Tuning Guide for Drifting

Tuning Guide for Drifting

I have yet to purchase or even play FM5, but this is my tuning guide from FM4 which was stickied in the old forums. I’m not sure how much of it is relevant to FM5, but I thought maybe some people would find it useful. So here you go!

Choosing Your Car

Generally, any Rear Wheel Drive (RWD) car is capable of drifting. try to avoid Mid-Engine and Rear-Engine cars as the weight distribution will be more towards the rear and it will tend to make the car more grippy. I’m not saying that Mid-Engines and Rear-Engines can’t drift. If you tune them correctly, they can be very effective. (I recall that Killa Kali has a Porsche that drifts very well). Keep in mind that some cars can be converted to RWD after purchasing them.

Upgrades

Platform and Handling- Most people prefer all Race Platform and Handling, but the Weight Reduction, Roll Cage, and Anti-Roll Bars are not required. I would suggest Race everything.

Drivetrain- Race everything

Wheels- Try to avoid using Racing Slicks (they are not allowed in competitions). Stick with Street or sport tire compound. Tire Width- This is personal preference. I personally upgrade the Rear all the way and leave the Front stock so that i get more grip on the rear for speed, but others prefer to have the Front wider than the Rear. Play with it and see what you like. Rims and Rim size are optional and personal preference.

Aspiration-You have the choice of a Single turbo, Twin Turbo, Twin-Screw Supercharger, and a Centrifugal Supercharger. Most people stick with a single turbo, but you may experience something called “Turbo Lag”. What is Turbo Lag? While drifting, the turbo takes a few seconds to spool up. When it finally spools up, it lets out a “boost” of speed. Sometimes the boost of speed can catch you off guard and may cause you to spin out. Some people avoid using turbos for this reason, but if you get used to the “Turbo Lag”, then you can use it to your advantage. i.e. coming out of corners, you can gain a lot of speed from turbo lag.

Performance- The only required part is the flywheel. I recommend using a Sport Flywheel instead of a Race Flywheel. All other parts are optional, but be civil with the horsepower. Most cars can drift with around 400hp. anything over 650hp is not allowed in competitions (this is subject to change).
KEEP IT S CLASS OR LESS! R class cars are not allowed in competition.

Tuning

Tire Pressure:
Tire pressure is measured in PSI Which stands for Pounds per Square Inch. It’s generally accepted that optimal tire grip is achieved at 32psi. Seems easy, right? set the tire pressure to 32psi and you’re done! It’s not that easy though. As your tires heat up, the air inside them also heats up and expands. So in order to have 32psi in your tires while they’re hot, it requires a bit of trial and error. Set your front and rear tire pressure to 28psi and take your car out on your favorite track. After a lap or two, check your PSI by accessing your telemetry and toggling over a few pages. Change your tire pressure accordingly then try it again until your tire pressure is roughly 32 while hot.

Alignment

Camber- Always keep the front and rear camber NEGATIVE! Positive Camber is not allowed in competitions. The more Negative Camber you apply to your car, the more the tops of the tires will angle toward each other.
Diagrams for camber Below (view from the front of the car)
0 Camber ||-------------|| <— those are the tires. lol

Negative Camber /_/--------------_\ <---- Sexy

Positive Camber _--------------/_/ <---- Not sexy

(Special thanks to Gr4phic for the Camber diagrams)
The purpose of Camber is to make as much of the tires touching the pavement as possible while drifting. How do you tune camber? The front camber will generally be anywhere from -4 to -5 and the rear will generally be from -1 to -2. Set your front to -5 and rear to -2 and then drift a couple laps on a track. Watch the replay with telemetry on and toggle over until it shows how much camber you have on your tires. Watch the camber while you drift. You want it to be as close to 0 without going into the positives as possible. If the Rear is constantly at around -.5 while drifting, add a little bit more positive camber (around -1.7) and repeat the process until it stays very close to 0 camber while drifting.
This is a very long process, but it’s worth it.

Toe- Toe is how close or far apart the fronts of the tires are from each other.
More Diagrams (from the top of your car and the car is pointing up ^)

*0 Front Toe || ||<- front tires

|| || ← rear tires

*Positive Toe _\ /_/ ← front tires

|| || <-rear tires

*Negative Toe /_/ _\ ← front tires

|| || ← rear tires

On your car, you want Positive Toe on the front of your car. The more Positive Toe you add, the more angle it allows you to achieve while drifting. However, the more positive toe you have, the slower you will be while drifting
On the rear, you generally want anywhere from 0 to -.5 Toe. I’m not a big fan of toe in the rear, although some people love it. Play around with it and see what you’re comfortable with.

