Budget/First Drift Cars in 2016? E36/MX5/Volvo?

It is probably not about the insurance with the welded diff, but still about to get to the track and back, but if you from Teesside, you have one local, that wouldn't be an issue, but If you need to drive hour or two to get somewhere it would be not really perfect.

I don't have much experience with the tracks and drifting, but let's say I drive on my road wheels and tyres to the track ( did it on Sunday) than you change it first time before you go on track and leave your tyres to go back home, than when you finish, you just have your tyres fitted, but the wheels are not balanced, again, if you drive 10 miles home, it wouldn't be issue, but driving 100+ is not the best thing I could say.

Next time I probably take only wheels without tyres (hopefully it will fit into MX5 boot) and use this on track and change the wheels going back home.

Another points I have noticed, lot of poeple I saw had issue with the bemers overheated - at least in the play area
 
madein said:
It is probably not about the insurance with the welded diff, but still about to get to the track and back, but if you from Teesside, you have one local, that wouldn't be an issue, but If you need to drive hour or two to get somewhere it would be not really perfect.

I don't have much experience with the tracks and drifting, but let's say I drive on my road wheels and tyres to the track ( did it on Sunday) than you change it first time before you go on track and leave your tyres to go back home, than when you finish, you just have your tyres fitted, but the wheels are not balanced, again, if you drive 10 miles home, it wouldn't be issue, but driving 100+ is not the best thing I could say.

Next time I probably take only wheels without tyres (hopefully it will fit into MX5 boot) and use this on track and change the wheels going back home.

Another points I have noticed, lot of poeple I saw had issue with the bemers overheated - at least in the play area
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Oh yeah, thank you. I hadn't considered that either. That would be another set of wheels/tyres needed. I would likely be travelling around a lot to different tracks. I assumed the wheel changes would include balancing. Surely if you can't drive on unbalanced wheels it wouldn't be wise to drift on them either?

I wonder if there are any storage facilities at the tracks too for keeping your spare wheels/tyres while you're out? I'm a track noob so I have no idea. That would be an issue too though rather than keeping it in the car all the time.

Not too worried about the overheating if I can fit a bigger radiator and fans to help but thanks for the warning.


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The wheel balancing is not really so important during the drifting IMHO.

I'm not really sure about the storage facilities, those people changing the tyres put them under their track for the day, but I would assume if they got missing it wouldn't be their responsibility.

Also, if your tyre pop and you damage the only wheel you got to get back home?

I must say I was lucky on that day....
 
madein said:
The wheel balancing is not really so important during the drifting IMHO.

I'm not really sure about the storage facilities, those people changing the tyres put them under their track for the day, but I would assume if they got missing it wouldn't be their responsibility.

Also, if your tyre pop and you damage the only wheel you got to get back home?

I must say I was lucky on that day....
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That's interesting. I would have to take a couple of 'street' wheels then I guess. And hopefully there would be a place to put them without them getting nicked.

Damn that sounds pretty scary like. Could also get stranded if the engine blows or something. In which case hopefully the AA would still tow me home!


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When you go to a track/drift day you tend to have your 'drift' alloys you are going to use for when you get there. You then would have to take both the tyres and the alloys (road) you are driving home with stacked somewhere. If you go to the DYWB days at Santa Pod theres no storage, you have your own area and space to stack up your tyres, place for your tools and area to sort out your car etc. It is handy to bring someone along with you to help set up, however theres alot of friendly people who can give you a hand getting your car sorted ready. I tend to bring my car full of tyres or a van when my partner is drifting as you defo need an additional vehicle to carry your equipment etc.
They do have a tyre service at most tracks, you can go to who will put the tyres on your alloys, they also charge for disposal of tyres at the end of the day so saves you taking them home with you.
Hope this helps.
 
cheekybabe96 said:
When you go to a track/drift day you tend to have your 'drift' alloys you are going to use for when you get there. You then would have to take both the tyres and the alloys (road) you are driving home with stacked somewhere. If you go to the DYWB days at Santa Pod theres no storage, you have your own area and space to stack up your tyres, place for your tools and area to sort out your car etc. It is handy to bring someone along with you to help set up, however theres alot of friendly people who can give you a hand getting your car sorted ready. I tend to bring my car full of tyres or a van when my partner is drifting as you defo need an additional vehicle to carry your equipment etc.
They do have a tyre service at most tracks, you can go to who will put the tyres on your alloys, they also charge for disposal of tyres at the end of the day so saves you taking them home with you.
Hope this helps.
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Yes, that is basically as it is, another car would be big help, you can lock all your bits in there.
 
