mongooze
Driver
Alright so you've seen it on the tely, or know someone that does it and are interested and you want in on the action. You ask where do I begin? What do I do?
This was designed to be a guideline, for detailed information you can use the amazing and wonderful world of the internet, I know it sounds crazy, technology and all but it really does work. There are plenty on books and videos. I have personally read Calvin Wans Guide to Drifting and watched Drift bible (highly recommend both) and numerous drifting dvd videos and read plenty of magazines.
We'll first off you need car, pretty much any 5sp Rear Wheel Drive car will work. The exact car is a personal preference, Some cars are easier to drift/work on than others.
Okay you got your car now what to do to it? The essentials for drifting would be an Limited Slip Differential, If the car dosn't come with one your gonna have to source one or weld your stock open diff.
The next would be suspension for basic, a good set of lowering springs or a GOOD SPRING CUT job will do, slightly stiffer aftermarket shocks wouldn't hurt either but the ultimate in suspension performance is a nice set of coilovers. Now Controversly I believe that most "drift" style coilovers are too stiff, they don't provide ANY dampning and yes you do need dampaning (allows the shock to travel to provide traction) for drifting. In my opinion a proper drift setup should be close to a road racing setup and have a neutral balance.
Another good way to stiffen up your suspension is to run thicker sway bars, and of course the sway bar drill hole trick, now I have only heard of this never had any experience with it.
Now you got your coilovers and you want to lower your car, now your going to need adjustable suspension arms, tension rods, toe rods, upper control arms etc. you want this because they provide adjustabilty for alignment tuning, spherical rod ends to rid of old worn out bushings and provide greater durability. But be careful not to lower it too much cause overlowering drasticly changes your suspension geometry and creates more problems than stock.
Tuning, so you got your arms and your coils, now you need to tune it, to tune the coilovers you do what's called corner weighing or corner balancing, this allows to distribute the weight evenly. Imagine a table, now imagine a table with it's 4 legs uneven, thats your car untuned all over the place now imagine it with the four legs all the same length. Even weight distribution. To tune arms, just have it aligned at specific specifications.
Chassis Stiffening, now the ultimate way to stiffen up the chassis is a roll cage now must of us are running street cars for now and we don't want 400 bars zigzaggin in every direction while we go to the grocery store...well I do but that's just me
. Simple strut bars, ladder bars, power brace, diff bar, c pillar, etc are simple bars that just bolt up to certain locations.
Wheels, mostly treated as a style thing they can be very helpful, lightwheight strong wheels with aggressive offsets with great widths can be very helpful, wide wheels allows you to "stretch" smaller size tires, Stretching tires makes the sidewall stiffer. Stiffer sidewalls reduce sidewall flex.
Aggressive offsets gives you a wider track width, wheel spacers space out wheels also to give more track width.
Tires, for starters a GOOD set of fronts and junk rears do fine, but as you advance you would want stickier rears.
Brakes, It's good to upgrade your braking system. If you can get bigger calipers and rotors from a different model car that fit your car with minimal modification, do so.It will only help you.
There's two things I say you can never have too much. Brakes and Cooling. An aggressive set of pads and cross drilled/slotted rotors are a good start. Stainless steel brake lines and silicone brake fluid replaces old lines and keeps your brake fluid from boiling and reduces brake fade.
Some cars have limited steering angle, to add some more degrees you can use tie rod end spacers, It was also rumored aggressive offset wheels/spacers and aftermarket ADJUSTABLE tie rod ends give it some to but I have not confirmed this. Also be sure to check different models of your car to see if they have different ratios. I.E. NA z32s have 2.7 ratio where as the turbo has 2.4.
It wouldn't hurt to throw in a power steering cooler. Your steering is moved back and forth and take alot of abuse, take care of it by cooling it down.
Another way to add angle is to hack up your knuckles, now what you so is cut off where the tie rod end meets and move it closer to the pivot point.
