Bought in 2023 for £1200 as lightly modified (cheap coilovers, wheels, stereo, hardtop, steering wheel) vehicle that was a rough runner with no brake pressure.
Sorted vac leaks, and repaired brake hardline. Road tested, all okay. Then began turning into a streetable drift car. Car already had a torsen lsd, so no rush there!
Started by fitting a soft top, roll bar, short shifter, bucket seats, cowl intake, rack spacers, cut down the rear bumper, 95a poly engine mounts, 95a diff bush void fillers, a fly off handbrake button, and fit a skidnation wheel/tyre rack.
Did my first drift day Nov 2024, spun out a load, struggled with transitions, and most importantly, had a blast! But, I cooked the flywheel spigot bearing (too many clutch kicks) so it made some terrible noises om the drive home.
Over winter I replaced the clutch kit for an oem style exedy kit that came with the car. I also then fit a 2nd hand ME221 ECU with an AEM AFR gauge (in prep for future power mods), a 4-2-1 long tube exhaust manifold, an OEM NB1 front lip, and some NB1 OEM small tupperware skirts with GV style skirt extensions. I had the ECU remote tuned by Alex at Digitune, and would highly reccomend his services.
I then went drifting again Feb 2025 and had a blast. Even the N/A tune on the standalone helped out a lot with midrange torque, meaning less clutch kicks required. Sat on limiter, while on the end of my steering lock too, which I was quite proud of. However the OEM TorSen was not quite behaving itself, "opening up" mid corner on longer bends while on limiter, which felt like clutch slip but was instead 1 tyre fire, and made transitions very hard work.
I then got home and replaced the diff fluid the next weekend, fearing I had overheated the fluid. I drove the car as a streetable weekend toy in its current guise for quite a while, and sorted out some rust issues with the rear wheel arches, rear sills, and front chassis legs, which also included chopping off my front ARB mounts and removing the ARB itself. I tubbed the rear arches during the rust repairs and fit some fibreglass full panel rear overfenders.
The next drift day was Nov 2025. This was a wet day, something I had not experienced before. This made set-up and prep significantly less enjoyable. Launches and entries were significantly slower and there was a lot more spinning out happening. The issues with the OEM diff persisted also, which after some reading is due to the nature of TorSen diffs never truely locking/unlocking. It also highlighted that I really needed a proper wheel alignment, something I had not done yet. After understeering into a tyre wall, I really backed off the throttle the rest of the day, and honestly came home quite disheartened.
Over winter 2025-2026 I purchased a bolt on Eaton m45 (mini cooper s) supercharger kit, a FletchFab gold kit (featuring exteneded front lower arms, shortened rear lower arms, cut front knuckles, and extended braided front flexi brake lines), a full wishbone polybush kit, a set of 2nd hand HSD Monopro coilovers, a pair of new rear calipers, brake discs and pads all round, 25mm front spacers, and a refurbished OEM superfuji 4.1 ratio diff.
Over winter 2025 - spring 2026 I fit my FletchFab kit, polybushed all my suspension arms, swapped out my coilovers, replaced my brakes, installed my 25mm front spacers, and fit my Fuji diff. The car then sat in the garage until June 2026. Upon test drive, some issues showed. A runaway wishbone bush, with several others not far off, a seized nsr handbrake cable, front tyres now scrubbing on the arches and an alignment that was miles out of true. I sourced a replacement for the missing wishbone bush, and fitted large repair washers to all the bolts going through the exposed wishbone bushes. I rolled my front arches with a jack handle to allow for wheel clearnece. I then replaced and adjusted the handbrake cable. Finally, I took the car for an alignment the week before my next drift day, which was Aug 2026.
Drift day of Aug 2026 was at a new track (Teesside Autodrome), rather than Three Sisters Circuit where I had done all my previous drift days. While I was scared of the new track (further from home and an unfamiliar layout), I was excited for a faster and more technical layout, and Teesside came highly reccomended by a friend who competes in DriftLeague.
Teesside was a VERY fun day. With more steering angle, a clutched LSD, a proper alignment, and better suspension, the car ripped all day long! No mechanical issues at all, however, the radio decided it didn't want to work, which was a simple ground wire problem. I let my friend have a go at drifting with me in my car, and he understeered into a tyre wall towards the end of the day. No real damage bar some scratches, some broken cable ties, a few new dents, and a broken front reg plate. One issue that became more apparent as I got more comfortable with the faster track and uphill section, however, is a serious lack of power, leaving me between gears and resorting to some heavy clutch kicking. Car drove home no issues.
Short term plans/goals now are to fit my supercharger kit, fabricate a vertical handle for my handbrake, and get as much seat time as possible in.
Thanks for reading, Kris 😊
