I recommend turning steering to standard, simulation in my experience made using a controller a nightmare.
Practice throttle and break control, when I first started I was 100% on or off both. Take a breath, slow down mentally and just feather your throttle you’d be amazed at how much control you have in the slide with only your gas pedal.
Use manual gear box if you aren’t already, with clutch is ideal but tedious to use outside of drifting. The manual lets you pick and stay in a gear of your choice, nothing more frustrating than an auto trans changing gears on u messing with a drift. The clutch is amazing, you can tap your clutch while on the trottle in a slide to make that second of increased RPM to help break your tires loose. It is also great at helping maintain some speed as opposed to tapping your E-brake which literally stopps your rear tires scrubbing speed.
Practice every type of entry and see what works when. Feint in, e-brake, throttle till tires break, using clutch to break loose, turn off abs and lock up all 4 for a split second while turning in. etc…
A huge issue i still have is entry speed and angle both of which just require practice and knowledge of your car. if you find yourself spinning out to the inside of the corner ending early you need more speed. If you fly off or to the outside of a corner obviously you were too fast. Dont forget to play with your gears mid drift to find the right one for the turn, allow yourself headroom in the rpm range for more speed (dont be bouncing off the limiter), but at the same time dont be at such a low rpm that your car has no power to add more speed.
Angle is pure practice and trust in your car/tune and playing with the extremes of your angle to find you car&tunes sweetspot. PSA shorter cars are generally more difficult to control and hold angle out of. Longer cars are slower to react to your inputs but more tame mid drift. You will know when you found that sweetspot, you will feel like your car just got locked in, play with tons of cars until you find one that fits your style.
Horsepower, i like around 600 depending on vehicle weight, tires i use sport unless its a silly 1000hp build which requires race compound. 600 is usually plenty for most 3000lb cars, you will want to look at more power for high speed large sweeping drifts though.
Dont get stuck on a tune, try a car at default settings and spend a few hrs one day testing the extremes of every tune setting to see how it affects your car. always conpare your tune to one you download. need more angle and control? more negative camber upfront and a tiny more in the rear etc. plenty of guides getting into the details of each setting, check youtube or this site maybe even reddit. Gearing just play with default until you find your cars happy place. ill always cap my 6th gear right around my cars top speed just so it isnt gimped while not drifting but play with the gears till they are long/short enough to your liking. For example at a certain MPH ill want to be in this gear so i land in this rpm range cause i have plenty of power and plenty of headroom.
stay away from super high rpm camshaft mods and big turbo upgrades if you can help it. a naturally aspirated engine with tons of torque is your ideal power plant but super chargers work fine if you need more HP. low end turbo kits work great for extra oomf too as their power is more predictable. The high rpm cam shafts and big turbo upgrades USUALLY add an unwanted high horsepower boost at high rpm so in a turn you will be fine, fine fine, POWER AHHH SPIN OUT all of a sudden lol.
Torque is what will break your tires loose and what you need in the lower rpm to keep your tires spinning, horsepower is what you want to carry you through the drift once you lock in your speed and angle and what will add more speed.
dont forget to have fun and dont forget to pat your back even for getting the tiny slow corners perfect, dont expect to just go out and bust out a massive drift combo chain right off the bat, after about a week or two you WILL feel improvment.
as for points try entering, hitting the apex, and exiting just like the race line and follow through the corner as far as you can, usually its far enough to chain both corners together. do this enough times and your point combos will carry you to victory. more speed and angle the more points, the cam can tell the difference between a half ass power slide and a deep angle locked in drift.
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