The Secret to Drifting an All-Wheel Drive Porsche 911
If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 10 years, you might not be familiar with a series of videos called Gymkhana featuring a man driving very sideways. The man is Ken Block, and the videos have garnered hundreds of millions of YouTube views. Read on and we'll walk you through the basic theory of drifting an AWD car and how it works.
Understand the mechanics
AWD 911s are strange machines when you start to play around with them. The ability to transfer torque is the key to understanding how to drift these machines. Essentially without getting super technical the car is rear wheel drive until it’s not. What the hell does that mean? It means if you’re on a damp surface going through a corner the computers and clutches in the car will send power to the front wheels when you add throttle, counter steering, or yaw angle. The thing is, if you are light on the throttle, it transfers a minimum amount of torque essentially rendering the car rear wheel drive.
PRO TIP: Throttle input controls torque split
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Zero counter
If you’ve watched Initial D or Keiichi Tsuchiya (the original Drift King) you may have heard of a term called “zero counter.” This essentially means the wheel is pointed straight and all four wheels are sliding. What it means for us is that we’re not going to counter steer. That’s right…you initially turn in and once the car begins to slide you simply point the wheel straight and moderate your right foot. The AWD system will naturally want to pull the car back in line. It’s very strange! When you master this technique you can actually take your hands off of the wheel and control the drift by only using throttle input.
PRO TIP: Don’t counter steer!
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Now what?
If the car wants to go straight without any counter steering how on earth do we stay sideways? If you’ve paid attention to any of Ken Block’s videos you might notice something interesting about the front tires. When he drifts around someone in a stationary position the front tires stay pointed into the turn, until he needs to change direction. In modern AWD systems, when you are drifting, you can essentially exceed 90 degrees of angle before you have to start counter steering. To keep the slide going you want to turn in more than you would with a typical RWD setup.
PRO TIP: Only counter steer when you are about to spin out
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