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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#154193 2019-03-09 21:07 |
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Training Wheels
So, it is time to unveil the first iteration of the HR34 drift car project.
But there's more: I've augmented the handling side of my Silver Queen by changing her shoes  And of course it is time to see how far and fast the HR34 could go sideways! Without further ado let's jump into the update! [04 Mar 2019] Paycheck time! V$750 has landed safely in my account. It's still a far cry to fulfill the needs for my S15, but hey, baby steps should be made, no matter how small it is. And then there's also my HR34, which basically almost there to be a srteetlegal, grassroot level drift car. As I've said in the previous update, I'm not going to do a lot of visual mods besides wheels and stickers, though I may add front and rear bash bars if (a)I can find one, and (b)they can be covered by the bumper (to keep it street legal and still look clean). And yes, I know what are their essential function, as well as how they're usually fitted, but it should be a wise decision to strengthen your car in general yea?
Speaking of which, I'm sure almost all of you had known that following some incidents (including deaths.....iirc there are 1 or 2 of them) happening at Japanese drift tracks, which involves loose and or/detached car parts, almost every single tracks (including Ebisu) now has stricter rules regarding cars to use at drift days. Don't worry, it's not as strict as you would think. Basically your car has to be rigid and strong enough or at least streetlegal, with running gear parts strong enough to be abused around so they don't came loose while you're in action. At least one braking light can be used, you have to have a headlight set if you're participating in Matsuri events, all side mirrors had to be present.......simply it's just how you would like to see your car everyday. Of course they still tolerate the usual missile dings, dents, scratches and other sorts of damage, as long as you can repair them back to acceptable conditions (doesn't have to be pristine, superglue and/or zipties might do it, not sure about ducktapes). The one they would prohibit would be major damages like a huge panel gap or a major dent that changes the shape of your car. Also, if you happen to have fluid leaks (oil, coolant, water etc), you have to pull back to pits safely and mend your car in the meantime. If your car can't be repaired permanently, of coure it'll be game over for you. I don't really know if there's any other places that hasn't set this kind of rule in motion, by the way. But the point is, track owners and officials doesn't want to have death traps around their lawn that could cause another major accident. This way, everyone can stay safe and healthy while throwing their cars sideways as well. If you're interested on this, you might want to read these two articles, as well as watching Alexi/Noriyaro explaining what is actually happening. Speaking of which, the very basic guideline of what sort of missile car that still can be used is.......just look at Alexi's Beercan R32. That thing is quite smashed up but still can be repaired and has mostly complete equipments. I'd say that's enough talk about missile and grasroots car for a while. Anyway, while I was about to finish my job for the day, AJ (RocketBunnyS13) called me on the phone. We talked a lot about the HR34 drift project, as well as the S15, and of course that I put all of his RB25 parts into both aformentiojed cars. "Oh yah Edo, are you in need for new set of wheels?" "O-oh yah, thanks for mentioning that. I wonder should I fit Driftmaster wheels or Advan TC3s for my-" "No, I have a better idea. How about R33 stockies?" "Oh that could work too I guess. But I'm not sure if I can find one" "Don't worry, just take mine" "Eeeeh really?" "Yea, that's okay. They're a lot actually and can be grabbed for cheap" "Dang AJ, I owe you more than I should be. Thanks a lot man" Well at least what he gave to me is more reasonable hihe. But still, man I really owe him a dinner I should say. [05 Mar 2019] There are two things that came to me at this point. The first one was some money for selling some of the RB20 parts I've mentioed in the first update, for a grand total of V$3300. The second one was, rather obviously, the R33 stockies AJ offered for me. They're in the size of 17 inches, complete with tyres. The front one is rather well used, the rear one is obviously well cooked after all the drifts AJ has pulled along it's lifetime. Since I'm rather bored with the stock wheels on the HR34 and uhhhhh......obviously they won't stand for drifting abuse, I giddily fitted the R33 stockies to the HR34.
 Well they might look weird at the back, but at least they fit very well and easy. To make it fit better, there would be two options: Get a bigger tyre or lower the car. Obviously, having bigger tyre would really change the car's character so it might be a bit difficult to throw it sideways, so I should lower it.
