Thursday, March 21, 2013

Ayrton Senna

Today would have been Ayrton Senna's 53rd birthday, I wonder if the man would still be racing if he was alive today.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Drift Iowa Site

Local Iowa drifter "Clayton" just set up a new site/forum for the drift scene here in Iowa.  I think this is pretty awesome to see go up.  To me it shows just how much drifting is growing locally.  For anyone interested in checking the site out and possibly becoming an active member feel free to head on over to the site.  driftiowa.com

First Event For 2013 Determined!

Just last weekend a group a friends went down to Topeka Kansas for their first event of the season.  With the current funding and car having a minor issue going on with a tension rod bracket I decided it wasn't something I could make it out to.  I sat at home working on some projects and doing research instead.  Then I saw facebook status and even video of the time they had, one consisting of Brett tapping a wall a tad bit harder then necessary.
 After seeing some pics and video of there experience at the event I was hit with a wave of motivation, something I've been needing to hit me all winter.  I finally decided to sit down and pick a date for the first event.  With a few already being sold out, my decision was made a little bit easier for me.  Club FR's event April 28th at USAIR.

Speaking of Club FR, I figure I should mention that a date for Automass has been determined.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Late Arrivals

Just the other day I recieved a text from my friend Matt.  My missing parts had arrived from Enjuku, plus he had dismounted the tires so my wheels were ready and waiting for me.  After work I went out and met up with him to pick everything up.  It feels good to have my wheel situation out of the way, I've been wanting to have all matching wheels at events since I see all the really good drivers have a nice set on all 4.  Good bye to my old green/blue spare wheels!
On top of that I had a nice little box waiting for me when I got home.  2 more boxes to add to my stash of parts.
Here's a shot of what initially came with my order of parts a few weeks ago.  Just the key for the kill switch.
Now I have the entire switch, which also came with a key.  I'm actually rather happy it turned out this way, now if I loose the key to the switch (I'm really bad about losing keys) I'll have a spare one on hand.
Lastly lets go through everything else that had arrived.  The first one, not being anything fancy, my spark plug well gaskets.  Which I'm also really happy about since they are actual OEM Nissan gaskets (so is the valve cover gasket).  I really hate aftermarket ones since they have always leaked on me in the past.
As for what was in the other box when I got home.  That would be a new visor for my helmet.  Monday had come around after my last post talking about it and I decided, why not get this out of the way.  I'm really bad about putting off ordering things I want, so I knew if I was going to get it, I needed to order it now.  I'm loving how it looks, and my lovely lady Becca is too! ;)
Moving on to some really cool an exciting stuff now, or at least what I find really cool and exciting.  GKtech made a post on their facebook about 2 weeks ago announcing their knuckles were nearing completion.  The status went on to explain in 10 days they would have the first batch of 30 finished up and shipped out!  Following that they each week another 10 would be completed and shipped.  Currently there are 60 orders waiting, meaning all of the orders would be shipped out by the end of the month!  I'm really stoked about this and cant wait!  Plus my PBM inner tie rods should be shipping out by the end of the month as well meaning I'll have everything needed to install them (minus wheel bearings).
Also for those of you who are worried about them being made from Aluminium (my friend Travis being one of them) GKtech went as far as stress testing the knuckles compaired to stock, and as you can see, they are much much stronger.  They even took one to its limit to see how much it could handle and if I recall correctly it was over 10x the amount of force as the stock cast iron knuckles could handle!  They said at that amount of force you would be breaking other components before the knuckles broke.
Now it's time to figure out what else I need parts wise, which currently isn't much, and I need to decide what else I want to do with the car before the first event arrives.  I'm really wanting a nice body kit, and bash bar setup with this year looking to be full of tandem driving and possibly a decent amount of collisions.  Hopefully I'll get a few more things taken care of and start work on the car soon so I can post more updates for everyone.  Until then, stay classy!