Driftmaschine

Commitment towards execution is a route started by many and completed by few. No one goes down the rabbit hole of commitment without reason. The plans of those without reason never see to any fruition. Amidst the sea of frustration, disarray, and questioning of sanity, the only thing that can bring you back down to earth is your reason, your purpose of effort. Nick's thing is drifting, and it puts him through a lot, more specifically his E36 puts him through a lot. 

The story of Nick and his E36 predates his ownership of the car, it really starts with his friend and their idea to weld the diff on their 240sx. A plan motivated by their time playing sim drifting games online. They figured if it was so fun online it'd be a blast in real life. So they tried donuts in real life and it was even better than in game, so much better. They'd met their heroes and were anything but let down. Problem was though, Nick had a MK4 Jetta, which was not gonna cut it as far as drifting went. So he traded that away for an E36 and it was all downhill from there.

The E36 he got wasn't just a few beads away from drifting. In Fact it was much worse, the previous owner of the car had turned it into a stance car. Which meant 10 degrees of camber, and little to no care for the rest of the vehicle. It came with rusted out floorboards, off white over fenders, and to top it off didn't even run. To anyone else this thing was toast. To Nick though this car was an opportunity, this car was gonna take him drifting.

He knew that as it sat that wasn't gonna happen anytime soon, so he started trying to sort the car out. He elected to take care of its most obvious issues first. He didn't want things like a shifter falling off to get in the way of his seat time. So he got it running (at the previous owners house). Next he unstanced it; the suspension geometry would have to favor big angle over big tilt. He needed function, not aesthetics. That didnt mean he ignored the rust work this car needed though. The over fenders hid rot and the floor pans needed replacement. As far as bushings go they were all about 30 years old so for good measure he replaced nearly every one the car had. Than most importantly he welded the diff. With the cars priorities straightened out it was now ready to drift, and he was too. The only trouble was that the local track he was banking on going to shut down operations. Tough luck, but nevertheless he still wanted to drift, he'd just have to find somewhere. Which ended up being anywhere. Which definitely wasn't legal, but sure was cool. As far as the actual drifting went though, the BMW and him definitely took to it very well. He found that the very mechanics he'd learned online were fairly transferable into the real world. The only real difference was adjusting to the g forces he was feeling. 

The fun and games only lasted for so long though, the more he drove the car the worse it got, which certainly wasn't fun. Despite him repairing it whenever a problem arose, he couldn't seem to keep up. It would run well just long enough for him to start enjoying it again, then it would break again. A cliche any car enthusiast is all too familiar with. He eventually got to a point when his whole cooling system was re done, his whole steering system was redone, and the rest of his suspension was as well. The car was sound, nearly everything he could think to do was done. Until him, or the car found a way to weed out another weak link atleast. If anything was gonna be good for that, it was drifting.

Installing a hydraulic e brake proved to be a great way of finding, or perhaps creating a weak link on the car. On the first test drive out with it his caliper bracket bent, and his caliper seized. Which introduced a lot of friction to the rotor. So much in fact that it started a fire, and split the rotor in half, making the wheel fall off. The only thing he could do after was assess the damage and put it back together. Which initially didn’t seem so bad.  After a brake job and some wiring repairs he believed he was in the clear. Until he started snapping axles. Again, and again, at least every 100 or so miles he was going through axles, which consequently was happening on the side where the fire was. After taking a second look at the fire damage he saw that his freshly installed subframe bushings had melted away to basically nothing. Which had to be the cause of his axle consumption. So he pulled the subframe out again and re-installed fresh bushings. Which confirmed his suspicions and ended the e36’s cv axle addiction.

With everything sorted for the time being he figured he'd do more with the car than work on it. He was going to drift his drift car. It wasn’t gonna be at any old parking lot though, it was gonna be at a proper event. An event all the way in Connecticut, which for reference is 2 and a half hours away. Taking the car that far from home was definitely a risk but one that paid off in experience. He’d graduated from meeting his hero’s to really becoming one of them. That along with smooth sailing and meeting now good friends made him sign up for another event they were hosting in October. 

Months between events should have left him with more than enough time to shake down the car and repair anything that needed fixing. Thanks to murphys law though nothing needed fixing, that was atleast until October rolled around. When his engine blew up and lost compression. Without compression he was without hope he was ready to give up altogether. The trip to Conneticut that was only one week away seemed off the table all together. Until he came across a $500 m52 on market place. Despite the lack of a valve cover and suspect condition the motor held consistent compression, which meant Nick had hope. With that he rolled the dice and began a 72 hour undertaking of swapping the motor in his friends garage. Fueled by both hope and desperation he dropped everything for this. Despite the sleep deprivation, and inexperience at the end of those 72 hours the motor turned over. It ran well too, a test drive to a local meet that night proved to Nick that this mystery motor was ready for the haul down to Thompson Motor Speedway. Ready it was, after countless hours of being thrashed around the course it didn’t skip a single beat.

This BMW got a second lease on life because of Nick, all he asked in return was for it to take him drifting. It was to become a drift machine. Decrepit as it was, this was his ticket to a life of drifting. So he never quit on it, or his dream.