BDrift2010

I havent been updating because I’ve been busy working! Trying to make money for my drift car. Day job + Simple line @ home is a ton of work and leave’s me almost no computer time.

Car:

Richard @ R.B Body & Paint finshed up the body work. (Thanks a lot man!) I’ve choosen a color, I’m going to order it on this coming monday. It’ll be painted as soon as humanly possible, I cant wait. It’s come a long, long, long, long way from when it first came home.

New minor project:

Jet drill press! JDP-15M. 3/4hp, 16 speed configurations. It needs a lot of TLC, but it work’s perfect! For $30 I couldnt complain. I found it retailing online anywhere from $380-$470. First thing I did was take the table part of it off and sanded it down with 120 and then 400, huge difference. Then today I started cleaning a ton of the grime off of it w/ a steel brush, simple green, goo gone, screw driver and a ton of rags. I’m not even close to being done with it but it’s definetly coming along. I need to take some more updated pictures of it as of today but these will do for now.

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I havent updated in a while, because I havent been proactive with taking pictures.

What’s been going on:

Took out transmission
Took apart transmission only to find the gear selector had a huge chunk broken off of it.
Assembled 2 bad transmissions to make 1 good one.
Richard @ R.B Body & Paint has been slamming out the body work, it’s almost all done.
TE’s pending trade for RPF1’s + Cash.
Paint chip’s coming soon from paintforcars.com
Re did all of the steering; new rack (s14 kouki), new rack bushings, MA-Motorsports knuckles and new 5 lug front hubs.

BIG update soon.

-Alex

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I’m happy to say I am offically drifting again.

The dyno went great @ SR Motorcars on Monday the 26th. Big Thanks to Steve and Forsberg for all the help! Needed a few things after the dyno to get ready for the test day on Wednesday the 28th so Albert took me up to West Covina Nissan and Ray helped me out getting the last minute stuff together. Thanks Guys!! 350rwhp @ 14psi. I’ll take it. Leaving it there for a long time.

On to the test day. After waking up early on Tuesday the 27th and changing my oil before going to work, then going to work, coming home and frantically trying to get the car ready. At 9pm Forsberg and I finally headed up to L.A to pick up Tony and headed out to Lancaster to stay the night @ Nick’s house which is about 10 minutes from Willow Springs. Got there around 11:30 and to our surpise it was about 40 degree’s out!! It was amazing!

Nick and his wife were gracious enough to let us stay the night. Thank’s so much for your hospitality!

Wednesday morning we woke up (i only slept about 4-5 hours…couldnt sleep), got some food which I could barely eat because I was nervous/exicted/nervous to drive again. We finally got to the track @ about 10:30am and met up with my wife Jess, Jack and James. Bill Wood was also there to do an interview with Tony and Forsberg, I ended up being in a few shot’s of them teaching me/helping me out w/ the car and a few driving shot’s too I’m sure. (Can’t wait to see his footage, including the in car!!) So we started to unload, check fluids, prepare for the day ahead.

I had not drifted in over 2 years so I honestly had no idea what to expect and I dont think anyone else did either. So the first order of buisness as per Forsberg and Tony was to just grip the car around the track about 10 time’s both directions just to get a feel for the car, make sure it’s running ok, get the rust off the rotors, make sure it’s boosting ok, etc etc.

Thing’s that went wrong right away:

Boosted 22+ psi due to a faulty boost solenoid on the AVC-R (it was giving me problems on the dyno too.) So we disconnected that and ran 10psi on the wastegate.
Ran on 3 cylinders after it boosted 22+psi. Tony ended up figuring out the ECU plug was loose. Cylinder 1 = No spark. Fixed.
Finally time to drift! Wrong! Power steering high pressure line ended up having a hair line crack in it and was squirting fluid all over the manifold. After about 2 hour’s of BS’ing around with Old/Bad JB Weld, Sanding Copper washer’s Jess/Jack and James found a high pressure line @ an Autozone 11miles away. Life savers!!

NOW it was time to drift. Started out with some donuts then moved onto driving. The car is…amazing. At first I was all over the place trying to figure out what I was doing. Forsberg and Tony were HUGE HUGE HUGE! help’s and rode with me/drove the car a few time’s and really taught me how to drive a car setup this way. The car is setup totally different than anything else I’ve ever driven or built so there was a bit of a learning curve to say the least. Tony and Chris played with different shock setting’s and tire pressure’s and made the car feel so much better with just minor adjustments.

I feel really good about the way I was driving by the end of the day. I still have a ton to learn but am looking foward to it. The car is AMAZING (yes I said it again, it’s THAT good) I have NEVER driven a car that feel’s as good as mine does now.

