Non-Assisted Drift 2024

Non-Assisted Drift 2024

by Steve Fujita on Jan 17, 2025 Categories: REVIEW/TECH/HOW-TO

Non-Assisted Drift 2024

January 17, 2025

I know, I know, this again?!!! Yes, this again. I’ve gone down this path a few times and each time I have stopped, NOT because I felt it was impossible, but for outside reasons. 

The first time around I was relying heavily on my Dual-Servo setup, and an update on my transmitter disabled the ability to adjust one of the servos correctly. I firmly believe had this not happened, this would be a completely different time in the hobby. Maybe not, but I actually believe so.

The second time, I was getting close without the use of Dual-Servos. This time I had to decide between getting laps with our visitors, or working on Non-Assisted Drift. I chose getting laps with our visitors and put Non-Assisted Drift to the side once again. I never lost faith in it, but it was too different to jump between Non-Assisted and Gyro Drifting. I had not quite figured out why at that time.

As I started down this path again this year, I briefly looked over my notes from my previous Non-Assisted Drifting from 2021. I had intended to pick up where I left off, but I quickly found out this time around is very different. So this will be a new beginning. Everything in the past has lead me to where I’m at now, but I feel this time around is different enough that I should start over on my thoughts. I will say, I GOT IT!

Why We NEED A Gyro

Every time I go down this path, there are people dead set on explaining why it’s not possible:

  • Your brain cannot react fast enough to catch the car
  • You cannot react fast enough to catch the car when it’s going to spin
  • The Gyro simulates the natural tendency to return to center when you let go of the wheel
  • The Gyro senses when the car is breaking traction since you’re not in the car
  • The latency in the remote is too much, I real car is instant

When I would hear all this, I would keep going back to the fact that anyone racing Off-Road is basically drifting. They don’t need a Gyro to do this. So what’s the difference? The difference is Off-Road is Drifting at LOW Angle, and we are after Drifting at HIGH Angle and usually at the limit of spinning. So one needs a Gyro and one does not? It’s never made sense to me. The control should be the same, but just more precise for Drift since we are at the limits often, not to mention with far less traction. So the margin of error is significantly smaller than with Off-Road.

So I know I have said this before, but what never sat right with me was when I very first started RWD Drifting, coming from CS (Where the rear wheels are driven faster than the fronts) was how the control seemed backward. Once you get used to Gyro Drift, the controls for CS work backward. The key point, once you get used to Gyro Drift, driving a car without a gyro feels backward.

Remember the first time you tried RWD Gyro Drift, you instinctively counter-steered. You did this because your brain knows this is the correct thing to do to catch the car when it’s starting to spin. Either someone then told you, or you had to learn to “Let the Gyro do its thing, don’t try to catch it.” That was the pivotal moment when you started down the path away from Non-Assisted and made a beeline straight to Gyro Drift.

The reality is, CS was a lot closer to real drifting than Gyro Drifting. The Gyro has programmed our brains to not counter-steer to catch the car. I know many will feel I’m wrong in this, but trust me, that is the biggest thing to over come and I will explain as we dive deeper into this.

So What Does The Gyro Do Then?

The role of the Gyro is to keep your car from spinning.

That’s it!!! It’s a little more complicated than that, but essentially that is it.

A more thorough explanation is the Gyro adjusts the angle of the front wheels to prevent loss of control. It electronically senses the movement of the car and quickly reacts by adjusting the steering to maintain the current attitude of your car based off your current input on the steering. In short, your input dictates the direction the car is going, the Gyro keeps you from spinning / losing control by making steering adjustments independent of your steering input.

So that’s it? Not exactly.

Enter Throttle Input

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone talk about Steering with your throttle. There was a lot of that back in the CS days, but recently not so much. It’s just a given that’s how you drive.

When I first started Gyro Drifting many years ago, I was shocked the Gyro only controlled the steering and not the throttle. Throughout the years, I have come across a lot of people who believed the same before getting into it. I get their thinking since I was one of them, and getting rid of the Gyro immediately will show you why some think this way.

Throttle input is DIRECTLY LINKED to the angle of your car, both adding and reducing angle with the throttle, or steering with your throttle.

It’s All About Balance

With Gyro Drifting, you control the direction you want to go and you can get crazy with the throttle. The Gyro will keep things under control. In other words, you control the direction you want the car to go, and you control how much throttle you want to give. This is all you. The Gyro adjusts the steering to maintain balance with what the throttle is affecting.

