3 Essential Mods To Make Your Car Drift

What mods do you need to make to your car in order to make it drift?

These are the three most necessary mods.

Disclaimer: this is for a rear-wheel drive car. I don’t know anything about Fwd or Awd drifting!

There are countless mods you can make to your car’s engine, suspension, brakes, body, aero, etc. to make it drift better but these are the 3 bare minimum mods you should make at first to get your car “driftable”.

1. A LSD differential

LSD stands for limited-slip differential. It’s the thing under the back of your car between the wheels that will make both axles/wheels spin when on power and let you do two-wheeled skids instead of doing a lame “one wheel peel”.

Most regular cars come standard with an open diff which sends power through one wheel only – the wheel with the least amount of load on it – resulting in an embrrassing non-drift U-turn where the inner tire does a burnout.

What you need is to get both rear wheels spinning and the part that allows this is an LSD (limited-slip diff).

Or if you just want to go full bogan and send it asap then get your MIG welder and weld the crap out of the open diff centre.

This is what an LSD looks like inside. This diff pictured is a R200 Nissan diff that you get in your S-chassis and R32 Skylines etc. With the cover taken off you can see the mechanical differential (limited slip differential) to the right of the ring gear.

Inside the LSD casing there are a set of clutch disks and shims which will lock together when force is applied i.e. when you’re on power (accelerating).

A 2-way LSD means the clutches will also engage when on and off the power (accelerating and decelerating) so you’ll have both wheels spinning when speeding up and slowing down.

A 1-way LSD means wheels are only locked on acceleration.

A 1.5 way means locked on acceleration and some slippage on decelleration.

Anyway, you don’t need to know all the science behind how a LSD works for you to use one… you just need to get one! (or weld up your open diff… which I personally don’t like but that is a debate for another post)

2. Bucket Seat

You need to be braced in your seat when drifting because there is a lot of side-to-side force on your body and not pressed up hard against the door and you’ll be trying to keep your body off it using your knee. This is not ideal because you need full use of your legs and feet to contrl the pedals.

A bucket seat will provide the support for your whole body to keep it in place while going sideways.

There are a couple of popular choices – a fixed-back bucket seat or a reclining bucket seat. If you have a 2-door and want to access your back seat, then a recliner is the best option. If you’ve set up your car for full drift spec, a fixed-back seat is the better option as it’s a single piece, so it’s stronger and more durable. But just keep in mind that you won’t be able to adjust the upright position of the seat if it’s fixed.

As you can see, BRIDE is a popular choice among drifters. They have a good selection of budget to high-end seats to suit most applications, from street cars to full-fledged competition cars.

3. Coilovers

Please please please, don’t call them “coils”! Coils are an entrely different part on your engine that make spark go bang. You will sound like a major degen if you call them coils.

They are coilovers or adjustable suspensions. In Japanese they’re called “shakouchou” which translates to “rideheight adjustment”. They are made up of a coil spring with a shock absorber inside, hence the name “coilover”.

This is the final essential mod in the trilogy to make your car easier to drift and the reason why is that coilovers are designed for motorports by providing 3 benefits over stock suspension.

1. Heavier spring rate (can interchange springs easily too)
2. Stiffer shock absorbers (adjustable options exist too)
3. Adjustable ride-height

Suspension set up is a major part of whether your car will drift well/easily or not. The spring rate has to be matched with your car. Too hard in the front means it may understeer, too hard in the rear and you won’t get traction so you have to consider things like weight distribution of your car, power, tire grip and your driving style. If you want a quick snappy style of drift akin to Naoto Suenaga or Nakamura, then soft-ish rear springs will help acheive that.

When it comes to ride height, the basic rule is that lower is better, but you also don’t want to mess up the suspension/steering geometry which will have adverse affects on drift-ability.

To sum up, the three essential mods to do to your car to turn it into a drift car are, a LSD, a bucket seat, a set of coilovers. Once you get them installed on your car, drifting will be easier and more fun!

Happy drifting.

-Disco Stu