Queensland Raceways Drift Matsuri

So I have been sitting here trying to come up with a way to start this post off with.. and quite simply words really can not describe how awesome the entire weekend really was.. Going into it I really had no idea what to really expect and to be honest.. I think with all the work we did to the cars leading up to it we were all kinda over it before it even started.

The weather on Saturday morning really did not help our mood either, with low lying clouds the massive thunderstorm making its way down the range from Toowoomba we headed out towards QR in the Falcon regardless.

Upon arriving at QR we unlocked the Garage and started to organize our home away from home a little better then Nathan and I did the day before... really we just threw the stuff in as we couldnt have been bothered but the fact that we had a big storm coming in and we had to shelter all our gear as well as numerous people we thought it would be nice to be able to move around..

We then proceeded to hang around riding out the storm.. while some people headed out on track (crazy hey)

Waiting out the storm

 Green car fiddling?

 something was funny...

I told you we had a fridge!

  The monster.... just waiting for its time

 Putting on the front bar, ended up not leaving it on

 Tyre allotment for the 180

 Cass and his Hutchi!

 Skidpan action

 Back in after my first run testing the car on the skid pan

 configuring the EBC

 checking to make sure everything is tight

Well that was pretty much it for the Saturday, I spent the day just fooling around on the skid pan mainly because it was the first time I had driven the 180 and I wanted to get use to it before heading out on track. To be entirely honest It was really the first time I actually had even tried to drift before, I have done skidpan days, motorkhana's and circuit days before but nothing really in regards to drifting. 

Nathan on the other hand wasn't feeling to well on the Saturday and spent most of it helping me out and giving me pointers and when he finally felt up to it ended up having nothing but drama's with the Green car and called it quits for the day.

Sunday was an entirely different day, Gone was the cloud cover and the rain.. Hello Mr sun and a very hot sunday!

Sunday morning was spent by me going to Super Cheap auto to buy some new oil for the 180 as it needed to be changed out again specially since we didn't get the chance to before Matsuri (read one of the 180 build posts)  and changing it! Whilst Cass and Nathan welded the brackets for the hand brake on the champagne car (R33 Drum handbrake)

One of the other drifters had a welder!!

We then headed out on track to have some fun, Me being a lot more confident in both the car and myself after spending the day before out on the skid pan even though I was kind of kicking myself for not heading out on track sooner as it was the most fun I had all weekend.

Coming through the Crossover between turns 3 and 6 with Dave in the car

 Coming out of Turn 6 with Dave in the car

 Resting after having a floggin

Favorite Tyre of the weekend Dunlop SP Sport Max 3000

Old Advan Neova Semi slicks... destroyed them too

Nathan Ended up taking the Champagn car out on the sunday and had a blast.. unfortunatly though no one seemed to get any photos of him drifting... I how ever had a good seat watching him in the staging areas though.. and hearing him on limiter coming around turn 6 while i was over waiting at turn 3 with a helmet on.. goes to show how loud that car is!

Heading out

 Having a grip run

Well that's pretty much it.. it was an absolute epic weekend! and I am hanging out for the next one as there was not a time for that entire weekend that I did not have a smile on my face it was pure motoring Nirvana, I do have a few videos of myself on the skid pan and out on the track but i have to get around to taking them off of my laptop and putting them on the desktop so i can encode and upload them onto youtube. Once I have done that ill put them all up in one post!

Until next time guys stay safe!

Bev

I would like to thank all the photographers that took the photos being displayed in this post! they are purely awesome!

Lead Up To Queensland Raceways Drift Matsuri - PT 2

Ok well its been a little while... and i did not end up doing this right after the first >.<

Between now and the last post its been difficult to find the time... or the motivation to actually post up so I apologize that I haven't so where to start...

well the Grey 180 of Nathans became a Sil80 and we finally go around to putting the engine in gearbox into it.. the Green car has been slated for change with a NA setup using Tomei quads and Reytec ECU but more on the green car as we start pulling the turbo motor out and start to put the NA setup in to it.

The other weekend I blew the Diff up in the Silvia, and it really pissed me off because like most the times something drastic goes wrong with these cars its when your not thrashing the absolute crap out of them. I was actually on my home from work driving sedately when the pinion gear in the diff decided it wanted to shear majority of the teeth off of it.. I tell you.. jack hammer noise much!!

So last weekend we spent pulling the diff out and putting in another on the road out side of my house.. which was interesting considering the fact that my street is more of a one lane road on a side of a hill.
Most drifters will know all about the ins and outs of dropping an R200 out of a S13 so that was the easy part and we thought we were home free.. but my original diff used 6 bolt spines and the replacement diff had 5 bolt splines.. no worries nock the splines out of the old diff and put them in the new diff right? well I brought the original R200 off a mate over 4 years ok for $50 back when i had next to no knowledge of diffs and the differences so i was under the impression that it was just a stock VLSD. Well i was wrong when we knocked the splines out they were the same length which only meant one thing and that was the diff was actually a mechanical!

