Steering Angle++

It's a pretty nice day out today so I went and installed some new 20mm (huge!) wheel spacers for the front (it gives the front of the car a better stance too).

Why you ask? Because I recently got around to installing a set of 4mm steering rack spacers. The spacers are basically small washers that take the place of the locking washer in between the steering rack and the inner tie rod. The stock locking washer has a pretty large diameter so it prevents the inner tie rod from completely travelling into the steering rack. By replacing this washer with a spacer that's the same diameter as the tie rod, the rods are able to travel further into the rack, fully utilizing all the teeth of the steering rack to achieve maximum steering angle.

People who have installed the mod have said that it increases the steering angle by about 15-20 degrees which is pretty great for such a cheap and simple mod. I didn't manage to take any before pictures but I'll let the after pictures tell the story. The steering angle looks decent now and should be a lot of fun come drift season.

I also included a shot of what my car's cockpit looks like at the moment.

The first drift event was supposed to be at the end of March but the current schedule says it is TBA... we'll see what happens.

New year

I finished and submitted the proposal I was working on to work in Japan over the summer, next week all the proposals that were submitted will be reviewed and I should find out if I get accepted or denied by the end of February.

In other news, the drift season will be starting back up soon with the first event at the end of March, I'm looking forward to it. In the meantime I need to install some steering lock spacers soon in preparation for the season. They should increase my steering lock angle by a pretty good amount. I'll hopefully take pictures after the install later.

Non-drift related update

Nothing really new to say regarding the drift scene here since its practically winter and there is virtually no motorsports activity here in Seattle once the brunt of Fall season hits. However, I'm getting excited right now because I'm finishing up writing a research proposal to apply to a program which will give me funding to go to Japan next year. There's another program that I'm applying to for the same thing as well.

If I'm fortunate enough, it will mean that I may be able to spend about 4 months working in Japan. During which I hope I can get a taste of the drift scene, as a spectator of course. I will probably be super poor over there. It's too early to jump to start planning anything though, I haven't been formally accepted to anything yet--need to finish this application. I'll update with any new information regarding this subject as it comes up.

Satisfaction

Went to the last drift event of the season today and had a pretty satisfying experience. My car's cooling system seemed stable during the whole day; no leaks, the temp needle didn't budge from the middle of the gauge, and the electric fan kicked in when it needed to so that I never had to flip the manual fan switch on.

I ran a pair of brand new 205-50-15 Dunlop DZ101s on the front and ran my ~3 year old 205-50-15 Falken Azenis RT-615s in the rear (these tires have been exposed to at least 3 winters so the compound seemed really hardened up like passenger tires). Normally this setup would seem bad since the RT-615s are a superior tire (think street-legal "racing tires / slicks") and one would not want to have more grip in the rear than in the front so as not to have the car understeer like mad. However, because the Azenis were pretty old and hardened they seemed to do their job well.

After figuring out how to clutch-kick for real during my personal practice day last month, I was able to initiate drifts fairly consistently throughout the day. However, after initiating the drift I found that the rear would slide out too much because I would be using too much throttle and end the beginning of the "drift" with a spin.

Later on in the day I managed to carry the drift a small amount, however, when it came time to transition and carry the drift in the opposite direction, I would instantly spin. One of the guys there said that my problem was letting off the throttle during the transition and instead I would want to keep on the throttle and ease the car into the transition. This advice helped a lot during the slalom section of the course and I was able to sorta drift along back and forth, ignoring all the clipping points for the sake of just trying to drift at all. I wasn't able to successfully complete the first two turns in succession during the day though with more practice I think I will be able to do it eventually.

On my last run I performed an experiment, I started my run about 30 feet behind the starting line to get more speed before initiating into turn 1. This allowed me to get into 3rd gear in an attempt to clutch-kick initiate in 3rd gear. This method seemed like a great idea as I nearly completed the drift but failed to transition. All my previous runs were in 2nd gear and I found that I was running out of revs to clutch-kick and wasn't able to initiate at all toward the end of the course. 3rd gear appears to be the solution to this problem. It means I'll probably be going faster, but hopefully will also allow me to improve and get to the point where I can successfully complete an entire drift run.

Ready to go

Installed the new all-aluminum radiator today and it seems to be working pretty well--there's really no way for it to not work well other than not to leak or break. My cooling system seems to be fairly stable so hopefully it holds up for a while.

Got some new tires also, ready to try to get some drift practice in on Sunday which is the final event of the season.

Radiator leak

Spotted a small pinhole type leak in my radiator. This is the radiator that came with the motor so it probably has a billion miles on it and didn't look that amazing to begin with.

Ordered a new all aluminum radiator from Euro Dyne for a pretty good price. Oh well, better safe then sorry even if it's another expense. Means more work I have to do when it gets here too :(.

$$

As I leave for work on my bicycle I ride past my car and notice something is a little off as I glance at it. My focus is directed toward my right rear wheel which is flush against the ground because the tire is FLAT. I inspected the tread of the rear tires and notice that there really is not much there on the insides, it's pretty much bald.

