Nissan 200SX Club - South Africa

howzit to okes who're using there sx's to drift.. please post your prefered suspension setups i.e.. camber f/r. damper, Coilovers, caster . toe. etc etc....

Off a american drift site.....

FRONT

Toe out 5mm
Castor 7 degrees
Camber 3.2 degrees

REAR

4mm toe in
Traction rod adjusted in 4mm
0.8 degree camber
Pineapples set to maximum grip

Hi guy's.
Okay, I have to admit, that I'm a better drifter than I am a tech head.

One thing I can say, before you even start warring about camber caster toe in or out, is to get your ride stif, first and abouve all.

Try and lower your car as much as you can, just so that your wheel still clear all the importand bits, (NOT VDUBBN STYLE!! )

Some stiffer springs with a 40mm-60MM drop front and back, would work well enaugh if you dont have the moola to spend on Coilovers adjustable suspention.

Also look at getting poly bushes for your suspention front & back, trust me, That makes a big differance, especialy if you combine stiffer springs with the pushes, your bodyroll is basicly non excisting.

You can even look for some Strut braces from shock tower to shock tower, front and back.

If you combine all these options, your car will look the business, and you will be able to slide your car with allot more confidace, and acuracy.

If you have got the money, or already have coilovers, then you one step ahead already, but remember, if not set up correctly, you might as well be using stock shocks....

Try to make the damping in the front a bit harder, due to the fact that you still have a heavy engine in there, and you dont want ant understeer, that is the worst thing ever in drifting.

Because I say make it harder in the front, is because one normaly strips out the car in the back, to safe some weight, so therefore, you going to loose traction allot easier, and you dont realy want that.

Hope you not confused now...,

Yes, you want to break tracktion quickly at the back, but remember, rear tracktion is the only thing keeping you away from the big bad wall.
So set up your rear suspention hard at the back, but give some for tracktion while your drifting.

Trust me, this is not a easy 1H00 jobby, it will take you for ever, and everytime you change something els on your car, you going to start all over again, but once you have your sweet spot settings, it is easy just to make small changes.

Try keep the camber in front between -2` and-3`, no more, and at the back, you want 0`, this wil give you the most surface contact on the rear tyres, and it will also prolong your tire life.

Toe in and out - I wil put a small amount of toe out in front bt not much, bt nothing in the rear.

Caster, I wouldnt even touch it, leave it as standard as possible, not joking, but the difference is so little, you have to be so good at drifting, and be drifting for a long time againts big pros, to even notice a differance there, so do it if you want, try do the basic stuff first, you going to gain way more from that as these other vancy settings.


Well, all the views I placed here, is purely my own, and dont hold it as the gospel, it change from person to person, and car to car, but its a fairly accurate starting guidline.

Hope this help, and sorry for the small book puplication.

shot for the write up, cant wait for the sequel

Just something to say here, take it or leave it, but you should check what kind of dorifto you are about to do, The specs you gave on american drift site looks to be like high speed drifting or feint drifting as DK calls it. The toe out in front and toe in at the back gives you more angle for the drift thus makes it easier to control in high speed corners.

The reason for running more negative camber front and rear is for lateral or "cornering" grip, remember when you enter a corner the weight pushes over and the wheel sits at an angle, therefore with negative camber the wheel has more contact to the road.

They use a lot more negative camber infront to ensure high grip mid corner, and running neutral camber at the rear ensures that the back loses traction in a jiffy. Some guys like to run positive camber in the rear, I use to do that for a while but it scares the living crap out of you, driving 80 on the N1 in the rain and countersteering is not fun. It tends to drift by itself then.

My setup is as follows:

Coilovers low...really low. Dropped it 2,5 inches.

Front:
Castor: 6.5 deg
Camber: -1 Deg
Toe: 0
Dampening: Just enough to keep the front tires in contact with the road at all times, but still stiff and hard, like to feel every bump in the road.

Rear:
Camber: -2 Deg(Daily drive) 0 Deg(drift day)
Toe: 0
Dampening: Constantly changing it to suit the road, want to tyres to be in contact with the road at all times.

HICAS bar as tight and stiff as possible. All strut braces as stiff as possible.

