I have played basically every Forza Motorsport, really have never gotten into the drifting aspect though. I mainly drift on NFS. (I mean not much effort or skill needed to drift in NFS.) Circuit racing I have down to a science, but drifting is a whole different story. I don’t want to use someone else’s tune because in a weird way I want to make and perfect my own tune, if that makes sense. So basically I’m asking where do I start after I have picked a car to drift with? What’s a good tune to start with ? Parts wise do I stick with a certain set or?
Im sure other can help more but here are my tips. First watch a video called the drift bible (it should be on Youtube) it will explain the basics of drifting and how to initiate a drift (clutch kick, power oversteer, feint, handbrake etc) then pick a rwd car. It might be better to use a popular tune at this point to try out the techniques just so that an error in tuning doesn’t cause you any problems. if you want to tune your own i would recommend 300-500bhp, sport tyres, race drive train and race handling mods then increase the front camber slightly and set the diff to 100% acceleration and 80% to 100% deceleration. (Different car and driving styles will suit different tunes though) then take the car onto a short track like catalunya club or lime rock and try out the different initiations and get a feel for the car (if your really struggling use the airfield open space to practice sliding the car). Once you can hold a drift start to think about what to improve on the car be it more power, more grip, less body roll etc. At this point its best to read a tuning guide to find out what does what, for example stiffening the front antiroll bar will make the car more prone to understeer and less oversteer and stiffening the rear will do the opposite. At this point it might help to make 3 identical cars with the same parts and then try making 3 different tunes to help you get a feel for the changes you have made. Once you have a car you like to drift move on to other tacks to try different corners.
Hope this helps
Wanting to use your own tune and perfecting it is a great start. Most people want to be gifted the ability to drift, and unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Knowing that you’ll need a personalised tune and even wanting to make one from the get go is perfect. I would personally recommend a Silvia S13 or a Toyota AE86 with between 300 and 500HP. I drift at around the 300 mark in almost all of my cars , but to give you a proper feel for drifting you might want a little more to start off with so you’re not having to push your car to its limits to get it to drift. The video silversubie811 mentioned is a good watch. It will teach you the basics, and the dude in the video is basically the godfather of drifting. If you’re not into watching an hour long video, he are some basics:
There are multiple ways to initiate a drift. Arguable the easiest is to pull the handbrake/e-brake, turn into the corner a little to make sure your car kicks out in the right direction. Careful not to let the car get too much or too little angle. Another way is to just drive around the corner as you normally would, but 100% your throttle and maybe even drop a gear to make sure you lose traction. This is called power-over. Next is a clutch kick. Similar to power over, except in order to lose traction this time you’re going to engage the clutch to build your revs, probably hit the limiter, and then disengage. You will obviously need manual clutch for this. The final way is called a Scandinavian Flick. It comes from Rally, but is also likened to Manji drifting. This is where you turn into the middle of track and then back out to the edge of the track at the initiation point of the corner to use your weight to cause your car to lose traction. Probably the hardest of the ways to initiate as it opens you up to losing it before the entry and is just a bit more complicated than it needs to be really.
Once you’ve picked your initiation method (i strongly recommend starting with a handbrake as it will also slow you down slightly), you’ll need to maintain your drift. Only really two things required here, which sounds easy, but both are required in measures and too much or too little of either will cause you to lose your drift. Those two things are throttle control and counter-steering. You are a racer, so i’m sure you are familiar with both of these things, but probably not in the way you need to be. You know when you’re absolutely going for it in a race, and you get a little bit too cocky in a corner and your back end kicks out? You probably counter steer and let off the throttle slightly to get your car straight again, right? Well, you want to do a similar thing here, except you don’t want to let off the throttle too much or counter steer too much. Angle/being sideways and having no traction is now your friend. More throttle pushes the back end out more, more countersteer pushes the front end out more. Find the balance between these two. You don’t have to be constant/smooth on each one. A bit of throttle, a bit of countersteer, a bit more throttle, a bit more countersteer is all good. So long as you’re going around the corner sideways it’s all good! If you spin, too much throttle. If you straighten or snap back to face the opposite direction, too much countersteer. If you’re using manual clutch, you can also do a little mid-corner clutch kick to get your revs back up if you start dropping revs or slowing or regaining traction, but that’s a bit more advanced than beginner. If i was you i’d try it without clutch for now and if you feel like taking a step further and opening up your options you can start using a manual clutch later.
Chaining drifts, from one corner to the next, will be your next task. You don’t need to get into this until you’ve got a single corner down, but you’re still going to want to know how to, so i’ll try to explain. It’s essentially a weight-transfer. As you exit your first corner and see the next one coming immediately, you want to countersteer until you start to straighten, let your back end come across, and then start countersteering the opposite direction until you’re now nicely sideways but facing the other way. Sometimes an initiation method can help, a little handbrake to get your back end around or slow you a little, or a huge amount of throttle to help it slide over. This transition is basically a mid-drift initiation.
This is all a run-down of what to do, as i cannot tell you how to do it. All you can do is keep trying until you make it around without spinning. Don’t give up, everybody gets it eventually. Good luck and have fun!
P.S. I haven’t mentioned tunes because trying to explain what does what and which bits to change could take forever. The two cars i mentioned can both be drifted without a tune, so try that first. If it’s way too hard and you’re just not getting it, try to pick one up from the Storefront or whatever it’s called now. They’re easy cars to drift, so it shouldn’t matter that much. But you will want to learn how to tune for drifting so you can personalise your tunes to suit how you drift. My 300HP S13 would not have the same tune as my 450HP S13, let alone another person’s 300HP S13.
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