Don't let the kids be an excuse. I built an entire race car in 14 months from the time my son was 2 months old. The secret is to wait until the wife and kids are in bed and then work thru the night. Most of my car was built from 10PM-2AM Friday and Saturday nights. Where there's a will there's a way.
What radiator did you get? Mishimoto? Curious because I'm looking into getting an aluminum radiator sometime soon.
unless you do a turbo, probably won't need it. my needle didn't budge past the 1/2 mark at every drift event this year. then again, i think the hottest event i had the car at was only 85-90*
I didn't make any excuses. I built my car & enjoyed my 1st event 2 weeks ago. It was fun but not sure it's really my cup of tea. I'm going to do 1 more event before I make up my mind.
I just got some cheap radiator off ebay that came w/2 electric fans. Worked like a charm & my car never overheated. It did get a little warm after 3 back to back runs but all in all did very well.
Time for a blast from the past. Quick update for you.
Shortly after my last post, I had a friend who asked to borrow the car so he could get some seat time in while he was building his own Pro-Am car & I gladly obliged. Long story short, he drove it for over a year while I moved on to some other projects. I built an airbagged e46 (& then sold it), bought a Jeep Cherokee & built it for off-roading w/my sons, built an overlanding rig for camping with my boys, & started a turbo build on a Miata.
Well, my friend finally finished his Mk3 Supra drift build & no longer needs the e36 so I got it back. I took it out to a drift event yesterday & did some shakedown runs with it. It went pretty well. I discovered the power steering pump was puking fluid & the rear sub-frame has some issues (unknown at the moment) so I didn't get to do a lot of runs in it. That being said, I'm back at it & I'm going to give another shot to see if drifting is for me.
New plans for the car;
Obviously replace the power steering pump, fix/re-enforce the rear sub-frame & put in polyurethane bushings, throw on some cheap/temporary steering knuckle adapters, put a hydro e-brake, put a bucket seat back in it (my friend took the old one out b/c it wouldn't pass tech as I built it) & get a bunch of tires to burn up. Next month is a 2-day drift event that I'm going to participate in with my "crew chief" (i.e. a friend that will do all the work in trade for seat time). If after 2 days of drifting (so long as the car holds together) I still don't really enjoy it as much as I do racing, I'll give it my friend to enjoy while I go back to my other car related hobbies. Stay tuned for more over the next month.
I'll be surprised if that subframe is still uncracked. But please update the build with pics as you go!
Status: Someone put glitter in my oil. Wait. Why's all my oil outside the engine? What's that knocking?
Me myself personally? As long as it isn't rusted to the point where you can put your finger through it, I'd just patch and weld the wh0re. Brace some extra so it won't happen again.
Status: Someone put glitter in my oil. Wait. Why's all my oil outside the engine? What's that knocking?
I was recently reminded about this thread so I thought I would update it. I just went to a drift event yesterday & had a good time getting sideways. After my first event 2 years ago in this car (before I let a friend use it for 2 years) I would have told you that drifting an e36 sucks because it's just to difficult to keep in a drift. Now that I've made some modifications to it (more specifically added tons of angle) I can tell you the e36 is a great drift chassis. So here's what I've done.
First let's start with angle. I got the idea of modding my own LCAs from looking at Unicorn Driftknuckles setup. I chopped the LCAs & extended them by 1.5" which resulted in lots of more angle making the car so much easier to catch from looping around on me.
angle 1.jpg
angle 2.jpg
angle 3.jpg
It gave the front wheels "hella poke" which resulted in having to chop the fenders of course but gave me the clearance I needed to avoid rubbing the frame rails at full lock.
I also added some knuckle adapter blocks to correctly position the tie-rod ends.
angle 4.jpg
angle 5.jpg
This mod alone completely changed the car & how it handles on the track.
I don't have any pics of the car on track to show the angle but I do have this pic showing how much angle I got from the DIY angle mod kit.
angle 6.jpg
The next mod I made was to add a dual rear caliper hydraulic e-brake. I went with a cheap eBay special from China which seemed to work ok but I discovered that something is wrong b/c after about 2 runs the brake would lock up & drag on the rotors. I'm assuming it's dragging a little but I'm not sure why. I bought a dual caliper bracket off eBay & welded it to the knuckle (which took a lot of work to get positioned correctly, although considering my drag issue, maybe I didn't get it positioned correctly).
hydrobrake 1.jpg
hydrobrake 2.jpg
I also installed a Kirkey bucket seat but I didn't take a good picture of it yet. I can do so if anyone needs it but basically I cut the slider off the OEM seat & fabricated a bracket to attach it to the Kirkey. It worked great in keeping me securely in the seat. I still need to fabricate a proper harness bar for my 5-point but I may hold off until I can fabricate a roll cage for it over the winter... if I decide to keep drifting it that is.
So after having a lot of fun at my 3rd event & getting much better at linking corners w/o looping around, I've decided to keep moving forward with the car for now. I'm picking up some more drift spares & I'm going to fine tune the suspension & fix my hydraulic e-brake issue before my next event in a month. I'll try to do a better job of updating this thread.
Here's the only pic I took yesterday at the event.
drifting pic 2.jpg
- - - Updated - - -
Last edited by Nudnik; 09-18-2017 at 08:39 AM.
Nice thread! I see some of my old parts in the pics, lol.
Glad you got it sorted, man!
Anybody have any thoughts on why my hydro ebrake might begin to lock up after a few runs? When it's cold, the hand brake operates as it should but after a few run the hand brake starts getting stiffer to the point where the wheels lock up. If I let some fluid out of the caliper it gets loose again & functions as it should. I'm assuming the brakes are dragging a little but I am able to roll the car around so I don't think they're dragging that much. Could it just be there's a little bit of air left in the lines causing it to happen? Any thoughts?
Do you have a residual pressure valve? Is it in backwards?
Status: Someone put glitter in my oil. Wait. Why's all my oil outside the engine? What's that knocking?
Did you make the kit yourself? Usually there's one somewhere between the master and the T split to the calipers. It keeps pressure so you don't have to pump it between uses. But if it's backwards, it'll do what you're describing.
Status: Someone put glitter in my oil. Wait. Why's all my oil outside the engine? What's that knocking?
I made it myself w/a cheap eBay brake & e36 calipers I got from the junkyard. The brake lines are steel lines I got from the parts store so I'm 99% sure is not a valve between the master & the T-junction. Unless there's one built into the handbrake then that is not my problem is my guess.
Then I got no idea.
Status: Someone put glitter in my oil. Wait. Why's all my oil outside the engine? What's that knocking?
Bookmarks