Difference between Shaft-Driven and Belt-Driven cars

When shopping around for an electric RC drift car, you’ll notice two types; cars with a belt drive and cars with shaft drive.

If you are not familiar with the difference, it’s pretty simple. In a belt-driven car, the power from the motor is transferred to the wheels by a belt.
In a shaft-driven car, the power is transferred from the motor to the wheels, through a (you guessed it) shaft or rod.

Shaft Driven:
A popular shaft driven chassis is the Tamiya TT-01. The reason for its popularity is because it’s fairly inexpensive compared to other 1/10 scale chassis’. In the picture below, you can see the shaft running down the center of the chassis.
The TT-01 comes stock with a black plastic shaft and switching it to a metal shaft is the usually the first upgrade that is done.

One of the main arguments against shaft driven cars is that they have torque steer. If you notice the position of the motor in the picture above, the motor is parallel with shaft in the center. The power rotation has to transfer 90° to the wheels. This 90° transfer causes the
chassis to twist which in turn causes uneven weight distribution. That affects the traction on the tires and cause the car to shift or steer to the left or right and may cause your car to drift better turning one way than the other. This can be remedied by adjusting the shocks.

Belt-Driven:
An example of a belt driven chassis is the Cyclone S by Hot Bodies. As you can see, the power is transferred through belts and pulleys. There is no 90° transfer of power so there is no issue of torque steer.

The main gripe about this type of chassis is that rocks and pebbles eat up belts. In my experience with belt driven chassis, I've never had a belt break on me, however I've had a pebble get "sucked in" but it messed up the pulley gear before it broke the belt. The belt had no damage but the gear had to be replaced.

Ok so which one is better for drifting? There is no clear cut winner over the two. My suggestion is to figure out where you'll be using your car the most. Is the pavement littered with tiny pebbles or rocks? Is it a newly paved parking lot? Is it a basketball/tennis court?

If you're mainly driving on pavement without pebbles and rocks, give belt-drives a try. If you plan on racing, you'll have a car that's ready for that conversion. Most racers have had success with belt-driven chassis'.
Other than that, you can never go wrong with shaft drives.

Enjoy the ride!