But before I'm going underneath the car to lower the stock suspensions, I remembered something: The HR34 is under the same state of S15, i.e. needs clutch pedal. And since this was equipped with auto transmission and uh, not being sold as a performance car, it still has an open diff. I mean, sure, you still can bring your car sideways on open diff, but it'll be rather hard to do. Chances are either you struggled to control it, you struggled to hold it or, god forbid, you posted your car somewhere off the road, whether if it's a wall/armco, building or even a cliff. To cut cost I could weld it, but it would be rather difficult without jacks and it'll be difficult for low-speed daily usage, and if done incorrectly might decrease the diff's lifetime. Or I could simply fill the diff with epoxy as this recently viral video shows, but it could break itself (both the epoxy and the diff). So I took note on this for later pruposes. In pure curiousity, I took off the R33 stockies for a while, roll it off to the garage, and put it side to side with my Silver Queen's wheel arches. I forgot to take photo of it, but turns out fitting 17s instead of 16s on my Evo should give a huge difference on grip levels and handling precision. And uh, obviously, ride comfort. It's bigger, thicker, and ceratinly gives more room for brake upgrades. Well, I love me bigger brakes, despite almost entering 300mm discs territory  Excited with this finding, I put the stockies back to the HR34, got back inside my crib and pulled out a gigantic shopping list...... First off, shopping list for the HR34: The main priority here is to get an LSD for it, and after some researches I found lots of R-chassis users recommends Kaaz LSD for low-level/grassroots usage, so I followed their advice and grabbed the 2-way ones off RHDJapan for V$845. And then for a better response and steering angle I grabbed Driftworks Geomaster 2 knuckle kit for V$522. They offer a nice additional function as well, which is lowering your car around 50mm or 0.5cm. Perfect for me, who hasn't got any money for drift coilovers yet. And since Hardrace's camber kit was quite durable and did their job very well on the Silver Queen since way, way back then, I decided to fit them on the HR34 as well, which costs V$329 for the fronts and V$161 for the rears. Additionally, I grabbed brake and clutch pedal set assembly from a R34 GT-T (what a find!) for V$100 here, and to connect the pedal to the clutch, I grab HEL braided clutch line for V$22 at Tegiwa Imports. Additionally I grabbed MoMo Tuner 350mm steering wheels at V$198 for the HR34, since drifting with stock steering wheels is usually a bit of a chore for the hands. Quite budget friendly stuff innit? Next up is the list for the Silver Queen: Not a lot of them, but perhaps more expensive. WedsSport TC105N wheels are quite rare these days, so Ii'm quite grateful when this site had them in 17x9 on clearance sale, for a grand total of V$1480 a set. And to match the wheels, and to match most of Tsukuba's time attack racer's preference as well as trying something different, I grabbed a set of Advan AD08R tyres off Demon Twweks for V$456. Quite expensive, I know, but that's what semi-slicks would get you. Additionally, I contacted the place where I bought my brake kits back then and I offered to return my 298mm discs on all sides in exchange of 309mm discs also on all sides. Thankfully, they agreed, as well as quoting an extra V$400 for the exchange. And finally, for the S15, I've bought it some things as well. Chase Bays Motorpsports has some nice kits on them for the RB conversion with VQ transmission. What I've grabbed from them are their power steering kit for V$320, fuel line kit for V$200 and clutch line for the transmission for V$65. Additionally, finally I can get the 350Z's OEM clutch kit for V$295 as well as clutch pedal assembly for S15 at V$47. Well, if you want to know how bad thsi was to my wallet, you can jump into the wallet section as usual later. [08 Mar 2019] Welp, you can be really sure that your shopping list was really huge when it fills 1/3 of your delivery truck, wew boi! It took me almost half an hour just to unload everything I've ordered.But hey, it feels like you're in heaven after all the cash spending hihe. Anyways, I opted to install everything I bought for the Silver Queen first, since it got the fewest shopping list. First off, the wheels. For a comparison, here's a pic of it with 17in wheels at the front and 16s at the back, as well as 298mm brake discs:
 Looking good aren't they? Properly meaty as well. With my hypothesis fulfilled with brilliant result, I changed the wheels as well as fitting the new brake discs. Thanks to my days installing upgrades with Ohira-sensei and Summer Yume crews, this time I can do it rather quickly and with neither swearing nor having blody knuckles. Here's the final result by the way. Behold, the now- T H I C C er and sexier Silver Queen
 
   Job on the Silver Queen done, I took a quick test with it by delivering the old 298mm brake discs to the delivery service. Braking power definitely increased again as I could come into a sudden stop easily at traffic lights. I think after the Tsukuba trackday I've been accustomised to the acceleration punches the Silver Queen delivered, but this time she hugs me from the back quite hard at full stop sequences. Quite rough I should say, but I love it. Is it wrong if I want to say "hit me harder!" to the Silver Queen whilst on high speeds?
