VR-4Squid

Here's a little advice from someone who's actually done this (for 4 years):

Weld the centre diff, don't muck about with the viscous coupling eliminator mentioned above.
Remove the front axles, you'll need to put the outer cv's back into the hubs to hold the wheelbearings together and use frost plugs to block up the holes in the gearbox.

If your vr4 has an all alloy transfercase (most likely unless it's an Evo0) you'd best get a steel case one and matching output shaft before you start.

If you still have 4ws you will need to get rid of it. Similarly if you have a viscous rear diff you will need to replace it, either with an open diff welded up, or preferably with a plate lsd from an RS.
If you have an Evo0 with the 4-bolt rear end life is made much easier as you can simply use a mech lsd from an evo1-3 in the stock housing, using the evo inner cv's and the rest of the 4-bolt axles - these will take a fair amount of abuse.

If you have a 3-bolt rear end, buy a pair of spare axles. How long they last depends on how much power/torque you have.

That's all pretty easy, go out, have fun, replace the odd axle.
Unfortunately it all gets a lot harder now - the E39A's main downfall as a drift car is it's piss poor steering lock, rack spacers will gain you a bit, but it's not long before you start rubbing the chassis rails at full lock, and there's no easy way around that.

Converting to north-south creates a tonne of problems, mainly because the steering rack is in completely the wrong place, the easiest solution (and I use the term very loosly) is to use a nissan subframe/rack/hubs/etc but that's a hell of a lot of work.

In short, for a bit of fun: do it. If you really want to drift, get a nissan/toyota.


Here's a vid of the first skid I did in mine many years ago, lol

lol. bit of a random addition to the thread.

dan this is all about "stance", "fitment", "flush" wheels, whatever you want to call it i guess.

About 90% of the cars posted so far are a fair way off the mark anyway...

I've got the option of running these Axis OG Banzai 17x7.5 +10's on my car; my mate used to run these on his DR30 Skyline coupe.
What do you guys reckon, too wide or too tough?

Those wheels stick out the same amount as my 18x9+30's did before I adjusted the ride height Click here

Just lower it a couple of inches (at least) add a bit of negative camber at the front and it'll look sweet.

There's pics of my car in this thread already, black vr4 on xd9's.

stock boost control solenoid
There's one line off the nipple on the cooler piping, to the top port on the solenoid, then from the bottom port it goes to the wastegate.

Took the car for a spin, and it freeboosted past 1.2bar and i backed off. Drove it back into the garage and started troubleshooting.

Suprised nobody else picked up on the fact it's hooked up incorrectly.

Run a line from the nipple on the cooler piping to the wastegate with a T-piece halfway, run a line from the leg of the 'T' to one port on the solenoid, run a line from the other port on the solenoid to the inlet pipe (bewteen afm and turbo).

The stock boost solenoid does not work like an aftermarket one, it simply lets the ecu choose to bleed 2psi out of the wastegate line, or not.

With a handful of T-pieces and some hose you can daisy chain several factory solenoids and with separate switches have multiple boost levels (in 2psi increments).

Also, the factory 'boost' cut isn't actually based on boost pressure at all, it's based on the air flow through the air flow meter, when the ecu see's a certain Hz (Karmann vortex afm's produce a frequency not a voltage) it triggers the 'cut'.

protip: refit the heat shield that goes around your exhaust housing/dump pipe, usually these get taken off/thrown away when the exhaust is upgraded - without it life gets pretty warm for the regulator built into the alternator.

You've gotta admit its a pretty shit set up tho, using two right angle transfers, but if it does what you want, have fun and try not to break shit!

Don't have to admit anything of the sort, certainly from an engineering point of view it's not "ideal", but very little to do with production cars IS.

Given that once you have a locked centre diff it takes 30 minutes and costs NOTHING to do...

and for that matter, 30 minutes and the cost of a pot of grease and cable ties for the cv boots to UN-do...

I'd say it's not a bad option at all if you want a little fun.