Now that you have settled on the car that is to be converted into a drift car, you will have to start on the actual conversion process. There are various ways to start with and you can decide where you want to begin with. As a tutor, I will be guiding you to take the right path quickly so that you have some time to settle down.

People generally construe that for drifting you need lots of engine power to take complete control as you drift in a small place or a corner. I will guide you as a tutor to come out of this misconception.

You would require a twisted and an altered suspension so that it would be practically impossible to lose the control of your car when you are passing from the corner.

Now, that the point is clear, let us begin.

You need to write down the spares and components that you would need and most importantly, you need to abide by the list. Don’t buy unnecessary things such as shining knobs and steering wheels. What you need is components such as sway bars and polyurethane bushings. Surely, you want to convert the car in to a drift car and not some fashionable car, so you need to look for substance and not the appearance of the car.

Focus on the components that you would need to make the suspension powerful. If you take care of the suspension, your car will generate 150 horse power and will glide smoothly. Hence for a proper suspension you will need:

• New sturdy helmet
• Coil overs that can be adjusted
• Sway bars much bigger in size
• Stut bars
• LSD or limited slip differential
• Bushings made of Polyurethane
• Racing harnesses of 5/6 points as certified by SFI 16.1

These are the necessary components required to get you going. The total cost of all the components would sum up to $4000 to $5000.

Points to be remembered while looking out for components:

• Research thoroughly.
• You need to gather knowledge about the spares and the brands that make them.
• You will gather lots of information through forums, internet, try to get an insight about the advantages and disadvantages of the particular spares that you intend to buy.
• By spending some time on collecting information, you will save more in terms of money as well as time by not having to go through the unwanted items.

To summarize, you know the estimated expenses, you have decided upon the car, and you already have listed down the parts you would need. So, you will not deviate from the course and will remain focused on the path.

In the next tutorial, we shall discuss regarding tires and the combination of the rim.

The basic question that everyone has in mind while purchasing a car with radio control is that, which one of them can give the best speed? In case you need a car with radio control to travel greater distance, then you should opt for the car that runs on gas. The gas versions maintain the pace for greater span of time. Whether you are dragging the car or enduring it, Nitro cars will fetch good results.

The best of the racers pace their cars at maximum speeds of more than 70 miles an hour and maintain a scale of 1/8 on the road.

If you need a fast car, then, opt for Nitro 4-tec of the Traxxas or the TC3 Nitro of Team Associated. These cars can pace for more than 75 miles an hour.

As per the records certified by the Guinness World Records, in the year 2001, Cliff Lett achieved the top speed of 111 miles an hour by modifying RC10 L30.

You have to plan regarding the cars that sustain the most while racing, so as to facilitate ease and control while practicing drifts.

One of the vital parts of racing is drifting. The quickest drivers of the nitro cars have perfected this skill. So you need to master the art of drifting, if you want to be the best in the car race.

If you want to surpass the best car racers, you will need to make some alterations in your car. Given below are some of the tips that can enhance your career as a car racer:

• Your motor should be equipped with turns lesser than 12.
• Raise pinion gear of the motor
• The motor should be without brushes
• Batteries should be of superior quality.
• Select a car that has circular edges
• Tires should be the ones made especially for drifting.

Get a grip and control on your car and understand the basics of the radio controlled car better, before driving it at super speed and participating in drift race.

Minute alterations can increase the pace and you will understand these as you do more and more car races. You won’t get tailor made instructions in any of the car brands, but you may need it to enhance the career of radio controlled races. You ought to take care.

Keiichi Tsuchiya (土屋 圭市, Tsuchiya Keiichi, born January 30, 1956, Tomi, Nagano, Japan),
is the one responsible for popularizing drifting as a motor sport. In 1970s and 1980s,
he joined Japanese Formula Three Championship, Japanese Touring Car Championship and
had won most of the races.

Unlike many drivers who came on a traditional face via wealthy families or motorsport backgrounds,
he honed his skills from street racing becoming an underground legend. As Keiichi is not
as rich as his competitors , most of the time he raced with underpowered cars, and
he began experimenting with the side-brake or E-brake lever. Sliding the rear end of the car
out and counter-steering and self-taught the basis of car control and thus start the legend
of drifting. During many races on a downhill corner, he would drift the car and carry a better
corner speed than his competitors. This technique is what made him the Drift King not as most
believe that he was first in the drift scene. As he proved his style of driving his reputation grew.

Keiichi is also well known for Touge (mountain pass) driving. He drifted in all down-hill corners,
making it very spectacular to watch.

Though he is a professional racer, he still takes to the mountains for illegal racing this also made his reputation grow. After videos featuring him and his persistent mountain running/drifting, his driver’s license was suspended! For a professional racecar driver this was embarrassing. Unknowingly this worked to his advantage, his fan base and frame began to expand. You could say that he is a rebel of some sort or because he was just a person who went from nowhere to success out of determination with no racing background.

