Hi, I'm 16, looking to buy my first car next year, really want to get into drifting and the ony RWD car that I'd be able to insure looks to be the 300 series.

Which one do you reccomend for a learner driver/drifter?

hmm as a first car the 1.4 should be plenty power for you. It's deffinatly the worst out of the 3 engines for drifting. I did motorsport from the ages of 14-16 so I thought I was the dog's bollocks at driving. In hindsight if I'd had a 1.7 or 2.0 300 series... well I wouldn't be here anymore! Plus it's VERY hard to get insured on anything over 1.4 when you're that young with no no-claims.

The drifter's favourite is the 1.7 and obviously the 2.0l would have more power for holding slides. Have fun!

Depends what you want dude.

1.4 340 weld the dif and itll skid in the wet. Cheap to run and insure.
Get a 1.7 340 and do a F7P renault clio 1.8 16valve engine swap for super powerz. Expensive to insure though.

360 2 litle inj has a bit more poke but will cost you a bit more to insude, but youre more likely to get it sideways. Again, if you want to drift, weld the diff.
360 with a 2.3 LPT engine swap will rule the world but youll probably get laughed out of every insurance shop in the world.


Good all round starter if you want a ssolid daily with drift potentiol would be a 1.7 340 i guess.
Can always upgrade the lump later.
Uprate the springs, drop it and weld it.
That should get you going dude.

Welcome to the forum.

Oh and buy a mk3, just incase you crash it

I don't think any 300 is particularly good for drifting as they are inherently well weight-distributed. If you're serious you might be better staring off with a 940 turbo. More expensive to insure but imo far less mods required, more steering angle and stronger.

im also 16 i've bought the 340 1.4 and im using it as a first car and a drifter i've emptyied the back completely to make it lighter at the rear, and modding parts of the engine which will not effect the insurance quotes.What insurance prices u been getting?

learn to drift in a "hard" car such as a 340 1.4 and you'll do fine in any other vehicle, if you even want something else when you drift a 340

i was thinking of practicality (dont know why because i don't usually think about that) :p but i was thinking of power steering .Would this effect the SIDEWAYS ACTION :p and if so how much?

in my opinion good drifting is making the car steer itself with throttle, when i'm in a drift the steering with 195wide tires is controllable like the car has PAS. i see PAS as a unnescasary luxury when it comes to drifting.

Totally agree with volvodspec, if anything PAS makes it harder as it loses some of the self centering properties that you get with a manual rack.

i even believe that with PAS the steering travel from lock to lock is shorter? ie larger turning circle, if that's so; another thing you don't want

True the turning circle is larger, but the rack is quicker.. less turns lock to lock

SteveP wrote:True the turning circle is larger,

I didnt know that.
The 340 used to U-turn fine outside my local shop (on the beer run) with no pas.
I always wondered why the 360 with pas always popped up the kerb on the far side.
Scares the chavs mind. which is always good news.

A 360, even without PAS, will also have a slightly larger turning circle than a 1.4 340. The difference shouldn't be big (9.35 vs. 9.20 m) but for some reason feels a lot bigger.

cant believe it i thought the 340 was cheap to insure i was just quoted 3450 !!!!! fully comprehensive