(Drifting) understeer or over steer?

ok. what do u guys think. is driftng understeer or oversteer. it could be considered oversteer because the back end sliding out from the front. It could also be understeer becuase the front wheels are sliding also. what do u guys think?

Well, from what I've gathered and experianced while attempting to drift my Z. Is that a four wheel drift is basically understeer, to me it just feels like oversteer.



I'm probably wrong but while I was sliding for the few seconds I was 'drifting' it felt like oversteer but induced the drift with understeer....

Well whatever, somebody here who knows what they're talking about will answer. :lol:

An oversteering drift is an oversteering drift, you could say that a four wheel drift (all wheels losing traction) could be considered "nuetral" that is because niether the rear or front end is slipping more than the other.

i agree with 2stroke. if it is an understeer drift, it is not a drift, but a power slide.

understeer is when the car doesn't turn as much as you are turning the wheel, oversteer is when the car turns more than it should for how you are turning the wheel, and drifting is when the speed and angle at which you are traveling is greater than the grip of the tires.

Yes, a true drift, or what everyone is trying to wrap their heads around, is getting your car pointed in the direction of the corner exit before you exit/apex the corner. If you can do this with nothing but the knowledge that your car will be "understeering" you are either a diva or really lucky.

There's a lot of talk about how drifting is not the fastest way around a corner, that is like saying you should never hit a guy who's got glasses. One thing that almost never changes about driving is the pavement. On a racetrack, there's never just one corner. Therefore, you are always taking this corner with the intention of setting up for the next corner. Some corners can be taken slower because otherwise, you'd miss the sweet spot on the next straight, or fall into a crack or crease in the pavement that would cause you to lose control. Knowing the course (or road) means knowing when it is time to drift.

Setting up cones and doing donuts in parking lots may be a sort of drifting activity, but it's almost like putting on armour and whacking some burly dude with a fake sword at a Renisance Festival. It may be fun (expensive) but the grace born from neccesity just isn't there.

Dont know if this is what bunta said but, my idea of it is that you require over steer, but the better you are the less steering you use. I know this is Initial D and you guys hate it, but im not takin git as a real life example im just saying it. In the Gumtape death match, against the EG6 he couldent stear as much, but he still initialted a drift. So what he had to do is enter the corner with less over steer, and exit it with less counter steer. With this, in real life you will result in a higher speed drift. But then I view there is a limit at that, you must have a sertain amount of steering, so you may take the corner as tightly as possible. So here you will result in a high speed tight drift. Meanig that your time is shorter becuase of your speed and because you made the course shorter by taking the shortest route on each corner. Thanks guys!

While drifting because one hand is taped to the wheel might be the only fast way down the mountain, you are wrong in thinking that the shortest way around a course, or road is always the quickest. You need to utilize the space given in any corner to maximize speed. Sometimes this means drifting, sometimes it means finding the edge and riding it to accelerate as much as you can on corner exit. Slow in: good cars love that initial dive of weight transfer on the front (steering!) wheels to set the car into a positive cornering attitude. Yes, braking is good. Slowing down means you have to go down a few gears, and de-clutching while you use engine braking lightens the rear end and enhances the dive (you probably knew that Initial D readers).

On those downhill runs, this all means you're probably going to get the rear end out pretty fast, and this is where the small steering inputs come in that Tak learned more about with the duct tape. The less you turn the front wheels and rely on load shifting to turn the car, the more stable the car will be during the drift. Stirling Moss, a legendary race driver from the sixties said "The steering wheel is not for turning a corner. It's for presenting the car to the corner." This is what drifting is all about and the fundamental lesson concerning fast driving. Drifting was not born from people showing off antics, it is a product of speed.

The more you experience entering a corner slowly, and feeling the transfer of weight, the better. I don't like when people get an awesome car (or any car) and run out and make the suspension super stiff so they can drive faster right away. Sure, they will be going faster, but it's the car, not the driver. They spent their money well on a good area to improve, but their car is no longer the learning tool it once was. Get your 86 or whatever and get a book about race driving study the book and apply the knowledge so you really understand the techniques and behavior of your car. I don't care what they say, if you start out trying to drift, all you'll be doing is donuts.

Good quote from Sir Stirling, Bunta. He is the man, after all, that introduced the modern "wrist driving" stance that all profession formula and road racers use. As opposed to the classical "elbows up" stance.

Here's a quote from Enzo Ferrari in regards to riding with Tazio Nuvolari that I often refer to when speaking of drifting.

Ahem, straight from the mouth of Il Commendatore himself...

"At the first bend, I had the clear sensation that Tazio had taken it badly and that we would end up in the ditch; I felt myself stiffen as I waited for the crunch. Instead, we found ourselves on the next straight with the car in a perfect position. I looked at him, his rugged face was calm, just as it always was, and certainly not the face of someone who had just escaped a hair-raising spin. I had the same sensation at the second bend. By the fourth or fifth bend I began to understand; in the meantime, I had noticed that through the entire bend Tazio did not lift his foot from the accelerator, and that, in fact, it was flat on the floor. As bend followed bend, I discovered his secret. Nuvolari entered the bend somewhat earlier than my driver's instinct would have told me to. But he went into the bend in an unusual way: with one movement he aimed the nose of the car at the inside edge, just where the curve itself started. His foot was flat down, and he had obviously changed down to the right gear before going through this fearsome rigmarole. In this way he put the car into a four-wheel drift, making the most of the thrust of the centrifugal force and keeping it on the road with the traction of the driving wheels. Throughout the bend the car shaved the inside edge, and when the bend turned into the straight the car was in the normal position for accelerating down it, with no need for any corrections."

YOU POSTED TAZIO

Listen up kids, this stuff is solid driving gold. Scrubbing speed with the front wheels is the final frontier in driving. Nuvolari was a God. Big 'G.'

Jim Clark wasn't bad either.

I am sorry Bunta, I must haveexplained my thoughts poorly, I did not mean that taping your hand to the wheel is the fatsest way. To make everyone understand what i meant to say, is exactly what Bunta said. I would just like to add, that drifting may not seem to be, but it is supposed to be the smoothest driving style. It is an art in which you learn the movements of a car. Thanks Guys!