Battle Magazine — March 1997

My name is Tsutsui, and I am always thinking about spreading F-dori throughout Japan. In 1994 I formed a team dedicated to front-wheel-drive drifting, and every weekend we tear around the mountain passes at night. Here in Takamatsu, Shikoku, as elsewhere, open cars and four-door sedans are attracting attention. But I think front-wheel-drive drifting deserves attention too. I used to focus on grip driving, but now I am completely hooked on drift driving and having a great time.

I have moved through several cars; the current setup has an early GT-Z engine with a pulley kit, F-Con, exhaust manifold, muffler, and air cleaner. It has an LSD, strengthened clutch, reinforced drive shafts, and a quick shifter. Suspension: adjustable coilovers with pillow-ball mounts (F 8 kg / R 9 kg). The front brakes use GT-Z calipers and the rear MR2 calipers. I have tried various pads…

…and around 200 tires on hand. This is my sixth engine; I have broken more than ten drive shafts and over 50 hub bolts. For about a year I went to the mountain passes almost every day to grip-drive. Maybe because of that, I came to think that a slow car looks uncool, no matter how flashy it is. I started practicing drift not because of spectacular FR slides but from the traction-off technique unique to FF. I asked not “How do I get the rear to step out?” but “How can I change the angle at speed?” Drifting without an effective handbrake is difficult, but I learned that the handbrake is only a way to initiate a slide, not a tool for holding its angle. Just locking the rear and dragging it around with the front is wrong. As you improve, you can use the handbrake briefly when you cannot reach the clipping point in your drift posture or want more distance. It is ideal if you can avoid locking the rear and make the motion look like an inertia drift. I think F-dori is about how quickly and how fast you can use inertia to make the rear slide. The handbrake is the surest way to make the rear step out on either FF or FR, but FF has the special advantage that you can use it while the clutch stays engaged and the throttle is on. With practice, you can even accelerate while holding the handbrake—something FR cannot do. For me, skill means maintaining the drift by inertia from entry through exit.

The same applies if you want more distance or cannot quite reach the clipping point in your drift posture: use the handbrake momentarily. If you can keep the rear from locking and make it look like an inertia slide, even better. F-dori is about getting the rear to slide as quickly as possible using inertia. Of course, the handbrake is the most reliable way to make the rear step out in both FF and FR. But FF has the special advantage that you can pull the handbrake with the clutch engaged and throttle on. With practice, you can even accelerate while holding it—something FR cannot do. My measure of skill is whether I can keep the drift going by inertia from entry through the exit.

…and I think that principle is the same for FF and FR. People often think countersteering is more critical in an FR drift, but that is a major misconception. In F-dori, too much countersteer immediately costs speed. Think it through: in FR you can change the angle with the throttle and rear traction, but that is impossible in FF. The smaller the countersteer angle, the faster the drift; that goes without saying. In FF, countersteer angle and speed are more closely linked, so F-dori keeps you busy making small countersteer corrections.

In FF, front-wheel traction is crucial both for grip driving and drifting. A car that does not seem to understeer feels stable and easy to handle, so it is easy to mistake that for speed—but grip and speed are not the same thing. The fastest way around a corner is to stay at the boundary between neutral steering and understeer. Tires consume power as surely as vehicle weight does. The same is true in a drift: you can feel understeer and still maintain the slide. That is ideal. Being able to drift without countersteer means you are definitely improving. If you are always drifting with the throttle wide open, try reducing front grip…