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I like drifting, since I have gotten my license I've been messing around on the streets and eventually got caught a few months ago. From then on the plan was to convert my daily into a track toy that I can still cruise around town with but due to new rules in the local drift events trucks are not allowed without a cage, and up here insurance and MTO don't like cages at all. That idea had to be scrapped.
My daily driver:
I was on the hunt for something 4 door, leaning more so towards the IS chassis, or a e46 BMW. Kept searching and couldn't find "the one", so fast foward to 2 weeks ago, my friend bought this:
to flip and I ended up getting a good deal on it. It's a 1995 LS400, coilsprung, with 330,000km. The car is 99% rust free, needs brakes for safety (that's it), has been maintained at Lexus its entire life, and it was owned by the same old man since new.
Plan is to keep the car auto, keep the luxury feel (sort of), and beat the crap out of it. I have a budget set of $2500 CAD (not including price of the car), and I literally cannot go over that due to my student income.
Nice find.
Get brand new BC coilovers (DO NOT BUY USED COILOVERS) and turn damping all the way up. Replace any old cracked rubber suspension bushings.
That's basically all these need to drift.
If you're on a tight budget you'll be crying a river if your timing belt snaps because you bought some coils instead of having the servicing done properly.
yes get the maintenance done first. timing belt intervals are every 145k kms so the car should have had its timing belt done 290k kms ago. a must to drift is a limited slip differential, or for poor college students a welded diff (not recommended for driveability).
the major issue i see with using an LS400 for a drift platform is the automatic trans...but it's not impossible to get sideways on a slushbox. good luck!
Timing belt was done by lexus at 290,000km! I just placed an order for HSD coilovers and Corbeau driver and passenger seat brackets. After looking into diff options I've decided it's just going to get welded for the time being so I can get seat time. I put together a list of goodies that need to be bought:
-Coilovers
-Fixed back driver and passenger seats and brackets
-Steering hub (first gen is300 works from what I've seen)
-25mm wheel adapters (to run some wheels I'm picking up this weekend)
-Shift kit from Transgo
-Biggest trans cooler possible
-Any maintenance components that need to be replaced.
What do you guys think about running an inline hydro handbrake setup? How does it fair in these cars? The track that most of the local events are at has some fast entry corners and I'm unsure of how I will fair with just feints and power overs.
not sure how you would plumb a hydro brake assembly on a car with ABS. you'd need to disable the ABS first i suppose. another option is to run an e-brake setup from an SC300, which uses the drum brake/cables to lock up the rear wheels, but if you are retrofitting that in you might as well run the hydraulic lines instead for better lock up response.
btw the shift kit from what i read is not a performance shift kit so be aware. very curious to your endeavors! keep us updated please.
Just a little update, picked up a set of new HSD coilovers (essentially rebranded Stance coilovers) with 14k front/12k rear spring rates. Also ordered a drivers seat bracket from Corbeau with double locking sliders. I'm trying to find the time to meet with my friend a few cities away to pick up is300 wheels (need to run a spacer to clear the calipers). Tonight I'm going over to storage to start pulling weight out of the car, probably just going to pull seats and trunk interior, spare tire junk, maybe take a look and see if there is anything I can pull from the engine bay that won't be used.
Want to lose some weight, lose the 2 rear doors, like with an SC400, I still can't figure out the wanting a 4 door car for any sort of performance and or competition deals like drifting. I'd want a light weight rear end car, the perfect drifter of my day was an MG they were so easy to drift there was almost no weight in the rear end, and over steered like crazy.
Took advantage of the long weekend and put in some time on the car yesterday. Pulled the seats, seatbelts, everything in the trunk. Also pulled the ABS fuses/relays, and the SRS fuse. Went over the suspension and brakes and installed the rear HSD coils and 4 point harness. The car needs a rear upper control arm on the passenger side and rotors/pads front and rear, going to look into aftermarket options for the UCA's.
After being in school for 5 semesters straight (one more to go after this one...) I've started to become low on funds and time.
I sold my truck and bought a boring daily driver. Bought brakes for the UCF20 from MaxBrakes (drilled, slotted, coated, ceramic pads).
Installed new FUCA's, brakes, the HSD coils, and 17x10.5 wheels I pulled off of my truck before selling. First event of the year is April 8 & 9
so I need to start putting in work.
New Daily:
Wheels Mounted:
This week I'm going to:
-Finish building the hydro (making a homemade one)
-Drop the rear subframe
-Weld diff
-New subframe/diff mounts
-Poly fill the RUCA bushings.
So...... Pulling the diff ending up being quite the adventure. Front differential bolt broke off inside the subframe bracket meaning that the whole subframe had to come out so I could bring it to my friends shop to cut it out (no hydro where I keep the car and too many projects at my shop at home). Thank god I have a friend with a truck as I tried loading the entire assembly (brakes, arms, subframe, diff, axles) into the rear of my Subaru by myself which didn't work out too well. Anyways, got the diff pulled and welded. Figured while the subframe was out I may as well get it sandblasted and painted as it looks like a rusty piece of trash currently. Also, all the arms needed new bushings so when income tax comes in I will be ordering aftermarket arms (leaning towards the 6 pc kit from Serial9). On a positive note I have finished building the hydro (a step forward instead of backwards)! A friend talked me into going dual caliper so he is going to weld some ears onto the rear spindle to allow another set of ls400 rear calipers to be installed.
SlowLife's LS400 Drift Yacht Build
