Inland Drift

A new venue for all you guys way out in the desert. If anyone lives out near the Lake Perris area and need to get their drift on, the guys from Inland Drift have what you need. Since I needed some seat time again, and I miss driving the Lilac Special, I made this the place to be this past weekend. Though it was probably the worst time to head out there since it was probably one of the hottest weekends, at least for me. Temperatures were up in the 100's, but maybe this is normal. I only stayed for a few hours since it began to get really hot and the car wasn't having any of it. I did a couple runs and had my laptop datalog it for review later. One cool thing about coming early in the morning was that I had the place all to myself. I felt special.


Before I left one guy showed up.


I headed home a little after noon, but decided to take a detour to March AFB and take a tour of their museum. I've always been a fan of military history and hardware. I guess it's in the genes, being in a military family. More on that next time.


One thing good about towing is A/C.

For more info in Inland Drift visit their site.

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Like Brand names?

For you JDM freaks out there I present this original Spirits front bumper straight from the motherland. This may be the only one state side, and will probably be the only one. But if you're that guy who must have the stuff from Japan, then drool over this.

Replacing Axles

Done in less than an hour. Easy money, at least I haven't lost my touch. I thought I was goin to be spending at least 2 hours on it. Too bad I didn't get to it until 2 months later. He's a good friend and i've known him for a few years yet he prefers the me to work on his cars, from a 68 Mercedes to a 2002 Daewoo, rather than have anyone else touch his cars. Such a loyal customer.

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Bizarro world

Where everything is possible

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Drift Day Comp.

Photo by Garage86 @ Club4AG

I could have skipped working on the car saturday to attend the last Nisei car show in Little Tokyo and stare at some T and A. Tasty pic don't you think? But hitting asphalt is like a drug. No matter how much I want to stop, I needed another dose. So working on the car was the first priority, for some Sunday driving.


Even added a new filter setup to replace the busted HKS filter.

Since I performed horribly the last 2 events, I needed some redemption on past performances. But for some odd reason after running fine the previous day, it decided not to start up once I got to the venue. It's like deja vu, the same thing that happened the week before AE86 comp. at least that time I was able to replace with my old setup and run it. I tried most of the morning to get it started, thanks to all who tried to help me out, but I gave up. Does the purple beast not like driving anymore? It seems to prefer being hard parked lately. Maybe I should have never taken it to TORC, now that it has a taste of car show life it probably doesn't wanna see anything but a show. But this driver was suffering from withdrawl symptoms and needed to feed the need of burning tires. Luckily Ray, was able to see I was in trouble and knew the cure. He was very kind to offer up his car.


An S13 with the nearly indestructible KA24.

It's not a corolla, but it'll do. Luckily, it was 4 lug so I slapped my wheels on and was ready to rock. I jumped in and realized my nuts were hurting. Not because of the small seat, but due to me growing such big cajones from driving a corolla.

I competed on the simple course in the morning, since ray was going to leave after lunch. It was an easy 2 gear course. Manji through a set of cones to a sweeper at the end. Before that I took a couple of spins on the skidpad to feel out the car. Like I tell people, 'it's a cheater car', very easy to drive and this one wasn't any different. My practice laps kinda sucked, but I knew where to improve upon. Once competition I did pretty good runs except for the last one, I spun out. Who cares I had fun. Did a couple of more spins around the skid to burn off tires. Ray saw that I was about to overdose and decided to have a spin with my tires.


This was the end result. Alot of camber killed the inside edge of the tires. A downside to independent suspension. But i'm cheap so i'll save these for later, the corolla will even out the wear.

Even though I was about to be hit with a moment of depression I was saved by Ray and his Nissan and for that I am thankful.

Image via Wikipedia

Since the event, I have felt a great disturbance. I hear a voice who calls himself Mr. K. He keeps telling me to join the darkside.
















Here's a tip for the day. Old rice cookers make great turbo heat sheilds.

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Another series...

Tired of the same LeMon? Well looks like there's a challenger to $500 beater car racing. Let me introduce you to the Chump Car series, yes Chump Car I found this on racing on the cheap blog.
Looks like it's another series copy so if you can't get into LeMons, then you can try your hand at this series.

It looks promising, though the closest event they have is Infineon, in Norcal. I don't think the red attack boat can make it that far.

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Filter

As the ol' Corolla gets older, stuff that was thought to be easy to get is now getting difficult. Not too long ago I was look for an air filter for the car.


Can you believe I haven't changed it since I owned the car. I visited a few local auto parts stores and none was stocked. Had to be special ordered. Even at the shop I work at on weekends didn't have anything. Luckily for me Herb @ Cabe Toyota, as usual, comes through with a filter in stock. I should be ashamed that I didn't go there in the first place.


Anyways if you own an old Corolla like mine or any older Toyota go give Herb a call, he'll probably have in stock and ready to go.

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From 2 to 4 doors.

Looks like Katsuhiro Ueo built himself a new ride for drifting. I've always been a fan of his driving style which is much different from other drivers, especially when it came to piloting AE86. Here's a video of him stepping into a 4 door. The name of the vehicle is Nissan Crew, which is used normally used for Taxi service.


