Automatic Transmission Drifting...

Hey crew!

I know this has been mentioned indirectly a few times... but here goes! Keep the flames down! This is a discussion... and it can be pretty interesting if you all keep an open mind!

What do you guys think of AT drifters? I thought it was an oddity (well it still is) but I am bumping into more 'n more AT drifters! As I mentioned before... I don't really consider myself a drifter anymore... but on ocassion I take to the Industrial part of town and whip my AT Z around corners! I can do it fairly easy using weight transfer and throttle techniques! I have more than enough power to get her sideways. I also often drive up to the mountains with my buddies and when I hit those hairpins I can also experience drift. I have heard of people with AT's using left-foot braking and e-brake techniques also.

What are your takes on it, fellas? Do you think it possible to have an all out drift-car with AT? I know someone mentioned there was a S13 with AT that OPTION put together? I have not seen any footage so I would not know how well it did... What are the advantages? Disadvantages? Some of you out there are much more technical than I and may know these answers... :smile:




PS--- Just in case you are wondering why I have an AT Z... no it's not 'cus I don't know how to drive MT! I used to have a '93 240sx Coupe with MT that I used to drift all the time! At the time of purchasing another used car I found a great deal on this beauty of a Z... and here I am!

At drifting....good for the soul.........bad for your tansmission LOL!

But seriously, poeple that say drifting in an AT is stupid, needs to check themselves.Think about it like this, there are more ways to initiate a drift other then using say a clutch kick technique.Yes you do have to down shift to keep the pwer going through the corner but when u give an AT full throttle it automatically gose down a gear for you to have the power.It's all about the weight transfer and your braking technique.I've seen this done by a buddies auto s14(95 240sx with kouki headlights).

Your suspension is almost a must when drifting in an AT.It has to be set to a more difficult setting rather then with a manual because of the difference of power in transmissions.Also, you have to reinforce the trans with high strength syncrhos or else that baby ain't lasting you more then a week of this turture.

AT drifting.............is alright with me!

AcH!!!!

So I could be messin' up my tranny? Do they even make Hi-Perf. parts for my AT tranny? Sucks.... I know that Grex/Greddy/Trust makes a an AT cooler... but that's all I know of!

AcH!!!!

So I could be messin' up my tranny? Do they even make Hi-Perf. parts for my AT tranny? Sucks.... I know that Grex/Greddy/Trust makes a an AT cooler... but that's all I know of!

Well, when your transmission breaks, then you can swap to a manual. :iceslolan

i've seen automatic open-diff drifting... nothing crazy but it can be done... plus its difficult to spin out with open diff.

hahaha nothing wrong with AT drift. you use what you have I suppose.

My friends old 88 mazda 323 AT used to go hard with the help of old "e-brake" around the corners, until it drifted into a bike.

I think people are now realising it doesnt matter if its rwd, fwd, at, manual, etc just as long as you flog it and get some slide action happening!

peace!

hahaha nothing wrong with AT drift. you use what you have I suppose.

My friends old 88 mazda 323 AT used to go hard with the help of old "e-brake" around the corners, until it drifted into a bike.

I think people are now realising it doesnt matter if its rwd, fwd, at, manual, etc just as long as you flog it and get some slide action happening!

peace!

Yes. People are realizing, now, that if you push your tires past the limit of adhesion they will slide.

Yep, you can get pretty much anything sideways, usually quite easily.

My FWD auto Diamante is easier to get sideways round a corner than my Cefiro ( good old lift-off-the-throttle oversteer). Much harder to control the slide though, as you need to slam the loud pedal to the floor and wait for the auto kick-down so that the weight shifts back and the front wheels pull you back out on the straight line. If the auto isn't responsive enough...well...:uhoh:

As for stuffing up the auto , unless you do truly stupid shit ( like neutral drop it to try to unstick the rears) you shouldnt break anything..Of course frequent kick-downs put more wear and tear on it than grandma driving but I wouldnt lose any sleep over it.

^the thing is...

I see more people in shitty cars trying to drift then guys with the so called "real driftt cars"..People need to stop being pussies..

Best drifting action = the wet and a Yugo...:D

p.s: TankMMC props! your the first person I know to do that to a magna! they usually break down when taken over 4rpm ;)

heh..its not quite a magna, its got a 6g73 (JDM y0!!) instead of the dirty ol' Astron...

drifting family cars is d shizzle :grinno:

One of the option videos has KeiOffice's Kazama drifting an Auto Toyota Vitz. hahahaha

I guess now people can reconsider the Buick Grand National as a non-aligned drift car. :lol2:

I know this is off topic but do you think the Saturn ION Red Line would make a good drift car, for a FWD. I saw on the Speed channel during their overview of the International Car show in Madrid they showed a SEAT Leon drifting around corners while demonstrating their counter skid system, it is a FWD car. I know that can sound a bit strange to some.

