How is a drift car setup
HOW TO BUILD A DRIFT CAR (SETUP AND MODS)
they're just going to go over like
safety car setup
cooling how to get yourself comfortable
in the vehicle
so this is really critical if you're
looking at building a drift car
or in the process of building one right
now so safety
very critical we're doing a dangerous
motorsport stuff happens
drifting is one of the safer motorsports
that's actually one of the reasons i
kind of first chose it to really get
into i didn't want to lose my life but a
roll cage
or a roll bar at the very least you
absolutely need it
i understand just getting started and
you're the only car on the track
um not having a roll cage i understand
it to a degree but honestly even still
you could roll over like
[ __ ] happens so at least at the very
least get a four point roll cage as well
as gives you a good spot to mount
your harness on it doesn't need to be
formula drift spec or quite as crazy as
this roll cage
we've added on like the rally pillars
and
wheel intrusion bars but six point is
basically
the main hoop with the down bars that's
your four point
and then having these a-pillars that
come all the way together
and then um attaching them with some
door bars so that's like your basic
six-point cage
next would be a good seat believe it or
not
a seat is really gonna make a difference
and assuming you're the
main person usually driving your car
just get it set for where you like being
comfortable and leave it you don't
necessarily need like a full halo
driver's seat like this this is a little
overboard
this car just before moving forward this
car was built as like our backup formula
drift car so some of the stuff
is a little above and beyond what most
people are going to need
you can get non-fia you just won't be
able to use it in like competition or
things like that but as long as it's
from a reputable brand
it's still going to be just as safe but
a nice bucket seat is going to keep you
planted
and keep you keep stuck there if you're
getting a crash
seat belt is so critical please don't
just get a four point get at least a
five point or six point there's not a
huge difference between five and six
point
this is called the anti-submarine belt
um you basically either have two that
kind of wrap your legs or one going down
the middle
two's a little step safer the reason why
anti-submarine is super critical and i
never recommend four-point belts
is it's pretty self-explanatory in the
name submarine
so in the event of a crash you'll
literally go out
under the belts and into there and it's
just
it's gonna be a gross mess please get at
least a five point belt
um again get it from a reputable company
doesn't need to be
fia which kind of brings you to the next
one a good steering wheel
depending on the vehicle that you have i
really prefer these kind of deep dish
wheels they put them a little bit closer
to you than a stock steering wheel would
be
you're really looking to have this part
of your arm
be 90 degrees so whether it's like here
or up here
doesn't necessarily matter that's
preference but you don't want to be
driving
you know like a loco way back all
gangster
and you definitely don't want to be
right up here either so just look for
90 degrees right there and you can kind
of have it wherever you want some type
of steering wheel
not ebay crap we've seen those break it
does happen believe it or not this is
super critical
a lot of these things are but for real
get some type of fire extinguisher in
your vehicle
um we have a fire suppression system
that's a lot more money
and more complication but it it is a lot
safer
so if you're doing like a full build do
a fire suppression
if you can't afford it or aren't ready
to you know pull a trigger on that at
the very least get a two pound fire
extinguisher
wait wait is awesome because it
literally affects every part of your
performance it affects your
acceleration which way you want to go
less less weight the better pretty much
like for drifting at least so at least
with this car
um we pulled out all the air
conditioning the heating the radio
gutted the door panels got rid of the
glass got rid of all like the floor
matting the headliner all that stuff so
that's a
believe it or not a ton of weight it
really all adds up speaking of weight
you can take it even a little level
further
lexan windows are really good this car
we just put lexa and windows all around
side windows don't weigh all that much
but these rear windows
and especially windshields are so heavy
they're like
40-50 pounds it's a good thing to do as
well as
gutting your trunk that kind of goes in
with the interior but take your
damn spare tire out of there um so we
actually did a video on drift missiles
so you can check that out in abuses some
of these guys are like just out of
control they'll literally have their
trunk
full of stuff full of their jack their
tools things like that get all that
stuff out of there not only is it extra
weight that you're just carrying around
for no reason
i actually saw one guy that had all that
stuff in his trunk flew open
and stuff went flying all over the track
fortunately no cars or anyone got hit
but that's just ridiculous another thing
you can do we didn't do
but carbon trunk that can save a little
weight i would say more critical than a
carbon trunk though
would be a carbon fiber hood that can
actually be worth a lot of weight
savings
and it's really nice because it is on
the front end so that's going to help a
little bit with getting some of that
weight
shifted to the rear end which with
