I thought this was a great discussion and since I had to remove the photo, I thought I'd post the chronicle here for archiving,,, with the photo gone for reference, it will be a PSC insider classic.
FWD TO RWD TO SMASHED ON A SIDEWALK "A PSC INSIDER CLASSIC"
Dj Twinkles
Sat October 18, 2008 8:24am
Front rim is skew... post it on the forum for more help
Leungy
Sat October 18, 2008 11:49pm
really? the rims came direct with the wheels
Dj Twinkles
Sun October 19, 2008 6:25am
yeah... it needs to be rotatated more outward dude...
Leungy
Sun October 19, 2008 7:23pm
i thought i was good like that. like it was slightly turned
Dj Twinkles
Mon October 20, 2008 12:59am
If it was turned out... I would call it negative chamber... but now it looks like .... positive chamber I guesss
Leungy
Mon October 20, 2008 4:48pm
???positive chamber??? negative chamber???
ross_m
Wed October 22, 2008 5:48pm
Its camber, not chamber
It means whather the top of the wheel is angled in towards the car or the bottom. Looking at wheels from front of car: negative camber is pointing in at the top: / \ and positive is the opposite: \ /
Leungy
Thu October 23, 2008 5:03am
ah.
Leungy
Sun October 26, 2008 1:13am
i have come up with a reason why the front wheel is a bit off.
its sort of like when you slightly damage your suspension when u drift to hard
does anyone get it?
ross_m
Mon October 27, 2008 5:22pm
About the damaged suspension because of drifitng.....the car is front wheel drive! lol but I know what your saying.
Leungy
Mon October 27, 2008 8:40pm
its posible to convert a fwd to a rwd ain't it?
and it could be suspenson damage from something other than drifting
and im still expermenting with backgrounds so im still learning it
wonderboy
Tue October 28, 2008 6:27pm
You can do a FWD to RWD or AWD conversion, but any1 who says you cant drift a FWD car are just repeating what they heard from probably another misinformed person. "Scientificaly" or rather technique wise a FWD drifts with a diferent style than a RWD and executing the drift will also differ, but as drifting is clasified as the process of executing a controlled angeled slide while maintaining a degree of forward motion. Therefore where a RWD would use the power and spin of the rear wheels to controll the slide, a FWD and RWD uses its momentum and oversteering of the front wheels to controll and maintain its drift. A while back i would have also said FWD cant drift becoz of everything ive heard, but ive seen it done and the FWD's drift was in no way inferior to the RWD, in fack at 1 point a FWD drifts easier because unlike with the RWD it cannot spin out in a 180 because of giving to much power to the wheels. I have a drift of my friend's VW Golf 3 VR6 on my phone if anyone wants to still say FWD cant dift, so you dont have to worry bout your car being FWD.
There is 1 mistake here though as far as it concerns drifting, the camber of the front wheels should be negative ( the bottom of the wheel pointing out ) , with the camber set to positive like on your car is to increase high end speeds like in drag runs
Dj Twinkles
Wed October 29, 2008 2:17pm
FWD can drift
it... I did and they show tegniques how to... My parents gotta fwd car...
ross_m
Thu October 30, 2008 8:26pm
Yeah I know they can 'drift'. But its not the same as what you would see in propper pro drifting when they literally 'steer from the rear' by adding/reducing power. To drift with a front whel drive car you need to unsettle it and the only way to really keep it going is to keep putting the handbrake on and flicking the car from side to side which is no match for a rwd car becuase of the reduced speeds and its just pointless for propper drifitng, which is why drifters use rwd cars.
ross_m
Thu October 30, 2008 8:30pm
...your not really drifitng a front wheel drive car in the true sense of the word, your really just sliding a fwd car and dragging the rear of the car around once you have broken the traction.
ross_m
Thu October 30, 2008 8:39pm
To drift a rwd car the front brakes are sometimes applied to cause drag to keep the rear wheels spinning. This also allows the front wheels to steer. if you did that in a fwd car you would have no momentum to "slide" so its not the same as real drifitng
In a rwd car you dont need to be going fast to drift as the rear of the car will always try to to swap ends. But to slide a fwd car you need speed and to get the best results you can do things such as make the rear suspension really stiff (sprngs,anti roll bar) and adjust tyre pressures to take the weight off the inside rear tyre so the weight is more or less on the outside tyre - therefore less grip
Completely different styles of driving are needed to drift/slide fwd cars and rwd car.
I'll not botherexplaining 4wd drifting as thats obvious
ross_m
Thu October 30, 2008 8:47pm
So in short - fwd cars dont drift...they slide by dragging the rear wheels behind them.
ross_m
Thu October 30, 2008 8:54pm
well they do drift i suppose but its a completely different technique to rwd drifting which is what im trying to say
Why cant you edit these things??
wonderboy
Fri October 31, 2008 11:24am
Ok, I’ll try to explain it as best as I can, the way I was told by a race driver..
