Originally Posted by ritual

After reading about drift buttons/spin turn *****, I wanted to install one on my 8. However, there is little to no documentation of it being done to our cars on RX8Club/the internet, so I decided to figure it out on my own.

First, I took a shot in the dark and ordered a button that I thought would be a similar diameter to our ebrake button. It was from Cusco, and designed for a FT-86/BRZ. After pulling off the boot and attempting to install it, I realized my issue was not with the diameter of the button, but with the length of it.

Here is a couple pictures of the drift button, and the original ebrake button side by side (I kind of mangled the original button when trying to remove it).





The boot itself also adds about an inch of plastic above the metal housing of the ebrake, so I was unable to install the button with the boot installed. So, I had my button attached with no boot for a couple days until I could figure out a solution.

The solutions include bending a new piece of metal so that the metal piece that lets you lock/unlock the ebrake sticks out further (difficult), getting a matching threaded spacer, cutting a matching screw with no cap, and extending the whole piece out a bit further (easier), or getting a threaded standoff to extend it (easiest, and what I ended up doing).

I ordered a couple different sizes so that I would be able to have the button stick out as far as I like. The thread size is 10-32", and the length I installed is 1 1/2" long(the fifth one).



This allowed me to easily install the button after threading on the standoff. Here are some installed pics.



Button pushed in, allowing ebrake drifting action!



Button pulled out, allowing the ebrake to ratchet and lock.



Some more pictures:





The only small issue is that when you pull the button out, it sinks back in a little bit to its resting position. The 6th picture shows it pulled out and not sunken back in, and the 7th and 8th pictures show it pulled out and sunken back in slightly. I might try cutting about 1/4 to 1/3 the original spring to give a small amount of preload, however I'm not sure if that would work as imagined.

Hope this helps someone who has wanted to do the same thing. I was very surprised to see nothing documented about this on the website other than people wanting them in their car (or maybe I just fail at searching). The whole install was actually quite easy, provided that you have a way to extend the threads out further. If anyone would like a more detailed step by step I'd be be more than willing to help I'm grateful for the amount of information I've learned from the forums, and would like to give back in any way I can (even if in a small way).

Originally Posted by ritual

After reading about drift buttons/spin turn *****, I wanted to install one on my 8. However, there is little to no documentation of it being done to our cars on RX8Club/the internet, so I decided to figure it out on my own.

First, I took a shot in the dark and ordered a button that I thought would be a similar diameter to our ebrake button. It was from Cusco, and designed for a FT-86/BRZ. After pulling off the boot and attempting to install it, I realized my issue was not with the diameter of the button, but with the length of it.

Here is a couple pictures of the drift button, and the original ebrake button side by side (I kind of mangled the original button when trying to remove it).





The boot itself also adds about an inch of plastic above the metal housing of the ebrake, so I was unable to install the button with the boot installed. So, I had my button attached with no boot for a couple days until I could figure out a solution.

The solutions include bending a new piece of metal so that the metal piece that lets you lock/unlock the ebrake sticks out further (difficult), getting a matching threaded spacer, cutting a matching screw with no cap, and extending the whole piece out a bit further (easier), or getting a threaded standoff to extend it (easiest, and what I ended up doing).

I ordered a couple different sizes so that I would be able to have the button stick out as far as I like. The thread size is 10-32", and the length I installed is 1 1/2" long(the fifth one).



This allowed me to easily install the button after threading on the standoff. Here are some installed pics.



Button pushed in, allowing ebrake drifting action!



Button pulled out, allowing the ebrake to ratchet and lock.



Some more pictures:





The only small issue is that when you pull the button out, it sinks back in a little bit to its resting position. The 6th picture shows it pulled out and not sunken back in, and the 7th and 8th pictures show it pulled out and sunken back in slightly. I might try cutting about 1/4 to 1/3 the original spring to give a small amount of preload, however I'm not sure if that would work as imagined.

Hope this helps someone who has wanted to do the same thing. I was very surprised to see nothing documented about this on the website other than people wanting them in their car (or maybe I just fail at searching). The whole install was actually quite easy, provided that you have a way to extend the threads out further. If anyone would like a more detailed step by step I'd be be more than willing to help I'm grateful for the amount of information I've learned from the forums, and would like to give back in any way I can (even if in a small way).