Non-Assisted Drifting, you are in control of not only dictating the direction of the car, but also keeping it from spinning by balancing your steering angle AND throttle input. More throttle means you need to counter-steer more. Less throttle means you need to reduce your counter-steer. This all needs to take place while also adjusting the direction you want to go which can be done by adjusting throttle and or steering input.

That Out of Corner Snap - The hardest part to overcome

This was the hardest part, and I feel was the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Once I was able to grasp what was happening here, everything fell into place and my progress was visually apparent as the laps racked up.

When I would be exiting a turn coming onto a straight, I would find often times the front end would snap hard in the opposite direction. It seemed very unnatural and I had experienced this in the past and never wrapped my head around it. This time I was determined to figure it out, cause this was the one area that I just could not understand what was causing this. It would also happen while I was in a turn, but it was not as violent. 

It is a simple concept, but one that will take awhile to over come since this is a part of Gyro Drift that you will never experience. The Gyro handles this 100%, and is probably the most complicated to understand. 

When you are in drift, the rear tires are spinning (breaking traction) and the fronts are counter-steering at a pretty high angle. 

As you enter the straight Gyro Drifting, you let off the throttle and steer in the direction you want to go. This is usually lessening your counter-steer SLIGHTLY. It is at this very point the Gyro is doing its most work. As the car starts to straighten out and you ease off the throttle, the front wheels need to straighten out to almost straight ahead. This happens instantaneously. Since the Gyro keeps the balance between the throttle and steering, you don’t even notice this is happening. 

With Non-Assisted Drift, if you are still holding your counter-steer for even split second too long (you are probably close to full lock when you lessen the throttle). This gives the rear tires time to grip up while you are at almost full lock. The rear tires now become a pivot point for the car. With your wheels at almost full lock, the front end will track where your front wheels are pointed, which will quickly snap the front end from the inside of the track to the outside in the blink of an eye.

The way to over-come this is to unlearn what you do for Gyro Drift, and continue to maintain the steering / throttle balance at all times. Especially when you are transitioning from high angle to low angle or even changing directions. This is where the Gyro is doing the most work and making you look like a superstar. The most important part of this is, once you get this down, it is an amazing feeling. Past this, it’s just about working on becoming consistent and smooth.

Margin Of Error

This is where Gyro Drift and Non-Assisted Drift differ. As with any RC hobby that utilizes a Gyro, it uses the Gyro to make things easier. In our case, it makes Drifting easier. Let me rephrase that, it makes Drifting possible since it is responsible for making it possible for us to even go around the track. 

Let’s revisit:

Gyro Drift:

  • Driver is responsible for the direction of the car
  • Driver is responsible for the speed of the car with throttle input
  • Driver is responsible for the angle of the car with throttle input

Non-Assist Drift:

  • Driver is responsible for the direction of the car
  • Driver is responsible for the speed of the car with throttle and steering input
  • Driver is responsible for the angle of the car with throttle and steering input
  • Driver is responsible for maintaining control of the car with throttle and steering input

I WENT IN STAGES

  1. The first time I started figuring Non-Assist Drifting out, I was trying to use the steering to mmimic what the Gyro does. It allowed me to get around the track, but it wasn’t smooth and didn’t look good. I didn’t fully understand what was going on. My thinking was, if it can be done with a Gyro, then I just need to do what the Gyro does.
  2. Then I realized the importance of balance. Not only using the steering input to keep from spinning, but also adjusting the throttle input as well. I began using the throttle and steering to add or reduce angle. In my mind, more throttle = more steering, less throttle = less steering. From there, it was a matter of making minute adjustments to the steering to dictate the direction. At least this is how my head was deciphering it.
  3. Now, I have become accustomed to where my wheels should be pointed based on the angle of the car, and muscle memory is taking over. Now I am making far less adjustments with the steering, and using the throttle to steer the car. If I want to straighten out my line a bit, hold the steering angle and slightly let off the throttle. If I want to tighten up my radius, add slightly more throttle. Just like before, steering with the throttle. I don’t notice it anymore, but I’m making micro adjustments to the steering to maintain drift and not spin.

So What Am I Trying To Say?

I don’t think I have has this much fun with RC Drift in a really long time. When I say a really long time, I mean going back to the CS Days. I understand why trains have lost their appeal in recent years. 

Back then, you might be able to pull some good laps back to back when you were alone, but put some stress on you, and there was a good chance the best of the drivers would choke (and mess up the train). I remember the days of 10-15 car trains, and after about 5 laps, the stress would start to sink in. Nobody wanted to be “That Guy” who messed up and killed the train. The reason is, it was never “that easy”. Being a part of that train was challenging your skills and your ability to not mess up.