I think they were talking about their "Agile Chassis" system, not skid control I suppose.

I used to drift my stock 79 monte carlo all the time (before i sold her). It was a 305, with a th350 and an open rear diff lol. As with any car all it takes is torque, experience and balls to drift an AT. I found it worked best when I would accelrate hard towards the turn, stomp the brakes to get weight transfered to the front, then hammer the gas until the tranny hit kickdown mode to keep the tires from getting traction. From there it's all in keeping it in kickdown mode ( to keep it from upshifting) while modulating the throttle and countersteering appropriately. So there's my two cents.

You could drift with an automatic transmission but you'd have a lot less control than you could with a manual. What if half way around a corner it decides to shift? Using an auto not only eliminates many techniques used to initiate a drift, but puts you at the mercy of the transmission. It doesn't know the difference between going up a steep hill and sliding around a turn. It just knows you're pressing harder on the throttle and will act accordingly. Let's just say I don't want to be in the car when that happens.

well, in my 94 accord lx you can select all 4 gears on the shifter (1st, 2nd, then D3 (1-2-3), then D4 (1-2-3-4))... the only problem is that 2nd gear only takes you to about 60mph, then 3rd will take you to 85 (that's hitting the 6250 redline)... but it will upshift if pushed past redline no matter what. hearing more about FWD drifts (or sudo drifts for those that may not consider it a drift)... i've drifted a 3500lb, fwd, AT, 130hp wagon... not with Great success... but that we have awesome tires up front and bad ones in back helps!

my 90' 323 AT could mostly feint and ebrake than other techniques, but the AT sometimes decides to shift up when it wants to, then realizing its too hard to power through then shift back down, this causes some understeer, scary as hell near poles -_-", but yeah AT can drift, anything can drift, as long as its got more than one wheel, weight transfer is there =)

Best drifters in the world don't even have a transmission, and they have to contend with 900hp from a methanol injected 410ci small block.

http://www.fremontohspeedway.com/photos/action-fremont-20030701/fremont71sprintrace2.jpg
http://www.hammerdownusa.com/2003AllStarChamp.jpg

Direct Drive = ULTIMATE DRIFT

oy vey...

i've seen automatic open-diff drifting... nothing crazy but it can be done... plus its difficult to spin out with open diff.


i've spun out many cars with an open diff....

maybe i just suck at drifting(atleast I admit it LOL im no dori-san..I can grip race pretty decent tho)

or

maybe I know how to start a drift with other methods besides power over....

take a corner with a stock s13 at about 25mph on a 2 lane 90 degree intersection, midway through the corner pop the clutch out at about 4k rpm and give it some gas... it will want to spin like a motherfucker lol....

I know its easier to make the rear end slide with a LSD setup, but its not impossible to drift with an open diff... and you sure as shit can spin out if you get aggressive.

in my test drives of cars at work i've found, atleast in my opinion, that s stock s13 5speed likes to get sideways more then a 300zx n/a auto LOL... the Z has 70more hp, a LSD, and better tires...

S chassis is more agile and edgy while the Z is more stable and smooth... I like the handling of the Z better

any jackass can get a car sideways in the dirt... its not too difficult.


I sincerly doubt sprint car drivers are the best drift drivers in the world... all they do is control power over in an always left turn and going onto a straight... flame me if you want, but thats no where near the skill used in professional drifting on a good drift track.


and I don't care if you use the, well they have more horesepower comeback... because in reality... a car can handle any horsepower you throw at it... it all depends on the chassis and tires to harness that power... so thats not really driver skill thats car setup.

Well, just goes to show how incredibly unlearned you are about sprints, and in fact chassis setup in general.

Take a good look at Chad Kemenah's car in that head on pic. Notice anything funny about the angle of the axles? The chassis is attempting to lift the outside front tire in the middle of a left hand turn. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

Guess what, it's because a long time ago, one of those, ahem, "beer swilling left turning rednecks who don't know a damn thing about engineering" figured out that a sprint car is not only faster when the rear tires aren't gripping, but that they're faster when you unload the weight transfer off of the right rear and balance it on the left rear, rotating the car through the corner in a perfect DRIFT.

