open diff---->snap back?

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S13 Charlie
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I have been working on my sideways action lately, and I have noticed that when I'm sliding (drift, donut, etc.) and I start to turn the wheel back in the opposite direction, the car snaps back pretty quickly, and abruptly. I have read that this is is usually a result of having an open diff, or driver inexperience. (I'm guilty on both counts) Aside from installing a 2-way (I'm saving up..), does anyone have any tips to minimize this snap? That is, to help smooth the transition out. I'm sure that with more wheel time, my skills will improve, but it would help if I could practice with more intent, not just bust a bunch of donuts and skids in the limited space I have. (parking lot).

Cheers,

C


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CaoBoY
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good question, i have no answer though as i am in the same boat u are

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Grip Gambler
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stay on the throttle longer than you think! dont let off to stop your drift, with the right amount of countersteering it will eventually straighten out. becareful withl your anlge, because with out haveing an lsd deep angles set up for a bigger snap back if you have your rear tires "hook up" on you

mmatl16
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Grip Gambler wrote:stay on the throttle longer than you think! dont let off to stop your drift
ya when u start to countersteer u need to hold the throttle all the way out. also that snap is a result of body roll so if u can get ur car any lower without cutting the springs that will help a 100 percent

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CaoBoY
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mmatl16 wrote: ya when u start to countersteer u need to hold the throttle all the way out. also that snap is a result of body roll so if u can get ur car any lower without cutting the springs that will help a 100 percent
i think thats why i need to grab some strut and sway bars, the tien springs (saving up for the superstreets) helped out with alot of body roll, but theres still so much more.

S13 Charlie
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Thanks guys,

This is all good advice to me. I have KYB's and Eibach pro-kit, so I'm lower than stock, but can't afford coilovers... yet. I have a set of STB's coming soon, do those help with body roll/ flex a lot, or is it just marginally better?

C

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CaoBoY
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strut bars made my crx handle like a go kart, minus the fact that it was a little gutted 1988 HF ( lightest second gen you can find) with a sohc motor, that thing handled like a dream, but it only got better when i threw the strut bars in

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240SicknessX
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after the apex start trying to straiten out the wheel eariler and slower, with straiting out the wheel eariler and slower it allows me to extend my drifts longer after apex. I guess this goes with experiance, you have to predict where you are going to grab tracksion if you were to keep the current counter steer in middrift. once you see the point where you are going to loose inertia and grip with the progressivly get the wheel more strait, and at the predicted grip destination your wheel should be strait, this allows for smooth clean exits.

reference drift bible for this one also, view when tysuchia is driving from in the car (white s14) and watch how he gets his max counter steer and then adds throttle and straitens the wheel out at the exit. well if you still have the ka or a stock sr you are probably going to want to keep the gas floored because you dont have the avalible power on tap that he dose.

even today with about 9 months of experiance behind me i still learn from watchin that video.

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spec-u-later
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If you had an open diff you wouldn't be drifting. Most likely you have a vlsd. A 2 way should take care of the snap back.

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93180sxredtop
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u can drift with a open diff i did it when i started and i know alot of people that still do only one wheel will spin so it will be harder to control thats all.

ps i think i forgot these ....,,,,,

mmatl16
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spec-u-later wrote:If you had an open diff you wouldn't be drifting. Most likely you have a vlsd. A 2 way should take care of the snap back.
wow. ur wrong. diff has nothing to do with his snap on the countersteer. dont say anything like that ever again.

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spec-u-later
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Hey no need to get snippy about it pal. I'm just going with my pesonal experiance. With proper countersteer you can minimize the snap back but it is much smoother with a 2 way. Again just from my experiance. Sorry to have offended you. As far as the one wheel wonder drift is concerned I'm not talkin about snow or rain. It may slip out every now and then but you aren't gonna hang it out there. What I'm saying is you can't maintain it any longer than your momentum will carry you.

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240SicknessX
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i dont know if any of you have seen my video in the "drifting an auto" thread but i have an open diff, and ill have you know. if you are getting snap back or harsh exits its becuase of driver error. I can make smooth exits all day long, my friends can do it also. you need to work on your steering and just getting more experiance.

YOU CAN DRIFT WITH AN OPEN DIFF.

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spec-u-later
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Ok I looked at your video. All I see is alot of e-brake yanking. It looked good in the begining on the "wet" asphault. Thats how I practiced before I had and lsd. Snow and rain is great. I understand that using the e-brake is an esential part of drifting but it is commonly used for initiating a drift. You were not able to maintain anything in that vid apart from the wet ground section. YOU CAN YANK AN E-BRAKE WITH AN OPEN DIFF.

