Do You Need Downforce for your Drift Car

I'm amazed at how many people put huge wings and spoilers in their drift car to attain downforce. In my opinion, you really don't need a wing in your drift car because you won't experience downforce when you're only going 30 mph to 50 mph when drifting. Some people put wings in their car for style and that's fine but know that there is a possibility you'll crash your car and damage your precious spoiler. So its a waste and you won't need it not unless you want to be flashy.

By the way if you're not a car person, then let me explain briefly what downforce is. Downforce is the downward pressure of the air, when you have a wing installed at the back end of your car, your car will be subjected to downward pressure. Another term for the wing or spoilers is ground effects. It's good to have a ground effects in your car only if you race your car in track events.

The ground effects works when your travelling at high speed. When you want suddenly to slow down the wings in the back or if you have a spoiler in the front as well, will slow down your car dramatically. Not only this but when you reach pass 60 mph your going against the wind and if you do have a ground effects installed in your car; this will help push the tires to the ground harder. The result is that your using your tires to the maximum of its capability and therefore, increase in speed. When you don't have any ground effects and your driving at a high speed, your car will lift just a bit due to the air pressure underneath and the absence of downforce.
When your car does lift it reduces the contact of the tires to the ground and prevents you from using the full power of the engine.

So why I'm I saying not to put it in your car when I'm telling you that these are the benefits of having ground effects in your car. Is drifting all about speed? No and that's is why you really don't need it and especially if you're only starting out. Save it for later when you want to be a professional drifter. Also like I said you're not going fast enough when drifting to be able to utilize the downforce. Not unless your going 100 mph sideways then maybe consider it, but first just focus on your skills and upgrading your car for drifting.

Whether you put one on your car for purely on aesthetics or performance. At least you are now more knowledgeable about the whole ordeal about the ground effects.

Aftermarket Steering Wheel For Show and Go

As you get better at drifting, you'll notice that your steering wheel is quite bulky and heavy. When you do a lot more drifting than usual, you start to feel the weight of the steering because you're steering vigorously from left to right. I'm not trying to recommend you go buying a lighter steering or a racing steering perhaps, but its just a thought.

If you want to put one in your ride, then do it if not then it doesn't matter. It does give your car a racing look and the aftermarket steering wheels are far lighter than the stock ones that you have in your car. If you do have a full blown drifter car where there is no carpet or any dashboard with full roll cage and a bucket seats; then I suggest installing one in your car to complement the hardcore racing style of your car.

An aftermarket steering wheel are relatively inexpensive and the amount that you have to pay for range from $50 to $150. So its not bad to have one to aid you in quickening your steering response and giving you less stress in your arms and also some racing style in your daily driven drifter.

Some Drift Videos To Learn From

The Out to In Technique In Drifting

You might say WTF is out to in, and I'll respond with a brief silence... here let me explain out to in. Technique is widely use for grip driving and is highly effective in going fast through the corners. The idea is when your going to tackle a corner you should position your car in the outside line. Then as you enter the corner with your superb braking you steer towards the inside line of the corner.

Whether its a left or a right hander you can still apply this technique. So the basis of out to in technique is choosing the outside line before you enter a corner, then when you're about to enter the corner aim for the inside line. So how is this technique apply in your drifting. Well to put it simply you can drift much faster and you'll clearing corners much smoother when you apply this technique. When you target the inside line you should be sideways at this point; you just need to hold the steering to clear the corner because you should have entered the corner with a plenty of speed.

That technique is used all the time by the pros and you should try it when you get a chance. It's one of the ways I can drift easily when I apply this technique, its not hard at all it just takes practice. Sooner or later you will be able to do this with ease of effort.

The Most Expensive Investment in Your Drift Car

Do you know what is the most expensive investment that you're going to make for your drift car? Its your tires that will cost a lot of money, let me explain. Yes, you might think that the car will be the most, some say the engine tune up, the turbo, etc. So why did I say tires.

If you're talking about short term expenditures, yes I would agree that buying all the parts and the tuning for your car will be expensive, but when your talking about the long term investment. Then it sure is the tires that will cost you. When you drift a lot or should I say often, you'll be paying for tires a lot more. Because drifting is the killer for tires. Everytime you go hard on drifting and keep practicing, you'll notice that the thread on your tires will fade faster than normal driving.

So yes that's why I said that you will be spending a lot more on tires and it will frustrate you sometimes because you only have a limited budget. One way to reduce your trip to big o tires is to switch tires. Let say you've been drifting for a while in your 240sx and the rear tires are starting to fade. Switch the front tires with the back tires. I know this is common sense, but I still see people driving with their faded tires and they act like they don't notice it.

Another way to offset the cost of your drifting quest is to buy low profile second hand tires. Now it may feel as though your car is a bit sluggish or its hard to handle due to the tires, but this is only will help you get better at drifting. When you start out drifting, don't go buying the most expensive tires because you'll just waste your money.

