Got second at Formula Drift Seattle Pro-Am Round 1 last weekend.

 

Congrats on 2nd place! I'm deliberating getting into drifting next year. I'll be out there May 5th to check out the track. Could I get a ride along if you are there?

My car is still back in MO right now. We are finally closing on selling our house back home this week. Shipping it up here is the next priority.

 

Thank you,

But,

I do not recommend drifting, especially an FC, especially rotary powered, to anybody with a wife/gf/children/job/family/responsibilities/goals/dreams/ and so on... Stupid expensive, stupid unsafe, stupid time consuming, and stupid stupid.

Anyway, no there are no 5/8ths ride alongs on open drift days, Sorry.

 

Finished paint on the new motor and mocked her up for a pic.

 

Tweak I do have to say... your exit turn transition is second to none. It is one of the only cars I have seen that makes a complete 180' swing. Awesome!

 

Lol, thanks ArmyOfOne, because FC has grip/brakes. Works much better in the dry though, really hard to catch it in the rain.

 

Fixed this.

 

i have found 3 like that recently. Makes no sense why they would tear like that.

 

Traded it for an e36 m3 (temporarily)

 

today me and the rx partied so hard we ended up blowing our first tranny... then all of a sudden, the transmission stopped working.

 

Haven't drove my rex since last summer. It's been neglected for too long. Slapped a new battery in her, and fired her up. She's still running, that's good. 1st gear kinda rough, but she moves. Oh how I've missed her!

 

Got the turbo, downpipe, heatshields, and intake piping buttoned up. Been sitting all winter too.. soon..

 

Lol not starting drama just really wondering if its so stupid why do you keep doing it? I have been thinking about drifting my ls fc hence the question lol.

 

waited for it to get out of the shop...

 

Yeup, no problem, it's a valid question.

Because, at this point I have kinda committed myself to a point that there is really no turning back. Full cage, 4 speed clutchless dog box, racing seat, body all ruined from taps / other people hitting me... After you spend all the time and money making a car do one thing, you are kinda stuck doing it just so all the time and money isn't a complete waste. Recently I found myself WANTING to go do other racing / for fun drifting events, because those are the events that have caused me to waste a lot of money or break stuff, so I have stopped doing those and focused more on the Pro-Am events. So basically, I drive my car hard, 5 days a year, about 10 laps each day. :/ Have to tow it to the track, I would get pulled over instantly with the transmission wine and noise, but .... is a full on racecar, not a daily driver, and it is pretty good at keeping up with everyone at the track.


I hope that kinda answers your question on why I still am, and a little more why it's stupid.

Now, if you want to get into drifting, and going in, you know you are going to waste a whole bunch of money, but don't get serious in it, it is fun. My funnest times drifting was with my stock LS1, still decent looking, normal t56, LS7 clutch, knuckles, 2nd gear drifting, PGP course.


Only thing I needed was a power steering cooler, I drove to car to the track, drove hard through 12 tires, and drove home. Even then, that was $1200 an event in just tires. It doesn't help (especially with FC and torque) to get cheap or used tires. A tire that is 1/2 gone or old/used will be gone or useless for grip instantly.

Now that we are putting offers in on houses (and got a bank to finally accept one) looking back, I could have had a lot more money for a down payment, without spending $60,000 over 3 years in tire smoke. I mean it's what I do, it's what I love to do, but really ... it's stupid. I am just lucky I have a solid education, job, gf, friends and family, to allow me to do it. Doing anything like drifting and being semi serious with it puts a lot of stress on everything in your life. It will drain your wallet and your free time. I just don't recommend it.

Now again like I said, you want to go out, and do some grassroots, or go to an open event with 4 tires and see what it's about, I REALLY recommend it. Especially if you put all your time into an LS FC. It will really give you a safe place to stretch it out and see what the car can do. But ... if you can't walk up to your bank, take out $1000, show it to your GF and then light it on fire right in front of her instead of buying her a necklace, and survive, drifting isn't for you.

~Tweak

 

Tweak, thanks for the info, thats really good to know. There's a certain mythos around drifting that I think a lot of people, myself including, get caught up in.

I'm curious on your comment re: power steering cooler. I just got the power steering pump to put back into my fb (PO took it off). The stock pump comes with a long metal tube for a cooler, and several of my buddies and I question its effectiveness vs. the pain-in-the-assedness of re-installing it. How effective would a long metal tube be? Worth going to the effort of putting in, or not worry about it?

 

The tube is MUCH better than nothing, but unless you are doing 15 minutes of full lock back and forth steering such in that video above, you don't need it. Mine would only start to get hot and boil after a solid 15 minutes of linked drifting. (1 pair of tires) I would run out of tire, right when it would start to boil. Having ANY soft of cooling would have stopped that, including the metal pipe, but I went and got a full blown like 7x8 inch multi fin/pass transmission/ps cooler and never looked back. Was like $30.

 

Finished installing my air pump actuated holley power valve controller. At 1psi it adds 13 jet sizes to keep my AFR @11.3 running 12psi boost.

I also ordered the new turbine wheel for my GT3576. 22psi & 50mm external waste gate coming soon.

 

one of mine was leaking on my t2 recently! ended up putting freeze plugs in just to get rid of the possibility of another leak!

 

got bored and desided to trim the speaker pods out of the fc! also managed to tuck the wiring behind everything as well... perhaps one step closer to truck conversion?

 

Ryan... How is your turbo getting water now?

 

i got my 13B and trans ready to go into the body, still got some work to do

 

looked out side rain rain rain....

 

Enjoyed driving her home. 60 miles smiling the whole way. Thanks Jesus

 

Pulled the motor for some much needed repairs and improvements.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83659599@N04/8844593042/