drifting we're kind of looking for 50 50
but we definitely
don't want it super front end heavy
that's not ideal so
carbon hood is kind of an easy one
engine power
and honestly more ideally at this point
reliability
you're probably going to be mostly good
with what you have but there are some
little things you can do
that may not be too expensive one of the
biggest ones you can't see it
getting rid of your coolant going to
distilled water and water water
so if you want more detail on that just
search up water wetter another obvious
one is
upgraded radiator and we have an
upgraded fan on here that gives like 60
more airflow so we've had really good
luck with that pretty much for any
vehicle
you should be able to find an upgraded
radar and fan set up
that's one though that i would do the
water wetter and distill water first and
then go kind of watch your temps make
sure you have a cooling cage
and um or water temp gauge rather and
just kind of watch it i wouldn't
blow a bunch of money on that if you
don't need it your amount of cooling
needed kind of will go up with your
power level right
look at your intake coolant temps if
you're a turbo car
so a larger intercooler is going to help
intake filter
any decent quality air filter will work
and that's easy free power
and is going to keep it from sucking
crap in there another little hack
for cooling is actually a water spare
kit so you can just just search like
intercooler sprayer radiator sprayer
water sprayer kit for
cars that's kind of an easy
band-aid as well as an addition if
you've already done all these cooling
things and you're not getting enough
cooling
so this is more on the engine power side
not as much of the reliability
doesn't really do much for reliability
but exhaust system
don't need to get anything fancy but the
more
air you're moving through it generally
the more power it's going to make
especially if you have a huge ass stock
muffler cadillac converters all that
wheels and tires really preference in a
lot of ways
but you want to get the right sizes so
that will allow you to get tires that
are cheap and available don't
necessarily need three piece
just don't run stockies it's kind of the
main thing
wheels are also a place where you can
save weight which is an
awesome place to save weight these are
not doing us any benefits there
as far as tires for the rear these
really do depend on your power level
in a lot of ways kind of the size you
want to go by the way this is like the
most stretch
i would ever recommend running for
drifting tire stretch is basically
running like a smaller width tire than
is built for the wheel
so that's kind of how you get this like
rounded effect that truly is for fitment
and style
and this is the most i would run
depending on your power level
you'll be somewhere in like that 205 to
255 range
and just get cheap chinese tires okay de
lentes iron man
uh non king don't necessarily need to be
chinese tires but just
cheap ass tires honestly so moving on to
the front grip
is critical here this isn't great outer
fitment
but it's as good as we can get with the
wise fab in these cheapo front fenders
suspension let's start off with the coil
overs
so you want something adjustable uh we
really prefer feel suspension
you want something with you know a coil
over spring
where you can adjust the preload and
then also adjust the height separately
and then angle kit this is
top of the line wise fab that's like
full on competition as crazy as you can
go
it's not necessary for when you're
getting started out but if you want to
ball out
the nice thing is you can kind of start
out with just a modded knuckle and then
extend your lower control arms do rack
offset
you know a rack adjustment either moving
it forward or backwards depending on
what vehicle you have
and with just stock steering angle
you're going to have a lot of trouble
really getting into a drift
and kind of experiencing what's needed
to control it once you can drift
you can drift a car with stock angle
just fine but it makes it it gives a
kind of a steeper learning curve
with no angle kit at all so i apologize
for how dirty this car is
uh we drive it a lot so we haven't had a
chance to kind of clean
everything underneath here but moving to
the rear end you don't necessarily need
all adjustable links
but enough adjustable lengths where you
can get the alignment set where you want
it
front end alignment is really depending
on what steering system you have
there's a lot of information out there
depending on your steering system
kind of what what alignment you want for
the front the rear though
at least in our experience is fairly
universal we always look for
zero camber so we don't want to run that
crazy rear camber
i know it looks sick and hella flush
boys love it but
for drifting it sucks you get shitty
tire wear go zero camber that's gonna
give you the most grip out of your tires
i would personally start with zero toe
as you get a little bit better and you
want a little bit more grip
you can do some toe in that's going to
help your car kind of charge forward and
grip more when you're on throttle but i
would start with a very neutral setup
zero camber zero toe get that full tread
patch
that's gonna help you get the most to
set or tired and the most grip you can
uh sway bars
in the front we don't have any sway bar
some of the cars we do
rear end though really nice to have a
lot of times your stock sway bar is
actually gonna be more than enough
on this one we actually took a stock
sway bar and modified it these are just
