Turbo Drift

Wheel Clearance Event!

2008-08-08T14:03:00.003+02:00

For a limited time only The Tire Rack are offering dirt cheap wheels! Get yours today...

Auto: Car Insurance

2008-07-26T21:55:00.005+02:00

Hey all,

Today we are going to discuss the great importance of car insurance. You will want to get your car insured no matter what since you will eventually cause some damage to either your own car or to property. Car insurance can be very pricey though, especially if you have tuned or modified your car, or even if you are still within the deadly 3 years from licence rule.

Auto Insurance (Car Insurance) is very useful, in my opinion the pros outweigh the cons. Sure it costs a lot, but hey - if you ever crash you will be happy that you don't have to pay the hefty bill all in one go.

Drive safe and get car insurance!

Mega Super Saver Discount for all Auto Parts!

2008-07-18T14:16:00.009+02:00

Today is your lucky day, Auto Parts Warehouse is offering a summer discount for everyone who uses a coupon. Have you ever skimped out of purchase because those seats, wheels, wings, where to expensive? Well now you don't have any excuse. Click on the promotion below to get your discount.

Get a $10 discount and FREE SHIPPING on orders worth $199 or more at Auto Parts Warehouse. Use this code upon checkout (TENAPW).

Learn how to drift when your underaged

2008-07-13T21:44:00.008+02:00

This is a common problem faced by teenagers who yearn to drift but can't legally drive.
I have two solutions to this worldwide problem and here they are:

Go Karting (GK) ->

This is probably the BEST method for gaining experiance with, not only drifting, but driving aswell. You have a low center of gravity which means you will be in one with the kart, an excellent Weight to Horsepower ratio (in motorbike engined powered Go-Karts anyway), and excellent handling. Not only do you have all this but Go Karting can be the most exciting thing you've done in a very long time. In GKing the basics are the same minus the E-Brake. You can apply techniques such as Power Overing, Feinting, Braking, and such - that is why I highly recommend you take this route.

Go Karting does not have to be expensive - if you have a track near you, don't hesitate to try drifting out - be warned though, the manager probably doesn't want you burning through rubber and leaving skid marks.

You can also purchase your own Go Kart - which may be very pricey to some, so I have provided an alternative. Why not build your own Go Kart? It's fun and you will learn a fair amount about motors, suspension, differentials, and such. Its best if you visit a junk yard, pawn shop, or whatever to find free or cheap parts for your Go Kart. There are many articles on the net about creating your own Go Kart so I won't dwell into much more detail here.

The next method for underage learning is Video Games

With today's advanced video games which have the latest life simulating physics engines surely one of them must be close to reality? Well in truth they do come close but ofcourse nothing offers the most similiarity as Go Karting does. However Go Karting is not for everybody and video games can be a cheap alternative to the real thing.

What you will want if you take this route is a decent set-up on your PC or a video game console. You will also require a steering wheel preferably with a H shifter gearbox and minimum an accelerator and a brake. You will also need an advanced video game with a good physics engine for this I suggest Live for Speed but an internet search will provide other good games. This route is not recommended if you want die hard realistic performance but if your on a budget it can be a great one.

However if you want the most realistic experiance on a video game platform I highly suggest Live for Speed and the Logitech G25 Racing Wheel (which includes a clutch, H and sequential shifter, and a great feedback system!) This is quite costly but some would argue that it is worth it. Check it out ->

I hope this has helped.

You just have to get these...

2008-07-13T20:57:00.012+02:00

Hey the following 2 products are a must have if you are serious about furthering your skills as a drifter.

The Drift Bible - by Keiichi Tsuchiya (The Drift King)

This video shows you how to preform 6 different techniques: E-braking, Shift-locking, Power Over, Braking, Feinting, and the Lift Off. Tsuchiya also shows you how to take advantage of your car's weaknesses whether it is under-powered or under/oversteers. This is an excellent video and I highly recommend you watch it!

How to Drift: The Art of Oversteer - by Paul Morton

This book is an excellent guide to both the driving technique and car setup required for drifting. This book contains a large amount of pictures as well as very detailed descriptions of the skills. What is great about guide is that it includes a section on how to transform a budget car into a drifter by giving you detailed chasis, suspension, and engine modifications.

Enjoy!

How to get sponsored

2007-07-13T22:39:00.002+02:00

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Getting sponsored is not easy. It will take some work on your part. Hopefully this information will help you out.

Get out there. Go to as many competitions, enthusiast get togethers, tuning shows, etc as you can. Firstly this will get your name out there and let others feel your presence. Secondly, if you are lucky, a scout working for a particular company may see some potential in you to market their brand. You don't HAVE to be extremely skilled at drifting (but it is recommended) to be sponsored for a variety of reasons. You might possess a quality that a particular company is looking for and therefore you can still go home with a sponsorship even though you did not nail first place.

Another thing you can do is simply contact a company. Draft up a proposal and say tell them what they get out of it. Remember the point of a sponsorship is not to get those free tires but it is too promote a company which in turn leads to more sales. This is a business so make sure you are proffessional when dealing with a company. Specify exactly what you want and what they get out of it. It is probably best to state what events you attended, which magazines you were featured in, and anything which shows that you have initiative. State your car, modifications, exterior and interior themes, etc.

