The road to competition in my top mount turbo'd s14a

[dandadude]

Cut and extended another set of poly bushed arms that I bought off this forum. Cut and sleeved another set of tie rods too, didn't have time to get it tracked so that's a job for next week. List of bits to do is getting smaller but still a good few things to get ready for Driftcup round 4.

IMG_20190729_180548 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190730_172513 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190803_095110 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190803_103914 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Re-fitted most of my panels now too

IMG_20190803_172625 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

 

[Bu11et]

Keep it up man! I'm expecting good results from Driftcup

 

[dandadude]

Keep it up man! I'm expecting good results from Driftcup

Ha ha I will have big boots to fill if i'm trying to keep up with your success! Looking forward to it though as managed top 16 last time at three sisters and it went to a one more time!

Congrats again on your progress, so happy for you man Hopefully see you at another drift day sometime.

 

[dandadude]

Had a bit of time yesterday so managed to replace the smashed oil cooler, extended the lines and moved the cooler to the front of the car rather than infront of the drivers side wheel/under the wing where it was before.

Oil cooler by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Oil cooler by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Oil cooler by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Oil cooler by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Forgot to take a picture with all the bumper fitted but sits nicely in the air flow. Something else me and a friend have been looking into for the past 6 months that i'm excited about is running a twin caliper set up for a hydro but keeping the stock caliper and disk set up, had enough of the stock handbrake not always locking up to be honest.

Every other available twin caliper set up i've seen involve z32/skyline calipers and internal drums/shoes for the normal handbrake, some even use different mustang discs etc. We have mocked up brackets with some other twin piston calipers incorporating the original disc and caliper mounts, spacing them out plus a bit of grinding of the original hub to make it all fit. Photo's of all this to come in the week! Might be a bit tight but hoping to get this up and running so I can try it out at Driftcup round 4.

 

[dandadude]

My hydro and brake T piece arrived today whooop! Handle can be flipped either way which is nice so lift or pull back type and for the money it seems pretty solid and fairly light being nearly all alloy.

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Had a quick mock up and decided I needed to drill another hole to get the handle how I want it, basically i want it in as close to stock position as possible.

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Pulled out the interior trim and had another look with the adjusted handle, bit more like it! Then started drilling out the spot welds of the stock handbrake ready to move it over:

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Will pull the seat out tomorrow and finish drilling out the other spot welds then try and make up a new bracket for the hyrdo in the stock-ish position.

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Look at the size of the second caliper compared to the stock one lol, hoping the 0.7 cylinder fitted is big enough to move enough fluid for it to lock without having to pull the handle out the window.

 

[dandadude]

A bit of a mad rush but pretty much got all the bits together for the hydro now. I finished drilling out the spot welds of the stock handbrake and moved it over, cut the bracket about a bit and re-welded it on the left of the gearstick then tacked in the hydro bracket which is just a bit of 2mm steel with a couple holes drilled in it. On my way home went to pull the handbrake, grabbed the hydro by accident as its not plumbed literally grabbed nothing and had a mini heart attack lol. Proves that my muscle memory of the handbrake will be fine with the hydro though

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Also got the copper lines and T piece in ready, all I need to do now is connect the flexi's and make up a couple brackets for them, then onto bleeding it all up!

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Hydro by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Managed to give the area I welded a quick splash of paint before I re-fitted the stock handbrake and hydro. Got to load the truck with wheels and tools etc as well so busy evening after work tomorrow!

 

[dandadude]

Haven't updated in a while, managed to get the flexi's fitted up in time for Driftcup round 4.

IMG_20190815_173315 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190815_173737 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190815_192223 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Got the car back together as best possible but didn't look great

IMG_20190814_205354 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190814_205448 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Didn't have any time to test the hydro so went to Three sisters with no idea how well it worked other than it seemed to lock ok in the yard at my work lol. Skip forward to practice and a new extended layout of the track was run that hadn't been run before. Fun but quite tight, tried the hydro after a couple laps and nearly worked too well! First few times I was pulling it as hard as I used to yank the stock one and I spun out, took a while to get used to plus learning the new track layout but managed to piece together a good enough score to qualify through around 25th/26th I can't remember exactly now.