cheekybabe96 said:
When you go to a track/drift day you tend to have your 'drift' alloys you are going to use for when you get there. You then would have to take both the tyres and the alloys (road) you are driving home with stacked somewhere. If you go to the DYWB days at Santa Pod theres no storage, you have your own area and space to stack up your tyres, place for your tools and area to sort out your car etc. It is handy to bring someone along with you to help set up, however theres alot of friendly people who can give you a hand getting your car sorted ready. I tend to bring my car full of tyres or a van when my partner is drifting as you defo need an additional vehicle to carry your equipment etc.
They do have a tyre service at most tracks, you can go to who will put the tyres on your alloys, they also charge for disposal of tyres at the end of the day so saves you taking them home with you.
Hope this helps.
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That does help a lot, thanks! Wouldn't be able to bring a van or anything but hopefully everything would fit in the car. Dunno what tools I'd need but that's a completely different topic that I'm gonna leave for now :) bringing a set of wheels and tyres separately sounds okay though !
 
NSean said:
That does help a lot, thanks! Wouldn't be able to bring a van or anything but hopefully everything would fit in the car. Dunno what tools I'd need but that's a completely different topic that I'm gonna leave for now :) bringing a set of wheels and tyres separately sounds okay though !
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one thing to also consider, you will need your jack to lift the car and change the wheels, the people fitting tyres are just fitting tyres, they are not changing the wheels on the car
 
I wouldnt worry tooooo much. Thats why you buy a bmw, because theyre reliable and take a beating and will still get you home.

I had a V8 swapped S14, drove it 2 hours to a drift day, backed it in to a tyre barrier when i was there, drove 2 hours back, pulled it back into position, then drove it to work the next day lol.

And yes, youll need tools, a jack and then put some wheels in your car. You should have plenty of space to fit all that in, you will only need to bring 4 wheels (plus the wheels you arrive on) so you have 2 on the car and 2 with fresh tyres. The tyre changing place will dispose of old tyres too so its fairly easy.

Dont worry about stuff getting nicked. Drifting is a pretty good family and ive never heard of anything getting pinched. Maybe a gopro at a very big event, but never at practice days.

My strong recommendation would be to just go and spectate at a practice day, ask for some passenger rides (most people will be happy to oblige) and get chatting to people and generally get a feel for what its like.
 
MaccyD said:
I wouldnt worry tooooo much. Thats why you buy a bmw, because theyre reliable and take a beating and will still get you home.

I had a V8 swapped S14, drove it 2 hours to a drift day, backed it in to a tyre barrier when i was there, drove 2 hours back, pulled it back into position, then drove it to work the next day lol.

And yes, youll need tools, a jack and then put some wheels in your car. You should have plenty of space to fit all that in, you will only need to bring 4 wheels (plus the wheels you arrive on) so you have 2 on the car and 2 with fresh tyres. The tyre changing place will dispose of old tyres too so its fairly easy.

Dont worry about stuff getting nicked. Drifting is a pretty good family and ive never heard of anything getting pinched. Maybe a gopro at a very big event, but never at practice days.

My strong recommendation would be to just go and spectate at a practice day, ask for some passenger rides (most people will be happy to oblige) and get chatting to people and generally get a feel for what its like.
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Hah that's awesome. I don't need to worry about that even since I'm keeping my daily as well.

That sounds good to me. Not too much at all really. I'll see if Teesside is doing any practise days soon and go to one of those, and if not then I have an l2d session booked in November. Gonna have to start writing this down. Cheers !
 
Thinking outside the box is great advice. There's plenty of excellent drift machinery that hasn't gone soaring in price recently due to drift tax and this is especially true if you want to do the work yourself from a blank canvas. A BMW e36 worth buying (IE one that isn't a dog) these days seems to start at 4 figures. An already drifted one of decent spec is at least 1500. This is a lot for something you need to push hard in and make mistakes in to learn unless you're doing fairly well for yourself.

I'd consider any of the following; Vauxhall Omega, Any manual Merc but especially the 230K variants (there's usually a fair few under 1k now), Lexus is200 (personally think this is a great chassis and they're stupidly cheap now, reliable too), Volvo 7 or 940s, especially the turbos (the 340s/360s seem to have shot up in price because they're "cool"), and the 5-series BMW's rather than e36's (same engines, same manual gearbox, same ease of getting parts, same reliability, longer wheelbase). There's also now some very cheap Subaru Impreza estates and these make a great practice car too with the front shafts removed and the diffs welded.

Keep going with AC, come join us on Master Drift servers and in the DMF series - a lot of real life drifters are on there now and we can help you make the setups more realistic and more controllable. There's a chance I'll be doing your private session with L2D in November as I've got more free time through the winter and will be doing more instructing again but, if not, the guys and girls will all be able to help you progress quickly.