Drifting originates from track racing, mainly Japanese track racing and contrary to popular believes it was a process started by drivers of AWD cars due to the poor turning ratio of an AWD car over certain speeds. When doing a advance driving course like they usually offer for you to take for free when purchasing most higher performance cars, they teach you main driving differences between RWD, FWD, AWD and Mid Engine RWD. A FWD going into a corner you need to brake before starting to take the turn because heavy braking while starting to turn will cause your wheels to lock up and the front to slide and instead of turning the car will go straight and once that happens its really difficult to recover, Once you are about halfway through the turn you can accelerate again as a FWD will basically pull itself through the rest of the turn.
A RWD is basically the opposite, you can keep steady power until the moment you start turning or even well into the corner, but must leave the power at the last part of the corner before getting the wheel straight again for the corner, because if not the car will basically over steer strongly and keep turning until you come to a stop. A mid engine car is like almost between a FWD and RWD as you don’t have to brake as soon as with a FWD but unlike a front engine RWD you don’t have to stop with the power when exiting the turn because the Mid Engine placement gives a perfect weight distribution of the cars weight to just behind the middle of the car therefore the front wheels don’t need to perform with as much weight on them as other cars which allows for more delicate tuned front suspension that maximizes handling. Now for why drifting was started, AWD or 4WD cars is extremely stable and has a huge acceleration advantage over all the others, but because of all the wheels producing equal power cant turn as sharply as any other drive based car. So with 4WD you can race full out until the corner but then you need to stop almost dead take the turn completely finished, or at least until your nose faces the direction you wanna go to then you can accelerate again. But now obviously in racing they don’t want to stop at each turn, and they didn’t want to sacrifice the huge acceleration advantage it has over other drives either so they came up with a new method of turning, drifting.
It was born out of 4WD drivers braking to late and doing a broadside to avoid colliding into barriers, then while in the broadslide using the intense acceleration of the 4 wheels to go forward again. They quickly realized causing a deliberate slide then pulling out of it was a much faster way of turning than the hard braking turns. Later RWD also realized that with she same method they don’t have to wait for the turn to end anymore before accelerating and could basically use a controlled broad slide to around the whole of the turn, therefore not dropping their revs so low that they need to pick up speed again, and then lastly FWD drivers probably wanted their own bit of this "new technology" and developed a way to just like FWD can brake much later but by braking harder, bring the back around and then by counter steering get the car to drift around the corner.
It was only much later that drifting was developed into an event the way people think of it now. So basically Drifting is a way to get around a track by loosing as little speed as possible around turns by keeping steady acceleration therefore not having to gear down and not having to pick up that momentum again. For the new sport drifting RWD is the best because it uses the spinning of the rear wheel to control the drift, but the rear wheels spinning is not considered drifting and counts for no points at competitions, it’s just a method of controlling the drift. I’m not sure how it works, but I have to believe it coz ive seen it, but a FWD once it started a broad slide (drift) and the driver starts to counter steer and accelerate it keeps a drift and it looks almost just like a rwd car would when doing it. It doesn’t seem to loose speed like one would expect because of the dragging like you mentioned, it’s almost like the only thing the dragging of the back wheels cause is extra control over the drift, its almost like training wheels.. I suppose it’s because of believe or something that most people drift with RWD therefore you hardly see FWD cars driftin, but once you’ve seen it you’ll change your views. For this new event drifting 4WD cars are the less likely to be used because they need to drift without any power because the moment you accelerate you will pull out of the drift and would need to use handbrake to start the slide again. The other reason people use mostly RWD might also be due to the fact that FWD cars has to be monstrously modified with huge amounts of power to properly drift, with huge power I mean in excess of 300hp for even the smaller cars like this Mazda.
ross_m
Fri October 31, 2008 5:22pm
Yes you are correct.
I have seen fwd cars 'drift' I spectate at drifting events and rallys all the time (going to one tomorrow funnily enough) and actually own a rally car myself so I know they can but Im just saying its a different technique and isnt steering from the rear.
I was just pointing out that I knew what he meant by drifting with the mazda. You cant edit these things so I couldnt really edit and explain exactly what I meant at first
Leungy
Fri October 31, 2008 8:20pm
woah so much text im lost lol
anyways the wheel is damaged by drifting or sliding or what eva its just suspension damage
wonderboy
Sat November 1, 2008 9:29am
Maybe you should rarther say its from hitting a sidewalk because thats what it looks like happened :-)