Front Caster- Front caster changes the “Rake” of your front shock tower. Essentially what that means is it tilts the top of your shock backwards or forwards. Imaging standing straight upright: you are at 1 caster. Now lean back as far as you can without falling backwards: You are now at 7 caster. Now apply that to your shock (Some creative imagining) You really can’t go wrong while tuning Caster because it’s a personal preference on how you want your car to handle. The more caster you have, the more stable your car will be, but you give up resposiveness. The opposite is also true. The less caster you have, the more responsive your car will be, but it may also feel twitchy.
More diagrams (your car is pointing -->)

1 caster | <-shock
O ← wheel (terrible diagram)
7 caster \ ← shock
O ← wheel
Sorry for my lack of Diagram-Making Skills

Anti-Roll Bars

Here comes the fun part where Math takes place. Here’s the formula:
(A-B)C+B=X

I’ll break it down for you.
A= the stiffest setting (This will always be 40 if you install Race Anti-Roll Bars)
B= the softest Setting (This will always be 1 if you Install Race Anti-Roll Bars)
C= how much weight is on the front/rear of your vehicle (this can be found by going to your garage and scrolling over your car and pressing the “Y” button)

Here is what you would do for Front Anti-Roll Bars:
You take the stiffest setting (40) and subtract the softest setting (1). Then you take that answer and multiply it by how much weight is on the front of your car. Then you take that answer and add the softest setting (1).
Example: Let’s say you have 52% on the front. You would do…
40-1=39
39 x .52=20.28 (round to 20.3)
20.3=1=21.3
21.3 would be the Front Ant-Roll Bar setting.

For the Rear, you would do the same process, but use 48% instead of 52% because if 52% is on the front, then 48% is on the rear (obviously). So you would do…
40-1=39
39 x .48=18.72 (round to 18.7)
18.7+1=19.7
19.7 would be the Rear Anti-Roll Bar.

I know it seems like a lot of work, but after a while you will memorize the process. The purpose of this is so that your car is perfectly balanced.

Springs

To determine the springs, you do the same formula as the anti-roll bars. (A-B)C+B=X
Keep in mind that the softest and stiffest setting will be different on every car.

Let’s say the stiffest setting was 1000 and your softest was 100 and you had 52% weight on the front.
you would do…
1000-100=900
900 x .52=468 (round to the nearest .5)
468+100=568
568 would be the Front Spring setting.

Rear:
1000-100=900
900 x .48=432
432=100=532
532 would be the Rear Spring setting.

Fine tuning your Suspension
After doing the calculations to find out your Spring Settings, you may find that it doesnt feel right on some tracks. Well this will help you fine tune your car for a specific track.
The tighter you make your Suspension, the less weight will transfer to the sides of your car while drifting. This is ideal for tighter tracks and quick Transitions (a Transition is when you are drifting and you transfer the weight of your car to the other side which causes your drift to change direction). A track that you would want tighter Springs is Tsukuba Short. But watch out because if your springs are too stiff, your car will want to spin out all the time
The softer you make the Suspension, the more weight will transfer to the sides of your car while drifting. This is ideal for High Speed tracks with longer corners and easy Transitions such as Maple Valley or Suzuka. If your springs are too soft, too much weight will tranfer to the out side of your car while drifting which slows you down alot and makes you more likely to stall out.
*Fun Fact-Having a hard time keeping up with people, but you already have 650hp? If you soften the Rear Suspension, it causes more weight to transfer to the rear which gives you more traction. As you probably guessed, more traction = more speed.

Ride Height-
“The Tip: When you go to the ride height, It is always better to have the front end slightly higher than the rear end. The reason so is because you need the extra support for the engine when you brake. (Note: This is for both Mid Engine and Front Engine)
The Reason: When you brake, the car’s mass is shifted from being in the center of the car to the front of the car. You can see this effect happen by looking at the Body Accelerometer when you press “Up” on the D-Pad. So you ask, “Well, why does this have to happen for Mid Engine?” Well, although making a car Mid Engine balances out the center of gravity of the car, when you hit the brake, a Mid Engine car has to deal with the equal amount of body acceleration applied. Therefore, upraising the front end of the car will give the front engines a bit of relief and Mid Engines more stopping power.
Want an Example? Refer to the Top Secret Silvia D-Spec S15. Notice how even without looking at the tuning setup, you can clearly see the front end is much higher than the rear end. It may be different otherwise when you actually look at the tune, but this is how I tune with a bit of science applied ”
Special thanks to IRI GrandFX and CSI Ratava253 for the info in quotes

Rebound Stiffness

You guessed it. Same formula. The Rebound stiffness will always be 12 if you have Race Springs installed. so if my weight was 52% on the front and 48% on the rear, it would go…
12-1=11
11 x .52=5.72 (round to 5.7)
5.7+1=6.7
6.7 would be your Front Rebound stiffness

and for the rear…
12-1=11
11 x .48=5.28 (round to 5.3)
5.3+1=6.3
6.3 would be the Rear Rebound stiffness

Bump Stiffness

Make it anywhere from 50% - 75% of what the Rebound stiffness is. For instance, if your Rebound stiffness was
Front: 6.6
Rear: 6.4
Then make your Bump stiffness
Front: Anywhere from 3.3 to 4.9
Rear: Anywhere from 3.2 to 4.8

Brake Distribution

Brake Distribution is based on personal preference. I find that 45% on the front suits me very well.