When our generation was kids, we used to fantasize about Star Trek, Star Wars and other television serials. However, most of us had no access to internet (as it was not as powerful as it is now) and therefore our exposures to all these adrenalin pumping shows were minimal. Today’s generation, where babies literally become more friendly with laptops before they actually learn to grab a pencil, remote controlled drifting has gained immense popularity and craze. In fact, not only youngsters, but also their parents are increasingly getting hooked to car drifting.

Channel feeder.com is the most organized website which focuses on RC car drifting. Various game shows are also aired on American television, which centre on the same topic. Amongst the popular cartoon channels, there is Nickelodeon and TNT which cater to full fledged car drifting topics.

Movies have a great influence behind increasing popularity of RC drifting. Almost all Hollywood science fiction movies (be it blockbusters like Star Wars and Cosmos) have great dependency on drifting. More often than not, the action packed motor chase sequences are filmed around RC car drifting.  Very recent example would be the last edition of Star Wars which had large sections of video footage from one of the leading amateur world RC drifting races.

Picture of a modern day nitro fueled RC drift sports vehicle

Television shows and movies have important roles to play behind increasing the popularity of this variety of sport. In fact, many of the world’s leading manufacturers of RC drifters (for example Leo Mattel) have dedicated television shows and game cartoon programs, which aim towards boosting popularity of RC car drifting. Because of these television shows, kids take interest in finding out what is new in the product horizon and eventually leads to higher sales figures for the toy manufacturers. Primarily RC car drifting is a technique which caters to the kids community and therefore manufacturers undertake to popularize their new product launches by way of making tailor made television serials.

More than television and/or movies, it is the internet which plays a bigger role in popularizing RC car drifters. Fully loaded websites, which carry wealth of information around car drifting, are accessed by today’s youngsters and adults alike. Look and feel wise, many of these websites create a stimulating environment that is; you can actually experience the thrill of participating in a Formula One car race, while surfing through these sites. This is brought about by advanced Java applets, providing high quality simulation effects.

The most drift influence title : Initial D. It held great resposiblity in skyrocket the popularity and introducing drifting to the world. From :Comic to Anime to Movie

Comic: Initial D

Anime: Project Initial D

Movie: Initial D the movie

Rc cars are remote controlled cars and when it is designed in a way that it can drift to perfection it is known as Rc car drifting. Drifting in other words is navigating your Rc car through curves and bends without letting it fall, instead of falling at the curve it is suppose to drift and carry on. Rc car drifting can become a reality only when its wheels are designed to perfection.

Apart from the powerful engine your Rc car would require the best and most sturdy wheels. It is the wheel of your Rc car that takes the brunt the most, it is prone to wear and tear. That is the reason why you should either select your tires very carefully or else you can make the tyres yourself, to your satisfaction and perfection.

There are many companies offering specially made and designed tyres for Rc drifting. All you need to do is do a little bit of research and ask those passionate Rc car drifters and you will very easily zero in on the tyre you need to buy for your Rc drifting car. You can also get your Rc car tyres from many other companies like sushi, tamiya, yokomo etc. These tyres are specially designed to stand the wear and tear that is part and parcel of Rc car drifting. They use latest technology available in the market and hence these tires will give you the desired result for your Rc car drifting.

Rubber Tyre are good enough for Rc drifting cars but a problem with them is they wear off very fast. You can protect your Tyre from wearing fast by applying insulation tape on the grooves of the Tyre. This protects the Tyre for a longer duration. You can also make your own Rc car wheels by getting yourself PVC or ABS pipes. You then cut it in a manner that it slides on to your rim. You can apply glue on one side of the wheel and this will give your Rc tyre the much-needed grip that is necessary for your Rc Cars, it give you the desired results as far as Rc car drifting is concerned.

Another type of tyre that is fast catching up on Rc car drifting circles is hard and sturdier tyres made of polyethylene. It provides more stability and allows a much firmer grip that allows you to be more competitive on Rc car drifting competition. Wear and tear is less in these types of tyres. If you make it by using cold technology, it will work even better for your Rc car.

What are you waiting for then, go ahead and start making your own Rc car tyre, to your perfection, specification and need. If you are passionate about Rc car drifting then this is the perfect recipe for you, as far as Rc car tyre making is concerned.

In Yokohama, which is the third biggest city of Japan, in the depth of an industrial zone, crowd of teenaged Japanese are cheering and shouting and the 350Z Nissan car drifts at the turn at forty five degree angle.

The smell and smoke of the burnt tires subsides, the gray road shows the criss cross tire marks clearly, which in other words proclaim the rage of the circuit.

This is the drifter’s world, which is a part of the Japanese culture. These youngsters get together to show off and check their talent in driving, display rods that got hot and burn tires.

The skill of cornering, where in, the frontal wheels of the car are pointed against the direction of the corner, thus making the car slant at the corner at nearly 90 degrees to the corner, so as to show the control over skid.

