Adjusting your car for drifting [UPD July 2021] – Steam Solo (2024)

Overview

This guide should help you to correctly adjust your car for the best performance.

§ INTRODUCTION

Greetings!

I don’t have an engineering degree, all the recommendations provided in this guide are based on the information/feelings I have collected and are subjective as such.

Along this guide I will also provide my settings for Spector RS (S15) that I found good both for drifting with my FFB wheel and keyboard.

§ SUSPENSION SECTION

In this section you will find the adjustments for the following components:

• Spring length
• Spring stiffness
• Damper: slow bump and rebound
• Damper: fast bump and rebound
• Toe
• Camber
• Anti-roll bar
• Caster
• Ackerman angle
• Max. steering angle

Spring length

The spring size determines how low your car is. Generally lower stance allows for better car control because of the lower center of gravity.

You should avoid the extremely low settings though as you’d risk bottoming out the car. Basically with very low settings you will lose control on curbs and bumps.

The front springs should be higher than the rear ones, this is useful when you enter a drift while braking, so your rear end doesn’t lose that much traction because of weight transfer.

Spring stiffness

The spring stiffness allows you to control how reactive the suspension will be.

Higher values (stiffer springs) mean very fast response but high chance of losing the car at the same time, this is because you need to be much more precise with your inputs.
Lower values will make suspension’s response smoother and more forgiving.
Usually you want to make the front suspension stiffer and the back softer.

⚠️ If your car understeers, make the front suspension stiffer and/or the rear one softer.
⚠️ If your car oversteers, make the front suspension softer and/or the rear one stiffer.

Damper: slow bump and rebound

“Slow” defines weight transfers from driver’s input. This includes braking, accelerating, drifting, making transitions and so on.

Bump determines how much resistance is applied on suspension’s compression.
Rebound determines how much resistance is applied on suspension’s decompression.
Higher values mean more resistance, slower reaction.
Lower values mean less resistance and faster reaction.
Extremely high values will not allow suspension to compress leading to a traction loss.
Extremely low values will provide the same effect as above, the car body will simply fall down, losing traction.

Generally, you want to find a sweet spot in which the car reacts fast enough to be controllable and smooth. Wrong setup will make it janky and unpredictable.

Adjust these parameters according to your spring stiffness settings. You also want your bump settings to be lower (faster reaction) than your rebound (slower reaction).

⚠️ If the body weight transfer is too fast and results in grip loss, increase the overall stiffness.
⚠️ If you lose grip because of a very slow weight transfer, decrease the overall stiffness.
⚠️ If you want an easier drift initiation, use higher settings on the front and/or lower settings on the rear.

Damper: fast bump and rebound

The working principle is the same as for the “slow” parameters. The difference is that “fast” parameters work mainly for fast weight transfers, like hitting road bumps and other imperfections.

⚠️ If you drive on bumpy tracks, decrease the overall stiffness.
⚠️ If you find your car jumping around bumps too often, increase the overall resistance.
⚠️ If you find your car losing drift because of a bump or jump, decrease the front settings and/or increase the rear ones.

Toe

Toe is the adjustment of the wheels according to the longitudinal axis of the vehicles. Negative toe means that the wheels are facing “outside” hence why it’s called toe-out, the positive one gives the opposite effect, thus the wheels are facing “inside”, alternatively called toe-in.

For front wheels I would recommend to use a negative setting, as it may help you with transitions between corners and increases the maximum steering angle.
A slight toe-in on rear wheels can be beneficial to gain grip and to push the car a bit forward when applying gas.

Camber

The camber settings will help you to balance your car while in drift.

The less camber you have the more traction you have on a straight line and less traction while drifting. Meanwhile, in drifting, negative camber on front wheels can add traction. It is possible thanks to weight transfer. Usually the front camber should be more negative than the rear.

For the rear either stick with 0 or slightly positive camber, because the car will lower itself under power and that slightly positive value will make a perfect zero for the best traction.

⚠️ If your car understeers, decrease front camber and/or put rear camber slightly positive or to 0.
⚠️ If your car oversteers, increase front camber and/or increase camber on the rear.

Anti-roll bar

The anti-roll bar makes suspension stiffer.

Increasing front anti-roll bar will produce more understeer, which is not really what you’re looking for, so keep it rather low.

Increasing rear anti-roll bar helps to increase oversteer and thus initiate drift, but also makes transitions less smooth and can potentially lead your car to spin out.

Caster

The caster angle helps to stabilize your car.

The more is the caster angle, the faster the steering wheel will return in its neutral position or even start going in the opposite direction, which is helpful for transitions.

Ackerman angle

This setting is a personal preference.

• 0% is the maximum positive Ackerman setting (standard);
• 100% is the parallel Ackerman setting (zero);

Generally you want settings between 50% and 80% for speed. However, bear in mind, that with higher values you increase your chance of losing the car as it gets harder to hold a high-angle drift. Lower values give you a feeling of smoothness, but are actually making you slower through corners.
I would recommend starting from 20-30% are and gradually increase the % as you get confident with driving and settings.

Max. steering angle

A very easy and straightforward setting, just put it all the way up if you haven’t done so yet!

