bit of negative camber with 0 toe-in since you're going to be sideways most of the time.

4) Downforce. I'm a little stuck on that one. You not going to be at high speeds like regular racing, but I assume you could put full downforce up front to help keep the front end planted, but in the back I really don't know which way would help.

5) I guess you'd want to tune your tranny gears so that you can keep it in 3rd or maybe 4th gear while in the optimum power range.

6) Differential. I assume you'd want it to lock as quickly as possible, so a high percentage is how I guess you'd go about dealing with it.

I have no idea if any of that is how you go about setting up a drift car. So if anyone could help with understand what types of parts to use and how to tune the suspension for drifting I would greatly appreciate it.

It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem. - Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990)
#2WK_ChaossPosted 10/13/2009 12:01:44 AM