TravisZ28MAXX

Anybody have any ideas how I should setup my car? it is mostly stock(airfilter, flowmaster muffler), it has 2.77 gears, L98 motor, 700R4 tranny, 245/50R16 tires all the way around, I've been considering getting LCAs, adjustable panhard bar and torque arm but Im trying to figure out whether or not to get bushed or bearings on the ends. It would be of great help to have some suggestions on struts, shocks, and springs. By the way if you couldnt tell by the subject I want to set it up for drifting.

REVLIMIT

well I'm guessing that I'd be the best person to answer this question. Get the best parts for hte job (that being the bearing). If it says "RACE ONLY" then pretty much that means its good for handling and drifting but its gonna make your daily driving suck ***. To me I dont give a **** about daily driving comfort. My whole car is stripped down to save weight. Right now my car should weight about 3,200 but I'm guessing less then that. The brand taht ground control sells at their site is a good brand for struts/shocks. With alot of adjustibility. Sorry forgot what brand it was. As for springs the Eibach prokit is a very good choice for spring for hte drifting world. Though allitle stiffer is nicer. Global west makes a nice set for our cars thats stiffer then the prokit yet the same drop. In accounts of sway bars you dont need big ones. Since you have a Z your sway bars are good enough for drifting. Big sway bars are a waste when it all comes down to performance. Your very lucky that you started off with a L98 considering your motor stock has alittle less them my motor now. And my motor is pretty good for drifting (though not good enough...can there ever be good enough? haha) If you got any other questions shoot them my way or at CrazyHawaiian

RB83L69

¿¿Set up for drifting??

I haven't a clue how to do that... most of us spend a great deal of effort and money setting up our cars to not drift in the turns... since that's anti-performance and slows the car down.

I can tell you how to make one stick; I guess all the opposite things would make it drift. Mess up the suspension geometry, put traction-challenged tires on it, etc.

Dewey316

well, you could put a big rear bar on , and a smaller front sway bar, that would cause some oversteer (rear drift). i am in the same boat as the guy above, i am spending my time and money trying to make my car stick to the road.

IROCmonkey

not to start a war but there is a difference between drifting and skidding or spinning. ever see a sprint car, outlaw or dirt modified race? those guys drift sideways thru all the turns, and theres no way you can say their slow. to me the whole point of a drift is to go loose into a corner without losing too much speed and then punch it to get a good launch coming out of the corner. Used to do a lot of that type of driving in smaller lighter cars (2000lbs or less). I personally would rather a car the size and weight of a 3rdgen hug in the corners rather than drift, but I've slip enough corners sideways to understand the advantages

RB83L69

No of course they're not slow.... and they're also doing everything within their power to make it quit doing that and hook up, because that's how they make their car faster, and win. The guy that hooks up the most gets there first.

Deliberately setting up a car to lose traction is going backwards. It's one thing to take a car that doesn't handle well and deal with that as a way to get it around a corner, but it is not a goal in itself.

IROCmonkey

drifting is hard on suspension and tires, but it has its uses...of course the real key to it is being able to drift when you want and hook up and launch when you want. when I was younger, dumber and a lot more reckless, I used drifting as way to hang some corners waaay faster than I should have.

most racers will tell you that handling too tight is just as bad as handling too loose.

Dewey316

of course handling to tight is just as bad, the key is balance, a well balanced car that has very nuetral handling, will be very fast.

if you have either too much oversteer or understeer your handling will suffer and thus your speed (ability to enter/exit the corner faster).

of course drifting in some cases is a fast way to go, look at rally racing. but when was the last time you saw anyone on a ROAD course drift, i have NEVER seen anyone in F1, Le Mans, cart or whatever intentionaly drift a corner.

IROCmonkey

now that would be scary...drifting at 150 mph!

laugh maybe we should hear from revlimit why he likes drifting so much

CrazyHawaiian

Ok, first off I have to tell you that drifting is expensive. You will go through tires so fast its not even funny. IROCmonkey knows whats up. Listen to him. It is true that drifting is more about sliding than grip, but that dosnt mean you want to ruin the suspension geometry or do counterproductive suspension mods. Its quite the opposite. If your car was all messed up, sure it might break out easier but it would be much harder to control and probably very unpredictable. When you think drifting, most people think about the act of breaking the rear loose, when in fact you need to concentrate more on controlling the car while sliding. Having a tight, balanced, predictable suspension setup that responds quickly to your movements is what you want. You should make your tires the limiting factor in traction, not the suspension. People with a car properly setup for drifting should be able to do AutoX/SCCA as well. The only change made to the car for Drifting or SCCA should be a different set of tires and a different mindset for each type of event.

I would recommend you do every suspenion mod that you can to get more grip. Lower the cars center of gravity with drop springs. Reduce body roll with sway bars. Fix the suspension's geometry after lowering with a bumpsteer kit and LCA relocation brackets. Do bushings. Adjutable parts like LCA's and the panhard bar will allow you to better tune your suspenion. Even a front rebuild kit with Moog parts would be nice. Chassis strength is also a must. You dont want flexing when you are sliding. You want the car to be as predictable as possible. SFC's, lower chassis support, steering box support, and even a rollcage if you can do it. Oh and that brings me to safety and other equipment. A nice set of racing seats with lateral support and a 4 or 5 pt harnes will keep you planted in the seat. Sliding sideways @ 50 mph in the stock seat is pretty wild. Lots of movement. Also you might want a smaller steeringwheel that allows you more tire movement with less arm movement. Again a rollcage would be nice for safety incase you drift off the track and flip (hey its possible). Baically do everything that you can afford that the grip guys do.