Now days, it’s not as difficult. I’m not taking anything away from Gyro Drifting, but it’s definitely not the same type of challenge. Falling behind is the worst part these days. For those who are not all about the speed, but more about the skill and style, this becomes less fun. Back then, I would see people at the track for weeks trying to figure out how to make it so their car wouldn’t spin out. Now, turn up channel 3 and send it!

The most frustrating part of this is, I don’t have time to perfect it. Since I started down this path again, my time is so limited for anything other than work, I can get at most 1 battery in per session. I wish I could get that continuous practice in, since I see progress every time I hit the track. Unfortunately, keeping things going here is requiring all of my time. 

I know, most everyone thinks since I’m one of the owners of Super-G, I get to drive all the time. Anyone who comes here can tell you, there could be nothing further from the truth. As of today, I’m at 34 hours / sessions. Some were only 15 minutes, some were 2 batteries. A good 6-8 hours were spent figuring out what setup would work for me. After that, it has been all about figuring out how to do this. It’s been a lot of fun and I am improving faster than I had expected. At the same time, as far as days passing, it’s taking forever. If I were coming as a regular customer, I think I’m at about 6 visits to the track.

My Setup

The most important change from my 2021 attempt and this last one in 2024 is my use of the Rhino Racing DDSS. What I realized is the more we tuned to make the cars faster (on the front end) was also making Non-Assisted Drift possible. The less the Gyro needs to do, the faster the car gets when it comes to the front end. This also made it easier to keep under control cause the Gyro isn’t making these huge adjustments to keep from spinning. I decided to not change anything here since it is working fine.

Weight Distribution

I noticed as the rear of the car would swing, it was hard to catch. I moved my ESC and receiver to the middle of my chassis to minimize the weight at the rear, but when I weighed my chassis, it still ended up being 35/65. This seems to work well for me. When I added more weight to the front, the back didn’t want to slide out, the entire car wanted to slide sideways.

Dampers

When I first started this last time, I have HRC NERDs. This was a huge help for me since I was trying to figure out what would make it seem easier. What I found was I needed to go in stages. First, I needed to really slow the weight transfer. Utilizing the NERDs, I would say I was at about 400w front and 300w rear. (I will confirm if there is interest). As I became accustomed to driving Gyroless, I have been coming back closer to what I normally would run with a Gyro. Right now I would estimate I’m at about 200w front and 150w rear. Being able to make fine adjustments has been priceless for me.

Motor, ESC, and Gearing - Power Delivery

This is probably the second most important behind the steering setup. This has also gone in stages for me. Since this directly affects everything you are trying to do, you must have really good control of your wheel speed. So smooth power delivery makes it a whole lot easier. As my skills improve, I am able to go more toward what I was doing with Gyro Drifting, but not quite there yet.

I wanted a really broad throttle range, so I went to a 15 tooth pinion and I think I’m running a 86 spur. The reasoning behind this is, the finer I can deliver the power to the wheels, the easier it has been to not spin of grip up. This is where the Gyro really does its job. So you really will notice it not saving you here. 

I also started using the revlimiter. I was first limiting the speed to 51,000 RPM. Once I became smooth and consistent with that, I bumped it to 70,000 RPM, and now I’m at 75,000 RPM. With each jump, I become faster, but it becomes more difficult to hold angle smoothly. I figure this is all part of skill building.

The motor I am using is the Acuvance Fledge 13.5T. I chose this one since it’s a bit more tame than some of the others, and has a very smooth power delivery. Since throttle control is one of the key points, this was the obvious choice for me,

Spool, Gear, or CLSD

Since I had a CLSD installed already, I first started experimenting with it. I settled on 4 gear / Extra Soft. I found harder springs made my rear grip point higher and made my window of drifting too small. I also tried using a locked diff (Spool) and I found it to be harder to transition. Gear was more difficult than the CSLD for me, so I went back to the CLSD with 4 Gear / Extra Soft and decided to stick with that for now.

Tires

Right now I am running DS Racing Comp III LF-3 on the rear, and DS Racing Fenix HF1 on the front.

I decided to post this since it has been 5 weeks since I have had time to touch my car, so I’m sure it I will need to put in some time to be video ready. I can pull laps that I’m confident I can enter some fun comps with. I doubt I will pull a win, but I believe I will be able to hold my own. I’m good enough to pull those laps, but not good enough to pull those laps with any type of pressure, yet.

I wanted to share what I have been working on since it’s been a really fun and exciting journey, and I believe this is just the beginning. We shall see.

No Gyros were harmed in the making of the video.

SEE YOU ON THE TRACK!