The car need’s a new transmission BADLY, it grind’s every gear and it just feel’s plain awful. It also need’s the steering sorted out ie; more angle and a new rack.

Maxxis Z1 Drift’s are the BEST tire I’ve EVER driven on. They are unreal, I ran them all around, 235/40/17 up front and 255/40/18 in the rear. The rear’s lasted for over 20 lap’s each and they have grip down till they were completely flat and worn. I’ll be buying these….forever, they are my first and only choice in a tire!

DMax coilover’s were working out really nicely, they were dialing in as we wanted them to and with some more testing I think they are going to be exactly what I need for this up and coming year @ Just Drift’s Top Drift Series.

I could write here for hours and hours, so much happened in such a small amount of time I am just going to leave it at what’s written above and leave you guy’s with some raw footage I quickly spliced together from what Jess filmed.

For not driving for 2 year’s I am thrilled with how the day turned out. I couldnt be more happy and am so glad to be back in the drivers seat. The car is honestly the best car I have ever driven and it’s not even fully dialed in yet. I can’t wait to drive her again!!!!

HUGE Thanks AGAIN to (in no particular order!):
Jess, Forsberg, Tony, Nick, Jack, James, Albert, Steve @ SR Motorcars, Ray @ West Covina Nissan, Dousan, AZNDoc (internet famous Jack), Dmax, City Tire, On Track Motorsports, Simple Line Autoworks.I love all of you guys! Thank you all SO much for your support I couldnt have done it without any of your help.

VIDEO: No driving for 2 years. 10psi on my turbo setup. These are some of the better run’s from what the wife had on our camera. Bill Wood has some of my best run’s which I cannot wait to see!

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Dousan, Jack (azndoc internet famous) and Jack all came by tonight. Night before the dyno, I had a few things to do before Forsberg and I head out tomorrow morning. Some minor prep for the test day on wednesday was also taken care of.

Dousan and Jack (internet famous) took care of swapping an SR bellhousing onto a spare KA transmission I had. Back up trans is ready to go! Thanks a bunch guys!

Jack took care of putting on my side mirrors and some other stuff that I honestly cant remember.

I just got in @ 1:15am I finshed:

New Spark plugs.
Wideband O2.
Made a spacer for my front fenders to bolt them down on the front side’s under the corner lights.
Springs/latch for my trunk.
Removed OEM trunk springs.
Cleaned/Vacummed out the inside of my car.
Installed the inner eyelet’s for my harnesses to hook onto.
Catch Can made from a Nos energy drink bottle.
20mm Rear spacers installed.
Centered steering wheel.

Dyno in the AM…errr looks like i’ll get about 4 hours of sleep tonight. I wont be able to sleep anyways I’m way to exicted!!

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I haven’t had an update in a while. It’s been really hectic with Formula D this past weekend, congrats’s to Forsberg on the win for the Season, Turek winning the event, JTP for the amazing 1st place qualifying and Joon for some seriously kick ass driving.

Here’s what’s been done lately:

Body work. Lot’s of it.

Courtesy of Forsberg: Big big thanks buddy!

New exhaust tip welded on (A-Spec Dual Blast Pipes) w/ new hangers to replace the megan racing muffler/hose clamps that were holding it up before. It sounds SO SO SO SO SO much more awesome too. I am super excited how it came out.
Front bumper bracket to hold the middle of the bumper to get rid of the sagging.
Rear bumper fitment
Mounted all my tires

Basic alignment done by Kevin @ LS Auto/CFR .

Monday the car goes to Dyno @ Drift Speed to set the boost controller up, check the timing, tiny shake down and see how much power the car makes. Jerrod @ Drift Speed set me up really last minute for Monday morning.

Wednesday…TEST DAY!!!!!

Pictures:

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She sure does. Kevin brought over the re-done engine harness. A couple of quick connections, the car fired right up. So motivating!!! Tomorrow I’ll bleed the cooling system, fill the power steering and run this thing for a long while to get the battery charged up.

Started bondo work.

Going to bed before 2:30am is unbelivable.

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Today was awesome. Forsberg picked me up (thanks again buddy!)and we headed off to Car Studio Inc aka DMax USA. My type 3 kit, d1 front and rear fenders and roof wing all came in. Koji was still breaking apart wood containers with all of the new stuff in it so we gave him a helping hand and dug through both of them. Awesome guy, really glad to be working with them. My hood will be here at the end of the month.