Cooling. Most drift cars sit at redline while in action, this creates alot of heat internally which heats up the coolant. Thicker radiator, electric fans, cap, better coolant, water wetter or royal purples purple ice are some ways you can upgrade your cooling system.
Safety well this should probably be one of the first things you do. A bucket seat will keep your ass in place and not allow you to slide around the car. A 4pt harness is a good harness to start with. Of course when you go to an event your gonna need a helmet. Most practices allow you to get away with a motorcycle helmet.
Alllright, you got all the goods and your ready for more power!
Depending on your engine/car/preference there are many ways to add some power.
Honestly, you dont need a whole lot of power to slide. Bone stock NAs can hang, The key is a properly setup suspension setup but we're not going to get into that.
For turbo cars the few simple mods can hold you good, Intake, full exhaust, more boost, ecu, pulley and fmic.
For power hungry na's your obviously not going to see gains like you would in Forced Incduction cars but intake, full exhaust, pullies, and Individual Throttle Bodies are a good start.
Be sure to check different models of your cars some may have different camshafts or even possible head swap. i.e. on s13s you cann use two exhaust cams and put a twin cam head on single cam block for increased comression. Honda style!
Driving- Drift Bible, Practice.
Events- Florida has good amount of practices, Countyline which is down near miami, Moroso located in Palm Beach, We have Desosto near Tampa and Orlando Speed Way. Every event is posted up here so just keep a lookout.
Forums- The only "drift" forums I know of in the area are this one, desostodrift.com and Floridadrift.com
Well that's alll folks hope I've helped you out and if you have any questions feel free to PM me.
This is a just a guideline on what should be done for more detailed information just do some research, check forums but please always SEARCH first, and talk to people.
Turbomagazine.com sportcompactcarweb.com etc. have MANY MANY writeups on power adders and other things, Check them out.
For suspension tuning the Comprehensive Suspension Tuning Guide by Sport Compact Car I found had incredible information, heres the link. Read ALL 6
http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/tech/0605_sccp_making_it_stick_part_5/dampers.html
I would like for this to become a sticky so If anyone has anything they would like to add/edit/or confirm please post up!
This was designed to be a guideline, for detailed information you can use the amazing and wonderful world of the internet, I know it sounds crazy, technology and all but it really does work. There are plenty on books and videos. I have personally read Calvin Wans Guide to Drifting and watched Drift bible (highly recommend both) and numerous drifting dvd videos and read plenty of magazines.
We'll first off you need car, pretty much any 5sp Rear Wheel Drive car will work. The exact car is a personal preference, Some cars are easier to drift/work on than others.
Okay you got your car now what to do to it? The essentials for drifting would be an Limited Slip Differential, If the car dosn't come with one your gonna have to source one or weld your stock open diff.
The next would be suspension for basic, a good set of lowering springs or a GOOD SPRING CUT job will do, slightly stiffer aftermarket shocks wouldn't hurt either but the ultimate in suspension performance is a nice set of coilovers. Now Controversly I believe that most "drift" style coilovers are too stiff, they don't provide ANY dampning and yes you do need dampaning (allows the shock to travel to provide traction) for drifting. In my opinion a proper drift setup should be close to a road racing setup and have a neutral balance.
Another good way to stiffen up your suspension is to run thicker sway bars, and of course the sway bar drill hole trick, now I have only heard of this never had any experience with it.
Now you got your coilovers and you want to lower your car, now your going to need adjustable suspension arms, tension rods, toe rods, upper control arms etc. you want this because they provide adjustabilty for alignment tuning, spherical rod ends to rid of old worn out bushings and provide greater durability. But be careful not to lower it too much cause overlowering drasticly changes your suspension geometry and creates more problems than stock.
Tuning, so you got your arms and your coils, now you need to tune it, to tune the coilovers you do what's called corner weighing or corner balancing, this allows to distribute the weight evenly. Imagine a table, now imagine a table with it's 4 legs uneven, thats your car untuned all over the place now imagine it with the four legs all the same length. Even weight distribution. To tune arms, just have it aligned at specific specifications.