Bob Ormiston by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

On to top 32 battles and unfortunately I was trying too hard to keep with the other car and very near to ploughing through his rear quarter in a slowing down zone and decided to pull the handbrake, probably a bit more than I needed to (as you have gathered it's better than my stock one) and did a spin.... Great. Flipped around so I was leading and Axel in his rb s14 only made a few mistakes but not enough to over turn my spin so that was the end of my day. Soo annoyed i spun but i think the pressure does get to me when put on the spot in battles so that's something I need to work on.

Bob Ormiston twin with Axel by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

On the plus side the car seems to be working great with the replaced extended arms etc and the hydro I need to get used to but I am happy that it locks up so well. Will update a bit more when I get time over the next few days.

 

[dandadude]

Back home I wasn't happy staring at the purple rear bumper so decided to give it a quick spray up and also polish out as many of the scratches that were still left on the overfender from my little crash before. Also decided to cut the bumper down to meet the rear over fenders as I seem to catch or pull off my rear bumper at pretty much every drift day so hoping the extra clearance will save it a bit!

IMG_20190825_132239 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

IMG_20190826_181736 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Fast forward to the weekend just gone and Dakota drift event, my local practice day. They now allow more cars on track at once and seat time was much improved, did 12 sessions and went through 10 pairs of part worn tyres! It is a very rough surface though and the way the sessions run you do 3-4 laps consistently so the tyres just get super hot and pretty much explode. Should have some pics come through soon. Car was faultless and only had to swap tyres and I was back out on track. Even my rear bumper stayed on

 

[Bu11et]

Looking good man! Drift Knights should be fun ey!

 

[dandadude]

Ye looking forward to driftnights mate

Few pics from smeatharpe practice day:

72549917_2187315561374454_835472474530381824_o by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

72754589_2187314444707899_1661674914987376640_o by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

71810271_2187313604707983_9080336345859096576_o by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

 

[dandadude]

super over due an update but here goes: Went to Birmingham wheels raceway for driftnights in October, another banger track but a bit bigger than the one I crashed at a while ago. Was taking it steady-ish as had the car booked in for paint over the next couple weeks and managed to do the whole day with just a rear bumper scuff and the front wing catching the tyre rubbing through the loom slightly, think this was from one area of the track that had quite a big bump when transitioning. This was a lot better than my last banger track experience so happy with that View attachment 309248

Was good seat time as they run qualifying battles rather than 2 qualifying runs so about 10 battles on top of the practice and top 32/16 runs.

There and unloaded nice and early:

Birmingham wheels by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Ready for top 16 battles (it pissed it down at this point):

Birmingham wheels by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Birmingham wheels by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Quick video from the practice in the morning with a guy in a v8 e36:


After Birmingham wheels the car got painted including an srb front splitter which I think looks good. Went to a local zoyland and then smeatharpe drift day, both wet particularly the smeatharpe day!

Drifting by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Drifting by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Bit of manifold glow!

Drifting by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Couple video clips on my Instagram account:

 

[dandadude]

Wasn't entirely sure what was happening this year but decided to try another year of competition, going for RDC or Retro Drift Challenge as it's known instead of Driftcup but will see how the year progresses. Behind the scenes been speaking to quite a few people, I now have a facebook page just for my drifting - Dan Collins drifting. Please give it a like if you get a minute, thanks.

I'm also excited to announce I have my first proper sponsor, PartService. We have used them at the garage I work at for years and will be contributing towards tyres, hoping to run better tyres this year to gain a bit of consistency!

IMG_20200307_145805 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Started wireing in my electrical cut off switch and mounting/plumbing the fire extinguisher. Will get some better pics when it's all in but here you can see the spaghetti of wires, had to re-wire the ignition as someone had been in there before me (must have been a long time ago) for an alarm or something!