§ WHEELS SECTION

In this section you will find the adjustments for the following components:

• Rim diameter
• Tyre width
• Tyre pressure
• Wheel adhesion
• Track width
• Tyre profile

Rim diameter

The bigger is the wheel, the harder it is to spin it.

⚠️ If you want an easier drift initiation, use lower rim diameters.

Tyre width

The more the tyre width, the more traction you get from that tyre. Also bear in mind, that as with the rim diameter, wider wheel weights more and is harder to spin.

⚠️ If your car understeers, decrease width on front and/or increase it on rear.
⚠️ If your car oversteers, increase width on front and/or decrease it on rear.

Tyre pressure

Tyre pressure determines how big is the contact patch (the amount of grip).

Higher pressure values make the contact patch smaller (the tyre touches less of pavement), lower pressure allows for more grip.

Assuming CarX doesn’t simulate tyres’ temperature, do not account for the heating of the rear tyres when adjusting this parameter.

⚠️ If your car understeers, increase front tyres’ pressure and/or decrease the rear tyres’ one.
⚠️ If your car oversteers, decrease front tyres’ pressure and/or increase the rear tyres’ one.

Wheel adhesion

A very easy setting to understand, the more adhesion a tyre has with the pavement, the more grip and speed you get from it.

It is possible to present adhesion parameter as following:

• 90% – Vintage (old) tyres;
• 100% – Steet tyres;
• 110% – Semi-slicks;
• 120% – Slicks.

⚠️ If your car understeers, decrease front tyres’ adhesion and/or increase rear tyres’ adhesion.
⚠️ If your car oversteers, increase front tyres’ adhesion and/or decrease rear tyres’ adhesion.

Track width

Track width allow for lower center of gravity and better control.

Usually drift cars have a wider front track for a better control during drifting.

Tyre profile

The smaller the tyre profile is, the more you get control over your car and the more grip there is overall.

Bear in mind, that a very low profile may yield unpredictable results, as there simply won’t be enough tyre wall to absorb car movements.

§ ENGINE SECTION

In this section you will find the adjustments for the following components:

• Tune-up
• Max. torque
• Rev limiter
• Turbocharger
• Turbocharger air pressure

Tune-up

Basically an ECU tuning, the more the better.

Max. torque

You do not want to put it very high, because the faster you have the maximum torque, the better. Very low settings though won’t allow you to squeeze all the power so you’ll need to raise the rpms.

Watch carefully for the data provided on the graph, you want the settings that yield you the faster acceleration numbers.

Rev limiter

Adjust it according to the graph provided in the game, there’s usually no need to go beyond the point of maximum power output.

Turbocharger

A part that allows you to suck in more air into the engine, increasing the efficiency of the burning process and thus increasing power output.

While mandatory on some low powered cars, high tier cars may drift well without it. I personally believe there is such thing as too much power.

Adjust it to your preference.

Turbo air pressure

This setting adjusts the efficiency of turbocharger, bigger values give you more power.

§ TRANSMISSION SECTION

In this section you will find the adjustments for the following components:

• Diff. locking ratio
• Final drive
• Gears

Diff. locking ratio

Adjustable limited-slip differential.

• 0% is an open differential, which means that both of rear wheels are rotating independently.
• 100% is a completely locked differential, both of rear wheels are rotating at the same speed.

⚠️ The more the differential is locked, the easier it is to initiate drift.

Final drive

The final drive adjusts the overall length of all gears, without altering the ratios of every gear individually.

Bigger values mean shorter gears, lower values mean longer gears.

Typically this is adjusted according to the track layout, tracks with a lot of tight turns would need shorter gears for faster power output, while long configurations with high-speed sections would require longer gears. In the end you’ll want to find a sweet spot that would suite the majority of tracks.

Gears

The individual adjustment of every gear’s ratio.

Bigger values mean shorter gear, smaller values mean longer gears.

This setting is useful if you find yourself switching gears on corners where it’s not really needed.

§ BRAKES SECTION

In this section you will find the adjustments for the following components:

• Brake torque
• Front brake bias
• ABS
• Launch control

Brake torque

The force applied to brakes, the bigger it is, the faster the car will stop.

More brake torque also can ease the wheel lockup if you do not use ABS and adjust a particular braking bias.

Adjust it to your liking.

Front brake bias

This setting tells the car where to apply the braking force.

More front brake bias will mean that the front wheels will do more to stop the car, than the rear wheels. Too much front bias can make car understeer when entering a corner. More rear bias (lower settings) will make initiating drift easier.
Very low settings, though, are not desirable, since they can make a car unstable when braking.

⚠️ If you want your car to straighten from drift on pedal braking, make a choice towards rear bias.
⚠️ If you want your car to remain sideways on braking, then adjust more braking to the front.

ABS

This settings helps you prevent locking the wheels when braking.

Disabling it in couple with rear braking bias will allow you to initiate drift with pedal braking (provided rear wheels will lock).
With the front bias, locking front wheels will lead to a massive understeer and missing a corner entry point.

Launch control

This setting is used in tandems mode. It allows you to have a clean start without too much wheelspin.

Additional information

Make sure to check my other guide about adjusting cars for Time Attack mode:
[link]
Thank you for your attention.