Drifting A Vx220

I have just watched an old Top Gear episode with three Japanese car drifters trying to show the Hamster how to drift a Vauxhall VXR (400 bhp) around a track.  They made it look so easy but he was quite simply rubbish. Then I had an out of body experience and thought has anybody ever tried to drift a VX220.

The tell me its dead easy on a wet winter road corner but you usually end up in a ditch. There has  got to be a You Tube video of some nutter trying it.

"drifting" as in the shitty NOT motorsport, or do you mean just hooning about sideways lots and being super cool?

if its the latter, I found that the Lotus 340R road geo settings and reasonable tyres meant for a very controllably slidey car which was a giggle

For camp drifting, then you may aswell weld the diff up and go

swap front and rear wheels round

LSD is your friend. Without it, good chance you will end in a hedge. There us a video of someone doing doughnuts in the snow. They had a LSD fitted.

 
With enough LSD you don't even need a car 

 

LSD is your friend. Without it, good chance you will end in a hedge. There us a video of someone doing doughnuts in the snow. They had a LSD fitted.

 
With enough LSD you don't even need a car 

 

Should I admit I can vouch for that?

I did a Caterham drifting thing with Bookatrack in December. Even in a car like a Caterham which is very evenly balanced between front and rear axles it requires incredibly delicate throttle control to maintain a drift without spinning (it was a very wet day). I imagine this is even more true with a VX. It took me a good hour in the seat to be able to control and start linking drifts together in a massive car park with plenty of run off and nothing to hit but cones. I wouldn't try drifting a VX without a good bit of practice in a very safe environment.

I can wiggle the back end on a roundabout but rapidly suffer from Bravery Deficit Disorder compounded by its co-morbid condition Lack of Talent Spectrum Disorder. Still in the dry you can give an NA a boot load out of a junction and it's generally very forgiving and predictable. Not sure I'd be so confident with a tubby or highly tuned version. 

I´m trying to reduce the rear end weight because I want to be less suprised by the rear end.

Also if you have the right tire and a not so wide rear tire it will also be simpler.

Anyway I was at a cone track day last year when it was a little dump condition

and then I could get a controlled rear end slip, but this was also due to the lower speed.

Much harder to do in a fast conerering.

power sliding lol 

Edited by chris_uk, 05 February 2019 - 07:15 PM.

Read somewhere that Lotus increased the max steering angle on the V6, as the "natural drift angle" was more than the standard rack could reach. Think they only used shorter steering arms for that (gives more angle and a quicker rack), so a pair of those new adjustable Spitfire steering arms should do the trick.

Found the article:

http://www.carmagazi...-s-2012-review/

The interesting parts:

What are the key changes under the skin of the 2012 Exige S?

There’s a faster steering rack, dropping the ratio from 18.5:1 to 17.25:1. The rack isn’t new, the ratio change instead coming from a shorter effective lever ratio. Combined with a wider front track, this has also created more steering lock, making it easier to hold powerslides. Now, this sounds childish, but it’s actually very important, because the old car ran out of steering angle perilously close to the point at which you naturally balanced the car during a slide, namely 32 degrees. This now rises to 35 degrees, reducing the potential of hitting the lockstops and thereby reducing the risk of the car spinning. You can genuinely feel the flexibility this brings when you play around on a racetrack.

There’s also a wider rear track, an entirely new rear subframe, plus revised springs and dampers all round. Meanwhile, Lotus has built an anti-squat angle into the suspension wishbone, helping to prevent, yes, squat under acceleration, and the lateral stiffness of the rear of the Exige increases by 100%, ensuring the car rolls along its centre-line through corners, where the old Exige could roll diagonally as the structure flexed. All this creates a virtuous circle. ‘Previously all the roll control was done by the springs and dampers,’ says chassis guru Matt Becker, ‘so they were stiffer than we’d have liked. And the extra lateral stiffness has allowed us to introduce an anti-roll bar. The old car wouldn’t have coped with the faster steering and the anti-roll bar – the rear axle would have always given up first.’

Read somewhere that Lotus increased the max steering angle on the V6, as the "natural drift angle" was more than the standard rack could reach. Think they only used shorter steering arms for that (gives more angle and a quicker rack), so a pair of those new adjustable Spitfire steering arms should do the trick.

That they would!

And you could sort the bump steer out at the same time  

Edited by Spitfire Engineering, 06 February 2019 - 12:29 PM.

Is that in an NA?

My tubby gave me a brown pants moment just going onto a dual carridgeway the other morning. Pretty gentle accel in 3rd gear and just stuck the back to the side....  . Can't imagine actually trying to drive it fast intentionally in the wet haha.

Is that in an NA?

My tubby gave me a brown pants moment just going onto a dual carridgeway the other morning. Pretty gentle accel in 3rd gear and just stuck the back to the side....  . Can't imagine actually trying to drive it fast intentionally in the wet haha.

Yes its a very old video of mine when it was n/a here are some newer vids with faster skids.....

My mate following me in his N/A exige short box + diff