Red Betty | The Drift E28

cmcgregor said:

I'm glad the shifter worked out! Make sure you get some pictures from the event!

Well, it worked out part way. Rev was super awesome and gave it to me for free. It fit the shifter well, but was a little tall, combined with the stock steering wheel made it a super long throw and nearly impossible to get in reverse because it would hit the steering wheel. Also, since the shift linkage is old, the longer length amplifies that more. So for now I took the grip off it and put it on another piece of pipe. Once I have a different wheel, and a short trow shifter, it will be ideal. Thank you for the tip on the shifter!

I'll see what I can do on the pictures!

Crackers said:

Well now you've lost your deniability. LOL

I have no idea what you're talking about... The number 2 definition on that link is the country below the US. ;)

Alright, plenty of updates today. 

Friday night I got the main items on the car wrapped up.

-Shift Knob finished

-"Drift handle" mounted

-Engine wiring cleaned up

Ended up using some pipe plus electrical tape and the grip off the shifter from RevRico to make a new shift knob that wasn't quite as tall.

Different pipe, plus a hammer, torch, and a lever and I had a handle to extend the hand brake. Drilled and tapped for the set screws at the base of it. 

Engine wiring consisted of some wire loom from AllElectronics.com, some mesh loom from amazon, plenty of zip ties, and unforunately a bit of electrical tape. 

Main section with the wire loom: (Last couple inches going into the cabin had to be done with electrical tape, just didn't have good access to do anything better with it on the car.) 

Engine bay all buttoned up!

Oh, and I put the headlight housings in (Lights aren't wired, just for looks. Haha) and used plenty of zip ties to mount the grills. It's looking like a car again! (Minus the lack of bumpers, but I'll make some bash bars at a later point. Not planning on any tandem drifting yet, so I should be alright.)

Saturday I took it out, flushed, filled, and bled the cooling system and ran it for a bit. It is running very well! 

Hood system seems to work well, and when driving it really doesn't move around, so I think I'm calling it good for now. R&R of the hood isn't really that bad either, and I put some trim on the "pointy" edges of the hood so I can set it on the group propped up or whatever I need. 

So, with only a few days till Carlisle, there's only a few things left, and none of them are showstopper critical. 

-Adjust the parking brake cables/shoes. (Right now it doesn't really work. It's got enough power that I can work with clutch kicks though.)

-Zip tie & clean up the wiring under the dash. 

-Valve Adjustment. 

Like I said, none of those things would stop me from running at Carlisle really, but they'd be nice to have done. They also shouldn't take too too long, so they will hopefully get done anyway. I do have Thursday off of work as a final prep day to then run Carlisle Friday & Saturday. 

I am getting excited, it's actually running well, and in good time before the event. I have 18 rear tires ready to be shredded this weekend!

Had a friend make some vinyl for the car. Hopefully I can get some good pics from Carlisle, and if anyone else gets pics it'll be easy for them to tag me. 

Lookin good!  

In reply to Lof8 :

Thanks!

Looking forward to the tire smoke this weekend, I am trying to get up there early on Saturday morning.

In reply to dherr :

My plan is to be there all day Friday and Saturday.

Got some vinyl made up for the car. I figure now anyone else taking pictures is more likely to tag me. Hopefully I get some good ones this weekend. BAC Garage is the name I use for my car stuff online. (Instagram, Facebook, Website.) I tried to update my signature here to reflect the proper website, but it's not letting me update it right now. 

Well, this weekend was a BLAST!

Thursday night I had everything loaded up and ready to roll bright and early Friday morning. (Trailer pics are mandatory right?)

Here's the crew I had. (Left to right: Me, our friend Tyler, and my BIL Jacob who bought the headless miata.)

Red Betty in action:

So, on my first run drifting, second or third lap, I tapped the water barrels... It's drifting. It happens. It didn't stop me from drifting the rest of the weekend. Most of the damage should hammer out to look farily respectable. Unfortunately the taillight is toast. This certainly wasn't the worst damage to happen to a drift car this weekend though. Fortunately, the rest of my runs were clean, and I improved a LOT over the weekend. 

We took the taillight out and beat on it a little bit. Will mess with it more later.

As far as mechanicals go, the car did very well. The only thing that didn't work like I thought it would was the hand brake. It would not lock up the rear wheels at all. Other than that, it ran all weekend with no issues, which is a huge win! Due to the hand brake not working though, I did have to re-learn how to drift since last year I learned using the handbrake on my miata. Not a bad thing to learn, but the more experienced drifters tell me that this is a tricky track to drift with no hand brake. Given that, I am especially satisfied with how well I was drifting by the end of the weekend. 

Here's a very brief clip of me drifting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbAyw7c970c

Here's some of the more decent pictures I have on my phone from the weekend:

This one is one my phone mashed together for me into a panorama. That's the same car twice. Kinda interesting.

My after thoughts, and impressions:

-Having a car that runs without issue is great!

-The drifting community is also great. The encouragement and advice you get is just great. Everyone is willing to help you get better. 

I met a lot of new people, and saw a lot of people I have met previous years at Carlisle. 

As far as the car goes, to be better setup for drifting here are some of the next things on the list. (Which will be done who knows when. I may be buying a house, so there may be a bit of a break in the garage. I would like to get to at least one more drift event this year though.)