Hope that helps you.

Some good info here thx guys!

HancoB wrote:...and running neutral camber at the rear ensures that the back loses traction in a jiffy.

This is the only part that I don't get. Isn't the 0deg camber not for making the car lose traction but rather to ensure maximum grip in a slide? Coz, my thinking is that once the car starts to slide the suspension unloads and rear outside tyre isn't being pressed into the road as much anymore. Therefore close to 0deg camber would give the most grip?

Just asking coz thats how I've always thought of it. Maybe charel could clear this up for me?

nope more neg camber will give more grip when the cars weight shits onto that wheel making more of the tyre touch the road.

rat wrote:nope more neg camber will give more grip when the cars weight shits onto that wheel making more of the tyre touch the road.

Correct there,

Thats why more positive Camber or neutral will result in less contact and more smoke, hehe

... shot guys.. keep it coming

Hanco.. 0 toe "front" and back? i take it you've tried diferent toe settings, 0 toe on the front is new to me?

middle one is what i am talking about

DriftZ wrote:... shot guys.. keep it coming

Hanco.. 0 toe "front" and back? i take it you've tried diferent toe settings, 0 toe on the front is new to me?

Jip running 0 toe front and back.

Reason for this is it leaves the car neutral.

The s13 has natural understeer weather we like it or not, so changing the toe would change the way you have to drift and change your way of losing traction. Usually in the "standard" s13 setup you would either e-brake or shiftlock to initiate the drift coz of the natural understeer, also controling the angle would be done by e-braking it.

The s14 is much better to drift with since the balance is better and has less understeer. therefore changing the toe on the s14 will result in more angle in the drift and more control at high speed corners.

The nice thing about my setup is that I have adjustable arms, so going from track day to drift meeting is two turns away, just click click and I'm on 0 camber, and then click click again and I'm on negative for the track day. That makes it so much more fun.

By the way, do yourself a HUGE favour and get the Drift Bible, you learn more by watching that DVD than listening to me, hehe

You guys have miss what i am trying to say. I know how camber works when u have grip my thinking is that when u don't have grip ie. in the middle of a drift with 0deg camber you would actually have more grip as when the car loses traction the suspension unloades nullifying the effect neg camber would have. Grip is maximized as as the rear of the car sits flatter coz the suspension is unloaded. I think thats why guys run 0deg camber its for more grip in a slide not for losing grip.

Does my thinking make sence?

Trance101 wrote:You guys have miss what i am trying to say. I know how camber works when u have grip my thinking is that when u don't have grip ie. in the middle of a drift with 0deg camber you would actually have more grip as when the car loses traction the suspension unloades nullifying the effect neg camber would have. Grip is maximized as as the rear of the car sits flatter coz the suspension is unloaded. I think thats why guys run 0deg camber its for more grip in a slide not for losing grip.

Does my thinking make sence?

Semi true yes...

But thats where the amount of toe starts playing along and the front setup.

Once the rear lost traction you try to keep control in the tractionless state, once it grips its chirps back and thats usually when most guys crash or over correct and over counter.

I can feel it in my current setup, running 235/45 tires at the back, it bites back mid corner and that scares the crap out of you, on my 215/40 they never used to bite back and would skid through the whole corner until I corrected it. Thats why too much grip and not enough power is dangerous for drifting.

Go try it you will see the difference.

My 10c worth is try first with stock setup.this will give you a good understanding and base to work off when you start changing springs etc...
this way when you start modifying you will know when you are making progress or going in the wrong direction.

P.s. when effecting changes whether it be camber, etc or big mods like coil overs do one at a time so that if something does not work as well as it did before, its not a witch hunt to figure out the problem.

for instance if you change camber and it improves you can keep going till you find the sweet spot (or visa versa) on that setting. however if you go and change camber caster and toe and it does not work then which setting went wrong.... its a guess.

Most importantly Have fun!!!

Slide is correct. Then from the standard specs you can go change.

Issue 89 of the SnS Driftzone has a fairly in depth look at setting up a suspension for drifting (or racing). pg110

Hopefully it can help you make an educated guess when setting up the suspension.