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Beginners Info

Welcome to the Rev Bible.

We have created the Rev Bible to provide our personal opinions on what is required for you to develop your driving ability as a drifter. It is also to steer you in the right direction on what is required in order for you to get started.

We are by no means professional D1 drivers, however, we have been hosting track days for some years now. We have seen, heard and experienced at our own expense the misconception that comes to drifting.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of opinions and theories out there on what is required to get you started. We will take you through car requirements, setup, and the basics of drifting and what they mean.  Finally, we will then apply this to the track.

 

Vehicle Choice and Setup 

Let’s start at the very beginning before you even think about getting into drifting we need to start at the chassis. Any Manual rear wheel drive is a good starting point. While some may argue there are better chassis to use then others you can pretty much use anything that is rear wheel drive.

It is sometime easier to start with the easily modifiable vehicles like the below: 

  • Nissan Silvia -180, S13, S14,S15
  • Nissan Skylines R32, R33, R34
  • Nissan 350 and 370
  • Toyota Chaser- JZX90 JZX100
  • Toyota Sprinter
  • Toyota 86

Parts are easily accessible and there are endless amounts of aftermarket parts for these vehicles once you start to develop your skills or if something breaks.

We hear all too often "I need more power to drift" we cannot stress enough that this is far from the truth. One of the most iconic Drift cars is the Toyota Sprinter. These vehicles don’t even make a 100kws at the wheels. We believe the best starting point is with factory power or near factory is the best to learn the basics of car control and initiation.

We cannot stress how important seat time is when learning to drift. Stock cars or slightly modified cars are usually a lot more reliable then big HP cars. In our opinion the more power you have the harder it is to learn.

As mentioned previously a near Factory Silvia, Skyline, Chaser Etc are the perfect platform and power level to start.

 

Vehicle Options & Basic setups

So we now have our car type, what’s next? At the forefront of every track day is safety.

Please if you take any advice from this focus on your personal safety before anything else you do to your vehicle.

  • Roll Cage – at a minimum, a half cage
  • Harness & Helmet
  • Fire Extinguisher

These 3 options have been the basics to a track driven cars for many years for a reason.

Then,

  • Bucket seat – while not a must it does help
  • Hand brake button or Drift Button – super helpful when getting stared out so you don’t leave the hand brake up while learning. Usually no more then $20
  • Locked Diff – open differentials make it extremely hard to put power to both wheels at all times. You don’t have to go out and spend a $1000 on a 2way LSD, while this is the best option especially if you are doing circuit or time attack events. We highly support a mate with a mig welder or stick welder. Welded diffs get the job done and if one breaks it’s a cheap fix.
  • Coil Overs- while not necessary they really do help with how predictable the car is. Most coil overs are height adjustable lowering the vehicle will help reduce body roll. Options to Consider These options are by no means not necessary to get started but can help.
  • Lock Knuckles or Lock Extenders
  • Adjustable Suspension Arms
  • Tyres - While good tyres can assist in grip and wear better in some cases. We love a set of the cheapest Chinese tyres on the market, even ask your local tyre supplier if they have any used tires out the back to keep costs down. Tyre pressure is actually a big deal – to put it simply. If you are low on power and notice the tires don’t spin like butter then you probably should run about 40psi in them. In saying that, if you’re after a bit more grip you can lower them down to about 26-28 psi. Try to always start with about 32psi and go either up or down from there.  Everyone is different so we won’t bother you about any further specs. You should however keep a constant eye on what your pressures are after each drift session. If you head out on track with say 32psi and drift for 10 odd minutes then most likely your tyres have gone up to 40-45psi from the heat. So before going out for your next session be sure to let them back down to the desired pressure, you will soon find out you get a couple extra laps of life out of them.
  • Wheel Alignment - Probably one of the most talked about and one of the most important factors is wheel alignment. While some may disagree here is some basic setups with some. Please Reference the below diagram for each point. 
Front Wheels
Camber - 3-4 degrees neg recommended. Negative camber helps put the tread flat on the ground when you go lock to lock. Under load, the tire's carcass wants to flex and lift the inside of the tread off the ground. As the cars body rolls, it wants to tip the tyre to where the inside of the tread is being lifted off the ground. The car’s suspension geometry tries to make up for some of this but it cannot totally compensate. Running negative camber compensates for this. By keeping the tread on the ground. 
Toe - You want to run a slight amount of toe out, typically about 3mm total toe out. A little toe out will help your car initiate better by turning in sharper. This makes a big difference when you are trying to feint. Too much toe out makes the car twitchy.
Caster - You want to run as much positive caster as you can get without hitting the Guards. Caster really helps a drift car by making it self-steer better. When you start to drift, you can simply let go of the wheel and let if feed through your fingers and the car will counter steer faster than if you were steering it yourself. Caster also gives you more negative camber as the wheel turns which helps front grip.
Rear Wheels
Camber  -  On a drift car you want to run the rear camber as close to zero as possible, this will usually give you the best tire wear, and best forward bite. If you want a little less grip especially if you don’t have a lot of power, you can run some negative camber but usually no more than two degree negative because if the car squats at all you will end up with half a brand new tire and half a dead tire.
Toe - This is a subject that has a lot of misconceptions as many people try to tune how the car is balanced in drift by adjusting the rear toe. You should not run too much rear toe in on a drift car. In doing this you will have a car that will straighten up if the throttle is lifted or modulated.If you want the car looser with more oversteer, increase the rear bar stiffness and or rear spring rate and stiffen the rear shock. If you want to tighten up the car with less oversteer, run softer rear bar, spring and shock.

 

 

 

Drift Basics

Starting from the beginning Initiation is the term used to begin a Drift. There are a bunch of basic Initiation techniques but the most common are Hand Brake Entry, Clutch kick, Fient and Power Over.

 

Hand Brake Entry

To do a hand brake entry, approach the corner with speed turn the steering wheel hard into your first turn, press the clutch down and pull up on the handbrake. This will cause the rear wheels to lock. You will then need to begin to counter steer and release the hand brake and clutch and accelerate and power through. Every time you need to use the hand brake remember to always put the clutch in you can also use the throttle to maintain Revs to and release the clutch.

 

Clutch Kick

The clutch kick is as it describes, by depressing the clutch, letting the revs increase and releasing the clutch. You will suddenly send a wave of power to the rear wheels breaking traction. You can do this really at any speed but you can choose how to abuse the throttle and clutch in order to generate more violent or lateral movement. Practice this in 1st gear performing circle work or what some call ''donuts''

 

Power Over

The Power Over drift is where you drive around the corner and increase the accellerator during the corner.  The power overcomes the grip of the rear wheels and the car steps out into a slide.  This is an easy way to learn and get a feel for drifting as you can drive into the corner and line up the corner exit before the car starts to slide.  

 

Feint

The Feint manoeuvre is one of the most aggressive and popular drift techniques As you approach the turn in point, turn the car sharply toward the outside of the turn. This compresses the suspension on the opposite of the car. As you turn back into the corner, the suspension unloads, causing a loss of traction. Be careful you do not turn the car to quickly as this can cause understeer. How and when you begin the Feint depends on how fast you are going and the corner its self. This manoeuver takes practice and is best to learn once you have the other steps down. 

 

 

These are the very basics about drifting, be patient as these skills will not come over night.

Remember, the more you drive the better you will get, its all about seat time!