there is always the ebreaking method... i guess it depends on what your def is of drifting.. My girlfriend powerslides her eclipse... and its an auto. I would say just go into a empty parking lot and just see what you come up with. Good luck.

Brandon.

 

pulling ur ebrake and doin a 180 isnt drifting,
basically
you dont
research your 5spd swap

 

Who said it was? You can still drift using your e break. :gaylaugh

i also am selling a manual swap for a pretty good price. Hit me up.

 

i use second gear on my auto trans. it seems to work since i can keep it in the powerband without it upshifting an what not

 

its not your auto thats holding you back but really your diff, you will only be able to do donuts to the left, so practice ebraking and just power overing, or gas it hard and keep it while it shifts and it will be like a clutch kick. Mostley use your ebrake. Or just do a manual conversion its not very hard and shouldnt take you very long.

 

ok. Thanks for all your help you guys.

 

theres a BMI video with KT drifting a automatic Z33.

i "slid" a friends auto S14 by feint+ebrake+throttle.

 

Stock 240's have bad understeer as they are set like this from the factory (like most production cars)

E-brake is the best way to start a drift with stock settings, accelerate to a decent speed and whip the nose in while you give the e-brake a quick *tug* , once the rear wheels loose traction your good, just experiment with throttle and steering to keep your angle up.

You can also do a braking entry, accelerate to a decent speed and threshold brake to cause the weight of the car to load the front tires, once you feel the weight shift to the front, release the brake and turn in.

You have done two things, by braking you have shifted weight away from the rear end making it lighter, and added weight to the front end increasing the available traction so you can turn in faster with no understeer and if your lucky, the rear end will slide out on its own.

Now just power over to keep it going.

As someone said above, if you have trouble you can add a Feint movement as well, that usually helps alot but FYI, if your drifting with OPEN diff you need quite a bit of momentum/speed to begin with..

 

Stock 240's have bad understeer as they are set like this from the factory (like most production cars)

Correction, stock s13's have a understeer issue which can easily be eliminated. Stock s14's are very neutral do to a wider wheel base.

E-brake is the best way to start a drift with stock settings, accelerate to a decent speed and whip the nose in while you give the e-brake a quick *tug* , once the rear wheels loose traction your good, just experiment with throttle and steering to keep your angle up.

On an automatic 240 with stock suspension, throttle control is going to be almost impossible because of the auto ecu shifting once your rpm's begin to stabilize at a high rpm. Thus you will lose power mid drift.

You can also do a braking entry, accelerate to a decent speed and threshold brake to cause the weight of the car to load the front tires, once you feel the weight shift to the front, release the brake and turn in.

You have done two things, by braking you have shifted weight away from the rear end making it lighter, and added weight to the front end increasing the available traction so you can turn in faster with no understeer and if your lucky, the rear end will slide out on its own.

lol, i'm question if you've ever even been in a car that's lost traction. Shifting weight prior to turning will result in horrendous understeer due to the additional pressure placed on the limited patch of rubber called the front tires. An ideal braking drift would feint then apply sharp braking to cause a weight shift from left to right (this is provided you have a vlsd or lsd already equipped). That is a proper braking drift, hell you dont even need a feint to begin it, you just got the order mixed up, its turn then sharp braking... go watch Drift Bible again :thumbsup :rotflmao. You don't want added ballast inthe front, why the hell do you think people strip cars and aim for a 50/50 front to rear weight ratio. Because the neutrality of the weight allows greater control when the car is moving sideways, not to mention added stress on the front tires will put more force on them causing them to exceed their coefficient of friction faster.

Now just power over to keep it going.

As someone said above, if you have trouble you can add a Feint movement as well, that usually helps alot but FYI, if your drifting with OPEN diff you need quite a bit of momentum/speed to begin with..

Open diff drifting is erm..... unwise especially at high speeds. Car is unpredictable because you cannot depend on the throttle to control it when it is sliding.

 

Well this had me convinced.

Sorry

you don't brake and turn at the same time, but rather brake hard, release, and while the weight is still at the front of the car you give steering input. Because of the physics of tire load and the characteristics of rubber, a tire is capable of doing more work when it is under a vertical load than if there is no load. This can be illustrated by trying to push a rubber eraser across a table. When the eraser has only its own weight as vertical load, it is quite easy to push around. However, if you were to push down on it with a finger and try to move it across the table it âpushes backâ with a lot more force. This phenomenon would suggest that you can make a car handle better just by adding more weight, but this couldnât be farther from the truth⦠When a car goes around a turn, the tire is asked to support the vertical load but also to support a lateral load as well. The relationship between added weight and a tireâs added lateral work capability is less than 1:1 â by adding more weight you are asking the tire to support more turning force than you are benefiting it. If it were possible to increase vertical load without increasing the lateral load, then it would be possible to reap the benefits of a tireâs increased capability to perform lateral work without having more weight to do lateral work for. This principle is the basis for how downforce increases grip - increasing the vertical load without increasing weight (lateral load) results in an increase in tire the traction capabilities (âlateral workâ, often represented in the Traction Circle).