Former_240_s14
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spec-u-later wrote:Ok I looked at your video. All I see is alot of e-brake yanking. It looked good in the begining on the "wet" asphault. Thats how I practiced before I had and lsd. Snow and rain is great. I understand that using the e-brake is an esential part of drifting but it is commonly used for initiating a drift. You were not able to maintain anything in that vid apart from the wet ground section. YOU CAN YANK AN E-BRAKE WITH AN OPEN DIFF.
\\

Okay this is funny. We all need to agree on what our definition of a drift is. Spec-u-later and myself feel that a drift is a continued slide applied by throttle, braking (of any kind) or weight transfer is only initiating the drift. An open diff does not allow a person to continue a prolonged slide on dry ground. It does work well with wet pavement. Spec and myself both learned how to initiate drift with an open diff every time it rained or snowed, but if you wanna talk about real grip and real traction an open diff is useless. The snap back in my opinion is because any VLSD dosen't offer equal power to both wheels. In a hard drift one wheel will still have more power than the other, but if you use a clutch-type diff (2 way/1.5 way, etc) the snap back with be much more tolerable. This has been proven time and time again, just look at the what the pro's use. For example, look at the drift bible when the he used an example with the Miata or 86 and the old tired out diff. Then he showed what a clutch type uses.

Granted, a better driver can reduce snap back with a VLSD, but it will still be obvious that you are using one.


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93180sxredtop
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go look at the drifting pics those pics of me drifting is me with a open diff look at the long line of smoke behind me is that holding a drift or am i not a drifter because i have no diff????? here is the pic to remind you!!

S13 Charlie
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Nice drift man!

I don't know why you folks are convinced I have a VLSD, since I'm 150% positive I don't. I have drifted with my open diff, just not a whole lot. Also, it is true that it is much easier on wet pavement.

However, now that I have read all the responses, and practiced a little more, I think it's more driver error than mechanical limitations. I'm still a novice, and as such, I am not as smooth with my countersteer, or throttle application than I need to be. I just need to start practicing with more smoothness in the countersteer and then letting the countersteer out more smoothly.. Thanks for the replies guys, I definitely benefitted from almost all of them.

Cheers,C

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sil80drifter
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The most common mistake is to be too rough on the gas.

NEVER just let off. It'll snap back before you blink. EASE the throttle, learn how to modulate it and of course steer responsively.

sil80
Modified by sil80drifter at 10:37 PM 4/7/2005

nismostate
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i want to see vids btw: the snap back should be due to throttle.. i use to do that a lot but learned that when throttling longer, it'll reduce the snap back.. just leave it at 7k and youll be straight

here are some pics i got off a video from the Walnut Ridge, AR drift event...

I don't know the right answer to the open diff/ lsd argument but when I had a open diff, I had a very hard time initiating a drift and holding it without ebraking. when I ebraked it did help me slide but I couldn't hold it for a long time even with the power of an redtop. imo, use the open diff to practice for now and if you can, get you a vlsd.. you can get those relatively cheap and they'll work. just remember not to freak out how much EASIER it is to drift with both wheels spinning. it's like driving a different car!
Modified by nismostate at 12:04 AM 4/8/2005

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240SicknessX
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spec-u-later wrote:Ok I looked at your video. All I see is alot of e-brake yanking. It looked good in the begining on the "wet" asphault. Thats how I practiced before I had and lsd. Snow and rain is great. I understand that using the e-brake is an esential part of drifting but it is commonly used for initiating a drift. You were not able to maintain anything in that vid apart from the wet ground section. YOU CAN YANK AN E-BRAKE WITH AN OPEN DIFF.
call it excuses or not, but those vids are 4-5 months old and i was only drifting at the time for 4 months. This past friday i was able to start my slide 80ft before the turn, slide in a strait line, hit the apex and exit cleanly. Providing i get another set of tires mounted up i should be able to provide that proof next week. look at the in car footage, how can you say i was unable to maintain my drift, i didnt catch grip at the apex because of too much countersteer and not enough angle and speed. maybe its hard to realize but people that have watched me slide have commented on how fast i can get hte car from a strait line into angle setup for the corner.

i wasnt out takin film of my best, im havin fun learning my car and gaining experiance my trying new things. the first across the screen slide was an attempt of getting the car in a set angle and then locking up 4 wheels and maintaing the same path, not spin or loose angle. I have changed the pads to something a lil stronger in the front so my tail end dosent come around as easy, plus im still working on the timing.

spec- since you are so quick to critisize my driving do you have any vids that you can post up? maybe me the ebrake pulling fool can get some tips?