Brake Pressure

Again, Brake pressure is based on personal preference. I find that 120% pressure suits me very well

Differentials

“Increasing the acceleration rate of the differential in a rear-wheel-drive vehicle will tend to make more oversteer as you exit a corner, as the wheels lock together and begin to lose traction under acceleration” - JoeGTR
Basically, the more acceleration and deceleration, the more angle you will be able to achieve while drifting. on the other hand, it is much more likely to spin out.

Gearing

Tuning gears is essential to drifting. you have to find the “Money Gear”. This is usually 3rd or 4th gear. Take your car to the track that you want the gears to be tuned on. I recommend using 3rd gear because it is the middle-most gear so you have other gears to shift into in different situations. Put your car in 3rd gear and drift a few corners. If you notice that your car is redlining (bouncing off of the rev limiter) too quickly which is causing you to lose speed, then tune the final drive 3 clicks towards the “speed” setting. This will make all of the gears a little bit longer which will make it redline later. Tune your final drive so that 3rd gear drifts most corners with around 1000rpm’s to spare until it redlines.
Just tuning the final drive doesn’t solve your problem sometimes. if all of your gears are perfect besides one gear, go to that individual gear and tune it. try to avoid going to extremes as it will through off your gearing a lot. for example, if you like your 2nd and 4th gear, but your 3rd gear seems like it bogs down (loses rpm’s) mid-drift, then go to the 3rd gear in tuning setup and tune it about 3 clicks towards acceleration. repeat this process until you are happy with the gears. keep in mind that some cars only have 4 gears and other cars have 5 gears or 6 gears.

Congratulation. You just tuned a drift car.

I’m sure that I am forgetting things here and there and I’m sure that many of you tune differently. This is just a general way to tune your car for beginners and pros alike.
If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment and I will add them in

I’m trying to get my front tires to 0 camber while drifting, and with -5 camber and 5 castor I was still around -1. How do I get it to 0? More castor?

Really you don’t want to be going for 0 camber, otherwise there is the potential for it to run into the positives while in a corner. Not even real world drift cars, or race cars for that matter have 0 camber front and back. A lot of real world cars sit between -2 and -4 camber (usually less in the rear), depending on the car and driver. Also having more negative camber in the front can actually allow you to carry more angle, as it will angle the front wheels better giving you more grip to counter steer with at full lock.

My personal preference is to run between -1.5 and -2.5 at the front, and -0.5 and -1.5 at the rear. But as I said, it is car dependant. Another thing that helps is to keep the car in balance, I do this by centring my tunes around circuit racing. I feel it gives me more control over the car, and also gives me the confidence to push it when I need to. I also find it easier to weight shift to both initiate a drift, and to transition from one corner to another.

I may have explained that poorly. The tune is set to -5 front, -1.8 rear. While drifting, watching the telemetry, the rear is going to -.3 to -.1. Almost perfect. But the front is anywhere from -6 to + 1.5. I thought I read that you want your front to be at 0 while drifting in the corner for tire grip.

I wonder if it the car I am using. Is it possible that some cars simple can’t achieve those angles in your front suspension? I just re-read the post and it was clear. You should be aiming for 0deg on your lead tire while in the drift. My car was floating into the positives to about 1.5 degrees.

Try using -4.0 Front Camber and add more caster. Most real world drift cars use around 7.0 caster. Using telemetry to tune for drift might not be the best option especially with the elevation changes on the tracks during turns. It will never be exact, even if you get it right on one track the elevation and angles on other tracks might be completely different thus rendering Telemetry drift tunes useless.

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. One of the top leaderboard drifters tunes their car so that it won’t go in a straight line, EVER. All they do is throttle and counter steer and with their tune the car is all over the place, I tried their tune and didn’t like it. Throttle control on all drift tuned cars is very important though. Practice that.

This video has a good technique you could use in Forza to practice throttle control. It’s called the “Manji Drift

I guess what I am trying to do is similar to what I do for my circuit cars. I am trying to tune out some of the imperfections of the car. Right now I feel that it won’t get angled into the apex enough. It almost looks as if I am attempting to race the corner, and accidentally gave it too much throttle, vs it looking like i intended to slide all the way through. I read from the tuning guide that higher neg camber allows more sideways control, high caster increases your ability to reach those high neg caster numbers, as well as making the car respond better to steering input.