I change out my rear tires with my old 15" SSR/Azenis RT-615s and can't really see what caused the right rear tire to get flat, there are some marks on the bald part of the tread that look like sharp cuts but I can't really tell. On the other tire there are pretty big chunks missing from the tread with cords showing. It's pretty surprising that I didn't have any issue getting home yesterday on the wet roads.

Dunlop is currently running a special where if you buy 4 tires you'll get a $75 Amazon gift card. I might have to bite on that so I can have some spare rears for future practices / events. Another giant dent to my CC debt. I need a bailout!!

Drift event + practice

Went to a drift event yesterday with the new motor and suspension bits and the car is great, it's just that I'm terrible. The whole time I felt like I wasn't in control of the car at all and that's definitely not in a good way. I actually went off the course one time and thankfully wasn't kicked out. The weather was really bad also, pouring rain pretty much the whole time which made it impossibly hard and when my group had to work it was cold and windy and I got soaked even though I had an umbrella.

So it nearly felt like an event / day wasted.

Because I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything I really wanted to get some solid seat time / practice in on my own without having to worry about run groups, time, or anything. So I basically found an empty area with a friend and did just that while getting a few pointers here and there. I pretty much spent the whole time trying to do donuts and failed for a while doing that which made me sad considering donuts are supposed to be really easy. Eventually I got the hang of it sorta and with the tires super hot was able to initiate a slide a little easier. I also got the hang of a proper clutch-kick as well. Basically I need to work on the transition from one sliding direction to the other now which is pretty tough to master.

I chewed up the insides of my rear tires pretty much completely and will probably need to get replacements before the next event / practice session.

The car has been pretty good so far, it seems to toss a check engine light randomly here and there for what so far has been nothing serious and the cooling system has been finicky. The system isn't bleeding air properly and seems to be overheating at idle. Hopefully the car will continue to be reliable for a long while until I can master the art of drifting...

I PASSED!

So a bit more money drained from my negative account... But, my bad O2 sensor was replaced, and now there's no check engine light!!! I went and got my emissions tested after and easily passed. For some strange reason the emissions attendant person asked me if the car was a 4-cylinder or not. I said no, I did an engine swap and then she asked me if it was a 2.5 or 2.8L motor. Apparently she just input my car into their system as a generic 328i or something. Whatever though, I passed without any issue so I should be good for 2 more years.

Also, I had a bigger rear diff installed (4.10 gears) to handle the increased power. The old small diff was making a pretty loud whining noise at high speeds although a bit of that noise can probably be attributed to the solid diff bushing that I'm using as you can still hear a bit of driveline noise with the new diff though it's no where near as loud. The new diff came from an automatic car and it looks great inside and out so it should last a while hopefully.

New strut-tops were put in that I mentioned in an earlier post. Since a lot of caster is needed to get the steering to return on its own while driving I had new M3 strut tops installed which just from looking at them seem to be a huge change. Hopefully it should make drifting a lot easier and more fun. You can see in the picture below the strut position is shifted / pushed back toward the rear which causes the front wheels to be angled foward more (this is what more caster is). I've included a picture of what the stock strut-tops look like and you can see the shock is right in the center of the tower--it's a pretty significant difference.

You can't really see too much of a difference from the outside though I didn't document any before pictures to find out. I think the wheel might be rubbing a little with the increased caster at full lock but I think I'll just have to deal with that.

With the new diff in and my clutch nearly broken in I tried some quick acceleration "tests" for fun and the car does have a bit more acceleration compared to stock. However, the rear didn't lose traction like I would have expected it to due to the increased power and torque. Either my car somehow gained a huge increase in traction magically or the weight of the battery, new diff, and old diff in the trunk (couple hundred pounds maybe) was helping to keep the rubber on the road. I'm hoping it's the latter and that when I remove all the garbage I have in the trunk I'll be to light the tires up more easily. I mean it's got more power! There's no reason I shouldn't be able to do that! I could do it with the old 4-cyl motor! Here's a shot of the rear suspension with all garbage in the trunk (groceries too), looks like the rear is lowered by an inch or so.

And finally, here's a shot of the complete engine bay. The nasty white residue is hot coolant that sprayed everywhere because for some reason the radiator cap popped off while I was driving. I really really hope I don't have anymore cooling issues with this car... I need to figure out how to get an electric fan wired up to the car before the next drift event.

The car is basically all set now except for general maintenance stuff. I need to pay off the rest of the swap costs and then I have another project in store which should be a lot of fun (in the looks department as opposed to performance).

Check engine light almost removed

So I've gone from 8 CEL codes to 3-4 down to 1 (or 2). Got rid of one code by switching the brake light connector with the 3/2-valve connector. Apparently I had them reversed and didn't realize it until it was pointed out to me that my reverse lights weren't there. That was an easy fix and was able to get rid of one code.

Went to Schucks and cleared the codes with their OBDII scanner and pinpointed the last code to one of the O2 sensors on the exhaust manifold. I have a new sensor coming in shortly and will have it installed with a new diff (bigger), and new M3 shock tower mounts (to increase caster).

Once all these things are sorted out I think the car is set... for at least a little while.