Chassis Stiffening, now the ultimate way to stiffen up the chassis is a roll cage now must of us are running street cars for now and we don't want 400 bars zigzaggin in every direction while we go to the grocery store...well I do but that's just me
. Simple strut bars, ladder bars, power brace, diff bar, c pillar, etc are simple bars that just bolt up to certain locations.Wheels, mostly treated as a style thing they can be very helpful, lightwheight strong wheels with aggressive offsets with great widths can be very helpful, wide wheels allows you to "stretch" smaller size tires, Stretching tires makes the sidewall stiffer. Stiffer sidewalls reduce sidewall flex.
Aggressive offsets gives you a wider track width, wheel spacers space out wheels also to give more track width.
Tires, for starters a GOOD set of fronts and junk rears do fine, but as you advance you would want stickier rears.
Brakes, It's good to upgrade your braking system. If you can get bigger calipers and rotors from a different model car that fit your car with minimal modification, do so.It will only help you.
There's two things I say you can never have too much. Brakes and Cooling. An aggressive set of pads and cross drilled/slotted rotors are a good start. Stainless steel brake lines and silicone brake fluid replaces old lines and keeps your brake fluid from boiling and reduces brake fade.
Some cars have limited steering angle, to add some more degrees you can use tie rod end spacers, It was also rumored aggressive offset wheels/spacers and aftermarket ADJUSTABLE tie rod ends give it some to but I have not confirmed this. Also be sure to check different models of your car to see if they have different ratios. I.E. NA z32s have 2.7 ratio where as the turbo has 2.4.
It wouldn't hurt to throw in a power steering cooler. Your steering is moved back and forth and take alot of abuse, take care of it by cooling it down.
Another way to add angle is to hack up your knuckles, now what you so is cut off where the tie rod end meets and move it closer to the pivot point.
Cooling. Most drift cars sit at redline while in action, this creates alot of heat internally which heats up the coolant. Thicker radiator, electric fans, cap, better coolant, water wetter or royal purples purple ice are some ways you can upgrade your cooling system.
Safety well this should probably be one of the first things you do. A bucket seat will keep your ass in place and not allow you to slide around the car. A 4pt harness is a good harness to start with. Of course when you go to an event your gonna need a helmet. Most practices allow you to get away with a motorcycle helmet.
Alllright, you got all the goods and your ready for more power!
Depending on your engine/car/preference there are many ways to add some power.
Honestly, you dont need a whole lot of power to slide. Bone stock NAs can hang, The key is a properly setup suspension setup but we're not going to get into that.
For turbo cars the few simple mods can hold you good, Intake, full exhaust, more boost, ecu, pulley and fmic.
For power hungry na's your obviously not going to see gains like you would in Forced Incduction cars but intake, full exhaust, pullies, and Individual Throttle Bodies are a good start.
Be sure to check different models of your cars some may have different camshafts or even possible head swap. i.e. on s13s you cann use two exhaust cams and put a twin cam head on single cam block for increased comression. Honda style!
Driving- Drift Bible, Practice.
Events- Florida has good amount of practices, Countyline which is down near miami, Moroso located in Palm Beach, We have Desosto near Tampa and Orlando Speed Way. Every event is posted up here so just keep a lookout.
Forums- The only "drift" forums I know of in the area are this one, desostodrift.com and Floridadrift.com
Well that's alll folks hope I've helped you out and if you have any questions feel free to PM me.
This is a just a guideline on what should be done for more detailed information just do some research, check forums but please always SEARCH first, and talk to people.
Turbomagazine.com sportcompactcarweb.com etc. have MANY MANY writeups on power adders and other things, Check them out.
For suspension tuning the Comprehensive Suspension Tuning Guide by Sport Compact Car I found had incredible information, heres the link. Read ALL 6
http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/tech/0605_sccp_making_it_stick_part_5/dampers.html
I would like for this to become a sticky so If anyone has anything they would like to add/edit/or confirm please post up!
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