Drift Car Prepping

[OpenDiff]

The most basic, least expensive ways to prep your new drift car so that it lasts longer, breaks down less, costs less, and performs better than cars that have had lots of money thrown at them.

Please add your tips below, and I'll add mine to start off:

WEIGHT: Strip out your rear seats, if any, and pull out rear hatch area interior pieces in order to save weight. Remove your spare tire and jack and rear carpet, especially from the trunk. Remove your speakers, amp, and radio/CD player. Again, this is to save weight. The lighter your car, the easier it will be to control in a drift. If you have T-tops, then take them off before a drift practice. Consider draining your wiper fluid reservoir.

CLEAN: Remove your spark plugs and examine them. Spark plugs can be "read" ( http://www.dragstuff.com/techa....html ) to tell you if your motor is running rich or lean, if you have an oil leak, if your plugs are too hot or too cold, etc. Then dip your spark plugs into a glass jar filled with brake cleaner. Clean and dry each spark plug before re-installing. Alternatively, install new spark plugs at this time. Likewise, install a new air filter to let your engine pull in more air, easier.

TRICK: Use heavy duct tape to tape down the button on your emergency brake (AKA "e-brake") so that you can raise it to engage, but it will lower and release itself. This lets you grab, yank, and release the e-brake with fewer hand motions (think: Taylor Scientific Management).

INSPECTION: Your drift car should be checked to insure that you have no fuel or oil or clutch/brake fluid leaks, that you have all lug nuts safely holding on all wheels, that your tires have tread and not steel belts showing (and that they are aired up and fit your wheels properly), that your wheels and frame and windshield are not cracked/broken, that your brakes (including your e-brake) and seatbelts work, that your steering assembly is tight and safe, that you have no loose objects ready to fly around the c0ckpit, etc.

SPECIALIZE: Buy a spare set of wheels for your drift tires. Then you can have a street set of wheels/tires as well as your own drifting wheels/tires. Swap out wheels when you arrive at an event or practice course. Buy cheap rear tires for your early drifting days. In fact, most tire shops have a discard pile of tires that they will let you go sort through for free rubber. You're going to be burning them up; match your budget to your available effort (hey, it's easier to to buy new tires and pay someone to mount them for you, after all) and time.

TIP: Smaller wheels and tires are easier to spin, requiring less horsepower (read: less money/investment). Less hp means less wear. Sure, we've all seen someone brag about their tuned 1,000 hp Supra Turbo that can spin 20" rims filled with Pirelli P-Zeros, but what Mr. Tuner isn't telling you is that the money spent to bump up that engine isn't going to last very long...that motor may only last 4,000 miles before it needs a full $$ rebuild. Most of the tuner kids learn the above the hard way, and when they do finally realize it, they end up leaving their tuned car in the garage for most of its life because they don't want to pay to fix anything again. That turns them from drivers into museum attendants. Welcome to living online instead of out on the track. They can brag about their car, and maybe even *trailer* it to car shows, but they can't/won't drive it any longer.

FLUIDS: Use a quality race oil for your motor such as ENEOS or Redline's 5w40. You are going to be revving your motor for extended periods of time at extended rpm's, don't let your poor motor suffer under a standard road-going motor oil like Mobil1 or Castrol or Valvoline that may have quality control issues in production and less sheer protection at high temps and revs.

More important than your motor oil is your transmission gear oil. Absolutely use a race gear oil such as Redline's Lightweight Shockproof. Not only will this help protect your transmission from the severe shocks and stress that you are going to be giving it, but this blue-colored fluid will quickly let you know from the color of the spots on your garage floor that you have a transmission or differential leak instead of a motor oil, brake fluid, clutch fluid, or gasoline leak.

Flush your coolant and refill with a quality 50/50 premix (e.g. Prestone), then add Redline's Water Wetter (just 1 bottle, more bottles will not help your temps).

Always warm up your drift car's fluids (coolant, motor oil, and transmission oil in particular) with slow speed driving and shifts into 2nd gear before beginning your drifting practice. Always! If you don't warm up your fluids before revving and clutching, then you will get extreme mechanical wear and premature failure that will cost you time and money.

Warm-ups reduce wear.

TIP: Higher oil numbers mean longer warm-up times prior to hard driving. If your car needs 5 minutes of slow-speed driving to warm up 5W40, then you'll probably need 10 minutes to warm up 10w40, 20 minutes to warm up 20w40, half an hour to warm up 20w50, etc.

In general, your motor oil will coincidentally be warm about the same time that your cooling fans kick on for your coolant radiator. If you've been doing slow speed driving (not just idling!) during that entire warm-up time, then your transmission gear oil should be warm at that same time, too.

*For turbo cars, cool-down time is doubly important, too. This is why turbo-timers exist; they keep your motor idling after you've turned off the car and removed the ignition key. Most turbo timers are programmable so that you can easily set a time such as 10 seconds or 2 minutes, then the motor idles that long after you've left the car. After a hard day of drifting, that cool-down time can make all the difference in the world for helping reduce parts failure from heak-soak.

Now go get some seat time!

Always wear your seat belt or race harness. Beginners should also practice alone, not tandem with another car, and not with a passenger (a drift instructor being a notable exception). Wear your helmet!