Sigma-galant.com

Hey guys...

Some of you may know about my recently aquirred galant? If not, it's a gd hardtop. Pretty gone too

Anyhow... I'm looking into turning it into a dedicated drift car....

Just wondering, what's the go with building one? What rules do I need to follow?

Once I get the old girl home I'll start stripping her down. And start fixing the rust (fibreglass and bog). I'll post pics as I go

That sounds awesome! Personally i think if you were just starting off you could just weld the diff.. coilovers in the front with fairly stiff spring rates and dampening.. A decent handbrake to get it out sideways and then i would turn all attention to motor/gearbox choice. Whats your main ideas first coming to mind?

Yep... My thought exactly..

Plans are;

Welded diff
Hydro handbrake
Tramp bars
Stiff suspension (not sure what yet)
And a stripped car

Do it!!!!!
I'm not sure how strong the galant diffs are but you would probably want to look into replacing it with something stronger.
Roll cage, bucket seats and harnesses too

If you're talking real drifting (not just skid pan stuff), you will need power.
As much as a stripped out car will help the power to weight ratio, you will need more than just your everyday 1600.
When I was drifting somewhat competitively, it's the guys with 200 + kw that can hold the drift/slide for so much longer and easier.
If I were you I would look more into motorkhana stuff or start out in the skid pan.
Either that or build a decent 2 litre turbo or 2.6 turbo.

Just for your info, my R33 Skyline had 420hp and a nice long wheelbase with all aftermarket suspension parts I could afford and was set up for drift. It was competitive but the guys with more money and decent support (from sponsors etc) were the guys up the front end of the field.

No doubt you will have fun but you will be spending heaps of money to try and get up in the field.
As sad as it sounds, you are better off putting that money into an s13 or similar and will be way more competitive.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the advice dean

I'm looking at a 2.6 for now... Then upgrade to the efi turbo later... And to start off, I'll just hit the wet pan and maybe archy (archerfield go kart track does drift practice on Fridays).

But yea I know I need power, even the ke corollas with their 4age's have trouble..

Are hydro handbrakes legal for the road??

Nope.... She'll never see the road anyhow... Too much rust..

4g63 turbo for engine?

definately upgrade diff and axles unless you wanna be doing diff rebuilds, trust me you dont wanna be tracking.down axles for galants they are well to put it simply a cunt to find ahah

Nah too much stuffing around for a 4g63 swap.. Just a 2.6 will be suffice

And I'll just weld this diff with tramp bars until it pops... Then I'll worry about the upgrade... (Probably just an r31 diff)

That shouldnt take long :p

2.6 turbo will have alot of low down grunt anyway enough to get you sliding for a bit of fun anyway. Tempted to put something similar into mine if its straight forward so i can hit the streets up with a bit more power at the pedal..

79-95 Hilux 2WD rear axle.

Gormzz wrote:2.6 turbo will have alot of low down grunt anyway enough to get you sliding for a bit of fun anyway. Tempted to put something similar into mine if its straight forward so i can hit the streets up with a bit more power at the pedal..

The engine itself is a straightforward swap..lengthen alternator wires install motor. Wiring would be what you spend most of your timr on, but galant axle + turbo anything = axle not lasting.

Yea the diff should hold for some wet fun... As long as I eliminate axle tramp.

I'm only new at this "drifting" thing... Sure, I've thrown a car around a fair bit, but it's a whole world of difference between the two. So hopefully it'll hold until I get the feel of things, then head out to the dry stuff. Until it pops (half a lap through )

Hopefully I can get this thing home pretty soon! And get things under way (all the free stuff like stripping, cutting, etc )

I would look into changing your crossmember out for a lancer one so you could use the later style control arms of say starions or look into ae86 corolla stuff.

Done I'll add that to the "to do" list

Like an LA/B/C lancer? Or the later ones?

LA-LC.

And you'll need to get the tension rods too. Requires drilling holes in the rail to suit since we don't have use them.