I hope this taught you a valuable lesson about the tires and I will go more in depth with tires on a later post.

Drift it Like Tsuchiya

Keiichi Tsuchiya was one of the most revered drifters of all time. He started his legacy in the mountain as a touge racer and proceded his way up to professional racing. These collection of videos will teach you a lot about drifting, so watch the master at work and learn.

Benefits of a Racing Seat

When you start off drifting, you will not need a racing seat just yet. One of the reasons why you don't need it is because you're not really going fast enough to have a crash because you've just started. You're still learning and absorbing as much as you can to learn how to drift.

Once you've passed the beginners curve, you'll begin to notice that whenever you drift. You seem to move around a lot while you're in your car. You see the normal seat that you have was not design for any road racing event. Therefore, if you are feeling quite uncomfortable. Then you will need a racing seat to make drifting less of pain.

One of the reasons why you will need a racing seat is because when you're drifting; your body is being subjected to lateral g forces. When you enter a corner in such a speed most of the time, your body is trying to hold up the g forces. When you have a racing seat installed in your car, it makes drifting a bit more relaxing because your body is snuggled up in the seat. Its like the seat is hugging you and you're not moving an inch because the seat was design for that kind of job.

The bad part about having a racing seat is that when your just normally driving around. The racing seat will hurt your buttocks in a long drive, and not too mention the cost of purchasing one. All in all though the investment you make is worth it because this will help your back when your constantly drifting, and you'll look more like a professional racing driver because you have racing seat.

Turbo or NA Which Way Would You Go

So what's going to be for you if you were to choose just between the two. But first let me explain in detail about these two routes that you can go when you're upgrading your car for drifting.

You see most of the Formula D car these days have turbos. If you don't know what a turbo is let me explain. It's a compressor that is used to force more air unto the engine to increase the horsepower. In short it's a force induction, if you want to learn more about turbo check this site. Once the turbo is installed in a car, the original power output of the car will increase dramatically. So how does a turbo benefit you when drifting? Well, you can have a faster entry and you'll have a much easier time drifting. When you drift and suddenly the car understeer a bit, then you can cure the understeer with a dab of throttle and a quick steer.

Normally Aspirated car which is NA for short is the norm when you first start off getting into drifting. Not unless you purchased a car that came equipped a turbocharger. NA cars are relatively inexpensive and you can buy one for as low as $4000. NA is all motor power and such cars have a high revolution per minute. Some of the highly tune NA's are capable of reaching 10,000 RPM (revolution per minute) and is a good contender when it comes to drifting. The NA won't be as fast as the turbos but the NA's are more responsive and agile through the corners. So when you drift your highly tuned NA car; you can easily control the drift angle and speed.

The downside to both of these two are chiefly the price you pay for upgrading both of them. When it comes to boost like a turbo charger, the price for it is already astronomical, and to have it install by a professional would cost you more. Same with going to NA, if you want a high powered NA. Then you would have to fork out tuning the engine and replacing a lot of parts for your engine.

If you are upgrading for a turbo, then I suggest that you replace a lot of internal components of your engine to ensure it will handle the power of the turbo. And second know a specialist whom you can turn to and help you with the installation process. Or if you're sticking with NA, then you might as well do an engine swap to lessen the process you deal with upgrading the engine. Pick an engine that is high powered NA to start with so you all you have to worry about is the installation of the new NA engine. Just like the installing a turbo changer, you'll want to find an engine swap shop specialist to help you install the engine.

Whichever way you go is up your budget, and I'm not here to make you waste your money if you don't have it. Just spend some to upgrade your car to make it a little faster, the main investment that you are going to make is in tires and suspension. I'll cover this later but for right now just plan out what you want power boost you're going to with

The Original Drifters

Who do you think were the original drifters? I think to be honest, the rally drivers were the original drifters. Just think about it, yes it may have come from street racers or should I say the touge racers back in Japan. But the truth is, is that the rally racing began a while back and the rally drivers driving style were same as that of drifters or maybe perhaps better.

So what's the correlation between the drifters and rally drivers, well...they both go sideways. And in rally racing the fastest way to go around a corner is to drift. So just imagine there were 50 corners, and you have to slide through most of the corners. That's tough and to not hit something or crash is another.

You see rally cars is held up in the mountains, in the dessert, and many other grueling places to test the limit of man and machine. So in many cases if a rally driver decides to drift instead of rallying, he'll have a good chance of being competitive right from the get go. My point is, is that rally drivers can adapt to drifting right away.

There are differences in how each of the two tackles a corner. For instance the drifters will drift with finesse and style while the rally drivers are more focus on speed than the style. You see the drifters want to impress the judges to enable him to score high on points while the rally drivers have to set the fastest time going through each sector of the race.

Even with those subtle differences it will not hide that the fact that the rally racers were the original drifters because they started sliding before the street racers did.