got the fd sideways tonight
 

i went out to an empty parking lot to try getting the fd sideways for the first time. pretty much to see how it would respond and practice recovering incase that situation would ever happen. well i got it sideways alright, swung the rear all the way around, tried to recover and the momentum swung me around the oppposite way. wow, im scared. this cars is like nothing ive ever driven. in my 240sx i could powerslide and recover with ease.

after doing about 3 slides i decided that was enough, i wasnt out to break stuff. it was scarier more than it was fun. now i understand why people loose control of these cars on the road and destroy them.

my question is: what do you guys reccomend doing for practicing recovering for a slide/drift/loss of control? right now im not feeling too confident.

before i try that again i want to pick up a front strut brace to stiffen things up. any recommendations?

First thing is not to over-correct (which is why you swung it all the way back the other way).

Kudos though for seeing how the car handles in an empty parking lot before putting it into a ditch or a telephone pole. I wish more new owners would do the same and learn their car before they hurt themselves (or someone else).

practice in the snow or in the rain. Much less wear n tear on your shit! Thats how i got good a driving it. Practice in the shittiest conditions

Yea, I agree with that.

Good thinking bringing it to a safe place to introduce yourself to "limits."

You want to nudge the steering wheel in the opposite direction quickly. If the car even starts to counter and your steering wheel is still pointed in the counter-direction it's going to pendullum and just spin out.

I'm not drift expert by any means, but a biggie is looking where you want to be instead of watching things happen as they come.

it was raining today so the pavement was damp but not wet. i dont really want to put the extra stress of dry pavement on the car.

i appreciate the replys so far guys, thanks, and keep um comming.

these cars aren't too great for tryin to 'drift'. don't get me wrong, they've got the power and such, but they're much more demanding on the driver to control them. you'll eventually get it down, but it takes a lot of practice. i know the first time it did it to me, i wasn't ready for it and i've driven some high hp rwd cars before. thumbs up for tryin in a parking lot!

fd's are actually midship cars (aka just like MR2) they are very very hard to drift/recover because their recovery point is very very low and its a very thin edge between being in control and flying out of control. 240's are super easy to catch (i have been in some which have gone past 90degrees to the road and still were able to recover). in anycase, just be much quicker about eveything, even before you think its sliding, already be turning the steering wheel. also, note that fd's do not have a very good turning radius compared to 240's or hachis, you just cant get the same angle unless you do some steering mods like the spindle mod or spacer mod to give you much more angle. Another thing is to have better control of the throttle and know your tires/tire compound/tire pressure. one thing you might wanna do is to learn to let go of the steering wheel and learn where to catch it (yes i know a lot of guys are scared of this but it does work most of the time).

another thing to note is that parking lot drifting is much more different then street drift as there is not as much gravel on the street, it does grip a bit better.

if you wanna find your maximum slip angle, and get better faster, do the nomuken lessons. start doing the ebrake 180 turns, then do the large doughnuts (start going faster and faster in a circle and when the rear slips, countersteer and catch it). then do the small doughnuts. then do the transfer from large to small and back. then do 90 degree angles and then uturns. then just start doing them faster and faster.


BTW: FD's truly are one of the worst starter drift cars around, our trannies suck ass (1st is too slow and our 2nd is too fast for beginners.) and our cars are very expensive comparativly to fix and our cars just dont wanna slide at beginner speeds and catch, they are better grip cars for beginners. oh yeah, the fact that 99% of fd guys i know buy super good tires is gonna really hurt you if you wanna start drifting, I personnaly have 60 tires outside with good thread waiting to be shreaded (but i have tire hookups as well as hook ups to mount them for free :))

another thing you might wanna consider is that FD's dont have revlimiters... also its kinda scary to not beable to concentrate on boost (popping yoru engine going around a corner from overboost is scary). you pretty much gotta just trust in the force and know when/exactly what your car is doing. also the power band on our cars is super weird/when the turbo kicks in and then the second one kicks in, you'll probally go flying. also fd's dont got much torque so they suck for that also.