This is designed into the chassis thanks to a clever parallelogram lever on the rear axle called a "Jacob's Ladder". As the right rear shock compresses, it jacks the right framerail up and pulls the left framerail down, counteracting the weight shift. Resulting in the odd cornering stance you see midslide. Drivers quickly adapted this advance in car design (which occured about 40-50 years ago) to their driving technique by quickly swerving the car midstraight, feathering the throttle lightly then slamming into the throttle in order to get the Jacob's Ladder to shift the weight more quickly and "set" the car into the slide (in other words, a feint).

I've always found it humorous, actually, that we open wheel short track guys, so backwards in our left turn only, big V8 loving, Midwestern America throwback world, figured out how to fabricate a part as simple as this to induce drifting into a chassis back in the 50's and 60's (sprints and modifieds are hard to chart because so much of the innovation was guys tinkering in their own garage with little more than an idea and a welder) while the hi-tech big wigs in Japan still think stiff shocks and low grip tires are the way to go.

http://www.breka.co.nz/store/images/products/47.jpg

Oh, and by the way, sprint guys do the same stuff on asphalt. It's less prounounced because there's more grip, but all the same you see the sprint guys feint and set the car into a solid drift to keep fast momentum through the corners. And, quite frankly, it takes a lot more skill to do that for 30-100 laps on a 1/2mile surrounded by 23 other guys averaging about 150mph a lap constantly adapting to a changing surface and running different lines each lap while jockeying for position. Sometimes you're right up on the cushion next to either the top of the bank and some grass runoff (if you're lucky) or less than a foot away from a concrete wall (if you're not), sometimes you're right at the bottom of the track, bounding over ruts and scrabbling to get clear on the straight.

Dirt sprints consistently turn out America's best drivers because they teach the ultimate in car control. No less than Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt made their start in dirt sprints, and the current generation of greats like P.J. Chesson, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon (who has been considered for a Williams-BMW F1 seat), Tony Stewart, Mike Bliss, J.J. Yeley, Bobby East (who actually was involved in a drifting competition setup by Automobile Magazine that compared drivers of different disciplines' ability to hold a wicked slide), Tracey Hines, Sam Hornish Jr., and Boston Reid (one of the finalists in Red Bull's F1 driver search) ALL came from midwest sprints.

Sorry pal, but even Bob Bondurant has said "Heck, drifting was the only way to drive a car back in the 60's. We all were drifters because it was the fast way to drive a Cobra or anything else." I'm doubly sure that any one of the D1 guys could probably look halfway decent in a sprint car on asphalt, probably even above average in a sprint car on dirt, but drifting passenger cars on asphalt is playtime to dirt sprint guys. 13second 1/2mile lap times have given sprint guys the biggest brass ones of all. They're the top drifters. End of story.

Let us not forget the men of Championship Off Road Racing (CORR).

They race, both buggies and light trucks on dirt tracks across America. Not only do they drift constantly, but they do both left and right hand turns ( I know a shocker) and the track usually has jumps mixed in as well.

I'd like to see you try to keep a 650+hp Race Truck in control for a single heat.

http://www.corracing.com/Photo_Album/pics/2004%20CORR%20series/Round%205/56AB0169_H2.JPG
http://www.corracing.com/Photo_Album/pics/2004%20CORR%20series/Round%204/56AB9243_G.JPG
http://www.corracing.com/Photo_Album/pics/2004%20CORR%20series/Round%204/56AB0072_H.JPG


http://www.corracing.com/Photo_Album/pics/2004%20CORR%20series/Round%204/56AB9175_G.JPG
This man, my personal Off-road hero, Curt Le Duc. Has won many championships. Such as the Baja 1000, competed in the Paris to Dakar rally and finished I believe 3rd or 4th overall in his class, won countless CORR races, also competed in Pike's Peak where Rhys Millen (and his father) has also competed as well.


Just cause they're American and play in the dirt doesn't mean they're any less of a driver.

Don't forget about these guys either... some of the best drivers in the world. I think...

http://www.wrc.com/ULImages/Photos/rallydeutschland-gallery-lo.gif
http://www.wrc.com/ULImages/Photos/NZ-hirvonen2-gall.gif
http://www.wrc.com/ULImages/Photos/NZ-gronholm3-gall.gif

Drifting in the dirt... and Asphalt... in the snow... in the rain... over small peruvian children.


Good Stuff.

Then, there's these fuckers who drift on two wheels... with no brakes.

AMA flat trackers...
http://www.wcfts.com/sbpic.php3?id=253
http://www.wcfts.com/sbpic.php3?id=266
http://www.wcfts.com/sbpic.php3?id=272

I like dirt...