like
water jetted little plates where we can
kind of adjust on the fly
to get stiffer softer sway bar settings
you got that motor that you're stuck
with
hopefully you have a manual transmission
automatic will work for a while
but manual is preferable um one piece
drive shaft if you're lucky enough that
your vehicle comes with a one-piece
drive shaft then great
just leave it until you need a you know
a beefier one for your power level
but if you have a two-piece drive shaft
a one piece is really going to help you
transfer
all the power you do have to the back
end and get rid of some of that slop
most of us have a drive shaft shop
around the corner that can build
a really cheap one-piece drive shaft i'm
talking like 150-200 bucks
so that's a cheap easy mod open diff is
just not going to fly but easy modded do
like we've done on this car
is just welding the diff um welding
you're definitely basically just welding
all the spider gears up
and making it so that the axles can't
spin independently
just locking that whole rear end up also
while we're back here
doing some solid subframe mount for the
bushings on the
on the subframe as well as solid
subframe or solid mounts for the diff
is really good so these are just
literally ran up right
to the diff sometimes you need a little
bushing depending on the vehicle
but getting rid of all those rubber
bushings just helps stiffen everything
up
make sure that the power you do have is
getting to the rear tires and you're not
losing it anywhere else so kind of the
only last one for the drivetrain
right goes engine transmission drive
shaft diff axles
we just run stock axles honestly that's
usually
more than fine for most power levels
that's another thing where it's like
once they kind of start braking then
start upgrading them
don't go crazy spending a bunch of money
on fancy axles when you don't need them
your money is better spent elsewhere
spend it in your suspension spend it and
making yourself comfortable and safe or
spend it making your car stylish
that's that's a good option too as long
as your car has a stock handbrake
like a parking brake and you can tighten
it up and get the rear wheels to lock
you're really good to go but if you want
a little better lock
something more reliable i really would
recommend going with a hydraulic
handbrake
there's kind of two versions you can do
in-line inline basically
you just still use the stock caliper
and you put it you put the hydraulic
hand brake in line with the rear caliper
systems
the kind of next upgrade something they
require in a lot of competition series
mostly the professional ones
is a dual caliper again this is
something like a stock handbrake you can
go
so far with like in our laurel we ran
stock handbrake for like the longest
time and when this car was my obesity
car it was stock handbrake so it's
really not until you get at a higher
power level
and you really feel like you're
efficient with that handbrake and you
just need that little extra
you know kind of improvement with it
then go deal caliper and spend the money
the reason why this is more ideal than
inline is because they're separate
systems so if the handbrake system were
to fail
you'd still have your brakes or vice
versa if your brakes failed do you still
have your handbrake
it's just a safer more reliable system
all right guys this is a bonus one
but style this is i think super critical
i'd put it almost as important
as safety and having the car function
right not more important though
which some of you guys would i
understand that but i really look at him
as
getting the car to drift well and be
safe and then styles like they're just
kind of
get them both as good as they can be not
one's really more important than the
other
style is really it's an expression of
yourself right
and so the cool thing is depending on
what vehicle you're running
it may already be stylish just because
of the choice of chassis you used
and then you can kind of pair it with
whatever different body kits you want
hoods wheels paint jobs liveries all
sorts of stuff we like having fun with
it
i do think it's important at the very
least to have your car all one color
not having you know all sorts of
different color body panels all beat up
even i mean this is as beat up as we
like to get them so
not happy about that but it's okay
it really is personal taste right i
can't tell you necessarily how to be
stylish
or what you need to do to have a stylish
car and i don't even
want to do that necessarily because
that's really like someone with a
large ego would do that that's that's
not me if you put effort into your car
looking good
that's going to go everywhere if your
car looks good and that all is going to
lead to you being a little bit better
driver
and just having a better well-built
reliable car
because you're putting some money and
effort into having it look good
you're also going to have put put money
and effort into having it run good and
perform well
so there's a lot more detail we could go
in on each one of these aspects
but we want to hear from you guys so
this was kind of we just went
over all the high level details of the
entire car comment below
and let us know what details you guys
would like us to talk more about
and we'll put them in the next video for
you guys if you guys enjoy this video
hit that subscribe button we'd really
appreciate it and uh
we'll see in a couple more days
![Drift Car Suspension Setup 101 | Aaron Parker [TECH TALK]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6DVWIqnkXKc/mqdefault.jpg)
