340 Rat Look Drift S!4g!

[Nico GetLow Baillie]

Hi all, My names Nico im 21 and me and my friend Joe (19) have just bought a volvo 340. This came with a half stripped interior, plenty of spare steel wheels and the diff has been welded! Its not in the best of states but thats what we like about it.
Heres how it looked when we bought it,

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 113937.jpg

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We first started off with stripping every bit of the interior out including roof lining, sound proofing, seats, seatbelts, door cards etc etc.

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 125302.jpg

Luckily i had some Van Diemen Turbo wheels 8j fornt and 9j rear that i kept from my first car that have turned out to be a perfect fitment for the volvo, so we went to work on fitting them..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 130237.jpg

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We then thought about how we were going to lower it on the front, it turns out the springs were already chopped but this wasnt enough for our liking as we have both always had cars lower than some people think is possible lol, so we took the springs out and left it on the bumpstops..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 144004.jpg

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This isnt the best way to do it as we know but we have scope to try find coilovers to fit the front so we can have the lows aswell as a bit better comfort and stability but this will do for now
We then went on to shed more weight, we took the bumper brackets off the bumpers and tie wrapped them back on, this made them alot more lighter..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 151904.jpg

A friend of ours had a nice set of bucket seats and 4 point harnesses that fit a 106/Saxo so we stole them from him at a bargain price..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 4400-1.jpg

We then got to work on fitting them and luckily we were able to drill the holes out and fit them were the previous seats fitted so it wasnt too tricky and was done within an hour, after careful measurments and getting in others way we had them fitted with the harnesses bolted down..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 155431.jpg

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The patches of rust on the arches were then sanded down and a quick coat of paint to keep it from rusting further..

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Then we looked at stripping the paint on the bonnett and letting it rust over time, so we started with nitromorse then a wire wheel in the drill..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 151101.jpg

As you can see it didnt really do much so we turned to the angle grinder and got to work on grinding the paint away..

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Then the bumpstrips were removed with a heat gun then the glue that was left behind was removed with a nifty little tool called a caramel wheel..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 172430.jpg

The rear bumper was fitted and a few stickers put on the window and the rear wiper and badges removed..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 173643.jpg

We then needed to drop the rear, the car came with 2 inch lowering blocks but with our reputation this wasnt enough so with my mate being an engineer he went to work and got us some lowering blocks made up at 4inch!!

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As you can see this looked perfect sat on the 9j rears, but as you would expect this was too low..

http://s1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii5 ... 223247.jpg

The strut bottoms were hitting the floor on every single hump and bump in the road, so back on the jacks it went and we chopped half an inch to make them 3 and a half inch, this still looked good and made the clearance a bit better

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We took it out for a spin (literally in my mates case lol) as we left we heard a big bang and the car jumped a bit but we didnt think anythin of it as it still drove as it did and thought it must of been a pothole, we pulled up at the next destination only for a friend to pull up and hand us the lowering block from the right hand side!! We then took a look and noticed there was a petrol leak so obviously the block hit the petrol tank on its way out.. so now we are faced with fixing the tank ( if anyone has a spare one goin cheap that would be perfect? ) and making sure the blocks are secure..

More pictures will be added when more work has been done, currently we are financially embarrassed so pay day cant come quick enough lol :p .. Hope you like our progress so far and any tips would be great as we are only young lads and this is our first proper project

Thanks for looking

Nico and Joe

[Speedy88]

Welcome and good luck with the project. 4" is too low though, it's not surprising it popped out. Infact, I'm surprised you haven't beached it on a kerb or speedbump. 2" is the safe limit, 3" has been done but it's not recommended, only for looks.

If you are exerting the forces involved in drifting on your car, run 2" maximum.

[Nico GetLow Baillie]

Cheers for the feedback .. will look into it, we have 3 and half inch on it at the minute and if thats happened after trying to drift it then we will have to use them for shows and meets and stuff then use the 2 inch when we take it on drift days etc etc

cheers

Nico and Joe

[Speedy88]

Yeah I recommend it, also they're not the hardest thing to remove/change.

