Drift Tips & Tuning

[baumaxx1]

We may as well start a thread such as this... there's one for drag. Now, I have an AE86 that has served me well, but on the noise bomb races at tokyo dockyard, the best I can do on the track that starts with the big round highway exit I can only do 2,600pts... good enough for last place. Now, I get nos drift, high speed, long drift and stayed on track bonuses, don't hit a wall, and do a single drift for the whole lap, but just can't crack it. Any suggestions? I got a more powerful and lighter elise now, but it needs more work in the powertrain department.

[speed_man]

Uggg....i hate drifting in the tokyo dockyard!! Well what i did in my Rx-7 was, way before the loop get on the outside of the loop, then hit the handbrake, so you are drifting before you get to the loop. See if that works.

[baumaxx1]

Ahhh... cheers. I'll have to use nos, then start really early then... It'll be tricky in an 86.

[prince1142003]

Yeah, those Tokyo Dockyard tracks are a booboo to drift on. I managed to get a score of 5000 (I think it was 5000, might have been 3000) by using a Corolla with level 3 parts tuned to these settings:
Suspension, Rollbars, Springs all Stiff
Lowest Ride Height
Short Final Drive Gear Ratio
Brakes everything to the right.

I used that and a whole lot of practice using the practice mode (free repairs!)

[RobinZ]

used an RX-7 for most of that, gotta drift b4 the turn like speed_man said, and hit nice, long, continous drifts throughout each turn, and don't try to get too many on the straight, but get a good number. The last turn should be done perfectly.

[baumaxx1]

Yep, I try to set myself up for the last turn which is one long massive slide, but I think It's the line on that first corner thats the problem. I'll give it a go now. For tuning, I have the back slightly stiffer than the front to let it slide, but lower tyre pressures up front for more grip, and over inflated tyres at the back to make it slide. I've set it to stay on boost as much as possible, with a short final drive, long 2nd gear as it's where I do much of the sliding, brake bias slightly to the front for control (I don't use handbrake, no need.) and slightly retarted cam timing for good mid rev torque.

edit: Done... Now back to doubling/tripling scores in autopolis.

[3xploit]

Key to drift tuning is maximizing front end grip and minimizing rear end grip. Set all FRONT suspension to soft and all REAR to stiff. Soft front sway bars, stiff rear sway bars. Use stock tires, as they will allow you to slide more.

Handbrake in drift locks all four tires, allowing your car to slide in a straight line. I use handbrake to slide past the finish line, which gets another couple hundred points. Use handbrake to extend a drift.

[baumaxx1]

Soft settings for grip? I thought stiffer was better. Lower tyre pressures however at the front give more grip, so you're right there. And your setup will change for your style and all.

For an AE86, I find:

Scandinavian flick- starts high speed drifts.
Clutch kick- starts slight, s-bend drifts.
Brake drift- brake just after turning into corner and hold it until needed for tight drifts... used often in Tokyo dockyards.

Acceleration-car takes tighter line; use this whenever you can obviously.
Deceleration-car goes wider.
Clutch Kick- Increases drift angle, minimal loss in speed.
Brake- increases angle, but results in a loss in speed. Good for tight spots.

Nitrous oxide- good to start initial drift and get extra points via NO drift, and a higher drift speed. Good to increase speed during long drifts. Can sometimes be useful in tight tracks, where if the car is going around a bend and it is facing the direction of the road, the added torque can help the car go straight follow the track, i.e. not hit that wall during a high speed drift.

These work with other cars, but you'll have to adapt to different engine power, weight, suspension capabilites etc. I like the 86 because it's predictable and easy to chuck around, although it can somtimes be a little slow in changing directions, so a tap of the brakes or a clutch kick can help with that.

[3xploit]

Softer suspension up front allows better turn in, and helps keep the front wheels have better grip which is essential in drift. As to real life drifting techniques, I'm not sure how well they work in a game, especially an EA game.

[RobinZ]

quick tip: a tight steering ratio will help on all drift tracks. Even on the long ones the extra steering response will help

[baumaxx1]

Ok... I'm dtruggling on Autopolis 2, course F... any tips? I need to beat AKI. My best run was 3,286... so I need to scrape 100 more points.

