Some of us really suck at drifting because we don’t know how it works. An in game drift tutorial would really help. I have read numerous posts on how to drift but I can’t seem to apply the written theory into an actual in game drift without completely losing control of the car and spinning out.
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Drifting really isn’t something a tutorial would help with. There are only 3 basic steps to drifting. It is just one of those things that takes practice and a suitable car. RWD is the easiest to drift. You need to turn off TCS, ABS, and STM, and usually best to use normal steering and at least manual but manual with clutch is better.
Step 1: Induce oversteer
Step 2: Hold the slide
Step 3: recover from slide
Which step are you having the problem with?
To induce oversteer you either pull the hand brake while turning into the corner, you have a car with a lot of power that you can either clutch kick into oversteer or just simply give it more power to get the back end out, or you do a Scandinavian flick. If you are immediately spinning out, you need to be less aggressive on your initiation.
To maintain the slide, it is important that you stay on the gas and steer into the slide. If you need more angle you either need to steer less or give it more gas, If you need less angle you either need to steer more or give it less gas. If you are driving off the inside of the corner part way through the drift you either need less angle or more entry speed. If you are driving off the outside of the corner you either need more angle or less entry speed. It is really important to have smooth throttle inputs, if you jump off of the gas quickly while in a slide you will just spin out the opposite direction and rarely is it a good idea to use the brakes when you are sliding. It is also completely possible that the car just dose not have enough power to drift the corner you are trying to drift.
To recover from the slide you just have to steer more or gas less.
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My usual setup is ABS, TCS, STM off, steering simulated, transmission automatic on controller, manual or automatic on wheel. My biggest problem is not being able to control the slide. Once the rear of the car gets loose, I usually have a drift turn into a 180 or a complete 360 and I have no control of the car while it is spinning. I’m trying to complete the FH2 Storm Island Corvette bucket list and I keep doing donuts in the middle of the turn.
The other issue I sometimes have is once the rear gets loose, I loose traction on the front wheels and the car just slides sideways or backwards in the direction I was headed before initiating the turn.
What exactly is “clutch kick into oversteer” ??
When I try to use the hand brake, it usually ends up with me turning too much into a 180. Even from a simple tap of the break. Do you apply the break again at any point in the drift?
I play on PC using a DS4 controller.
I can initiate a drift but can only sustain it for a few seconds and usually bang into a barrier etc.
Some tips or a tutorial would bang on!
There’s a few good videos on Youtube on drifting.
I won’t send you to a specific one because I believe the more different sources you check out will be your best option to improve your skills. Just search Horizon 4 drift tutorial and you’ll get a lot of results.
Personally, if I were playing on the computer I would use the keyboard to drift. I find it better than a controlker, but that’s a personal preference. I just happen to be better with a keyboard at drifting. Probably because I played Pro Street on the computer and not a gaming system.
i’m no pro whatsoever but this is what i think will help.
The Drift suspension is the easier way to make cars drift just give it good amount of power, adjust the gearing so that you can stick to one gear and go train in the roundabouts and in the city to connecting drifts together.
one good car i use to teach my sister was the 73 or 74 Nissan Skyline
I am by no means a pro at drifting either, but I can usually do the challenges.
At minimum I have found the following to be helpful:
- turn off stability control and traction control
- Use manual trans in 3rd (and sometimes 4th) gear.
- do e-drifts… Use the emergency brake with gentle turning of the steering. Once you get a drift going, it is easy to over drift and kill it.
- Rewind is you friend.
- practice, practice, practice. It took a bit for me to get the hang of it.
Beyond that the following also were helpful:
6. Rwd vehicle
7. Download a good tune for drifting if you also are not good at tuning. After trying several I am sure you will find a tuner that suits your style of play
8. Street tires
I actually finally ‘got it’ by drifting on Blizzard Mt in FH3.
Good luck. This is still not my most favorite thing to do, but with practice and the right set up, you will eventually get it. Don’t give up.
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first you need to tune your car for drifting
camber is crucial if you want easy drifting
at the begining pick some japanese sedan, look for drifting tune and do some drifting
PS: “turn off stability control and traction control” AND ABS!!!
I’ve only recently started to get better at drifting. Still a long way to go, but here is some tips I have and agree with the previous ones.
Practice drifting ALL THE TIME when you aren’t in a race. Just go into open areas and practice both sides and try to sustain the drift in an arc or as you drive through the map try drifting corners. It’s a matter of playing with the throttle and the steering. If you can maintain a drift in an arc, you can slowly flatten the arc to the point that you can make it so the car is sideways but travelling in almost a straight line.
