Whats goin on guys, I have a FC that I have stripped for the most part. Harness is still in the car, but no interior at all, no dash, carpet, and ive stripped the sound deadoning out. Waiting for my cage to arrive at the moment.

My question is would you guys that have or are going to build a drift car pull out the harness, steering column and strip it to a bare shell on jack stands? I am debating this at the moment. But I am hesitating because in December I leave for deployment and the car wont be complete by then since I can afford the motor mounts or motor right now. I am doing a 350 swap by the way. What do you guys think?

If I pull everything I could go ahead and put certain parts back together when the interior is complete, Suspension could go back in when I get coils and other goodies..

My cars current state

 

If you're going to paint it or seam weld it, I would pull everything out and clean every item up that you put on the chassis again.

On a completely unrelated note, that blue dash is ******' mint.

 

Yea it is, I was super surprised no cracks im down in Florida where all dashes seem to crack...

 

west coast has cracked dashes too. i'd paint that thing bedliner black, and run it!
lovin' the work space man! good luck with the build.

 

Seam- / stitch-weld, and paint the interior before your cage gets in. I personally recommend a weld-in cage, over a bolt-in.

Also, just for the sheer sake of doing so, I'd look into a 5-lug hub assembly.

If you're looking to make this JUST a track car, I'd either purchase or convert over to a manual rack. Great for more responsive steering inputs, and no pump/ PS line to worry about. Great on the short, but makes things a bit twitchy at the high-end.

Good luck on both the build and the deployment, brother!

 

don't do bolt in. if you do THEN paint the interior first (obviously)

paint it all at once if it's legit welded cage setup.

 

Well, yeah. Sorry for the mis-order of install; I kinda overshot the cage preference vs install order.

If you plan on doing any competitive drifting, make sure your cage meets ALL of the various regulating body's regulations / bylaws (NASA, SCCA, etc.). This will save you some potential headache if / when trying to compete in drift events in the different series.

I know from my experience in having run SOLO2 in the SCCA, years ago, that this kind will be fine : RaceTech Cages

 

It is going to be weld in, I cant stand the autopower bolt in junk. I have already found a 5 lug conversion just waiting for the guy to tell me how much it is. I might have to find another.

Here in Northern Florida there arnt any drift events. Three hours is the closest one, so Hopefully we can get something started up here.

Thanks everyone for your comments

 

You guys that drift FC's do you still have your AC components and blower motor behind your dash? When I do my cage i want to connect a bar across the front connecting the corners...

 

all the a/c **** is buried in a land fill somewhere. thats really the best place for it. i kept my heater stuff though. just in case the car starts to get a little too warm, i can blast heater and help cool it that much more.

looks like a solid shell and a good start.

 

What stuff behind the dash do I need to keep in order to have heat??

 

@ Lamar: I think CFRC has the CLOSEST events, but I've heard some rumor that there're a couple spots in Jax to hit.

I haven't done any formalized FC drifting in several years, so I've gotta guess it's kinda changed.

I'm pretty sure ATL has something, still, but don't hold me to that.

I mean, realistically, the first place(s) you want to hit are the out-of-the-way and abandoned street spots... Better for practicing Yaw control

Heater core, blower and the standard HVAC would be my guess.

 

Blower box with fan, the heater core, and some form of ducting.

I want my cage to go through the defrost vents in my dash, but I still plan to keep the top halves of my door cards and want to keep those vents functional, so I'm planning on using a small-diameter flexible tubing used for vents and fans in houses. It's cheap and available at Home Depot, which is half the guide for my entire build.

 

noticed your UK plates up there....when were you over here?



take that back.....maybe not UK plates

 

Good call.

Realistically, my build was - in some ways - a ton easier: Gut and cage.

Retaining things, when you're talking about a FULL spec cage, makes it a little more difficult.

Granted, you could just bump up the cooling system and deep-6 the heater, etc, altogether, since that's the logic behind retaining it anyway, right?

 

Yea I was all over the place man, I was in Scotland a few months back.

 

Here is the current status of the car

 

Yep. Keep the steering column and pedals in, just in case the car needs to be moved while you are gone. Strip it, weld it, paint it.

 

your exhaust is a stick dude dancing on your car.

 

^ Leave it to Buckey.

Put the pipe down son.

 

thats awesome I didnt even notice that haha

 

Pulled the driveshaft and trans out today, first time ive ever done that. Pics up later

 

hyphy exhaust thizzin out

 

you know it's rad!

lol

 

Were you planning to go completely ape-**** with the trans/ DShaft? I mean, I've seen some pretty nasty trans for the FC, across the years (reinforced, undercut, sequential, etc) and dropping something like a 1000hp or CF Dshaft would be pretty sick.

Trans + Dshaft = a wanting a nicely reinforced diff.... Any forward thinking, there?

While a lot of people over look things like these, they're not REALLY necessary unless you're putting down 'big-boosted SR20-style' torque.