Then we grabbed lunch @ my favorite ramen place Hakata Ramen Shin-Sen-Gumi. After that Kevin asked us to stop by the shop before we headed home to check out the simulator they’ve been working on. I can’t wait to play it, it looks amazing. I also saw he was getting to work on my engine harness. Should be getting that back tomorrow!

After that we headed back to the house where I found out my silvia non-projector headlights came in! Perfect timing. I was so antsy to put the new DMax Aero (4 piece kit + over fenders + roof wing), DMax corner lights, DMax blinker lights, DMax tail lights and silvia headlights on that I got to work right away. Didnt stop til 2:30am. AZNdoc Jack stopped by for a little while, while we ate dinner but other than that I worked almost 10 hours straight on this stuff.

Fitment on the DMax stuff was amazing, even for how bent up the core support and all the other misc problems. I am really impressed on the quality of all of the pieces. The car looks hard as nails and it was exactly what I wanted.

Still need to:
Make a bracket to hold up the middle of the front bumper to close the gap.
A lot of body work on the car itself especially around the drivers side tail light.
Fit rear bumper as soon as Teddy drops off the tail light garnish.
Fix Exhaust/switch canister.
Alignment/Corner Balance.
Dyno pulls to tune boost controller/see how much power I’m making.
Paint/Powder Coat.
Drift til my heart explodes.

Pictures:

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Havent updated in a while. A lot has been happening and been done since the last post. I’ll try and make this as short as possible. Over the course of the last 3 or 4 days here’s what I’ve done, where I’ve been, etc.:

Picked up a bunch of parts from Ray over @ West Covina Nissan (thanks man!)
Picked up the T-Bolts I was missing from Road Race Engineering in Whitter, CA.
Kevin came over 2 nights in a row from about 9-3am.
Painless is 99% done.
Kevin and I decided to put the AVC-R in the engine bay so I cant touch it when I dont think the car is fast enough. (yes i am that retarded.)
We started the car, ran like crap for a few seconds then it smoothed out. Ran it for about 5 minutes.
Pulled the engine harness back off and Kevin took it so he can re-do the whole thing.
Relocated the battery to under the dash on transmission tunnel. Made a bracket for that.
Relocated the kill switch.
Kevin made a sweet bracket for the kill switch.
Made a bracket/mount for ECU under the dash…away from people’s feet.
Rinsed off my Takata Harnesses and let them hang out to dry.
Put in my seats.
Put in the harnesses
Tie rod drama. Ended up with: Tein Spacers, RX8 cut and shortened inner tie rods and Z33 Outter tie rod ends. Interesting to say the least.

Coming within the next week:

Body kit/Fenders – MONDAY! (today…in a few hours.)
Fitting above mentioned pieces.
Body work.

Within the next 2 weeks:

Alignment and Corner Balance @ Forsbergs shop.
Fix my exhaust @ Forsbergs shop.
Dyno…somewhere.

By the end of the month:

Paint
Powdercoat
Test day @ Balcony.
Drive until my heart explodes.

Also this month on October 17th is the last round of Formula D @ Irwindale. Go and scream your face off. I will be there doing just that.

Pictures:

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Pair of Takata 4 point harnesses that Forsberg hooked me up with. They were super dirty so me and the wife sat there scrubing for about an hour with colorx 2 and now they are soaking over night.

Soak!

Cold Side IC piping complete. Still need to pick up 3 more t-bolts…but atleast I can start the car like this.

Damn it fits good.

Silcone.

ZOMBIE! Water Pump pulley from the B Dubb’s zombie mobile. I wrote zombie on it.

AVC-R Vacumm line’s routed and wire’s hidden.

Wednesday Agenda:
West Covina Nissan to pick up – Oil Filter, Spark Plugs, Z33 outter tie ride end, inner tie rod cv boots.
Install all of it plus my tein s14 inner tie rod ends.

Next Monday:
Pick up Full Kit, Fenders, Roof wing from DMax! Super Exicted.

Inbetween all of that ;
Sanding Roof.
Hopefully have kevin come over and finsh up the wiring.
Reassemble interior. Dash, Seats, Harnesses, Etc…

Hopefully my headlights come in soon…

-Alex

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Front end is slowly coming together! IC/Rad/Oil Cooler mounted for good.

1 T-Bolt clamp away from being done with the hotside. Hoses ran for the PS resivour up in the top right, just need to tie them down to the strut tower some how. And “intake” made, it’s temporary for now just to get it going, definetly something I need to fix and put a real filter on.

Does this thing run yet? Are my non projector silvia headlights here yet? Did panda garage send me 2 passenger side silvia brackets? Did micheal jackson die? Who knows. Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.

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