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Bearhawk_Boy

Can You Drift 2wd As Well As 4wd?

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As part of the resto/clean up work on my RS500 Ive just ordered a really nice looking set of new wheels with drift tyres, I was wondering if anyone has had any success with drifting 2wd chassis.

All the Drift platforms are 4wd for obvious reasons but it the real world its 2wd for drifting, I imagin its not impossible just alittle harder than the 4wd.

Any views opions or even pic's/vid's would be great

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It's to do with grip. With a 4wd you can break traction on all four wheels easily, but on a 2wd it's harder at r/c scale to get the understeer/oversteer balance right.

You must know about 2wd drifting though - you have a BearHawk! Just get it on some loose gravel and Robert is mother's sister's husband.

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Yeah, on higher grip surfaces, a 2WD is more likely just to swap ends rather than drift. It's only really easy to drift a 2WD in a long drift if you are on a low grip surface.

- James

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In 1:1 real cars you can drift a 2wd - somewhat - but only when the car is a high horsepower rear wheel drive with very little weight over the rear axle and the full weight of the motor over the front axle.

Not so much with 1/10 scale R/C cars since the weight balance is completely different. Not that it can't be done - but it would just be terribly difficult to control.

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It is possible to drift with 2WD. FWD car drifts easily with some slippery tyres on the rear and grippier tyres on the front. RWD is harder to control. Little too much throttle and wheelspin and it swaps ends, not enough and you loose the drift. The RWD steering is different to FWD and AWD too, more opposite lock and the chassis needs a nice tight steering lock to keep the drifting rear in check.

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Your main problem with 2wd RC drifting is not being able to feel what the car is doing, getting early and accurate steering input and throttle control. 4wd allows you to pull you out of daft angle slides that you would never manage with a 2wd rc car.

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Its probably not the answer you are looking for but have a look at my post about gyros, these might help with drifting a RWD 1/10 car by doing some of the finer and more rapid steering work for you.

Duane.

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So basically the long and the short of it is just to sourch a 4wd platform :)

Thanks for all your imput and advice

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So basically the long and the short of it is just to sourch a 4wd platform ;)

Thanks for all your imput and advice

Well as some others pointed out, RWD drifting with an RC car is pretty hard. There are no RWD chassis' with the weight on the front (I have plans for making one though) and with a lot of weight on the rear, drifting doesn't go very well. If you finally have a chassis with a lot of weight on the front you can't just accelerate because it will have a huge amount of wheelspin. I tried a 50/50 weight layout on my M02M Mazda Miata by turning the main chassis around (battery on the front part of the chassis). It drives more scale, but the wheelspin is pretty bad already, even despite having the kit motor in it.

What also plays a role is the opposite lock which many drifting cars have. It's much larger than on many other cars. At the sharpest angles the power wants to push the car to the inside but the front wheels prevent it from happening, creating the controlled slide.

As a last thing, remember that drifters in 1:1 cars often use the handbrake to initiate a slide... Something 1:10 RC cars just don't have (although with the right setup on the ESC and braking/reversing the motor may lock the rear wheels altogether like a handbrake).

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Well Ive been looking at the HPi ready to run kit with the AE86 shell which comes in at a good price, I know the its not a same scope to expand the equipment as in kit based cars but for the amout Id use it, its looking pretty good.

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As a last thing, remember that drifters in 1:1 cars often use the handbrake to initiate a slide... Something 1:10 RC cars just don't have (although with the right setup on the ESC and braking/reversing the motor may lock the rear wheels altogether like a handbrake).

Fitting a one-way will effectively be only rear wheel brakes and RWD in reverse but 4WD in forward. One thing I noticed about the 'toy' Tomy RC drifters, they all had a standard one-way fitted.

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