Driftworks supporting students at Birmingham City Uni

As part of Driftworks’ commitment to improving the perception and awareness of all the good things about drifting we have been working with Birmingham City University to get drifting into the avenues that normally wouldn’t be an option. The Motorsport Technology course at the university is a brilliant course because the university is looking at the what students actually find engaging – and what could be more engaging than building, running and driving a drift car supplied by Driftworks? 😀

The car now resides in the impressive Birmingham University stables where they also keep the more traditional Forumula Student cars and off road buggies.

It was fascinating to see what the students had the most interest in when parked up alongside the Formula car and the offroad buggy…

Which is a very strong and very awesome bit of kit. You can actually arrive and drive these buggies on an offroad course at Birmingham Wheels Raceway – including at night!

The buggies are running on HSD Coilovers which we are still developing to make them perfect, but they’re awesome so far!

Anyway, back to the drift car – The cars is a Nissan 200SX S14a which Driftworks has supplied a wealth of tuning parts including the full Driftworks Handling Kit including arms and HSD coilovers, Exhaust and Intercooler,

Driftworks seats, Steering wheel, Driftworks Hydro, Harnesses and a few other goodies. The car has been put together really really well – well thought through and just functional whilst still being completely drivable.

James noticed that the arches hadn’t been rolled yet to accept the Driftworks supplied Rota Grid 18x10j’s – but fortunately as this is a Nissan the tin bodywork was easy to ‘tickle’ out the way.

Which Phil did quite easily using his ninja senses.

The JimsFactory helmet was also on display and went down a treat.

Meanwhile, the buggy was out on track ripping it up whilst Phil strapped himself in the S14a to do a demo for the students just starting this years course.

The car is still running a viscous LSD, but it hooked up well and Phil was able to run the car literally a couple of inches from the wall without any problems.

And as the demo progressed he started to pull bigger and sillier angles around the track whilst still giving the tyres a chance to cool every now and then. The car was perfect and drifted the entire course without any running issues at all – not bad for a first shake down!

After the demo, all the student were invited to look over the cars and have a quick introduction chat from the heads of the courses and meet the teaching staff who have the imagination to build a drift car as a university motorsport project which we think is amazing. I wish my university was this good!!

Phil and James answered questions on the sport of drifting and how to get involved further.

So that’s about it. Hopefully getting students off on the right foot with the right car and the right parts will set them up for a lifetime of happy and competant drifting. If you’re considering Motorsport Technology and you want to get involved with the countries first and only University Drift car, then you know where you need to go!!