-Dual Rear Caliper Hydraulic Hand Brake Setup. Currently there is not an off the shelf bracket to install dual rear calipers on an e28. Apparently there is a guy developing a set, possibly by the end of summer, but after talking to one of the drifters there, I may just make my own brackets. That should be an adventure. 

-Adjustable Rear Suspension Alignment. Factory rear suspension does not have built in adjustment for alignment, so when lowered at all, the alignment is way off. I was definitely wearing the outside of my tires way faster than the inside. I think I will either get this kit:  Posi-Lock Kit (Well 2 of those to get full adjustment.) Or I possibly have an idea to do it for much cheaper... Might be a bad idea though. 

-Stiffer Suspension. This was recommended by some of the more experienced drifters who saw me. I have no argument there, the car is bouncy. It is on the suspension the PO put on so, it's definitely due for an upgrade.

-Welded Diff. This is somewhat low priority. I have an LSD in it now, which did fine. I would like to find an open diff and weld it so I don't waste a good LSD. Also might find a better gearing ratio. Need to look into it more to see where to salvage a siff from. 

-More Angle. This in itself is not the most critical, but would be beneficial, but my plan for more angle, would also affect from suspension, and steering, so it may come sooner than I planned. I would like to swap an e36 front subframe in. (Well, really the entire e36 front suspension.) This will allow me to move to a steering rack, instead of the pitman arm and steering box setup. It will also allow more availability of parts for an angle kit, or coilovers. 

-Cage + Harnesses. I'm hoping to do a cage over next winter. Obviously as a safety concern it is good, it will help chassis stiffness as well, and give a spot for a proper harness.

Those are the big items. It's going to be a while till they are all knocked out, but that's the plan. Some smaller items that came to mind as I'm typing this:

-A smaller steering wheel, possibly with quick release would be nice. 

-Rebuild the shift linkage and maybe get a short shifter would be nice as well. 

The more I get into this, the more it becomes a drift oriented car, but I'm ok with that. I am really enjoying drifting, so I'm excited to see how it keeps unfolding. 

Looks like it was a fun weekend. How many sets of tires did you burn through?

Probably time to invest in a porta-power. LOL You must have hit that barrel pretty hard to buckle it at the C pillar like that. Is the passenger side bent too? 

Great to see it all worked out! Must have been a fun weekend, I wish I had been able to get up there to see it run. I did fix my car, finishing up bolting everything  back on today and should be back to driving it tomorrow to see if I can get a few hundred miles on it before it goes to the tuner. Sorry about that cone, too bad no video of your car on the track.

Crackers said:

Looks like it was a fun weekend. How many sets of tires did you burn through?

Probably time to invest in a porta-power. LOL You must have hit that barrel pretty hard to buckle it at the C pillar like that. Is the passenger side bent too? 

Very fun weekend! 4 tires on Friday, and Saturday ran all day on the same pair that are still on it. Front tires are toast too though. Between understeer and going on and off the pavement I think. Need to get a picture of those.

Porta-Power looks interesting! I'll have to look into that more. The barrels were apparently a good bit closer to the track than last year, so you don't have to go off much to hit them. I couldn't really say hard fast/hard it was, and unfortunately I didn't have the camera rolling for that one. It's really not too bad. The trunk lid is shifted a bit, but the passenger side seems fine. 

dherr said:

Great to see it all worked out! Must have been a fun weekend, I wish I had been able to get up there to see it run. I did fix my car, finishing up bolting everything  back on today and should be back to driving it tomorrow to see if I can get a few hundred miles on it before it goes to the tuner. Sorry about that cone, too bad no video of your car on the track.

Glad your car is together. I can't wait to see it! 

I have a good bit of video, just none of when I hit the barrels unfortunately. 

Not going to lie, looking at the future it is tempting to try and sell and go for an e36 instead since all the drifty parts are readily available for those. I think I'll force myself to stick with this one though. I do really like the e28s, and there is something to having a more unique car. 

In reply to AWSX1686 :

IIRC, HF sells a couple versions. I think the smaller kit is only like $150. At one time I had access to both. Both worked for stuff like this. They tend to leak like most HF hydraulics but the only thing that tends to break is the little spreader claw.

But something like this definitely needs to be pushed/pulled first. 

Edit: Just Googled, and I'd just get the $130 10 ton one off Amazon. 

Cool stuff!  I can’t get my parking brake to lock the rears in my e36 either. And I have new cables, shoes, and spent a fair bit of time making adjustments. Not sure what the deal is. 

Lof8 said:

Cool stuff!  I can’t get my parking brake to lock the rears in my e36 either. And I have new cables, shoes, and spent a fair bit of time making adjustments. Not sure what the deal is. 

Yeah it doesn't sound uncommon for the stock hand brake to not be enough. I met a guy named Jeff at the even and he encouraged me just to weld my own brackets to the read hubs for my own dual rear caliper setup. I think I will. He said it doesn't take as much strength as you'd think. Plus, it's also just the secondary brake, so if it did fail, it wouldn't be too catastrophic. Time to get adventurous with my welding and fabricating!

Made up a video of just me drifting Red Betty. Hopefully will have one of some of the other cars I saw soon too.

https://youtu.be/J28Xgfl1460