Ultimate Drifting Guide for FFB Steering Wheels

First time posting here, any and all feedback is highly appreciated as I want this guide to be the go-to place for anyone trying to drift in BeamNG.

After playing the game for years on end, and finally getting a FFB steering wheel I decided to jump from Assetto Corsa, rFactor and CarX to BeamNG for my drifting needs.

I have decided to share some tips and tricks for anyone getting into drifting in BeamNG.

Before hopping into a car, let's start with the gameplay settings:

Driving Assistants (TL;DR all turned off)

1. Gearbox, clutch and throttle assistant all turned off.
I found that if any of these settings are turned on, you lose a lot of the fine controls you need to keep a car sideways.

2. Oversteer and understeer reduction assistant turned off.
Same thing as with the assistants from number 1 - they give you a false sense of control over the car when you are initiating or keeping a drift.

Controls - Force Feedback settings

The main thing I noticed here is that you do not want your steering wheel to feel extremely heavy when you are trying to just drive. Some resistance is good, but it shouldn't feel like you are working out just to switch lanes. The built-in FFB strength guide is a pretty good starting place for dialing in your wheel.

Car Tuning

Front Suspension

DriftGear ProDrift Suspension
Leave everything as is, change the rims to whatever you like (keep in mind, the bigger the wheel and tire combo, the more horsepower you will need to drive them).

Rear Suspension

DriftGear ProDrift Suspension
Leave everything as is, change the rims to whatever you like (keep in mind, the bigger the wheel and tire combo, the more horsepower you will need to drive them).

Differential - Welded Differential
For drifting, you want your rear wheels to spin at the same speed at the same time, a welded differential will achieve this. You can also use LSD's (Limited Slip Differential), however I have not used them so I cannot advise on how to set them up correctly.

Suspension Tuning

Bump Damping - keep it around 4000-4500 for the front, and 3000-3500 for the rear.

Rebound Damping - 5000-7000 for the front, 4000-5000 for the rear.

Spring rate - 40000-55000 for the front, 30000-40000 for the rear.

Spring Height - dependent on the rim size you're using, try not to slam the car as it will have diminishing returns.

Wheel Alignment Front

Ackerman Adjust - negative 50 to 100 should be fine, depending on your style and how much angle you want to achieve.

Camber adjust - leave at 0 since the DriftGear suspension already has camber on the front wheels. Sometimes it's okay to turn the front camber up to 10 or 15.

Caster Adjust - The thing that bothered me the most with the game is the counter steering of certain vehicles. It almost always felt so sluggish, that even with me initiating the counter steer, the wheel would just remain at the position I moved it to.
To fix that, I simply turn the caster up (positive values). Some configurations require the caster to be set at 100, some are fine with 20-35. This is mostly tied to personal preference and wheelbase that you are using.

Toe Adjust - you want them to be in the negative 30 to 50 area. This helps immensely with controlling your car when you are actually drifting.

Wheel Alignment Rear

Anti-Squat Adjust - leave at 0

Camber Adjust - negative 10 to 25 should be fine. This will help you with breaking traction, but not too much so that you lose control and spin out.

Toe Adjust - contrary to the front wheels, here you want a positive of 20 to 40, depending on the HP you are making and how much angle you are getting out of your car.

Tire Pressure

Front Wheels - around 24 psi.

Rear Wheels - around 15 psi.

End of guide.

I hope that this guide will help you with drifting in BeamNG with a steering wheel. I look forward to all your feedback and suggestions.

Keep drifting fun!

 

thank you very very much for creating this guide!!!
this is an really good drift setup, handles pretty well even without further tweaking

 

Glad you’re enjoying the setup man!