You can create a video showing what you are made off. Try and give a wide variety - not only in techniques but also in location, you want to show that you are flexible and open minded. I recommend bundling your video with your proposal as this adds to your "proffessional image".

To increase your chance of getting sponsored fix up your car. If the paint job is rusting - why would any company want its name promoted by you. Tune it to stand out from the crowd - remember the less it looks like a stock car, the better.

And remember - sponsorship is no free lunch, its a business and remember that.

Drive safe.

Tuning and Mods

2007-07-13T20:16:00.004+02:00

This section will be updated frequently so check back once in a while!

ECU

In this mini-article I am gonna talk to you about remapping your cars ECU. Why should you remap? Well because any car, especially a modified or a turbo car, will receive power gains (slight in non-modified non-turbo cars). If you have a turbo model you will receive huge power gains, making you receive a nice boost in the lower rev ranges.
To answer the question- you should preform a remap if you would like to see a decent boost in horsepower. A remap is a relatively cheap way to add horsepower to a turbo car so I would highly recommend it.
Be warned though - Remapping your ECU would mean that there will be more strain on your cars internal parts - you would have to have tune ups and services more often and you will have to use a higher octane fuel (you really don't want any premature ignition with a more timing advance do ya?). However if done properly the Pros vastly outweigh the Cons.
There are several ways you can remap your ECU. You can replace the chip by removing the old one and soldering... I wouldn't recommend this one. You can also remap via the diagnostic port - which I recommend.
For all kinds of ECU remapping equipement such as Piggyback systems, chips, and plug and play systems check out Vivid Racing. That was my take on ECU remapping. Enjoy.

Seats:

Here is a short article why you should - when you have enough cash to shell out - buy some real performance bucket seats. In fact this should be one of the first mods you do to your car (after fixing the suspension, and camber of the front tires). You want a bucket seat since you will be glued to the car. This will allow you to feel the road and the behavior of your car much better. When you drift it is VERY important to notice these things.
Another reason why you should get a bucket seat is that unlike a normal seat you won't be struggling to stay in place. With a bucket seat you won't have to fight all the G forces against you when you drift - this will allow you to concentrate on feeling your drift a lot more.
One more reason why a bucket seat can be considered a nice addition is the 4 point harness - installed correctly they offer a lot more protection than regular seatbelts. There are many bucket seats out there - to name a few good brands: Sparco, Recaro, MOMO, and many more. Like tires, I suggest you order them online - since you can't beat that price at retail stores. I highly recommend you order from Vivid Racing. They always have discounts and offers so check back often.

Suspension

Suspension set up is a vital element in drifting. If your car has stock suspension then it will be very forgiving when you drift, you want a tight suspension set up so that you can feel the road - aswell as having an easier time to initiate and learn how to drift.

If you can afford it - go for some coilovers - if not just get a set of springs. For the beginner this set up is enough. For pro's though, you might want to have a more negative camber on the front wheels than in the back. This makes it easier to initiate a drift since the camber settings are more optimal for oversteer. A positive caster on the front wheels will increase the amount of negative camber when turning.

With suspension you have to adjust everything to your liking, there is no one size fits all since it is a matter of preferance.

Drift Techniques

2007-07-13T20:05:00.007+02:00

Here is a list of drifting techniques that will be updated regularily... Enjoy!

Power-Type Techniques:

Power Over:

This drift is all about horsepower so if you don't have some muscle under your bonnet don't get your hopes up.
What you want to do is approach a corner and jerk into it quickly. Now you want to floor the gas - the added suddeness of your actions and the throttle on the rear tires enables you to lose traction. If you turned with enough speed and force, combined with your sharp turn and throttle spamming - you should have hopefully arrived at a state of oversteer. Now what you want to do is simply countersteer while your foot is still on the accelerator. When your car is out of the corner - ease off the accelerator to bring the car back to straightness.

Kansei:

This is an interesting drift performed at high speeds. This is how it works:

Turn sharply into a corner whilst letting go off the throttle. This will cause your rear end to slide. Now you want to get your foot on the gas so that you lose traction completely on your rear wheels. Immediately countersteer. Depending on your angle you will want to balance your throttle with your countersteering. To end your drift, slowly take your foot off the gas while lining out your car.

Brake-Type Techniques

E-Brake:

E-Braking, slang for Hand-Braking, is what every Pro drifter started out doing. The point of E-braking is too lock up the rear wheels. Whats great about E-braking is that it can be used to preform high drift angles.
Here is how you do it -
When approaching a corner with a good amount of speed you want to brake a little so that weight of the car transfers to the front. You should brake and using the Heel-Toe method (Will write an article about this later) downshift to 2nd gear.
Now you want to release your brakes and turn into the corner (still with a good amount of speed).
Next you want to floor the clutch and pull the E-brake for half a second to one second depending on your car. What should happen is that you feel the rear end of the car lose grip since you locked up the wheels. You should now be in a state of oversteer.
Now you need to Countersteer and flow with the path. And when you finally see the corner exit, give a little gas to get back on track.