Also, the ride comfort isn't really affected, at least from the driver's side. I should carry a passenger to verify this.After delivery sorted, I returned back to my crib and got straight into my garage to fit the parts for the S15. Y'know what? This car at the moment gave me quite a headache as basically I'm nursing three cars in a chassis right now (to recap: R32 engine, S15 chassis and running gear, Z33 drivetrain). But as all of the cars are my favourites (yes, I'm actually a Nissan fan), I also enjoyed working on it with love. Besides, with all of these swappity-swap works, it could teach me a lot of mechanical knowledge on cars (specifically, Nissans). I can't imagine that I, someone who rarely holds a spanner in the past, would work on a DIY time trial car like this. No, I'm not complaining, I'm just gleed over that fact Now all that's left for it for now are driver seat, matching driveshaft and RB intercoolr setup, as well as sorting the wiring. I wonder if Nismo would accept sorting a mix-and-matched cars like this? :)) Finally, working on the HR34, which has most parts bought for it. I started by fitting the easiest part, which is steering wheel. And then get under the car to fit everything else. I was almost got showered by diff oil, ah silly me. It wasn't a quick jobbie either with only using scissor jacks to lift the car. But all in all, finally it's ready to see some sideways action! (And I still don't know how powerful it is). Additionally, with the camber kit fitted, I adjusted a little bit of the front camber for better front grip while getting sideways while, but not so much so I can keep it streetlegal.
This took a lot of time that by the time I finished working, it's already dark. I tried my best to capture the result. 
 At the end of the day, I listed several things for sale. I sold the HR34 stockies with tyres for V$300, and since I never use the steelies on my Evo anymore, I sold them as well for V$600 (the tyres are still fresh, damn). For now on, the 16in wheels set will be the spare tyres set. I also sold the S15's stock fuel line kit for V$100. They're meant for SR engines so if you're interested, hit me up. Other things that I listed are HR34's stock open diff for V$360 and HR34 stock hub knuckles for V$200.
[09 Mar 2019] It is now time to test the HR34, long since the last time I've driven it (which is immediately after I bought it). I got off my crib in the early morning to go to Tsukuba's industrial area. Usually it's quite calm and empty in the morning save for some trucks, and the road are usually dusty, perfect to chuck it sideways while not wearing off a lot of the tyres. Well yes I said the rear tyres has been cooked off, what I'm saying is the dust might keep it from ripping apart.
 Half an hour later, I arrived at one of the blocks I saw fitting and quite dusty. As you can see, the road is quite wide as well, so you can push your car a bit, though the risk of crashing into everything is still present. Oh anyway, the car felt quite sprightly on the way here. I guess the tuning and makeshift bore and stroker kit was a huge success
 With everything I know about drifting in my head, I approached a junction nearby to try bringing the car sideways. So I did a bit of scandinavian flick as rally drivers does, turned around while releasing the accelerator and added a bit of brake on the top, and back on the accel. And so, Ii went sideways for teh first time of my life.
 It felt like the world has turned upright when I did it as I tried to hold it a bit. Perhaps this was caused by a huge amount of body roll......and you'd be right. It feels really out of this world, depite being a huge sedan. On the plus side though, I still could catch it back and straightened the car.
 Looking up for more and wanting to test the handbrake, I approached the next junction rather quickly. And then I pulled the handbrake while turn.....and forgetting how dusty this place was. I guess I was too greedy at the entry.
 In a panic I tried to steer the car back (yep, feel free to facepalm). Thankfully, the steering and camber settings responded my frantic hands quite well, and the sidewalk was quite low I only felt it for a while. And so to save myself, I sent the HR34 into a spin to avoid the tail smashing the nearby building. I didn't soil my pants, but my bowel and head certainly felt uncomfortable.
 Bringing my car into a near 180 degree spin reveals a road quite wide to do a manji there. If I do a manji on open diff I would probably crash as transitioning would be difficult due to the nature of open diff. So after some time checking if anyone saw me spin (thankfully, none), I proceed to that road and immediately pull another entry. The car flowed well within my hands somehow.
 As I hold the drift I can see only a truck and somehow, a steamroller on roadside being the obstacle. Did Dio Brando came here? So I tried to avoid those by pulling a manji. Well I ended up pulling a huge sanpatsu (triple flick) with all the amount of throttle and steering input I did. Anyway, a bit of trivia: Sanpatsu/triple flick can be done anywhere, but mostly done at the highway at Port Ooi to connect two right corners in high speed. Of course you can do more than three flicks if you have a lower-powered car (otherwise you'll overshot the corner), but logically it'll be an odd-numbered flicks if you're connecting two same-direction turns (three,five,seven etc. flicks). According to Alexi, there are three places you can legally pull a sanpatsu: Ebisu Hhigashi's start/finish straight, Tsukuba Circuit's start/finish straight and Nikko Circuit's backstraight. Here's a demonstration of how one pull a sanpatsu on Port Ooi in Assetto Corsa.
 With high noon approaching fast and industrial workers coming fast, I had to stop my drifting session abruptly and head back to my crib before I smashed someone off the road and/or security agents caught my shenanigans. That doesn't stop me from exiting the complex in a flurry though!