[Chris_C]

Can't say it's my cup of tea, but it takes all sorts

One thing I would say is that a lot of what you have put up here (running without springs, cable tied bumpers etc, etc) is going to be an absolute field day for any police/insurance company if this car ever is involved in anything, we've all heard the stories of people getting shafted by forum posts so just use some common with the mods you do to the car.

FWIW, where abouts are you? If you still have them I'd be interested in the bumper iron in the photo (thats good condition for 300 series ones by the looks) as well as the seatbelts if you'd like some beer tokens and more space.

[volvosneverdie]

I am the Police!

Youre all busted!

Freeze!

[Nico GetLow Baillie]

Can't say it's my cup of tea, but it takes all sorts

One thing I would say is that a lot of what you have put up here (running without springs, cable tied bumpers etc, etc) is going to be an absolute field day for any police/insurance company if this car ever is involved in anything, we've all heard the stories of people getting shafted by forum posts so just use some common with the mods you do to the car.

FWIW, where abouts are you? If you still have them I'd be interested in the bumper iron in the photo (thats good condition for 300 series ones by the looks) as well as the seatbelts if you'd like some beer tokens and more space.

I know what your saying mate, were looking to convert the front to coilovers if we can so it wont be run like that forever but it will do for now lol not going to be used on the road much in the future anyway i dont think .. Were in Kirkby-in-Ashfield in nottinghamshire dude, the front is in good nick but the rear has had a bump but could possibly be straightened out

cheers
nico and joe

[jon-ovlov]

Fair play guys. Bonnet ain't my cup o' tea, but each to their own! I'd say leave it -2" on the rear all the time, it's low enough, and it's a drifter not a show car. Also, it's a faf to lift the car up and constantly swap over the rear blocks. You'll need different length bolts for each set of blocks too. When you do fit them, get some nylock nuts on the bolts if you didn't have any on there already.

The blocks hopped off because they were probably too loose, and the extra leverage they gave (increasing the distance between axle and spring point) meant they just worked their way out.

Keep on it guys.

[Nimminz]

wheels are very nice, interested to see how the bonnet turns out, could look cool - wouldn't like the idea of encouraging rust on my car though.

i can't comment on the lowering - have no problem with lowered cars but ...

Have a look at what everyone else is doing on here and I'm sure you'll get some good ideas

Volvo 300 ownership at 21 - same here

[Nico GetLow Baillie]

Yeah were umming and arrring about the lowering blocks, were just too use to bein soo low with cars that no car looks right to us unless its kissing the floor! .. it looks so good slammed over the wheels but as you say if were drifting it we need to choose the best option over how it looks coz after all it will still look cool lol

The wheels are used on formula ford racing cars, i found them on ebay a good 3 years ago and bought them for my micra i had at the time without even checking the pcd the width or anything they were souly bought because they looked awesome!! lol luckily they fit the micra with a bit of redrilling to the rear pcd and centre hole lol :p and now fit the volvo perfectly .. The bonnet has started to rust with the recent rain we have had and is looking alot better, think we are goin to put dr.pepper all over it, been told it rusts quicker

[jon-ovlov]

Waste of Dr.Pepper if you ask me! Cheap coke would do the same job I reckon.

the wheels suit it really well. It's not a fwd VW guys, remember that. It's rwd, and better. Function over form.

[Nico GetLow Baillie]

haha i bet it would, we will give it a try

[jtbo]

Maybe I'll just say that I'm speechless, but then again if I'm speechless how could I say I'm speechless?

I have heard people removing springs and welding suspension solid so that car would look cool, but I never really have believed anyone could really thought so little ahead, but as I have been told even such does happen, I guess such things happen.

I guess it is modern era, nothing else matters than looks, but I would recommend to do things right and think before doing things, what will happen when hitting pothole, dip/bump etc. How much there is suspension travel and how controlled are motions.

It is quite embarrassing to end up into armco or front of lorry because small stone on road, which hardly will add to reputation

Problem with lowering is that you have only so much movement range, with enough lowering you loose bump damping as car is bottoming out as neutral position, which will cause very unpredictable bumpy ride. Correct way would be to lower such way that it does not remove bump travel, which of course is bit more tricky and will require rather lot of new parts and cutting.

