Who here has experience building a drift car out of an A body?

-
Kern Dog

Kern Dog

Build your car to handle.
FABO Gold Member
Joined
May 23, 2010
Messages
13,594
Reaction score
39,906
Location
Granite Bay CA
I don't necessarily need another way to spend money foolishly but......

9 10.jpeg


Drifting is a lot of fun. I've never done it on pavement like I've seen in videos but I have done a lot of it off road.
The setup for a car that will be drifting on the pavement doesn't seem to be that much different from an autocross car except that drift cars need a means to skid the rear brakes. I've seen pictures where the rear end has disc brakes with two calipers on each side. One caliper is plumbed in through the firewall master cylinder, the other caliper is plumbed to the hand operated brake inside the car. For an 8 3/4 axle, this would mean using some "Scarebird" type of adapter plate but with another section for the second caliper.
Who has experience with this sort of thing? I'm assuming the car would need fast ratio steering for faster turning, some sort of power steering cooler to keep from cooking the fluid, Manual transmissions would be ideal but automatics could work. The engine needs to rev to keep tire speed high.
 
There is so much to learn.
I've used the parking brake to skid when off road. The 1976 A body is the only year that I know of that they came with a foot operated parking brake setup. I put one in this car:

GL 2 ZZ.jpg


I defeated the locking mechanism so I could stab the pedal, skid, then lift and proceed.
This would be pretty clumsy on a drift course but on dirt trails, it was okay.
 
Why can't you find a hand operated brake, Pinto comes to mind, but I have no idea who all used them, and parallel it with your parking brake cable?
 
I could. Numerous cars had pull type parking brakes but I've wondered if a drum brake system would skid as well as a hydraulic setup with a disc brake setup.
 
What axle are you planning to use? I think the dual caliper/dual system is the best option.... Drums don't have room for a second set of wheel cylinders & cable operated brakes don't work consistently, there is a reason auto manufacturers made the change to hydraulic brakes...
 
Like many of the things that go through my head, this may never go anywhere.
I am just toying with the idea but who knows? I took a job in construction that was just meant to be a Summer job. I spent 36 years doing it.
I'd likely use an 8 3/4" axle. Some of the YouTube videos show for reduced costs to use a welded stock differential. The guys on RoadKill have welded a few differentials for the ratty cars they built.
I have a partial rear disc kit from Dr Diff. 11.7" rotors and aluminum caliper adapters.

22 1 U.JPG


The calipers sit at approximately the 9:45 position:

IMG_0429.JPG



I could probably take the caliper adapter and find a way to make another mount at approximately 2:15. I've wondered about how to plumb a small master cylinder to engage the drift brake. The mechanics of it are not familiar to me....the bore size, the lever length, the effectiveness of the lever stroke, brake pad type, etc.
 
Haven't worked on a drift A body specifically, but I have dealt with a few other drift cars. You're on the right track with rear discs and a second set of calipers, and they make hydraulic handbrake setups for the drift market.

The other thing I would focus on is steering angle - see if you can modify anything including the lower control arms that limit how far you can turn the wheels. It's a lot like with dirt track cars.

Also, drift cars typically run wider wheels for a given tire width. This is supposed to give more predictable break-away behavior.
 

Yep, rear disks and two sets of calipers with one being dedicated to a handbrake that's very easy to access and use/modulate. Drift specific stuff is out there especially for the handbrake side of it.

Not sure if there are already dual bracket set ups for the 8 3/4, but something like the DoctorDiff plate with an additional set of ears on it would be ideal. If you really wanted to get crazy you could draw up something like that in CAD and have it made locally or at someplace like send cut send.

Steering angle would mean at the minimum removing the steering stops on the lower ball joints, but if you didn't mind spending some money the QA1 tubular LCA's would be pretty helpful as they allow significantly more steering angle, and of course some extra suspension travel to lower the car further than you can typically get away with using the stock LCA's. The frame rail would then become the limiting factor for steering, so how crazy you got with the steering angle would depend on how far out you wanted to stick the front wheels. Which is why a lot of those drift cars have big fender flares and low or even negative offset wheels to widen the track.

Pretty sure if you really wanted to do it you'd need a manual transmission, slipping the clutch along with the use of the handbrake is how all those guys initiate the drift.

There's actually an old Mythbusters that basically has a tutorial on it, they did an episode on whether or not a drift was the fastest way around a corner (spoiler alert- it's not). But they have a section on a drift driver showing the hosts how to do it.
 
