3 weekends ago a few drift duders from Michigan got together and rented out Autocity Speedway for ourselves. Doing shit like this is drifting I've always dreamed of. No spectators, no judges, no bullshit, just the drivers and their small pit crew. We had about 7 drivers and plenty of time to dick around and tune the cars in perfect for MDU RD. 3. Unfortunately a broken manifold stud caused the lost of a MM HPs and gold car became stupid to drive. Kind of a wash of a day, but I looked at it as a really good time to find these problems. Some pics from the drift day.
Ryan Nalenzyty and myself having some fun.
Then we did a 3 car train and I spun leading. Ryan goes flying off over the bank and Shane Whalley (GTO) kissed my front end.
The bash bar and hood took all of the force and didn't tweak or cause any damage to the chassis. This is the first time I've tested the design of the front bash bar so I'm thoroughly happy with the results. Time to build another one and go crash into people.
While at that event, my roommate/bff Chris Conley, blew his motor. Not kewl, not kewl at all. Right after a run, the motor starts making a rotardy sound and spews out oil from the exhaust. We pulled the plugs and found #2 completely detonated on itself. The next 2 weeks consisted of staying up until 1-4am every night so we can go to MDU RD. 3.
The story:
*SAD FACE* piston. #2 apparently leaned out.
Then we get the block fixed. Due to time constraints and money Chris couldn't exactly do things the RIGHT way. You can still see scaring on the #2 cylinder wall. Not possible to fix until we bore out to 87mm; requiring a slew of new parts and tune. We decided to cheap out just for MDU RD 3 and threw in some old S13 pistons and rods. Touge Factory hooked us up with a fresh new Cosworth head gasket and motor went back together.
It all goes back together Thursday night and we leave to Indy on Friday. #2 compression only reached 90+ PSI. At that point there wasn't much we could do about it. Chris drove his car 8 hours south to compete at MDU RD 3, beat the shit out of it, then drove it back home. 800 miles without a single problem from the motor. *Golf clap*
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MDU RD 3 was ALOT of fun. The course was held in the parking lot and had a nice long 3rd gear entry down to a 2nd gear hair pin. K-rail grinds was the name of the game.
Course Layout*
Early in practice I'm feeling the car out now that I have no manifold leaks. Gold car is FAST! It is every thing I've ever dreamed of. Then my 10th or so lap I throw it into 3rd gear and hear a magical "POOF!" sound followed by horrible grinding noises. 3rd gear is gone and I'm sad! Boner became instantly flaccid. I manned up, turned the boost up, and upped the rear tire pressure in effort to do the track in 4th gear but it just fell on its face.
Some pics of gold car when it was driving.
At qualifying Chris became my hero and let me use his car to compete in and gain some points. I've always said no to driving other people's car because I don't want the responsibility of crashing or blowing up their shit, but I need points and I really felt jewed over by my car. The first time driving a car other than my own in the last 5 years is qualifying and I got super lucky to gain 11th place. I faced Keith Carlos the first round and had a huge nasty correction knocking myself out. I don't care, I did more than nothing with the help of Chris. I
my friends.
Me doing stuff in Chris's car
So right now my trans is dropped off at a shop getting the Cryo-treated gears installed and gold car is getting prepped to do awesome things at Street Life Tour.
I fucking hate drifting, I just love the people involved. Thank you guys!