Clutch-Type Techniques

Clutch-Kick:

Here is how the Clutch Kick technique goes down:
Approach a corner, brake and heel-toe downshift, and turn into the corner. Now you want to apply some throttle and push in and release the clutch briefly ("kicking"). The shock to the drivetrain caused by kicking the clutch should temporarily lock up the rear tires. Once you start to slip start countersteering to home base.

Weight Transition-Type Techniques

Feint Drifting:

You have probably heard of Feint drifting at some point in your life - but what is it?
A feint drift requires you, as you approach a corner, to turn away from the corner and then turn towards the corner (the rapidness of your turn depends on your speed and desired drift angle).
At some point in time either during the rebound from the forces of the feint or after the feint you will need to apply some throttle. The exact moment of which you will need to give some gas will vary from car to car and is something you learn by doing.
Once you've initiated the drift simply countersteer and ease off the gas and straighten the car when you wish to end the drift.
The physics behind the feint is relatively simple. Think of driving in a circle - the force pulling you to the center of the circle is called a centripetal force. So for example when you turn left, a centripetal force is created which is pulling you to the left. So when you turn right you are effectively working against a centripetal force which eventually gives way (or lets go) which in turn gives the car an overwhelming amount of right centripetal force. This amplified force, combined throttle, is the reason the car drifts.

Shifting-Type Techniques

Shift-Lock:

The Shift-Lock technique consists of upsetting the drive train by manipulating the revs on your engine. Coming at a speed which is out of range from second gear (ie 60 mph - depends on the car) down shift to second gear. This will cause a disruption in the engine, as you have too many revs. This disruption will shock the drive train which will momentairly cause the rear tires to lock up. So once you feel your rear end start to slip, countersteer quickly and precisely. Once you want to end your drift, simply straighten out your car while gently letting go of the throttle.

Other Useful Techniques

Heel-Toe Downshift:

The Heel and Toe Downshift technique is one of the most useful skills ANY driver can benefit from. With this technique you can benefit from the less wear on the internal parts of your engine and you can have faster lap times. The Heel and Toe Downshift is used not only by drifters, but also by rally drivers and Formula 1 racers.
This technique involves, as the name implies, downshifting while using all three pedals (manual transmission only) the point of this is too match the speed of the car with the revs or revolutions of the engine.

This is how you do it:
Say you approach a corner at a too high speed. You brake with the ball-toe area of your right foot and clutch in with your left. Now the tricky bit -> with the same amount of force exerted on the brake with your ball-toe area, use the side-heel bit of your right foot to match the engine revs to the speed of the car. Now you want to downshift and let go of the clutch and presto! This is the best way to brake and then accelerate with literally no downtime!
I suggest checking out some D1 drifting videos as you can see exactly what this looks like.

Cheap Tires

2007-07-13T16:01:00.003+02:00

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The biggest long term expense in Drifting is definitely not the cost of tuning nor repairing your car - it would most definitely be the price of replacing your tires every other week. There are two ways to get cheap tires which I recommend.

The first way to getting dirt cheap tires is to visit a garage which throws out old tires or to visit a junkyard. You will have to negotiate with the garage because the tires they throw out will probably have an illegal amount of pattern left on them - ensure them that you won't drive on public roads. You have a chance that you will get them for free since there it is a cost for the garage to recycle the tires.

If you chose to visit a junkyard - you will probably have to pay for tires which are still "usable". It won't be anything to expensive though. My suggestion is that you only use second hand tires if you are still at a learning phase in drifting. Once you get more advanced then you can look into first hand tires.

Now the second way of getting cheap discount tires is via an online retail shop. It is a known fact that you can save loads of cash by getting your tires online from a reputable dealer. You should try and find a dealer who gives out reviews and the best prices all around. Thats why I suggest using The Tire Rack.

They have plenty of performance tires that do not cost very much. Ofcourse if you are willing to spend some cash on tires, you will find it - but if you looking for cheap first hand tires this is your store. The Tire Rack gives performance reviews on each tire which are very detailed. They also have a wide selection therefore you can probably find tires for any car imaginable. I suggest using the online retail method if you are already experianced in drifting - however if you are concerned about putting old tires on your wheels then go for this method.

Drift Cars

2007-07-13T14:12:00.010+02:00

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Here is a short list of the most famous drift cars. Note that anything that is Rear Wheel Drive is able to drift - its just that these cars have been recognized for there easier use. This list will be updated regularily.

Toyota:

Supra, Corolla AE86 ('83-'87) (Hachiroku in Japan), JZX, MR2

Mazda

RX7, MX5, RX8

Nissan

240sx (200sx in Europe), Skyline, 350z, 300zx

Honda

S2000

Ford

Mustang

Pontiac

GTO, Trans Am

Dodge

Camaro, Charger, Viper

BMW

3 series, M series, Z3, Z4

Lexus

IS3000 (IS2000 in Europe for a manual transmission)

Porsche

911, 944

Please note that there are plenty of driftable cars out there - this is just a list of the most popular.