burtoncr

After drifting an S14 I really want to work on my FD's setup.

Here's the deal, I would like my FD to "snap" less in transitions and sit in drift comfortably and longer. I've had both Aaron Losey and Stewark Leask (Pro-am/Nopi/FD drivers) drive my car and both agree it's a handful to drive.

My setup:

Tein Monoflex (14/12 kg/mm)
All bushings are Delrin except the rear toe arms
Eyecandy / Seeltuned front inner tie rods with spherical outer tie rods
Front tires: 235/40/17 Dunlop Z1 Star Specs
Rear tires: 255/40/17 Federal 595s
Stock torsen diff
Camber: 2.0 front, 1.5 rear
Toe: 0 all around
Front Caster: maxed out at 5.6 - I think my ride height + camber is limiting the caster


I feel like the car is always riding the line of spinning out / gripping. There is no comfort zone. I've become very accustomed to hard snapping transitions and I can catch them very well now, but I want to reduce the need to constantly stay on top of the car.

I know the diff and toe arms may be hindering me, but I think my setup is really what needs to be worked on. Unless someone has direct experience drifting an FD with a torsen and then switching to a 1.5 or 2 way and it making a world of difference.

Can anyone provide some advice based on first hand experience drifting FDs?

Any tips or tricks?

fourkruzn

iTrader: (5)

tell me a little more about the car you have. turbo set up, engine, etc.

the main thing i would change on your posted setup is tire choice. but, i would also try less rear camber and some toe in on the rear.

with the fd you will need to match the quality tires front to rear. the idea of putting really sticky tires up front and crappy ones on the rear will add to your problem.

with better tires less camber should help keep the rear from biting in as hard. and the toe in should help to keep the rear bumper of the car from trying to lead the race as often...

drifting, in basic form is not unlike grip. it is all about balance. not too loose, not to tight. then you have the control. not the car telling you what will happen. as you can see in the pics, at the rear of the car, there are gtp2 decals on it. this car is a road race car. and i drift it with the full road race set up. no changes. I know it can be a better drift car with some alignment changes but..... i choose to leave it and not spend the time and money to switch it back and forth. i run 235/40 fronts and 255 rears with the same type tire when possible. its not perfect but i dont really think it "snaps" and or does any thing really bad, only that it has alot of grip so its sometimes very hard to follow as it just wants to GO!!!!

burtoncr

Engine mods? Does an LS2 count Instant wheel spin so its really easy to over do it and not have enough steering angle to recover.

It doesn't seem like I'm lacking grip. In fact I think alot of my snapping problems come from the car finding grip immediately.

fourkruzn

iTrader: (5)

do you have stock steering? i have used two different tie rods. the jic skyline ones fit inside the stock rx7 rack and come with spacers. the outers work in the rx7 also. as long as you buy inner and outer set for r32 it will bolt on. be carefull tho. i also have kazama inner and outer r32 tierods and the inners do not fit into the rack. i had to modify the rack to accomidate them.

i run 9 inch wheels with +22 front and with the big brembo brakes i have i can hit the upper control arms with the calipers. the steering angle was a big help

now. i thought "burtoncr" looked familiar.......v8 fan boy. sorry cant help myself.
read this carefully and be open minded. im not making this **** up.

fact. you have changed the dynamics of your cars handling more than you admit to with a v8 swap.

when i scale my car. it is actually 48/52 rear heavy with 2/3 tank fuel. nearly perfect when empty.

lets assume you have a perfect 50/50 also.

lets also assume both cars weigh 2500lbs. easy number and correct for mine. 2/3 tank fuel

rotory car is a mid engine car... all rotating engine parts are behind centerline of front axle.

v8 car usually cyl 2 and 4 stradle the centerline of front axle.

that means to achieve the 50/50 most v8 guys put he battery way out back and work to only delete weight from the front of your car. and wala... 50/50.
so now your saying what is your point.

here it is. the large mass of weight of your engine block is higher and significantly farther forward than if it were a rotary. so if you can imagine the 13b car most significant weight is all between the centerline of the axles and the engine mass is lower.
the v8 car the mass is higher and stretched by nearly 2 feet! one foot forward and a foot back. this causes MAJOR changed in the dynamics of handling. one of the side effects is best discribed with the use of a pendulum. your cars mass is now longer, and once it starts to swing it will want to continue to swing longer and "pendulum" aka tank slapper harder. it will be more difficult to throw out and harder to catch. think about it. now if you need draw yourself a picture.

the real question is how to fix it. first scale the car. see where your weight is. try to balance it as best you can and try to get as much of the weight inside the axles as possible.

then i still think you need better tires on the rear or worse one on the front.

with the torque and hp you have i would for sure do some fairly signifcant toe in on the rear.

i have a good friend who drifts a cefiro...GOOD... he cant get three corners into any track with my rx with out spinning. i cant seem to get his car to drift at all. he always speaks of TOSSING and THROWING his car. these are terms i never use with any rx7. us rx7 owners have use finesse to drive our cars.

i hope some of this makes sense and helps abit.