I see these drifters on FM5 getting so insanely sideways, and I just cannot seem to maintain that kind of angle, UNLESS I run positive camber. And I don’t want to do that.

I see what you mean though about trying to watch the telemetry,as it will change so much on each surface and track.

Whats even more confusing, is Iconic Slider told me in a drift lobby that he runs drag tires @ very high pressure, a ton of positive camber, super soft suspension with no roll cages and that is his formula to slide like crazy and hold those angels. I just cannot control his cars and also I don’t want to drift with + cam because I’d like to compete in the competitions. I wonder why the leader boards allow positive camber.

It was one of Iconic Sliders drift tunes that I mentioned earlier when I said I downloaded one and didn’t like it. Yes it gets the car sideways but it’s not how regular drifters do it. He runs a very different setup as you can see. If you want heaps of angle you will probably end up losing a lot of speed.
Throttle down hard as you approach a corner, turn the opposite direction to the corner then handbrake, let off the gas, and turn into the corner (Feint Drifting) you will get some serious sideways angle as you start to slow down add some throttle, but you won’t be able to put on much throttle otherwise you will end up spinning out.

Here is another Good drift tune video. This car can go full lock on steering with some throttle down. I tried it, it’s a good tune.

Beet share the tune in forza for the car you are posting about, I will give it a run and see how it feels. It may be your over working the tune in an attempt to cover up poor drifting technique, im not saying that to be mean; I just know you are relatively new to forza drifting so its a possibility. I think I said in one of your threads about taking a stock e30 m3 or ford sierra to the airfiled and practice in them, if I didnt, well give it a go anyway. It provides a nice easy car to learn in, and some of the stock rwd cars are fairly easy to inertia drift in.

No offense taken. I am posting for help, I appreciate the input. I will share the tune on the market place tonight when I get home. I will update the post when it is shared.

Do you have any drift videos on your Game Dvr? I wouldn’t mind seeing you approach a corner before the drift and watch how you are handing it through the corner. Because what you described above, is pretty much exactly what I am doing and it seems to be working just fine. I do still spin out, and sometimes my drift ends before the corner does, but i am getting there.

Only drift video on my DVR is this one on Alps, big downhill sweep with my RX7. I got the 7000 points in a single drift achievement after performing it. I have no idea how many points I actually got as I did it in a normal race, so no Drift HUD. I used the reply to take it from different angels. I have a full in car view I can upload on youtube, captured it with my Elgato HD game Capture. I don’t Feint Drift in this one. I brake, Handbrake hard, Turn & down shift, throttle hard and left it off as needed with counter steering.

Made this with the “Xbox record that” and Forza Replay before I bought the Elgato HD. This is off my Skydrive http://1drv.ms/1gna6RZ

PS: If I have time I will try record something with my Elgato HD Game Capture and maybe bring up telemetry

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I have seen this. Great control btw!

Which car is it by the way, will help to know so I have something to compare against. Also how much bhp does it have?

Search by creator my name. Beetfarmer89 in the 2000 SVT Cobra R. I believe the tune is named svt cobra drift bf89. But searching my name will for sure bring it up.

Let me think, BHP is in the high 6’s, torque curve is right behind it. The power comes on very smooth and predicable. It’s supercharged, full race suspension, sport roll cage, sport tires, i think it weights just over 3k. Like 3026 lbs I believe. I picked the cobra because of it’s engine, the stock Hp/Tq numbers are identical. The weight distribution, after being reduced, is 52%, which I kinda prefer to 50/50. And over all, it is my favorite car in the entire world, and I want to tune it to drift.

I feel like I can drift this car just fine, the issue that I am curious about is the angle I see other drifters achieving. I am not anywhere close to that sharp angle. I can get to about 40%, but 45% gets really unstable and iffy. Sometimes I land it, sometimes I don’t.

What I have tried so far:
wide tires in the front, skinny in the rear
same width front and rear
skinny front and wide rear
Maxium width front and rear-(where it sits now)
3 camber with 5 castor
5 camber with 7 castor
4.5 camber with 6 castor-(where it sits now)

1.5 toe out in the front, nothing in the rear.-(where it sits now)

Here is a vid we did a while back about how we like to drift tune. It might help you out.

>>VIDEO LINK<<

Video by: DIS Boppinz

Commentary by: DIS Swirly, DIS OldManTiger, DIS Boppinz

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I made this quite a while ago (I was probably like 15) so some of it might be a little off. I kept updating it on the old forums, but I only saved the very first version onto my computer, so i lost all the updates and revisions I had done to it. I added little bits of info to this one, but it’s definitely not perfect in all areas. I just thought maybe some new guys would find it useful as it does have some really good content if you’re just making a basic tune.

There is a post somewhere in the fm5 drift lounge where I linked to your old thread on the web archive, I think it is in one of beets other threads.

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Very nice solid guide helped me abit always nice to comeback and read it