Getting electricuted by the plug leads!

[Stavros]

Brilliant, with this amount of info hopefully ill have it going fine in no time Thanks a lot everyone

(if a bit one-horse-trick for me)

If you think a drift car is only good for one thing you very wrong!

A drift car setup is almost no different from a circuit car setup, as proven by the fact that a good few D1 cars have been timed at under 1minute round Tsukuba Circuit in Japan.

They also drag race suprisingly well too, thanks to not having lame open diffs, good tyres, light, plenty of power, etc etc etc

They arnt built to go sideways easlier than standard like some people seem to think, with everything optimised so the rear has as little grip as poss, thats for sure!

[foggyjames]

Got me on a technicality What I meant was 300 drift-bangers are kinda one-horse tricks. Your typical well set-up motorsport prepared saloon car will drift really nicely...but a near-stock 340 1.7 with a welded diff will probably suck on a circuit, or hillclimb, etc, compared to it's reasonable performance in a drift arena.

Of course making an all-rounder is usually a hell of a lot more expensive and time consuming - presumably why so many of you guys with expensive toys in-progress have specialised drift-bangers to service your craving while the 'real' car is being fettled.

cheers

James

[Stavros]

you know, ill be suprised if it does totally suck.
in this country your average drifty 300 is stripped out, lowered/uprated suspension, welded diff, slightly wider tyres, and maybe a tiny bit more power.

i reckon thatd lap any circuit way quicker than stock, and go down the strip quicker.
every mod gives advantages and not disadvantages.

ANYHOW! Back on topic...

Got a set of plugs, leads (inc king lead), dizzy cap, and rotor arm, for 40quid from my local friendly parts bloke.
Ill let you know tomorrow when i fit it...

Knowing my luck its missing as ive done a piston/valve etc, lol. Pretty sure its not as it was (not now tho) clearing at high rpm, and, well, its a volvo 360 engine, they not exactly easy to kill, lol.

The Bosch dizzycap i took off was almost new condition inside TBH, even tho it looks REALLY old, almost tempted to stick with that one...

[Stavros]

fitted new plugs/leads/dizzycap/etc now, and car runs much better, starts easier, revs cleaner, etc etc, job done.

stinks of fuel a bit now n again tho, mainly when first start the engine, and just shut it down.
also a slightly fuely oily wet bit on the inlet around the base of the carb, maybe like its leaking a bit?

[petefarrell360]

There's a thread on here somewhere, possibly by jtbo about replacing the fuel pipes each end of the car around the fuel pump and the tank, as they perish. He included a diagram. If you can use fuel injection piping, as it's not got the cloth braided covering rubbish. That may help.
Pete

[foggyjames]

I'm not sure that 'performance' modifications necessarily improve a car's performance across the board - hence why high-end suspension setups are fully adjustable. Huskyracer found that his stiffened suspension cost him as much as a second in the 1/4 mile, as he was no longer getting 'squat', which it seems was significantly aiding traction. A welded diff might help there, but if one wheel is spinning, the other can't be far behind.

Good to hear the ignition components sorted you out. Sounds like you could use an inlet-to-carb gasket (or whatever the arrangement is there...haven't looked at my Solex CISAC for a couple of years now). Regarding the smell, pretty much any car which doesn't have lambda controlled EFI will stink of fuel if only run for a few seconds, so I'd not get too worried about that.

cheers

James

[Stavros]

Yeah, its nothing much to worry about, but yes, possibly mild gasket leak there.

And on the other subject, lol...

A welded diff might help there, but if one wheel is spinning, the other can't be far behind.

Other wheel will be far behind! Hence why you see so many cars with open diffs doing 1 wheel burnouts with the other wheel totally static, you can put 100% of the power to one wheel on an open one, thats how they work.
They safe, but shite.

Trust me when I say the difference between an open diff with regards to traction at the dragstrip, if you actually have any power, is huge.
Been there, tested that.

Hard suspension and a welder makes a quicker drag car than softer (ie better for dragging in many respects, not in all though, you want the wheel pushed into the ground, not the suspension taking up all the squat) suspension and an open diff, thats for sure.

But yes, depending on the type of sport your doing, mods you do may do well for that sport, but less so for another.
Still a damn sight better than standard though!

And i was merely stating that they are set up in almost the same way as a circuit car, and would be better than standard regardless.

[foggyjames]

I think the value of some means of locking the axle depends on the exact vehicle in question. Like for like, it obviously raises the threshold of power you can put down, but if you're not making the power to break the amount of traction you have available (the bigger variable, IMO), you don't need an LSD. There's a video out there of Husky's 340 walking all over a Civic Type R (with an LSD) off the line at Santa Pod...in that instance even with more power than the CTR, the downward force applied to the rubber is more than enough to compensate for the lack of an LSD.

Obviously when cornering, things get rather more complex (and 300s can be prone to lifting the inside rear, although only usually enough to break traction in 1st gear in a 360).

It'd be an interesting experiment...but I'm not convinced that a drift-banger prepared 340 (and by that I mean slammed on its ass, 13" rims with little tyres, MIG'd diff) would necessarily be faster on a hillclimb or sprint course, for example. Clearly, if you go to the next stage and do springs & shocks, it's game over for the standard car on a circuit.

cheers

James

[classicswede]

I'm quite happy to be corrected but my understanding of a drift car set up is to get the Front end with most amount of grip possible to make sure the front end has good control. The rear end is set to break away in a predictable manner. This results in the rear end hanging out and being controlable and the limit is easy to find. When you have a car with good roa holding and hit the limit the car can tend to totaly break away.

[Stavros]

generally you want a neutral handling car, and then you use whatever technique is relevant for the situation to initiate the drift.

having a very very oversteery car helps if you new to it, but will cause trouble when doing anything really fast.

if you dont have much grip on the rear on a drift car you will just spin if you do anything at decent speeds.

most the top competition cars run 265 wide rear tyres (i can think of one with 275s, and i can think of some that im sure are well over that, but never checked), about 225 or 235 on the front.
more often than not in competition they use semi-slick race tyres too.

top ones run no toe out and a lot less rear camber than most lowered road cars to get the grip.