*no i don't hate v8 rx7's one just has to remember that all 50/50 balanced cars are not "the same"

stevensimon

iTrader: (11)

old race theory.. if you are having problems in the back then look at the front.

what is your toe on the front? should be at 0* or maybe even a hair toe out. one event i had to thrash to get a new car to the event and didnt have time to do a proper alignment. after about 3 runs the car was deemed undrivable. snap oversteer and the kick back was worse. it was rediculous. found out later that it had nearly 5* toe in on the front. fixed that and i was golden.

hope that helps

burtoncr

V8 fanboy indeed

I have more steering angle with the Seel Tuned inner tie rods. According to Eyecandy it is about the max you can get from the actually rack and pinion gears.

Even if they car had a longer polar moment of inertia like you think (there is 0 empirical evidence to support either side's claims), I would think that would make it "sit" in drift easier. a similar effect as a longer wheel base. What I am having problems with is the "snappiness" of the car, which makes me think the weight is very concentrated in the center. It's the instantaneous chassis response, great for track and autocross, that I think makes the car a handful to drift.

I had this same issue with a FSAE car screwing around trying to make it drift. It would easily spin and could not hold the rear end out comfortably. And that car was had better balance than any FD.

The guys who drove my car have S-chassis cars, and had the same problem as your friend. They would violently "throw" my FD into a drift and it would immediately spin. Part of that is due to lack of steering angle compared to their cars, but the other part is that the s-chassis seems to rotate slower than the FD. They couldn't catch my car in time.

Front and Rear Toe are set at 0*

burtoncr

The more I think about this the more I look at the diff.

The second problem aside from the snappiness, is that my car catches grip very quick. I can initiate, feather the throttle to stay in drift, but in mid drift I have a choice, more throttle and angle (if I still have any angle left), or come off the throttle a little if I don't have enough angle left.

Coming off throttle is where I have the problem. The car will quickly try to straighten out, sometimes violently, throwing the car past the "straightening out" point. From what I understand this "instant search for grip" is a Torsen diff property. Maybe 1.5 or 2 way diff would help alot more than I think?

burtoncr

What kinda sucks that the experienced guys at the events all drive S-chassis's and I get instruction from them. Their cars drive much differently (aka really easy to drift).

fourkruzn

iTrader: (5)

I ran a stock diff for the first season and a mazda speed 1.5 for this last on. there was a difference but not a huge one. I have not really noticed a significant change it the cars behavior from it. Your diff could be part of the problem tho. i have also drifted my car with three different coil over setups. all worked ok with out huge side effects. the soft sprung one you could really feel the lean but the car still reacted well.

i dont really want to pick on your v8 but just think about what i said. your cars center of mass is 18" to two feet longer than normal. remember this from high school..,
an object in motion will remain in motion until..... well you get the point. your car will dive more in breaking than a stock on because of the extra wight up front. when you transition in a turn you will lift to transfer weight, the nose will drop quicker and rear end will whip over with more monetum because of the longer mass and if you have moved weight to the rear to compensate for the v8 up front that weight will want to continue to whip longer, and be harder to catch. do you remember the Dr Suess book "bears on wheels"? imagine my car as one bear four wheels with a big fat bear squished between the four wheels. now imagine yours as two bears with four wheels... with both bears sitting one on each axle. but they each weigh 1/2 as much as my bear, so the total is the same. now this is a extreme example but hopefully it will draw a picture for you.

try the toe in on the rear. try it. cant make it worse...

on more thing. one of the alignment shops i no longer frequent, screwed up the steering rack off center so that my car would turn farther one way than the other. jack your car up and check the sweep. this really helped out my car alot. i thought it was just my poor driving skills... then i fixed it. now i know its just me....

these are the alignmet specs i would try on your car.
Camber: 1.5 front, 0.5 rear
Toe: 1/8-3/16 total toe out front. 1/4- 3/8 total toe in rear.
Front Caster: maxed out at what ever you can get.

burtoncr

Hmm, I've heard the same experience with changing the diff from other FD owners, but most do not drift.

The steering rack alignment check is a good idea. And I'll be getting another alignment next week.

As for the V8 stuff, I'm going to need a engineers explanation (as I am one) to even remotely convince me that the V8 swap has that effect. The problem with your argument is that you have no numbers. The V8 are not 2' longer by any means. I have sat and stared at the swap side by side with a stock car and I think you are mistaken as how big the V8 is compared to the fully dressed cast iron rotary with cast iron manifolds and turbos hanging off one side. Additionally a large amount of that weight is the T56 transmission sitting low and well behind the front axle.

Now I will admit that the car acts completely different on and off throttle due to torque and engine braking.

daver903

conroy you smart SOB. ya sounds like me and burtoncr have the same problem.sounds like we have similar alignment specs aswell.i am running the same tire you are up front outback though. and rt615's up front.and from just dinking around on the street,it feels awesome! 235's all around.i like these idea's you are shooting around.i think i will try the toe in on the rear and check my sweep on the front! thanks conroy.haha.

i also have the stance coilovers 14k/12k.i like them.