Skidding is being used since a very long time in different car racing like early on Grand Prix and rallying. The credit of making drifting popular goes to Keiichi Tsuchiya who was a young car racer in Japan.

Tsuchiya won many accolades and titles in motor sports in spite of the fact that his license to participate in racing was cancelled early on, in his career. In spite of this, he kept on taking part in the street race and made his drifts a legend.

Tsuchiya is respected the world over for his talent in drifting, even as he has stopped active participation in street sports as well as professional car racing events.

In the movie “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”, Tsuchiya was asked to perform a cameo as an honor for contributing in the drifting sport.

The Japanese have a craze for drifting and the DI Grand Prix is considered a major event. But the Japanese tradition of street skids has enchanted many car lovers globally and more so, by the video that captured the drifting moments that are being put up on the net by the drifters and their followers.

The loud, heroic and the unruly state of the street drifters have given birth to many comic characters in the books.

Keiichi Tsuchiya holds the post of editorial supervisor in “Initial D” that is based on Touge and drifting. Touge is spelled as Toe-gay which means to bypass, is used  as a style of racing, where  in the drivers use slim, circular mountain paths to check their driving talent as opposed to each other.

The action packed thriller “The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift” took the world by storm when it was released the world over. It had the perfect recipe of a successful movie with lots of stunts involving drifting, hot and coolest assortment of cars. No wonder, The Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift was a super hit movie.

Let us see what were the cars used in the movie Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift.

Through out the movie, we can see the altered cars. A few of them were the Japanese make drift cars that were modified to the fullest, where as a few of them were altered cars of the highest order.

At the beginning the movie shows sturdy American car models such as Viper. But later on, the movie takes you to the scenic beauty of Japan, where in you get you see the most amazing stunts done by the Japanese drift cars.

The most wonderful part of the movie was that in addition to star cast of the movie The Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, the cars played a vital role in the film.

The lead car in the movie, which left an unforgettable image was RxFD in black and orange which had the body kit of Veilside.

This was the main car in which they traveled and followed other cars as well as were being followed by the others. In the end, it was burnt to ruins.

Another car most used and played a villainous role was the Nissan 350Z black in color, which belonged to the nephew of the Don of the Japan, and the driver’s seat was taken by the girls. However, the car took a beat from Mustang car that was powered by RB26.

Another memorable car was the Mazda Rx8 with a combination of light blue and black color, which was driven by lead actress of the movie Nathalie Kelley, who played the role of a school girl. This car was though driven by girls, it didn’t look one bit a lady’s car. The car looked every bit a car for drifting.

If you are an ardent fan of altered Japanese cars and car drifting, then the movie The Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift movie is a must see movie for you.

Rookie racers of gas powered RC cars used to find it difficult to tune the engine. They won’t have any trouble in starting the engine yet at the end of the run, it was overheated. Once gained experience, they can tune the engine in less than 5 minutes. Adjusting the optimal settings of the car will also be easier.

The Idle Screw

It is always advisable to start with the idle screw. Adjustments must be made so that the car will idle high when we initially dial the engine. Once the temperature of the engine is set, we can adjust the idle slowly to a point where it stalls. After this, we must turn it to one-forth or one-half based on the temperature. When our car stalls often, it is better to increase the idle. While we rectify several other tuning issues, it increasing the idle is only a temperature fix. It will also help us to keep the frustration levels down.

Low-Speed Needle.

If our carburetor has two needles, confusion may occur as to which needle it should be adjusted first. If it has only one needle then it is not a problem as we have to make adjustments only on that. When such type of confusion occurs, low speed needle should be adjusted first because once it is set, high-speed needle can be easily changed. We must always make sure that we keep the low speed needle on the rich side. This helps to keep the combustion chamber cool. Once adjustments have been made in low-speed needle, we should not adjust it again. When the engine stalls, we can tell whether it should be richer or leaner in a matter of just 30 to 60 seconds. The RC car should not get stuck or flame out when we apply a full throttle. It should pull off quickly from a standing start.

Nitro drift car

High-Speed Needle.

Once the adjustments in low-speed needle are done, we should get the power out of RC engine. This is possible with high-speed needle as it adjusts the air to fuel mixture of the engine. This is done at a RPM of about 40% or more. To get the first clue about the tune, it is important to monitor the trail of the smoke. Irrespective of the RPM, we need to have lot of smoke coming out of the engine. If we get a very low amount of smoke, then it means we are running too lean.

Hints, Tips and Tricks

• To lean out, turn the needle clockwise and to richen the mixture, turn it in anti-clockwise direction.
• High smoke emitting from the engine implies our tune is rich.
• After a run, reading the glow plug will tell us about our tune.
• Turning the engine on the rich side will extend its life.
• Temperature, pressure of the air and humidity influences the tune. So different settings are required on different days.