- I'm Chris Forsberg, Formula Drift champion
and this is Drift Car Dynamics.
(upbeat music)
This is the day we've all been waiting for.
We've been putting in an incredible amount of hours
into this car, but now we are at the track
and we're getting ready to rip.
We've gone through the car to make sure everything
is tight and right, and we're ready for our first shakedown.
And then we'll start making our adjustments.
(engine revving) (upbeat music)
Now that we got through our first set of tires,
we're seeing a little too much wear on the inside.
So, what I wanna do is loosen up this strut
which is connected to the spindle
and I can actually add more positive camber
to get this tire to sit flatter on the ground
and this will give you more grip
and better, even tread wear.
And now on this car it's very easy to adjust
because we're actually doing it
from the strut to the spindle.
Some cars have camera plates up top.
Some you have to do from the bottom.
But, it's always best to adjust your camera
from as high as possible, so that you do not adjust
your track width at the same time.
Now, of course you can get on a fancy alignment machine
and dial in your camera down to the 1/10,
but when you get out to the track
if you have uneven tire wear,
it's best to just adjust it on the fly
to get that tire to wear nice and even.
(engine revving)
After a couple corners, the back end's feeling pretty loose.
What that means is that it rotates easily
and it doesn't have as much grip as I would like.
So, I'm actually gonna move this sway bar pick-up point
further down the arm to have more leverage on the sway bar
which actually gives less overall control
between the left and right wheel to let the backend sway,
dig in to the corner and get more grip.
The other thing I notice about this chassis
is that it has a very heavy steering feel.
So, what I'm gonna do is lengthen my tension rod
which will move this wheel forward adding negative caster
which will give more steering feedback
through the steering wheel.
And that's gonna help with the transitions
through the corners while it drifts.
Caster might be one of the most difficult
alignment settings to explain.
And it is very much like a shopping cart caster
in which it has self truing properties to keep the wheels
pointing straight under load.
And so when you adjust your caster, you're actually
changing this pivot point forward and back.
The more vertical it is, the more the car wants to
wander and track around.
And the more negative it is, it actually wants to pull
the wheel straight as you're coming out of a corner.
So that's very beneficial in drifting because as you
come around a corner to the right, you want to crank
it back to the left.
You actually let go of the wheel and let it counter steer
itself and get back set in to place.
And lastly, you always want to end with setting your tow
because after you adjust your camera and your caster
you're gonna have your wheels pointed a little bit
differently than before.
So, you wanna put those plates on
and get those things trued up straight.
While the car is in the air, you wanna bust these
jam nuts loose on your tow rods because you wanna do
all of your tow settings on the ground and these might
be a little hard to reach.
A set of tow plates is one of the most important tools
for any driver's toolbox.
Because it is the most important alignment on your car.
When ever you go off track or bump in to another car
or even wanna make driving adjustments,
you breakout your tow plates,
make sure your wheels are pointed nice and straight
and you can always adjust from there.
Front tow is actually one of the adjustments
that is very driver dependent.
Some drivers like it to be nice and neutral
and have a little easier steering.
Other drivers like a little bit of tow-out
which helps with quicker turn in
and when you're going around a corner.
As for the rear, it's a little bit more defined.
Especially in drifting because tow-in will actually give you
more drive and more control on the throttle
through a corner whereas tow-out
will help actually with the car's rotation
and hold the back end out on throttle,
making it easier to drift.
For my cars I do a little tow-out in the front
for a quicker steering in to the corners
and a little bit more control.
And for the rear, a little bit of tow-in
so that I have control on the throttle
to keep the car going nice and fast.
(engine revving)
Aww man, this thing feels great.
If you have any questions on your set up,
leave em in the comments below.
(engine revving) (upbeat music)