*note*- im running crap used tires on all 4 corners because i think id go broke if i paid for good tires up front as much as i go though them. in addition to being open diff, its difficult to enter a corner as fast and with as much angle as i can do with the ebrake.

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spec-u-later
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No I have no vids because a camera is not available to me. I only have spectators. Personally I don't use the e-brake, I save that for the FWD Hondas. I have recently sold my 240 to pay some bills but I will have another. Thank you for your concern.

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CaoBoY
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gawd damn....ebraking is only for hondas? so your saying that NOBODY uses the ebrake when they drift? nobody? not even the pro's from usa AND japan? wow....thats pretty harsh....so drifters can only drift if they DONT use the e-brake?

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spec-u-later
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I'm sorry I must have been sleep typing again and wrote NOBODY uses their e-brake. Judges... Nope I wasn't. Remember when you assume you make an azz out of you, not me. I said I don't e-brake. The reason behind that is because when I learned my cable was broken therefor I couldn't use it. I appolagize for saying the FWD comment, I was upset about something else and took it out on your fragile eyes. I know lots of people that use the e-brake to initiate but they don't lay on it locking up the tires for 80ft. The point is you use it to break traction. After that you can just throttle it around if you have an lsd. I was going to edit my previous comment but I guess I won't now.

nismostate
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I have a vid of me in my silver 240.http://www.iheartboobs.com/mrs...5.avi

this was my first drift event and spinning out was fun I only ebrake when I have hard understeer.. especially when I have crappy *** falken ziex in the front... I use the combination of feint and clutch kick.

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CaoBoY
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spec-u-later wrote:Ok I looked at your video. All I see is alot of e-brake yanking. It looked good in the begining on the "wet" asphault. Thats how I practiced before I had and lsd. Snow and rain is great. I understand that using the e-brake is an esential part of drifting but it is commonly used for initiating a drift. You were not able to maintain anything in that vid apart from the wet ground section. YOU CAN YANK AN E-BRAKE WITH AN OPEN DIFF.
heres where you were saying that you cant drift with an e-brake...

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spec-u-later
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I still never said that. In case you couln't tell the last comment was sarcasm but I never said you can't drift with an e-brake. In fact I mentioned it is an ESENTIAL PART OF DRIFTING but is commonly used for INITIATING a drift. Anyway I'm done with replying to a thread that seems to be filled with people that don't understand the basic aspects or physics of drifting. If you all think that a 80ft long cloud of smoke with a little curve at the end is drifting then have at it. You will all serve the deep an meaningful role of making everyone else look better at the next track event.

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CaoBoY
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coming from teh guy who doesnt even have a car to 'show us' how we are all to drift....since he is the best dorifto matser evAR

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spec-u-later
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Coming from a little post whore thats been on the boad for all of about 2 months you don't hold much credentials. Besides taking jabs at me doesn't negate the fact that I am correct about proper technique. Go back to studying Inital D for your mad drift knowledge.

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CaoBoY
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yes...i ll do that...because we all know watching a cartoon helps ya out, rather than going out and practicing with our cars...by the way i also have an open diff. and trust me, i can drift it, or is sliding ur car around a corner with the tire(s) smoking not considered drifting? but yea, go ahead and teach us all mighty drift master? please? can you guide us into drift nirvana? oh wait...YOU DONT HAVE A CAR! please show us ur drift skills, best us please, when you get a car.*edit*time on a site, does not equal time in the car, or knowledge gained in the automotive field....so yes, i have only been on the board about 2 months, big deal....great come back mr no car!im out...no more internet arguing for me.

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240SicknessX
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CaoBoY wrote:yes...i ll do that...because we all know watching a cartoon helps ya out, rather than going out and practicing with our cars...by the way i also have an open diff. and trust me, i can drift it, or is sliding ur car around a corner with the tire(s) smoking not considered drifting? but yea, go ahead and teach us all mighty drift master? please? can you guide us into drift nirvana? oh wait...YOU DONT HAVE A CAR! please show us ur drift skills, best us please, when you get a car.*edit*time on a site, does not equal time in the car, or knowledge gained in the automotive field....so yes, i have only been on the board about 2 months, big deal....great come back mr no car!im out...no more internet arguing for me.
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