The Diff had never really acted like a mechanical at all the entire time that i had it in the car it was quite loose so there were never any give away signs that it was, so off came the hat and sure enough the cartridge was a 2way either a Nismo or a Cusco we arnt entirely sure as at that point in time it was more important to get the car driving again.

we didn't have any 6 bolt splines to go into the new diff, so we ended up swapping the axles for 5 bolt axles which are thicker anyway, dropped the car back on the ground and away the car went.. what a head ache.

As for the future of the 2 way well once we get some time to actually figure out what it is we are going to order a rebuild kit and put it into the good diff

Part of the pinion gear

 Metal filings left on the magnetic bung

Ok well Enough of whats new and been going on lately.. its time to do the last part of Matsuri preparation!

Ok well we left of the last part with the S13 party, The 180 was home, it was turbo less and we still had a bit of work left to do on it!!

Nathan called up one of his contacts to come out and remove the broken manifold stud in the side of the head as well as the broken screw that secures no. 4 coil pack, with all that done everything went back in and the car was running again! How ever unable to arrange a time to have the car tuned with the power FC and the big top feed injectors out they came and in went the standard computer, injectors and AFM along with Nathans Nissan Console to keep an eye on all the vitals! (similar to a PFC hand controller)

the next on the list was to install the passenger seat and to... straighten both driver and passenger seats.

In and straight 

now what is a track car without a rollcage? well a mate of mine Scott (I have mentioned him before) was stripping his old Sil to make way for his new one and he had his halfcage up for sale so i snapped that up quick!

Leaning on the storage locker

Now plans are for a full rollcage down the road for the 180 which at that point ill put the halfcage in Silvie

Cage Installed

After re-installing all the front interior well... the center console we moved onto evening up the ride height and rolling the front and rear guards (with the jackhandle) and im quite happy with the result

Before

 After

In amongst it all we took the car down for a wheel allignment

 

Nathan doing his thing!!

 

This must be me just getting old because i can not remember when exactly we did this but in the middle of finishing off the 180 we also did some work on the green car, rolling guards and fitting the rear bar that we painted and had to cut so the exhaust fitted properly.

Night works (guard pulling)

 

At that point in time the Work Meisters had a pair of Federal RSR's on them put due to the offset of the wheel and not being able to pull the guard out as far as it needed to it just wasnt going to work. so off game the RSR's and on went some REO6 Adrenalins 

In the previous post I said we had 17 pairs of wheels including the ones on the back of the cars well that was just some of the gear we were taking, we loaded up two tool boxes with tools from Nathans big roll cab, we took 4 jerry cans of fuel, Nathans snap-on air compressor, a bar fridge and countless other things.. have a look!!

Nothing but JDM!!

 90 leters of BP Ultimate into 4 20L Jerry Cans

 Airlines, Air compressor, jerry cans and a fuel jiggler

Toolboxes, Trolly jack, CRC, Oil, Brake fluid, coolent, eskies!! we almost took the kitchen sink

We even had team shirts!!! (made by my sister - Just made that way)

 Now I have always had a thing for stickers and i got excited when I found a huge sticker sheet set on eBay that I just had to have.. some of them made their way onto Silvie.. well most of the rest found my helmet!

with one more last minute trip to japan autos to get an exhaust for the 180 we also ended up getting some mint silk road coilovers and a pair of river sides.

Last minute parts!

That sums up everything that we accomplished leading up to Matsuri... over a few days!! but one of the biggest tasks was still ahead of us and that was taking out three un-registered cars to QR with one car trailer. Luckily enough we received permission from Keith to take the cars out on the friday which ended up taking all day!!! put with good company and the time spent loading and unloading the cars for their wheel alignments we had it in the bag.

With the 180, wheels and some other bits and pieces delivered safely to our home away from home for the weekend it was back to the house for the next load.

Green car loaded

Campaign car loaded

All day we had these imports tailgating us!

 QR on dusk

 The cars all tucked away in the shed for the night!

What a massive effort!! but ohhhh so very very worth it!! well after moving all our cars and equipment out to QR which took all day it wasnt over for me. As I mentioned before my sister made us all team shirts and they were not all quite finished, so headed out to her place at Alex hills to help her out I was absolutely wrecked at that point but no rest for the wicked right? hahaha I ended up getting home about 11:30pm and went to bed which turned out to be a waste of time as I maybe got an hours sleep before being up at 4am to head to Nathans for the trip out to QR for a weekend full of drifting!!!

Well I hope you all enjoyed the final part of our Matsuri preparation I will hopefully have the full Matsuri weekend post up in the next couple of days!!

As always stay safe my friends

Bev