P.S. you can get the rear to kick out with ebrake on a stock fd, you just gotta adjust the cable a little bit and be going fast enuf (minimum mph i have found is 20mph)

oh yeah, when you start doing uturns at faster speeds (above 45mph) you will roll backwards, if you got a good tranny, throw her in to reverse, speed up a bit adn connect it with another 180 and learn to do rolling 360's :)

Damn. I have trouble driving straight.
:wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

wet is just about the worst to try on

once you lose the traction brin'n it back is nearly impossible with out alot of skill.

just start on sharp corners at lower speed. They are easier to start off on i think.

keep the revs high and your car shouldnt' be on the verge of overboosting or breaking if your gonna drift. You shouldn't have to worry about that.

um, who told you that? my stock ecu and my power fc both have rev limiters

whoa really, you must have a speical stock ecu. i knwo that power fc has a revlimiter but stock fd's will rev as high as long as you have enuf power/have the pedal down

in anycase, wet drift is fun (i have driven in the super super heavy rain with a 240 in the mountains on hairpin curves, you can just enter turn at 45-55mph, turn in, yank ebrake and let go of the steering wheel and just stay on the gas and have the car drift itself thru the turn beautifully) 240's kick ass! :)

also, wet drift is good for doing doughnut stuff/nomuken lessons stuff. there is also almost no wear on your tires, i have sat in a car in the rain for almost a full hour for nearly constant sliding and when we got out to check his tires, they were damn near brand new looking!

i need to find an empty parking lot.

you guys on the mainland are super luck that you have a lot of room and lots of parking lots to screw around in. here in hawaii, there are 1900 cops for an island you can drive around legally in about 2 hours... plus we have no big parking lots :(

there are lots of empty parking lots around me, so i have practiced this a few times and now i have learned to correct it and not to under/over correct it. i prefer to practice in the rain so there is less wear on the tires

soft-ish rear (factory) suspension doesn't help either. They certainly can make great drift cars, but it takes an aftermarket set-up and a different driving approach to make them shine.

that's why turbo charged cars aren't good for drifting. the spikes in torque cause the wheels to slip easily.

not from what I've seen in japan. Getting the tyres to slip easy is probably more of a benefit, if anything

before someone starts mentioning the fabled hachi roku - I've seen more than one drift comp where the hachi roku contigent was almost all forced induction (4agze, custom jobs and more than a few sr20det swaps)

I don't think is intent was to "learn drifting" by this exercise, but mainly learn what the car was going to do *if* it got out of control and then how to controll it.

i figure, what better way to learn how to control it then to drift, if you can control a drift, you can regain control from nearly any accident given you have enuf run out room (plus its hella fun hehe)

You can also learn how to recover without learning to drift. They aren't necessarily the same fundamentals and he needs to learn how not to over-correct the car before anything.

That's the key isn't it? That's why a drift is a poor means of saving a car; it uses up a lot of real estate and doesn't slow the car down. If you have so much room then you are not in danger of hitting anything and thus don't have to worry what you do with the car once you lose it. But if you have lost the car and are in real danger of hitting something the goal is not to completely regain the car and drive on like a superhero, the goal is to not hit anything hard that will injure you, your car, someone else or their property. Usually you still have a choice as to which direction you'd like your out of control car to go but too often someone tries to be a hero and they make their situation worse. If the "hero" had such great skills he wouldn't find himself hurtling through space wondering how this is going to end.

In the majority of cases after you've lost it if you just let the car spin it will stop far quicker and in far less space than if you fight to save it and loose. The biggest incidents I've seen are normally caused by someone trying to be heroic; sometimes it's best not to save it.

Car control only counts when the tires have grip, once you're sliding you don't have near as many options. Momentum vs the immovable object is a bitch.

My stock FD has a rev limiter too...

It's a little late when the car is already out of control. It's better to learn how the car reacts at the limits and how to anticipate and correct before losing control.
Attend a local autocross. There are generally very receptive to new comers. You'll learn a lot more with their course walk throughs and advice from experienced drivers then you will by spinning your car out of control in a parking lot and trying to figure it out on your own. If you're nice, then likely an experienced driver will let you ride shotgun or ride along with you. I didn't check the schedules, but I'm sure they offer driving schools.
http://phillyscca.com/
http://www.sjr-scca.org/

I'm not so keen on skunks advice. I'm not sure what pulling the e-brake in a 45mph hairpin turn in the rain is going to teach you... besides how much repairs cost. Forget about looking the 45mph e-brake turn hero driver antics, modding the car, etc and focus on basic car control. IMO autocross is a great way to learn safely.

All I can say is practice. The FD is much different than the 240zx (even more than the the FC TII I had, Im guessing). Get into boost and its like damnnn. In this car, it is not that hard to control the oversteer (by counter-steering) because the car has SUCH A GOOD FEEL for the road, you can really feel the car. But yes, it does take practice. Try the parking lot stuff, and maybe try getting on the gas on an onramp and feel when the car is about to break loose. The limits of adhesion are good, but when it goes, youll feel it and just counter steer a bit.

A bad thing to do when you get sideways is to completely let off the gas, this unsettles the car and really screws stuff up. Also, dont even try stuff in the wet - completely different story.

:D That one is going into my "memorable quotes book"

I agree whole-heartedly with DamonB