Ah, drifting. Dubbed the “Ice Skating of Motorsports”, it’s one of those competitions you either love or hate. But regardless of how you feel about the sport, as an LS enthusiast you seriously need to watch the video above – even if it’s for no other reason than to hear the beautiful noises that a blown LS3 creates as it pulverizes tires into dust. What you’ll also see is an episode of Tuned, where Matt Farah meets up with Corey Hosford from Formula D at the Bondurant School of Driving for some professional guidance on how to properly operate a purpose built drift car.
Hosford drives the K.Sport 350Z in Formula D, which is powered by a “base block” LS3 with a Magnussen supercharger. According to Hosford, the car makes somewhere around 800 horsepower – more than enough to send the 2,800 pound car into a power slide essentially any time the driver’s right foot commands it to do so. Of course, a drift car is as much about suspension and steering details as it is the big power. Hosford’s Nissan is equipped with K.Sport Slide Control coilovers that he says are set up relatively tight for a drift car. To get the slide started the 350Z is equipped with dual K.Sport calipers in rear, with a separate hydraulic system just for the hand brake. Finally, the Z can pitch into those crazy approaches and keep it sideways thanks to an additional 56 degrees of steering angle provided by a Parts Shop MAX Steering angle kit.
In the end, Farah learns that drifting a fully built race car is quite different from sliding around in a powerful street car, and offers some pretty interesting insights into drifting in general. Check out the video above and let us know if you agree with his assessment of the sport.