 
 Overall results? I'm quite satisfied with the car so far, just need a smidge more power (as long as it's below 300 BHP), better tyres (or probably changing the wheel as well), and probably get better brakes. And better seats too. I mean, I was definitely trying to hold myself in my seat as I go sideways......My head almost hit the window glass at one time.
[10 Mar 2019] I've tested the HR34, now it is time to test the Silver Queen-"Wait Smoke hadn't you tested it?" Well yes, at Tsukuba Circuit. Now it is time for the touge test, to see if it could felt at home as back when I'm having touge shenanigans with AJ and Muza(Niatross). Also, I'd like to test how far I could push the Advans and the new 17in wheels. Thankfully, Tsukuba Fruits Line touge is as quiet as it's always been, so I should be able to push the Silver Queen to the limit.
 But before all of that, I took a rest on the nearest parking lot to observe traffic levels and to catch some breathe before going into the action. The Silver Queen likes to blend with the nature I should say
  Preparations done, I headed downhill into the first corner. Welp, here come sthe rollercoaster ride, and the Silver Queen certainly quite eager to ride on it!  The first corner (and my personal favourite) comes into the eye, and the Silver Queen attacks it with full confidence. The grip level is astonishing, and quite tempting me to drive fast. To make things worse, 'No One Sleeps in Tokyo' was pumping
But indeed it's quite astonishing as it was quite stable and grippy despite running downhill quickly......all felt positively balanced. And notably I was confident enough to clip the gutter at the apex of the corner. Don't worry, the inner side of the tyre could catch it.
  In fact it's quite grippy and inspiring I was exiting said corner (a)at full throttle and (b)on the opposite side of the road. That shows just how can the Silver Queen obeys your command while at the same time pushes you to do your best and want you to push it back. It wants your communication and understanding. Aand love, obviously.
 The road widens and reveals a chicane. Naturally, I'd try to stay on the correct lane, but this time, drunk on power and adrenaline, I tried to hit the apex correctly. Thankfully, there's nothing on the oncoming lane.
  Afterwards, here comes my favourite section: It has no specific name, I just simply call it the "Don't Cut" section because well, obviously you may not cut the corners since there are cliff faces and rocks at the apex being covered by vines and bushes. The Silver Queen though, encouraged me to get closer, and thanks to the increased steering tactility, it feels like my eyes and hands can predict and see what's ahead easily.
 The road winds on and on, with no armco in sight. Normally this would be fearful to me, but indeed as fast you can go, the feeling of fear took a back seat and slowly dissolves as joy kicks in. I can only sinisterly scream "SOMEBODY STOP ME!" in my mind. This is how rallying and touge properly feels like yea?
 Despite being pretty much the only vehicle in the road, I really love this touge session. I can move freely, hands and wheels in unison tackling each corner, all the power being tapped out. I guess I have to come here with some friends so I can share the joy....yeah, another mass touge run should be held here!
 As for the Silver Queen? Well, she's as sprightly as she's always been. In the previous update I've said that the Silver Queen wants to run gently with me in the touge roads, as if we're on a flower fields. Well, it still applies here, only now it runs quite eagerly, full of spirit as if the flower fields was huge and filled with her favourite flowers and colors. She also hugs me at times, as if she doesn't want me to run somewhere else and needs me to saty with her. Happy trails, I should say.
We're running so quickly, the end of the touge route soon appeared to my eyes. I quickly merged back to the correct lane and slowed down a bit to calm myself down. The Silver Queen has proved herself at Tsukuba Fruits Lline with flying colours and I'm proud of it. I do realize I'm being too romantic with this car, but after all, it's my first car, and it has gone so much changes and it's all worth it in the end. If you don't feel the same along the ownership/before you sell them for any reasons, safe to say......you need a psychiatrist.
  I left the touge while blasting ODESZA's 'A Moment Apart' in the car. It was quite a heavenly moment to be celebrated......
Oh, by the way, remember when I was talking about european car imports? Perhaps you don't, but let me remind you again. I found some cheap cars that can be purchased online around Eastern Europe, some of which are even cheaper than all of the steering wheels I've ever owned. And the point is, I'm going to buy one soon. Well to be fair, it's not an European brand, but still. Try to guess what would it be as I'll unveil it next week. And possibly, I could buy another car as well, this time still in the Japan soil. What I could only say is, it's Ford Fiesta's sashimi-eating cousin. Stay tuned for that thing as well, I should say ;) Another long update done and dusted! Took 6 hours to write Let's see how did my wallet survive after the massive shopping spree: That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
This post was edited by BigSmoke (2019-03-14 18:09, ago) |
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