At the front:
Under braking, the vertical load on the front tires has increased, making it possible for the rubber to do more work, but the amount of weight that they are asked to redirect has not changed because the car still weighs the same. The work being done by the tire will be at the edge of the traction circle under heavy braking as it is, so if you kept braking and gave steering input (Which is why im saying lift off the brakes first) you'd make the tire's load exceed the available traction. However, if you quickly release the braking force and quickly give steering input you might be able to utilize the temporarily enlarged traction circle (thanks to increased vertical load and therefore increased capacity for work) before the re-balancing of the weight causes the circle to return to normal size.

In short - if you try to brake and steer at the same time, the car will understeer due to frontal washout. If you brake and steer in quick succession, you will have increased load capacity and the car will turn in hard.

To the rear:
Now, with a lower vertical load (due to weight transfer forward) and the same lateral load on the rear tires the traction circle has, in effect, gotten smaller. It won't take much at this point to let the break traction back here. If the car is setup to do so, the rear may even break away on its own since you will still have a bit of braking force being asked of the tire in it's small traction circle (especially if there is excessive negative camber resulting in less contact patch before body roll takes effect). If the tires don't break away this easily you are then left with the options of E-brake, power-over, throttle-off, shift-lock or clutch kick to generate a higher load than the work is capable of doing.

Each technique will operate differently to move the work required of the tires to outside the boundaries of the temporarily smaller traction circle. E-brake, throttle-off, and shift-lock will serve to break traction by slowing the tire down while the power-over and clutch kick speed the rear wheels up (depending on how the kick is executed). Your best bet is to use a declarative method rather than an accelerative method, since by virtue of being a âBrakingâ drift (braking is the key word here, in case you canât tell) the rears are being slowed already. At this point there should be a lateral load on both the front and rear tires (car is now post-turn in) with the fronts gripping and the rears sliding slightly. If you are too quick to apply power in the braking drift, you may cause the tireâs location on the traction circle to move the across the vertical axis and back into the center of the circle where it may grip again (also accelerating before the car is sideways will transfer more vertical load to the rear and give the rear tires more traction, causing understeer). You have to make sure that the car is effectively sideways before applying more power. When the rear tires have broken traction, the car is in the early stages of a braking drift.

From here, the line through the turn that the front wheels will take needs to be smaller in radius than that of the rear wheels, essentially meaning that the rear will have to be traveling slightly faster than the front. Controlling the angle of attack will be a matter of simply putting on the power and modulating the throttle so that the rear line is faster, but not so fast that it incites a spin. Power application should be done quickly but smoothly â too big of a sudden jolt of power and the tires will completely loose all grip and the car will spin, too slow and the rear may regain grip and youâll loose the drift. The faster the rear goes the larger angle, and the slower they go the shallower the angle. The ability to control the front and rear end speeds is one aspect that gives a RWD-only car an advantage over a FWD (where the rears can only be slowed) and many AWDs (where the average driver cannot control the front and rear axles separately without special modifications).

And yes it is unwise to drift with an Open diff at high speeds, but its the best way if you know how to control the Weight transition of the car, "its not about the power its about balance"

You seem experienced. And its been proven in all walks of life that Actual application , and Theory dont always turn out the same.

So ill take your word for it but i would still like to hear what you have to say

 

Drifting auto takes a while getting used to but its VERY possible. I drifted auto for over 1 year and placed in top 3 of competition I entered. Not only did I drift with an auto but it was ALSO open diff. I don't know what you guys are saying that open diff is unpredictable, to me it was VERY predictable. I even drifted open diff for a while after I swapped over to manual.
Here's a video of me placing 2nd place while my car was still Auto and Open Diff.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4722933720373946954&q="auto+art"

Basicly there are a number of techniques you can use to drift an auto.

1. Which you should start out with is the e-brake. Very good technique, it can be used as a beginner technique and an advanced technique. The beginner technique is used by turning into the corner and pulling up the e brake to start your slide. The advanced way to use this technique is not to enter with the ebrake but use it mid drift to adjust your angle or extend a slide. Remember, if your pulling up the handbrake your moving more sideways than forward.

2. There is Fient drift. Fient drift is REALLY hard to nail, so with fient you might want to add e brake along with it. Before the corner you want to turn your car away from the corner, do it hard to, pretend like your swerving around a baby in the road and then turn hard back into the corner. At this point your car will start to lose some traction but barely any, so what you would want to do is pull up on the ebrake to get it to slide more.

3. There is brake technique. There are 2 different types of brake technique. One was stated by Mrbojangles (and is the one that I use). You are driving up to the corner, do a fient and then as your turning into the corner apply about 10% of sharp breaking, don't hold it for too long or too hard or you'll just slow down and not really go sideways. The other way of doing a brake technique is doing a light fient and then push on the brakes, release and while the weight is still up at the front quickly steer into the corner and it should start to go sideways. This way of braking is REALLY hard and takes LOTS of practice, but it does work.