I've been to a couple of drift events. The cars in the crowd were often banged up, looking barely better than the roundy-round cars I've seen. I'd never do this with a pristine car. The learning process surely includes spinouts, sliding off the line and into barricades, other cars, pylons or whatever is in the way.
There is a company that opened a drift school here is Sacramento. They allow spectators to watch for ten bucks.
I don't know much about this stuff, I'm just picking up information.
The drift cars I saw at one event were mostly import cars, many of them had Chevy LS engines.
There is no way in hell I would do that. There is a 69 primer spotted Satellite drift car on YouTube that has an LS in it. Screw that.
Steering angle is interesting. Grinding the stops, offset wheels.
 
Kern Dog said:
The drift cars I saw at one event were mostly import cars, many of them had Chevy LS engines.
There is no way in hell I would do that. There is a 69 primer spotted Satellite drift car on YouTube that has an LS in it. Screw that.
Steering angle is interesting. Grinding the stops, offset wheels.
Click to expand...
Thing is you close the hood & keep it closed... You need horsepower, your probably gonna blow up a few engines, junkyard LS can be had for less than $500... Mopar engines are tough, but expensive to rebuild...

I'm in no way an LS fan, but I can see why the drift guys run them... We have a guy local that has been LS swapping Toyotas & Nissans for years, last time I talked to him he had won 3 drift championships & that's been a few years soooo....
 
Chevy engines in Mopars is a hard NO for me.
I can see using one in an import where they are so underpowered, they need a turbo with 25 lbs of boost to crack 400 HP.
Are there that many Chevy trucks and Suburbans that get wrecked to leave such a huge supply of engines in the junkyards? It isn't like the 70s where Chevy put a V8 into almost every car they made. They have no rear wheel drive cares anymore except the Corvette. Where are all the LS engines coming from?
I realize that a drift car needs to spin the engine up high to keep the tires spinning. A shorter stroke engine like a 340 with at least #308 iron heads would be a bare minimum but is it worth the effort to risk a 340?
I'm looking at this as something fun to do while keeping costs down. If I can't do this cheap, I don't love the idea enough to sink a lot of money into it.
 
Kern Dog said:
Are there that many Chevy trucks and Suburbans that get wrecked to leave such a huge supply of engines in the junkyards? It isn't like the 70s where Chevy put a V8 into almost every car they made. They have no rear wheel drive cares anymore except the Corvette. Where are all the LS engines coming from?
Click to expand...
Yes.... Chevy/GMC/Cadillac Trucks/SUV's.... There's probably fifty LS style engines built for every Hemi...
 
Would it be possible to use an RV trany with a drum parking brake to initiate your drift ? That would save the rears and apply more braking force to rear tires ( if I am thinking this through correctly) .
I grew up in Minnesota driving first a 73 Monaco wagon with a 400 then a 73 318 Dart Sport as a winter beater because I didn’t drive my 70 Charger in the winter . We were drifting long before it was called drifting!
 
I don't necessarily see myself as a purist in most cases but the Chevy engine thing just annoys me.
I hated the Japanese engine swap in Finnigan's Charger too. I understand the desire to do things cheap and easy when you can.
 
A mild 360 ought to be fine for getting started. Makes more power than a lot of popular drift cars did out of the factory. I'd baffle the oil pan though.
 
I could start buying up the 5.9 Magnums on 1/2 price day at the self serve junkyards...
Even with a carburetor, they peak well before 5000 rpms.
 
Kern Dog said:
I could start buying up the 5.9 Magnums on 1/2 price day at the self serve junkyards...
Even with a carburetor, they peak well before 5000 rpms.
Click to expand...
buy 'em when you see 'em! they seem to go in waves where you won't see many viable options for a spell and then all of a sudden there's tons around.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Similar threads

D
Tie rods, steering and disc brakes???
Replies
20
Views
376
Dor-Dor68!
D
dibbons
Who Has Experience With AEM Air/Fuel Gauge?
Replies
3
Views
494
85glht
85glht
charliec
Piecing Together a Power Steering System
Replies
4
Views
202
charliec
charliec
Kern Dog
Who has experience with photo editing, photoshop, AI, ChatGPT ?
Replies
18
Views
647
junior636
junior636
T
Best way to treat the rust on my roof?
2
Replies
27
Views
1K
Woody500
W
Back
Top Bottom