The better drifters can flick the car towards the turn and use the e-brake to start the drift before the turn, however, I’d avoid that at first. If you have a great tune, you actually don’t need to use the e-brake which can snap the car quickly. Better tunes actually bias the brake pressure to the front of the car.
So if you start the turn, then just hit the regular brakes, load comes off the rear and it comes around without snapping as quickly as the e-brake. However, there is another issue with this, if you are in the turn and hit the brakes because you are over-steering, the rear will come out even worse and spin you. So, usually it’s better to come off the throttle slowly to stop the spin and counter-steer which is ultimately the right way to drift.
In all cases you want to take the turn close to the same speed you would without a drift. If you are too slow, it’s hard to maintain the drift and too fast, you’ll spin out or slide through the curve.
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What really helped me was picking a drift zone and then looking at the guys on the leader boards. Most of them have Xbox videos saved to their profiles showing them doing their amazing drifts so it gives you a better idea of when to change gears and what kind of angles to take. You always want more power and toque too.
For gravel drift zones I just hacked my way through using the Hoonicorn, but now I’ve been using my generic race tuned 1985 Prodrive 959 Rally Porsche to power through corners like the pro rally drivers.
HokiHoshi posted one on Youtube a few weeks back: How to Drift in Forza Horizon 4 (Technique/Tuning) - YouTube - it definitely helped me but I’d also second and third the mantra of practice, practice, practice. Took me quite a while and tinkering with tunes but I finally managed to 3 star all the zones… and I still consider myself to be pretty bad at drifting.
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Just watching few minute of that video and it sure looks it will helpfull in most peoples. Im really bad on drifting also (im mutch better that in real driving than with controller) but my advise is if your goal is to get 3 star of all drift zones forgot those rwd cars and grap some really powerful car like formula drift viper or hoonicorn and download drift tune because those are really to best cars to set score in drift zones.
The FE edition Mercedez Benz is great too and will save some real money.
And after done drifting can make really good racer on that one. Winter is great time for drifting i just spent 30 minutes drifting around a map with rwd volvo that have summer tires, damn that is fun.
I suck at drifting and kept the harder challenges (about a dozen) at bay for weeks. Then one weekend I did em all with 3 stars with the following setup:
1977 Holden Torana A9X with the tune
AWD Drift by XtremeEnergizer
Car plus upgrades cost just about 300,000 CR total, so it’s a rather cheap way to beat the drift zones.
Traction and stability off, manual shifting, breaklines on, rewind on.
At start shift to 2nd or 3rd gear and just stay there. Depending on the surface and sharpness of the curve initialize the drift with hard steering (Finnish Flick) or the emergency break. Control the drift with your throttle (the more, the less grip - so don’t go full throttle on a hard drift) and steering. The AWD setup makes it easy to hold “balance”. Keep your back tires at the track, so the drift keeps counting (front tires can be off the track).
Hint on gravel drift zones:
Don’t try them in winter, it’s just to hard to read the “drift zone”, especially with changing flat curves between markers.
+1 re the Torana and XtremeEnergizer’s AWD Drift tune! This helped me 3 star some. Just 6 more to go. sigh
I absolutely hated drifting in FH3, but here the drift suspension in FH4 making it much easier. Its still not the easiest thing to get it right, but more satisfying if you nail a hard drift zone in the first or in a few tries. I have a lot to learn but i think i made a lot of progress compared to how i done couple weeks ago. Also for me setting the steering from “Simulation” to “Normal” helped to nail some drift zones.
As others mentioned above, traction and stability control should be turned off. If you are driving automatic, start to learn manual. It pretty easy to pick up, and you have control over your gears. Problem with automatic is that it shifts much earlier and can cut power mid-corner if the game decides to shift up, but you should stay in current gear to keep the drift going.
I always use some top player’s tunes, except for a few cars that i’d like to tune myself, so i’d recommend you do the same.
The guys above already suggested a few cars, but i’d like to add the Hoonigan Focus and Fiesta.
Best cars to learn in are any of the older muscle cars (69 charger, 70 camaro, etc.) drive them completely stock and learn how the weight transfers and how much to counter steer while applying the right amount of throttle, brake, or hand brake. Its a feel thing, once you get the feel for the basics in a more or less basic car then move on to more advanced builds. It’s how i learned in the Motorsport series then how i re-learned for the drastic difference coming into the Horizon series. As a point of reference I have 3 starred every drift zone in 3 and 4. Practice will make perfect in time.
Change your controller deadzones.
Everything (except the clutch) 0 inside, 100 outside.
It’ll make drifting a bit easier. Also, I don’t recommend the Formula Drift cars.