Here's a picture in it's normal setting.

I thought the TE wagon he built for drift was cool, but a drift taxi, now that's something else.

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A sin no corolla should face

I swung by the shop to continue my work with the old Corona wagon. There's always a corolla being worked on, but I usually don't pay much attention. But one car did catch my eye. It's kitted, decent paint, and nice radio. Something you'd see at a show or meet. It was getting a 4AG 20v dropped into the bay. What really gave me the shivers was the suspension. Here's a picture, and yes that is a wood block. It's looks like the springs were heated to lower it I guess it was dropped the car more than the owner liked, so he fixed it by shoving a wood block to even it out. I guess he's still a noob cause the first thing that should be done, for a corolla owner, is suspension and brakes. Remember power is nothing without control. Let's just pray he just takes this car to shows only.

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Scooter work

It's been some time since I've actually worked on my scooter. But I seem to have a renewed fondness for the scooter. Since I was actually prepping it as a pit bike for All Star Bash, I wanted to make sure it's running o.k. Being it's 25+ years old I'm sure I have to replace a whole bunch of stuff. But i'm not going to just need to get it going. Swung by the the Scooter Shop in Orange, Ca. Replaced these things called roller weights. For easy reference it's right across the street from Motorsport Auto, the Z gurus. Luckily these guys knew what I had and was able to find something for me.


The rollers were sitting on the shelves for so long that it has long lost it's packaging, this is how I got the parts. There seems to be different weights available. Lighter weights improves acceleration at the loss of top speed and heavier weights does the opposite. I've upgraded from 7.0 weights to 4.7, for better acceleration, hopefully it won't degrade the top speed much.


Never really tore apart the drive train on these things, but it's so easy I could do this stuff with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back.


Here's what the old rollers look like, it's flat spotted which is a no no. Acceleration gets erratic as the scooter gets up to speed.

This is the clutch assembly, looks like shoes for drum brakes. The clutch itself seemed questionable also. The shoes and clutch bell are glazed which didn't look good at all.


Some sand paper to rough up the surface should do the trick.


While I was at it, might as well change the oil. Yes the Rotella even finds it's way to the scooter.

Results: It definitely has a noticeable pep in the acceleration department. I don't know if my top speed has improved since I didn't have a working speedo. But who cares it's a definitely improvement from $13.00 parts

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Car Cast

Since Top Gear America didn't cut it with local TV execs. The Hollywood car nut/ comedian has decided to strike out on his own. Not Jay Leno, but the "other" gearhead Adam Carolla has begun making his own podcast about anything and everythings cars. I just finished listening to the first hour long episode and I thought it was pretty entertaining, it was a bit long. But I have a short attention span anyways. Hopefully they will start making a video podcast.

For more info swing by their site. Also swing by iTunes to subscribe to the podcast.

Fail

Why? Cause I didn't get to go All Star Bash this weekend. Stupid piece of crap wasn't running right still. This time I wasn't gonna try and figure it out what was wrong with it, and feel horrible like I did and AE86 comp and Megan Invitational. Usually, I don't normally attend these events, but what had drawn me to this event was this time they were using Streets of Willow, for me this was nostalgic.


It's been maybe 5+ since people drifted on that track? Before drift days, formula d etc. there was Speedtrial USA. True car guys who had an open mind about drifting. When they held open track sessions, they would have us in our own group where we could drift. Most of us were really green then, since there wasn't many who knew or even understood drifting. Streets was the track where I learned and understood the fundamentals of drifting. Nowadays people got it easy where there are classes they can take, I learned by doing since there wasn't any classes or instructors.

I know not much smoke but what do you expect with a 100 hp

All this in my little 100 hp Corolla, I bet most who think they are really good at drifting probably can't do it in a little corolla that could.

Does anyone remember the first track that was drifted in mainland usa?

We the People

Image via Wikipedia

What does that mean to you. At least for me it was time to do jury duty. This time it was in compton, you know bloods and crips, nwa and eazy e. So i'm sure i'll see more drama than law and order. Some people really hate it for whatever reason, but I didn't mind much. It's the least you can do for the country that you live in, so quit being selfish. Last time I was called up they didn't even get to serve. And so far I got a streak going on, since I was sent home yet again.


But here's something interesting. Looking for lunch around the courthouse, I spotted this fried chicken joint. So i'm like there should some good southern cooking here. Wrong, look below and it says chinese, and yes it was chinese food much to my chagrin. What's that all about. It's koreans running it with mexicans cooking the food, but if you're going to run a restaruant at least change the damn sign. Anyways at least there was a Popeye's fried chicken down the street. I just had to walk another block, bastards.

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Nomex Socks?

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Silver Anniversary

If you're into anime, especially if you watched Robotech and Macross back in the day. Today is the anniversary of 超時空要塞マクロス 愛・おぼえていますか ,The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?. I've been a fan of Macross for quite sometime and actually did a marathon of watching both Robotech and Macross last year when I got laid off. Anyways happy anniversary!

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