4. You CAN shift lock in an auto. Shift lock is really hard to do in an auto, but it is possible. You have to know at what RPM's the Auto is going to switch gears at, if you know when its going to shift then you can shift lock by being in D (with overdrive off) and when its going to shift you switch from D to 2nd while your turning into the corner, by doing this it will upset your rear end and lock it up. You can also shift lock at slower speeds by shifting form 1 to 2 or 2 to 1 depending on how slow your going. This might and probably will not be good on your tranny but I honestly didn't care about mine and it never actually did go out. It had problems from the day I bought it but I could not for the life of me destroy my tranny.

5. You add steps 1, 2, and 3 together to make one nice looking slide, thats what I did in the video. I fiented from one side into the corner, applied e brake to extent my slide and in the middle of the drift I used brakes to bring me closer to the clipping point.

Drifting is all about getting to know your car and making up your own style. Look at any drifter, none of them look the same out there. Everybody has their own style of driving. There are people with similar techniques but not the same. All you need to do is get out there and start practicing and you will start to learn what works best for you. Go to a parking lot and start doing 180's, 360's all of it, learn how to manipulate your car around what you need to go around. Its all about the seat time. Hope I helped you a little bit.

 

Question - Is it actually possible to lock the rear wheels in an automatic 240?

I have never tried, so I don't know.

But just quickly thinking, wouldn't that technically make your engine stop itself.... ? because you cant clutch in....

anybody...

 

i'd say yes because I imagine the auto tranny would disengage the clutch or w/e connects it to the flywheel.... think of coming to a stop light and pressing the break, you slow down but it doesn't stall, you can stop the wheels and it doesn't affect the motor at all so i'd guess it would be similiar to that.

 

The motor is not directly linked to the tranny in automatics though. So if anything it would lock the torque converter or something like that im sure it would not be good for it.

 

The torque converter acts as an "Automatic clutch"

Its a type of Fluid Coupling, Think of its operation similar to a VLSD untill you can study it. because the principle is basicaly the same.

It bolts to the fly wheel and spins at whatever speed the engine is at. The faster the engine spin the faster the torque converter spins, and as it spins faster Fluid is flung to the outside Via centrifugal force that turns a turbine, which is connected to an output shaft to your transmission.

 

ah, very well.

thanks for the information.
I now know something that I didn't know before.

 

Well Yeah I Would Suggest To Just Find a Nice Curve with alot of space or an empty parking lot and just *power over* entering the corner that Should Do It :thumbsup Good Luck & Dont Smash your Car into any signs or other cars :crossfing

 

"powerover entering the corner" = recipe for understeer, power overs use your lateral g's to exceed traction in the rear before the front. If you powerover entering the corner you will have too much force on your fronts when you go to turn.... best place in a corner to "power over" is the apex of the corner where the greatest amount of force is being applied to your tires laterally.

that is if your having troubles with losing traction due to a low hp car. granted thats not much of a drift if you are sideways for the last 1/2 of the corner but w/e. You could try to powerover before the corner using a feint but timing on that would be difficult to nail.

 

Dirt is a great place to learn.

I drift Automatic trucks on dirt. Not like those lame videos of 'Understeer understeer" that are called "drifting" that you see all over you tube.

But decent, entry oriented rally style drifting. If i can do it in a top heavy suv/truck thing, then a 240 with a much lower center of gravity and shorter wheel base and better power to weight ratio can.

Auto or not its a good place to learn

 

or more simply

When you hit the gas, it shifts the cars load to the rear tires. If you accelerate BEFORE the back end has broken loose, your just planting the rear end even firmer.

and yea i agree with bojangles, if you watch Keiichis power over demonstration he doesnt step on the gas untill he is already facing the corner exit direction

 

you could also upgrade your e-brake to some fatty custom hydrolic set-up that will lock up way faster. I've seen guys drift autos at events, they are not the best but they still do it

 

you could also upgrade your e-brake to some fatty custom hydrolic set-up that will lock up way faster. I've seen guys drift autos at events, they are not the best but they still do it

Or How Bout Just Converting It Stick? :smacked49 lol

 

Excellent suggestion.

I did that one

 

My car was an auto wen I bought it but for only like a day. But what A2ThaK and bojangles said are true. It's not entirely impossible but very hard to do. Next how can I drift my sisters automatic Honda Civic like the Drift King. I wanna be JdM tYtE yO

 

Its not hard to do really. Just put her into first get up to good speed feint one way then turn the wheel opposite direction and then BAM you got that bitch sideways e-brake in an Auto isnt good unless you throw it into neutral and pop up the rpms then drop it but that was hard when I tried it. If you got a good amount of momentum it will be easy practice donuts first to get down you counter steering the key is BIG PARKING LOT...Then maybe you can try to go thru signs and around some wagons and other stuff lol...

 

you dont have an auto do you? you can ebrake in a auto fine because once you lose traction its easy to raise wheel speed once sliding. but i deffinetly support the donuts around wagons, that is the best way to learn

 

I do have an Auto and was told ebraking in a Auto is bad for the tranny. I was talkin about when he gets more comfortable and learns more he can try to swing it around some objects....Not to go straight out and try to drift around them... Try drifting through corners etc once you feel you have the hang of what your doing and can control the car.

 

if u ebrake, the rpm drops quite rapidly but not as fast as a manual b/c of torque converter