I have one sitting in the garage for my 76 . Going that routec to accommodate the widebody starion struts I have up front to fix my camber. Camber plates would be about maxed out just to correct the positive camber it has.

for drift you need power and a good amount of it too, there has to be enough to be able to flatter the accelerator and actual get a response at the back treads and the better you get the more power you will want so you can extend your drift and power out of the corners, if you can find a 2.6l n/a motor that can do that without throwing alot of cash at it then thats great, with the 4g63 swap whats so hard about it if you not worried about passing engineers cert, would be sweet to see an old school galant goin round side ways though, the other side is the suspension which is probably more improtant then anything, my silvia (about 300hp at the treads) i could hold flat out of corners and it would just hold the most sweet drifts, but my brothers silvia on the other hand had less power and all it wanted to do was turn you around and it had adjustable tein suspension but obviously poorly set up, i think there would be abit to get the old girl to handle well imho but it would be sick and different if you can pull it off

Id suggest s13 or the like over a galant too... twitchy as anything with power the galants are..well mine is in the wet with 150 odd kw atw... cheaper on parts to the more modern cars are..and parts are readily available aswell...its an expensive motorsport too mate...

do your self a favour and buy a silvia, and sell the coupe to someone who will restore it!

the problem is you need to find out whats going to work from scratch, and spend alot of money to do it, where as silvias are cheap and tried and tested and parts ready to bolt straight in to get ya goin, i can see the idea behind the concept that it would be cool to have something different but you might have a long road in front of you to even get it close to drifting properly, burnout car maybe

There's a lot of better examples of a coupe than this one.. It's really bad and too far gone for any of us (would easy be $10k just to get her back into shape. That's not including the running gear. So instead, I help one hardtop get on the road, then have fun with the scraps...).

And good point Lennon, I can cut shit and not worry about dot whining over it...

The reason I haven't bought a s13/180sx/r31 etc is. I don't know if I can drift... It'll cost me $2.5k+ to get one of those... I already have this coupe. And $2.5k will go along way into getting this thing to slide enough...

what about trying to pick up a wrecked silvia and salvaging the motor etc from it, personally i think that it would be an easy conversion, heaps of parts transmissions etc be worth a look

No way! That's too far

Myself (like jase), is a die hard mitsu fan... And also, a 63 bolts straight in.. What much could you ask for?

Not having a go just having fun whilst expressing my opinion by all means, it would be a smarter choice for power (rb25), but, it's not a good choice morally IMO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvBgVZnrL1o
lol sr20 are perfect engines for drifting just saying mid range torque, but fair enough if ya wont to keep it all mitsu, me personally as a drift car wouldnt worry me what engine was in there long as it is able to do the job, and with the bolt on mods available for sr20 against 4g63 in rwd form you could go heaps further for less. But i understand keeping it all mitsu dont get me wrong but if i was to have a street car (all mitsu) plus a drift car i wouldnt mind crossing that line if i felt it was a better option thats all. And this is coming from someone who loves 4g63's, im just thinking about turbo manifolds, plenums, after market ecu's there are heaps of parts new and second hand that can be had where as most 4g63 stuff will need to be modded in some way or form.

I have 3 words for you - ZOMBIE TRACK CAR. It would be a blast to do a drivetrain upgrade, sort out some decent brakes and suspension, a set of sticky tyres and take it out on the track for a few laps. If it took a hit or 2 you wouldn't cry too much (unless you hit some nicer ) And there's nothing more priceless than watching some absolute dog of a car mixing it with the shiny things and standing it's ground.

geezer101 wrote:I have 3 words for you - ZOMBIE TRACK CAR. It would be a blast to do a drivetrain upgrade, sort out some decent brakes and suspension, a set of sticky tyres and take it out on the track for a few laps. If it took a hit or 2 you wouldn't cry too much (unless you hit some nicer ) And there's nothing more priceless than watching some absolute dog of a car mixing it with the shiny things and standing it's ground.

I think it could pull that look off nicely