Standard front shocks have 185mm of travel, with default springs more than half of that is already used up, with 2" lowering car is already riding hard on bumpstops (if those are not lost at some part of car's life), lowering front 4" is perhaps impossible, might be possible if bumpstops are removed, but it would be same to weld suspension solid. Only way to get such lowering to work would be new struts, but it still would require inner wheel arches to be removed at least, probably quite bit more to be done.

From my understanding, in drifting snappiness is something not wanted, but without suspension travel that is what will happen and very unpredictably too. What you could do with somewhat easily is to add second leaf to rear, stiffer shocks and only 2" lowering, for front you would need stiffer springs too, when car is not bottoming out, it is predictable and much more fun. One problem is engine power of course then, if I'm not mistaken drift car should be set so that it is not sliding without engine or handbrake telling it to slide and without good amount of power that is quite wee hard thing to achieve, I guess that is why many in drifting makes car really bitch to drive and even dangerous as engine has not enough power to overcome natural understeer, but that is just wrong way to do it and eventually gives more problems.

Shocks will always be a problem as they should match to weights and springs, springs are easy, you can get them cheaply made to specs, but shocks are not so easy, most adjustables are not so great when looking dyno data from them and it is quite easy to get overdampen which is not nice at all.

Reading book Tune to Win should be good start in understanding handling stuff, there are really a lot misunderstandings that are taken granted truth in motorsports, some are winning despite such things, not because of those things, but when there is no understanding from true nature of suspensions beliefs are ones ruling.

Here welded diff is illegal, car is put off the road immediately when such is found and they check for such yearly at MOT, there is good reason for that too, it is probably usable for drifting on tracks, but on road it has certain characteristics that are not so welcome. It is surely popular mod, but I would not use that on street.

Every mod should be such that if that Britain's worst driver reverses to front of car, it would not cause any issues even when car would get trough checkup. It is more complicated than just one enthusiast and his car and insurance, every action has effect also to whole scene and general public relations, which in turn has some effect to legislation etc etc.
So every act and mod should be well thought, so that in worst case scenario no more crap would be tossed to scene, something nobody never thinks, but in current state of our world if we like to allow this hobby to go on even after 20 years there should be great responsibility to be taken by every hobbyist.

With good thinking it is possible to make car such good that most it will be better than majority of modified cars as majority of modified cars have not thought very thoroughly, so this post is mostly to encourage you to put more thought and make it really good, effor is almost the same, even I really don't understand that rat sfuff, I know that well handling old car will drop yaws no matter how it does look

[Nico GetLow Baillie]

well, thank you for your input .. we are looking at converting the front legs into coliovers to keep the lows aswell as be legal .. we have many plans for this car engine wise, suspension wise, looks wise etc etc and we have put thought into these plans we are just waiting for the funds to come available to put them into practice .. your opinion is much apreciated and we will be sure to modify safely and legaly if we are to keep it on the road

[jtbo]

well, thank you for your input .. we are looking at converting the front legs into coliovers to keep the lows aswell as be legal .. we have many plans for this car engine wise, suspension wise, looks wise etc etc and we have put thought into these plans we are just waiting for the funds to come available to put them into practice .. your opinion is much apreciated and we will be sure to modify safely and legaly if we are to keep it on the road

It is very good, check out last pages of Chirs C's Fake thread too, there is some suspension stuff also so it might be useful to know.

I think that coilovers alone is not enough for front to get it really low and still working properly, wheel well is coming into way, so it might be needed to get top of wheel well lifted, some cutting and welding of course needed for that, it is also worth to check where roll center ends up to as when going to area where suspension is not designed originally go, it can start move around a lot and it is not very good for handling, in some cases having higher ride height has been better than low, because of that roll center issue.

It is somewhere around 3", imo, where is limit that wheel can't go up anymore, haven't checked precise figure as with our roads standard is plenty enough low

Also take a look around here, AE86 is quite close to 360 in weight, so most of the stuff is 1:1 if one just can get them fitted or finds stuff that is with similar rating, also physics in it are the same with any cars really:
http://www.aeu86.org/viewtopic/nohachis ... ad/t/10156

So what kind of Hz you are aiming front/rear?