[Koenigsegg_Rox]

I'm actually stuck on the same thing, except I'm trying to beat Ryo. Which is a problem, because I get a fairly high 3300 point drift which is on a good run, but then he beats me with a bloody 3400 point drift .

My current drifter is the 350Z, but previous successes have been the RX7 and M3 E92.

[baumaxx1]

Ok, I got drift king with my 86... it was close. On course F, on the hairpin, use nos late and exit wide to drift the slight bend afterwards easily, but not too much so you can take the long bend easily.

[Argentum47]

Haha,i don't know why some stupid EA Programmers made these sentences in Prostreet "...more pressure up rear will make the car oversteer..".In fact,if u take several psi out of the rear tires,u will actually find it running a bigger slip angle and then at the limit,the rear will slide first causing oversteer.
But there are nothing wrong with springs,cambers...Generally,stiffer sprung end will allow u to drift more.Hope it works for u pal

[baumaxx1]

Yeah... PS is really dumbed down. I like GT4 tuning, but ECU mapping/cam timing wouldn't hurt. It'll probably be more real in GT5. Have you noticed the turbo setings... how high doo you want the start boost and end boost... all high = perfect response... yes, so what happened to turbo lag...

[Argentum47]

Yep,Prostreet producers forgot to add several important things such as a Dyno chart,cam timing chart ...

[speed_man]

Yep,Prostreet producers forgot to add several important things such as a Dyno chart,cam timing chart ...

Pro Street has a dyno chart.

[vellu]

Yep,Prostreet producers forgot to add several important things such as a Dyno chart,cam timing chart ...

Pro Street has a dyno chart.

I think he is referring to dyno GRAPHS (like in UG2 for example) with the actual rev curves. The PS dyno info isn't very useful.

[baumaxx1]

Yeah, the curves are more important than the power figures themselves.

[Summ]

...to people, who actually know how to read them and what to make of them, yes.. I suspect there are lots of teens crying foul play simply because they prefer not understanding pretty colours and curves to not understanding black and white numbers .. other than that, I don't feel PS tuning is dumbed down. Not at all, when compared to what we had previously in Carbon and Most Wanted. I don't remember U2, but U1 was just about collecting parts. You couldn't tune anything. So.. how is this dumbed down again? Of course, set it up against other games outside of the franchise, and it loses. But the term 'dumbed down' refers to bumping it down compared to its predecessor, the game that was just before it in line, which would be Carbon.. and no.. it's not dumbed down, compared to Carbon.. it's some of the best tuning an NFS game has offered to date. I'm quite happy. Room for improvement, of course, but people should try and remember how big of a leap Pro Street already IS, compared to what came before it and take that into consideration before making certain statements! Pro Street might not be GTR2, GTL or whatnot.. it doesn't pretend to be. It's an NFS game, for crying out loud! For what it is, it's already doing miracles! Let's not paint a kitten yellow and give it a fluffy mane and then throw it in the ring with the lions here, people..

[Argentum47]

You got it right Summ,i'm very angry when someone makes bad comments about Prostreet.Prostreet is really good and "Even the strongest chain has the weak point".

[Koenigsegg_Rox]

Unfortunately the "strongest chain" that has this supposed "weak point" is accuracy of the tuning. For one, I happen to know that having a front brake bias doesn't cause oversteer, it prevents it. And two, can the effects be a little more noticeable? In drag my Zonda was running 6.3 which wasn't quick enough for me and it was due to poor acceleration. I put the boost up, put all the gear ratios as short as I could go, increased power and jetting of NOS... Same problems, same times. WTF???

[Argentum47]

I don't have any ideas about turbo/supercharger boost setting.I try changing them but they seem not to have any effects...

[vellu]

The UG2 style tuning should return, atleast the ecu and turbo timing (and the graphs for them) if nothing else. PS's arbitraty low boost/high boost doesn't really tell you what the setting does. If you could actually see how the torque/hp@rpm curve changes we could really fine tune our rides.

[Summ]

Agreed there. I also acknowledge the fact that the tuning part in PS might be buggy and not reflect real life behaviour. My point was merely that I don't remember this many options in an NFS game before. Personally, I think the direction in which it's going is good.. give it some time and if they persist in it, they may actually even get it right..