So another day, another day of working on one of Tyler's cars.... or finally, ACTUALLY DRIVING ONE!!!!!!! I actually felt bad about not working on the blue one lately, as I have put a ton of time into the white one. But, the white one is now drivable and awesome, and I had a blast in it this weekend, and that distracts me from the guilt of not working on the blue one too much in the past few weeks.
First of all, I have been wanting to build a drift car that has very little fiberglass on it so it is far more resilient to smashing into things. The E46 BMW that I picked up fits that bill well, but now that I am working on 240s at the moment instead, Tyler's Missile car gave me the chance to try it out. You will notice in the above pictures in one of the older posts that the white car had a crappy ebay URAS kit on it. This thing was ragged out and falling apart, and without cool wheels to back it up and a lot of work put into it, it just looks tacked on and bleh. I want to go in the opposite direction with this car, cool wheels to make the car with big tires, and stock looking body work that fits well and only rely on fiber glass for the fenders to fit the tires.
So now you know my plan... I ordered up some Origin type 2 rear fenders and some origin front fenders. I am trying not to use ebay chinese stuff anywhere at all on the car. I got them in the mail and started really doubting myself. I didn't like the look of the type 2 rear fenders at all, and after mounting them, I was doubting myself even more.
I was pretty much like bleh, I don't think I want this at all. It was getting dark though because I got a late start that day, and it was the Thursday night before the event at Mineral Wells this weekend. Saturday I was teaching a class on drifting fundamentals, and Friday I reserved for finishing up the car and making sure everything was ready, as well as mounting tires and stuff. Oh, and Thursday earlier in the day I installed an Enthalpy tuned ECU, Nismo 550cc injectors, and a Z32 Maf. It all worked like a charm and is awesome.
Back to the fenders. It was getting late in the game at this point if I wanted to drive Sunday, and I only had 1 pair of rear wheels which would fit the car with the stock body, some Battles in 17x9.5 +20ish or so. They would fit the rear fenders and barely run with 245s on them. Problem is I want to run 265 Kendas, the same as my V8 car. So with the pressure of meeting those guidelines I decided to cut the stock fenders up and mount the rear fiber glass fenders.
Some super quick guidelines, no really plan except I have done this several times before and feel comfortable just going for it.
BZZZZZZZZZ plus sparks. Use your imagination.
Commitment.
And then it got too dark to really take pics with a cell phone. I was using the headlights of my truck to do all this! In the dark outside Autocomp because the interior is all full right now. SUPER FULL. I finished up the back fenders, although I didn't have time to actually seal them up completely, and drilled everything up and aligned/mounted the fronts. It all went pretty well except the corner lights and headlights which fought me a lot. The core support of this car is pretty bashed up and really needs some love of some kind. So does the wiring :sigh:
Finally I couldn't take working in the dark anymore, after finishing mostly everything body related, and started the process of moving stuff around to get this car into at least the very edge of the shop. The car was starting to really come together.
A blurry pic of me mounting up some 265/35/18 Kenda tires for a T28RS car. Ballsy!!!
Tyler left behind a baller Longacre digital airpressure gauge for me! I was trying to decide what kind of air pressures to run at the track with this tire size. I started at 50 PSI actually, and immediately dropped them down to 30 hot after the first 2 runs. I will probably lower it a tiny bit more next time I go out, maybe 25 PSI or so. The car has amazing grip so far!
Loading the car up in the trailer I was still a little curious about how I liked the look of it, I wasn't sure. I hadn't seen the car in the light of day yet, and I couldn't see it from the side with anylight whatsoever on it. I was exhausted and tired and went home at around 5 am. Lots of stuff happened, I taught a class, still didn't a chance to see the car in daylight, worked on more stuff to get it to the event. Shaun and his friend replaced both motor mounts Saturday night for me, Derrick bounced into town and fixed some more stuff. I made little temp brackets to mount the front bumper and we used stock brackets to mount the rear one. We had some stud spacer problems in the rear we addressed, mounted tons of tires for everyone with the Autocomp tire machine ( thanks Marty!!!! ), bled the brakes, checked the cooling system, messed with the throttle body and cable setup, messed with a bit of wiring, and on and on. Oh, we loaded cones and loaded and unloaded trailers over and over too. Went to bed around 2 am or so. Then got up around 6 am to head to Mineral Wells. This is basically par for the course by the way.
Still never really seeing the car and having no idea if I would like the way it looked or drove, we got to Mineral Wells and unloaded it from my enclosed trailer. I setup course and started getting people checked in, and then finally took the car for a few laps.
This picture says it well I think. I love the way the car looks and drives. The wheels and tire fitment really pull the car together. It has extremely little actual setup time since I hadn't ever really driven the car before. But going off the principal that wheels make a car, it worked out. I love the stance, don't hate the ride height, I love monster trucking over cones if they are in my way and not worrying about body kits or fragile things. The motor is a little BEAST. It makes around 310 whp, but does an amazing job. You definitely don't need a V8 or big turbo to have fun still. And remember, this thing makes as much power as a stock LS1, with a cool little T28 turbo! Tyler would have been in LOVE with the way this thing drives!
It drove at huge angle all day. Like HUGE angle. The pics don't do it justice, but we were at lock with knuckles that have 60 degrees of angle basically every turn. It is a beast with grip, and I only spun it once all day, and that was on purpose just TRYING to.
I was being super careful in tandem since I didn't want to wreck into Anthony's Chaser while Josh Buckley was driving, but this thing can tandem like crazy. I was getting pelted by rocks in the face since my helmet wouldn't fit with me in the car, and I had to use a borrowed helmet while tandeming that was open face. Even keeping 20 feet behind the Chaser was pebble city lol.
Here is a little shot of the Chaser. Man is that thing beautiful!!!!
The next day I was working at the shop on the car again, fixing the alignment and Jake started sending me these pics he made in Forza!!! They were cracking me up!!!! We are going to have a Forza comp at Round 2 of our series with some cool prizes, and the drivers will be drifting in Tyler's cars replicated in the game!
So, the car was a raging success. It drifts AWESOME! The things I need to fix are:
It overheats after 2 laps. I need to figure this out. I was running it around getting airflow on it after each lap and the temp would come right back down after about 30 seconds. Not a huge deal, but a drift car definitely shouldn't overheat.
I don't fit in the car with my helmet, and I like my helmet. I need a racing seat in it. Not a big deal.
With the rear fenders not sealed back up at the moment, the cabin fills with smoke, and this drives me nuts! I need to seal those up.
The alignment is way off, and it chews through the inside of the tire waaaaay faster than the rear. We still got about 30 laps out of a set of new Kendas without a problem, but hopefully it will go up measurably when we start using the whole tire. Hopefully grip goes way up too, even though it already has amazing grip! We measured it Monday night and it had 1/2 inch of rear toe in and -2 degrees of rear camber. It needs to be about zero to or a tad in, and -.5 rear camber. Also, the rear upper control arms are installed upside down and hitting the frame rails! We figured that out working on the toe! Scary!