Edit: don't get me wrong, the e36 is a great practice car. There's a reason so many are used and the price has gone up so much. Same with the MX5's. However most started using them because they were a bargain and I just don't believe they're the bargain they used to be anymore compared to some of the other stuff mentioned. Same with s14's. They're 350z money now and the Z is a much more capable and complete car out of the box.
 
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Thanks for the encouraging writeup dude! Would definitely consider those. There's actually a 1995 528i near me. I thought the 5 series and Lexus were a bit heavy though? I might be totally wrong mind.

Good to hear someone recommending AC after I got totally shut down for suggesting it in another thread too haha. I'll have a look for those tonight. Getting it more realistic would be great. I usually hop on driftjunkies server as it's the most popular one.

Didn't realise you were with l2d but that would be spot on :) really looking forward to it after all the time spent on AC.

Cheapest decent e36s seem to be around 800 from what I've seen so far. I'll price up options before rushing into anything


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A couple of points about MX5s...
- They're pretty reliable. At our local drift day the BMWs are often broken by mid afternoon but the MX5s just keep going.
- If you're learning in one, you won't need hundreds of tyres. I used to take 4 wheels with tyres and they fitted in the car, with basic tools/helmet/many snacks. Plenty of people have crammed more in or used ratchet straps to secure extra tyres to the boot.
- There are millions of them around to choose from.

I used to drive mine to events (without a separate van full of tools and tyres!!) and to work again on the next day as it was my only car. This isn't ideal though because I was always too worried about breaking it and not being able to get to work the next day.

I get that they're not everyone's cup of tea though.

When it comes to storing stuff, I can't speak for Teeside but I've driven at Santa Pod, Pembrey and Smeatharpe. At all of those I just found a space in the pits and left my stuff in a little pile next to the car which is what everyone else does. I always thought that if other people leave their expensive wheels and Snap-On tools out without a problem then my cheap MX5 wheels & £15 socket set should be safe enough :) I was usually more worried about my chocolate & crisps.

As MaccyD said above, go and spectate at one and you'll get a feel for how it's run.
Good luck! :)
 
NSean said:
Thanks for the encouraging writeup dude! Would definitely consider those. There's actually a 1995 528i near me. I thought the 5 series and Lexus were a bit heavy though? I might be totally wrong mind.

Good to hear someone recommending AC after I got totally shut down for suggesting it in another thread too haha. I'll have a look for those tonight. Getting it more realistic would be great. I usually hop on driftjunkies server as it's the most popular one.

Didn't realise you were with l2d but that would be spot on :) really looking forward to it after all the time spent on AC.

Cheapest decent e36s seem to be around 800 from what I've seen so far. I'll price up options before rushing into anything


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Good thinking. Just remember that cheapest doesn't mean best value, nor does most expensive equal best. For example, I'd take the 528 over most other BMW's any day as they're just lovely to throw around and are super stable, plus fewer people have crashed them so the price isn't going up that much. That said, I really like the e36 318ti compacts. Lighter than the coupe, revvy little engine, fun to throw around. Doesn't need the 6-pot, is plenty fun as a it is. A lot like the is200 and Mx5 in fact.

Keep at it with AC. If set up right it really is good practice.
 
Hexa-dB said:
A couple of points about MX5s...
- They're pretty reliable. At our local drift day the BMWs are often broken by mid afternoon but the MX5s just keep going.
- If you're learning in one, you won't need hundreds of tyres. I used to take 4 wheels with tyres and they fitted in the car, with basic tools/helmet/many snacks. Plenty of people have crammed more in or used ratchet straps to secure extra tyres to the boot.
- There are millions of them around to choose from.

I used to drive mine to events (without a separate van full of tools and tyres!!) and to work again on the next day as it was my only car. This isn't ideal though because I was always too worried about breaking it and not being able to get to work the next day.

I get that they're not everyone's cup of tea though.

When it comes to storing stuff, I can't speak for Teeside but I've driven at Santa Pod, Pembrey and Smeatharpe. At all of those I just found a space in the pits and left my stuff in a little pile next to the car which is what everyone else does. I always thought that if other people leave their expensive wheels and Snap-On tools out without a problem then my cheap MX5 wheels & £15 socket set should be safe enough :) I was usually more worried about my chocolate & crisps.

As MaccyD said above, go and spectate at one and you'll get a feel for how it's run.
Good luck! :)
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Thanks! I think the main thing putting me off them is my height now. I'm surprised you say they're reliable because I've always viewed the MK1 MX5s as always having something wrong with them. But that's subjective I guess. Using ratchet straps on the boot lid sounds so sketch haha. I'd feel at ease as well if everyone just leaves their tools out. Gotta guard the snacks tho.


Sea Squirrel said:
Did you get my reply chap? Can't tell if it sent.
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No I think there's something wrong with my tapatalk app. It's just saying "Loading..." and constantly spinning. Can you PM over the Driftworks forum?
 
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