Ok, so now your suspension is very tight and predictable. I recommend you start out (drifting) on the stock 15x7 wheels with something like 195/65/15 or 205/65/15 tires. Get the cheapest hardest compound tires you can find. If you cant break those loose raise the PSI above 35 to lower the contact patch. Small tires with a small contact patch will break loose very easilly, but you have less control in the slide. You should start out slow (15-25 mph maybe) and learn how the car slides and reacts. As you progressively get better you will go faster. As you go faster you will want more grip during the slide to control the car. This means you are making progress. Lower the PSI back to normal level or get bigger tires. Increase the contact patch. Now you will notice it is harder to break the tires loose. This will cause you to drive faster and harder. Following this cycle will get you better and before you know it you will be wanting to drift on the 16x8's with 225 or 245 rubber (with smaller sidewall for less flex) at a normal PSI. If you are crazy, you might even get to a point where you want wider than 245 rubber for even more grip during the slide. An upgrade to 17x8.5 wheels or something of the sort. At this point you would be sliding way above 50 mph. Somewhere around 70-90 mph. This means that you are good and you need to slow the hell down!! hahah just kidding.

Dewey also had a good idea. A big swaybar in the rear and small in the front will give lots of oversteer. This is how I had my 90 RS setup (pic in sig). I was using 205/60/15 tires @ 30 psi. I was sliding around 45 mph. However, my mindset for the 90 RS was not about speed. I just wanted to learn about drifting. I think it wa an excellent setup to learn. When you really want to drift with real speed you enter a different realm of crazyness.

Funny you mentioned drifting on a Road Course. Just a few months ago the ante here in Hawaii went up a notch. We were treated to a drift event held by the Signal Auto shop in Japan. If you ever read Import magazines, Signal is one of the best tuning shops in Japan. They shipped a highly modified 180sx Silvia from Japan down here to Hawaii to show us what real drifting was. The driver was a professional from Japan Circuit Racing. The car was fully tuned for Circuit Racing with full suspension, around 400 hp on tap (in the low boost setting, max hp is around 650) and 18" wheels with 275/40/zr18 ruber. The driver 'wowed' the crowd with consistent 90-100 mph drifts. I had never seen anything like this in real life. Alot of Hawaii Drifters realized just how slow we were going and how much more we could improve (me included). In fact, someone here on this messageboard posted a link to a video from the event. Of course everyone bashed Revlimit and the drift scene and had a good old time putting us down. Of course majority of them have never even BEEN on a track, but whatever. If you do a search and find the clip, you can see the car from Japan (blue with gold wheels) doing insane 90 mph drifts breaking it loose 60-80 feet before the turn. Everyone in the Hawaii drift scene knew we had to take it up a notch.

So now that we have been 'enlightened' everyone had new plans. Revlimits car is in hiding. He is building it for major speed drifting. He's done 85 mph drifts already. He wants to do it consistently. Motor swap, 6 speed, and more suspension parts and I know he's gonna be one badass drifter. For me, I decided to build another car for drifting, the SVO. I want to eventually get as comfortable drifting that car as I was drifting the Camaro. Then I'll look into drifing with speed. Hopefully I'll catch up with Revlimit and we can do some tandem 80 mph drifts heheh.

REVLIMIT

Haha damn man that was a huge post. I was gonna do that but at the time I was lazy as hell haha...but yea I know drifting isnt really fast when its on pavement. I dont tune or drive a car to have it grip. I drift to have fun. Just like how you guys grip turns to have fun. I used to love gripping turns. But slowly it became a bore to me. And now gripping turns isnt really fun at all anymore. I love the feeling of sliding a car around a turn sideways at 50+mph. (I especially love the feeling of sliding a car at 85mph side ways )

I know most of you grip guys will hate on drifting saying its a lack of control. But when you really look at it. Drifting is total control of a vehicle. Pushing a car right to that edge of control where one extremely small mistake could send you straight off a cliff or into a tree. I remember back at one road course event there was both a drifting part and a grip part. The drifters could all grip the turns very well with the grip drivers. But when the Grip drivers tried to drift (or their back end came loose) they'd loose control. To me drifting is a stage ABOVE grip style. Its complete control of a vehicle. (not trying to bash on grip style...if thats your think more power to you)

Drifting is more of an artform...instead of a challenge...or a race or something of the sort. Its an expression of ones self. When people drift their true selves come out from hiding and reveal themselves.

Oh and travis one thing you should do is get rid of those 2.77 gears man. haha...I have found 3.73's to be a very good gear set up for drifitng. (oh yes and you ofcourse need posi)

chacane67

Drifting is just a way of life.......its more in driving style than most anything else.....most anything else would be suspension related, but a driver can make just about any car do it. I have always been a " steer with the right foot" kinda guy myself.

AFrikanGoodTime

When I use to run our vette in auto-x, I would mainly try and secure a top time in the first two runs. I was famous for drifting the entire third run just for fun. I always drew a crowd against the fence but my times always dropped about 8 secs per lap on an average 60 sec course when driving lines properly. The car is easy to drift because I have so much throttle- It keep you out of trouble. If the *** end starts to creep out you just goose the throotle alittle more. I would run at least half the auto-x courses in first gear- 70+ mph at aprox 8200-8500rpm. It was fun not having to shift, And man does it sound bitchen