IMG_20200307_132543 by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

 

[dandadude]

As the Corona virus has hit us all the first round of RDC will be missed and no idea when or where I will be drifting next. On the plus side I managed to get a partnership/ bulk buy discount with https://uk.tirestreets.com/ for the 2020 season (whatever is left of it) and my first delivery of 651 sport semi slicks turned up last week before the lock down. Very good service I must add, ordered Wednesday turned up Friday morning!

Tirestreets Accelera tyres by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Tirestreets Accelera tyres by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Tirestreets Accelera tyres by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Tirestreets Accelera tyres by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Tirestreets Accelera tyres by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

This also means I have a discount code, normally you get 10% off your first order but if you type in Dan15 in the discount code box at the checkout you can get 15% off for as many orders as you want, give it a try! Very decent tyres for track and drift. If you do make an order give me a message would be happy to know someone has used my code

The garage where I work has now closed today for the foreseeable future which I am totally ok with. I will probably try and do a few small jobs on the car as its at home with me and I won't be going anywhere I don't need to, might even try and make a video.....

 

[Bu11et]

Great work with tyres matey!! You'll do well in RDC this year!

 

[dandadude]

Great work with tyres matey!! You'll do well in RDC this year!

Thanks buddy, hoping using the same tyres will help with consistency. Your car is looking awesome btw, looks fast from the on board video you put up from Three Sisters!

 

[Bu11et]

Thanks buddy, hoping using the same tyres will help with consistency. Your car is looking awesome btw, looks fast from the on board video you put up from Three Sisters!

Ye man, running the same tyres is definately ideal!! Means you can set the car up and it will handle the exact same every single time!!

Thanks mate! Honestly it is sooo much faster than last year haha, its crazy how fast it picks up speed now!!

 

[dandadude]

Been working on the car at home over the past few days, unfortunately don't have some of the tools I normally have at my disposal but still managed to do a fair bit!

Work at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Started to strip the front end and remove the hubs/bearings, got to swap the extended studs over next...

Work at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Made a quick video, mainly to practice my editing as i'm pretty bad when it comes to it. Hasn't turned out too bad, feel free to like and subscribe as will try and make a few more!

 

[dandadude]

Got my wheel bearings all fitted and studs swapped over. Part 2 video below, slightly better editing than the first part. Feel free to like and subscribe


Also took the bonnet off ready to fit the second vent i've been meaning to fit for ages!

Lockdown at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Good time whilst the bonnet is off to make the cut-off switch pull brackets and cut the scuttle panel to fit around it.

Lockdown at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Needs welding all the way around, only tacked it in as ran out of mig wire...

Lockdown at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

scuttle panel cut to fit

Lockdown at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

 

[dandadude]

Hadn't touched the car for a few days, been working on the back garden etc with all the nice weather then remembered I still had some poly front ARB link bushes on the shelf, whipped the wheels off again and swapped the bushes over, still got the bonnet off to do the second vent so that will be the next job.

Front ARB link bushes by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Front ARB link bushes by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Front ARB link bushes by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

I also got most of the alloy extinguisher lines in, just need to cut down the end and fit the last couple nozzles and jobs a good'un.

Lockdown at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

Lockdown at home by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

My race gloves turned up too! Decent quality, glad I spent a bit more on branded ones this season.

Front ARB link bushes by Daniel Collins, on Flickr

 

[dandadude]

Super overdue an update! Done quite a lot since the corona outbreak even though i've been back at work the past month. Done some welding to the inner wheel arch on the passenger side, finished up the cut offs, replaced a blowing wastegate gasket, fitted a turbo blanket plus more!

I have started video logging my track bike and the s14 drift car so here's a walk around of it including the first start up in about 6 months!

Please give it a like and subscribe as it helps with the sponsors etc. I need to improve for sure but this is quite a new thing to me. All comments and critics welcome: