Saw you out yesterday, how did you get on? Spotted the bumper went walkies! Was a scorcher of a day, believe you were behind me at one stage!
Was a bloody good day mate, mega hot which didn't help with tyre usage, but it was brilliant, learnt a lot and did well I thought. Yeah I lost the front 3 times before I got bored of putting it back on, and rear bumper disappeared whenever a tyre went, so I got bored of that too! Ah nice, what was you driving mate?
So we made it through a drift day! A week on from Rockingham, I thought I'd update this and let you chaps know what went on. After all the weeks of exhaust issues, I got there after a 2 and half hour drive with an exhaust blow. I had put an old partly ruined manifold gasket in it, so assumed it was this. It obviously got progressively worse throughout the day without me checking it. So a couple days later I opened the bonnet and found I'd lost 3 of 5 manifold bolts! Which obviously meant the manifold wasn't really attached anymore. A whole day done with basically no exhaust system, great one! Apart from that, the car was faultless, held its own with much much much more powerful cars, and I received a lot of compliments on the car and my driving style which is a real nice feeling considering the effort that's gone in to the car. I put a small video on my YouTube of some in car footage from the day if anyone is interested! The next outing will probably be Matsuri at Anglesey now, which I can't wait for! {} {}
Yeah I had problems with my oil getting too thin in the heat resulting in tappet noise! I was in the turquoise 36 Compact! {}
Howdy there! So last weekend I made the annual trip to Drift Matsuri in Anglesey. Best weekend ever by the way, if you haven't been there, then get there next week! We set off on the Friday morning from Maidstone at 5:30 for the 350mile trip. A few stops later, we rocked up to the gates at about 2. First ones in! Unloaded, chilled out and obviously went to the pub before checking in to our travelodge. {} {} Saturday morning rocked up, got a McDonald's bagel, went and did some checks, got the briefing done, warmed the car up and got out to the tracks. Pretty much went badly. Forgot to get some heat in to the NS2Rs, had too little pressure in the rear tyres, which resulted in a 15 minute in to the first day crash. Luckily no major damage, except for the bumper went straight under the car and literally smashed in to many pieces. To the point where the marshals picked it all up and chucked it in the bin. We went and retrieved it later on in the day and got busy with the cable ties though. {} All part of the fun isn't it haha so I also got put in the sin bin for this, 15 minutes passed and off I went. Whacked a bit more pressure in the rears, let a bit out the front, did a warm up lap and then tried again. AWESOME! Straight away remembered how great the car is and how good the track and weekend is. Mixing it with some of the top drivers in the country is always great. Sunday was much the same, except for the clocks in the car died, so had literally no gauges at all except for the aftermarket water temp gauge, wasn't ideal. But Sunday finished and the car was still in one piece! I was over the moon with this, still had to drive it back, but at this point I didn't care if it died, it had done 2 full days of drifting fault free! {} {} {} {} Met many new people, many runs in with Al and his awesome 86 which was a privilege, same with Huw in the dukes of hafod car and many of the BDC drivers. Got on the way with the drive home, was absolutely fine until 1 hour out on the m25. Part of it is block concrete, which completely shook the car apart. It rattled the top alternator bolt out, snapped my exhaust manifold and broke the fan brackets. Determined to get it home at this point, I cable tied the alternator in place and put my foot down. We made it! {} So I've ordered a new exhaust manifold which should be here this week at some point. While it's sitting there I've got the tie rods extended and the lower arms extended. Will be ordering +25mm wings in the near future also which I'm looking forward to. But for now, car is sick, will be back at events in the new year once I've got bits sorted!
So sick! Loads of work has gone into this and nothing seems to put you down haha. As cool as this is, it's really putting me off going to drift events in my S13. I love it to bits and use it as my daily but the itch to skid has taken over, I'm just nervous of breaking things and not knowing how to fix them!
Cheers man, yeah just get on with it and get shit done, if I stopped and cried each time I messed up I'd still be crying from the first crash! Haha Don't let me put you off man! I drive like a dickhead and I'm not afraid to have a little crash. Drive within your limits and you'll still have great fun and won't mess your stuff up like I do so much. I'm just always pressing to go faster on entries and trying new things thats my issue.
Been a while again, but got some updates so thought I’d chuck them in here! So I ordered a CX Racing manifold from the states. I don’t have mega money and with what I’m using the car for I don’t see a need or have a want to spend nearly a grand on big boy manifolds. The car is and always will be a budget car as far as I’m concerned, so with sticking to that, the CX manifold was ordered. Around £400 delivered which I was happy with. Even arrived pretty quick, about a week and half and it was with me! Got it fitted up, was a bit of a pain due to the up and down design, but we got it in. {} {} It’s probably not the best manifold out there, but it looks fancy, so I’m happy. Only issue I have with it, is that although it says on the website it’s equal length, I don’t think it is, sounds very “Subaru” on idle, but it’s here now, so it’s staying. I’m happy. While the car was up in the air I removed the lower arms and inner tie rods to extend them, something I’ve been meaning to do but never got round to it. Got a good friend of mine to do the handy work and got them back on. {} {} So we got that all fitted up, took it on a test drive. And obviously there was a disaster. With fitting the arms it dropped the car lower, which meant my lovely new manifold was on the floor constantly. Had to raise it 15mm and it still occasionally caught the floor. Parked it up, talked to my pal who extended the arms and got parts ordered up to create a new exhaust system. Opting for 2 1/4 inch stainless pipe, an 18inch Long 4 inch round back box and re routing it under the axle. Dropped it with him on Friday, got it back Saturday eve, more than happy, did however forget to get pictures though! Now during this all happening, which was a 2 week scale of the 86 being sat outside my partners house and me getting moaned at by neighbours, I spotted a set of wheels I wanted. So I quickly got on selling all my skid wheels to fund them, and off I trotted to Devon to collect them. {} A set of 4 Compomotive TF300 split rims. Rebuilt 2 years ago, only covering 800 miles since rebuilding. Came with some tiny 175/50/14 tyres on them, swapped my 185/60s on to them and got them on the car. {} {} Wheels have made it! Mega happy with them, totally transformed how the car looks. I do have a new front bumper, it’s been painted, I just haven’t collected it yet, I’ll try and get that collected and fitted this week if work times allow. But for now, that is it. The car doesn’t want for anything, all the niggles I had with the car have been sorted. So now, fingers crossed, it’s a case of just enjoy it in the new year! Thanks for reading chaps!
2 updates in the same month! Well aren’t you guys lucky! I finally got round to picking up my fresh bumper! Had a chat with my pal who painted it and may end up doing another respray but this time with some added fancy! {} Actually looking semi decent again then, not so hanging anymore. Been meaning to stand the front wheels up and take 10mm of spacer off since I’ve had the extended arms on it. Got offered an evening on my mates ramp so cracked on with that, also lowered it 10mm while it was there. Made a massive difference as was suffering with a bit of understeer since the arms were put on. {} Now I’ve recently encountered an issue. When cornering hard right, the car has a savage misfire, since talking with some people I’ve been told it’s possibly the fuel pump. I can only assume it’s the original 30 year old pump, so I’ll put an update jobby in there and continue to party! {} {}
Well I haven't updated this in far too long, so I'll do a big old update. Last time I updated I had the issue of a misfire. It took a full week to sort this in the end. I change plugs, distributor cap, checked wiring, checked all fuel lines, changed fuel pump twice. Eventually, after talking to people, I found there could be an issue with a pin hole in the pick up of the cradle in the fuel tank. I sleeved the pick up with a piece of fuel line and it's worked fine ever since. So I can only assume this was the issue. I do need to replace the cradle at some point however. So I made it to lydden hill for the track day, had a great day with pals. Had zero car issues, and didn't even ruin any fibreglass. Perfect day you could say. {} {} {} So after that, I actually had nothing to repair. So I booked the next lydden hill day. It did not go as well as the previous and I drove like an idiot as I was angry. I ruined the inner tie rods, broke the front bumper, removed the drivers skirt and the rear bumper. Inbetween all this I visited a pal to help fix his car. This ended up in a very impromptu photo shoot with some frankly brilliant photos. {} {} After the lydden hill drift day I parked the car for 7 weeks. I had lost all enthusiasm with it and didn't want to even look at it, let alone work on it. What got me moving was an invite to Japfest at silverstone for the anniversary of the AE86. So my partner was a star and ordered new extended tie rods and new injector plugs for me. Got them fitted and set to work on repairing my bumper which was in 4 pieces. A load of fibreglass and filler later, we had this. {} Not bad for a couple hours work. Next day we set off to Silverstone for a day of being a show car. A bizarre prospect to us. A couple of parade laps and a whole load of walking later, we realised it wasn't quite our scene. {} {} She didn't do bad for an 86 on a budget that's used properly. HOWEVER. The day was not uneventful. On the way home, we noticed the gearbox whine we had become used to changed it's pitch. A while later there was a rattle. We limped it to a local services. And about 3 hours later we got collected. {} Decided, as we pay for breakdown cover to get it recovered home and assess the damage. As I got it off the truck I noticed the box was no longer loud. Thought it must be bearings. The rear seal has been shot for a long time so this also wouldn't be helping. I spoke to a local company that I get on well with, Fourways Engineering. They sorted me out with a gearbox rebuild from a guy they use. So I dropped it out and it's getting rebuilt as we speak. So that's it right now. Hopefully I can get the box back by the weekend and get back to using the poor thing. It's also nearly a year since we got it back on the road. So thats come round very quick. Thanks for reading. I'll try to update more often if I remember! {} {}
This car is the complete opposite of show ponies and garage queens that get all the fancy branded parts to show off on photos/events and very rarely get driven let alone drifted. You have a set back, get it repaired so its presentable and more importantly functional. You've got a great attitude man, hopefully you get a bit of luck with it and you keep on going with your enthusiasm. It's a cool car with character.
Thanks man, that really means alot. I just try to keep it as cheap as possible and that way it keeps it fun, which in my opinion is what this is and what drifting is meant to be. What youve said is true, the cars been built to be functional mainly and just tried to keep it looking presentable. But as long as it works im happy. Its still sitting on my partners drive awaiting its fresh gearbox, im hoping once thats done itll be trouble free
