Marco’s Midnight Drifter: Nissan 240SX SE Coupe

As I mentioned in the blog about the Rocky Mountain Raceway’s Midnight Drift event, I met Marco and his friend Rudy in the pits during the Midnight Drag and Drift event. 

 First of all, to you hot rodders out there who don’t YET get drifting, let me tell you about the Nissan 240SX.  In a way, this car in Japan is similar in following and cult status as a Mustang or Camaro.  The similarities may be more than you think.  Rear wheel drive setup, Coupe body styling, small back seat, huge aftermarket support and fun to drive status.  The differences are aplenty as well though.  Mustangs get a solid rear axle and V6 and V8 engines and weigh 3200-3600lbs.  The Nissan 240SX (or 180SX or Silvia in Japan) comes with an independent rear suspension and 2.4L 4 cylinder (turbo 2.0L outside Japan) naturally aspirated truck engine in the USA and weighs about 2800lbs. 

So, there’s a little history on the 240 for ya.  Marco has owned his S13 (S13 is like what the Mustang guy’s equivalent of SN95 or S197 chassis codes for the 1989-94 240SX, S14 for 1995-1998 and S15 for 1999-2004) for about 6 months or so.  He bought it for a measly $700 bucks. 

I asked Marco what other cars he’s owned and how he got into drifting.  Marco said that his friends drift and that’s how he got interested.  Besides a Nissan Pathfinder, this is Marco’s first sports coupe.  He’s already begun modifying it to make it his own (My Ride is Me…get it?).

The 15×7 Enkei mesh wheels were bought from Marco’s drifter friend.  These are a nice old school Japanese drifting touch.  They give it that 80′s performance style.

Marco’s S13 coupe is the more sought after SE model, equipped with a spoiler, ABS brakes and sunroof.  These are Japanese taillights.  Marco has also added lowering springs and had the rear diff welded.  That’s right.  Welding the diff is the amateur drifters “poor man’s posi” and it works well, until the weld gives out I guess. 

This Midnight Drift event was Marco’s first official (you know you’ve been playing around at industrial zones in the middle of the night haha) drift event.  He had a good time and was just trying to get the hang of getting the car sideways.  In all the drifting stories on MotorMavens.com and Speedhunters.com that I read, practice is the only way to learn.  Well, practice and a lot of tires.  LOL

Thanks to Marco for sharing his story with us.  I’m glad I ran into you.  I look forward to seeing you and your car progress at the Midnight Drift events.

Hechtspeed

Midnight Drift at Rocky Mountain Raceway

Salt Lake City, Utah has a decent sized auto enthusiasts community for how small of a city and state it is.  There’s about 2.5 million people in all of Utah.  Utah has 2 racing facilities, Rocky Mountain Raceway (RMR) with its 1/4 mile dragstrip and asphalt oval and Miller Motorsports Park with its 4+ mile road course.

Last night I hit up the 2nd Midnight Drag and Drift event of the year.  RMR has been holding Midnight Drags since about 2001 or so.  It was touted as a way to get the young punks off the streets and have a safe and organized way to race.  I raced my first Civic at a couple Midnight Drags back then.  A couple years ago though, the Drift Enterprise of Utah started holding Midnight Drift events on the oval track. 

I thought this sign was kinda cool.  “Section D” for DRIFT!!!

The number of cars entered in the drag portion are probably 150-200.  For the drift boys, there’s only about 8-10 cars.  The number of people watching the drag racing is probably somewhere around 1000+.  The people watching drifting?  1, maybe  2.  Ok, not that bad, but seriously probably less than 10 people.  Why?  Who knows.  To me personally, drifting is 100x more interesting and more fun to watch!

The drifters set up their “pits” on the oval track’s infield.  Check out the white pickup truck, it has a tire changer strapped onto a trailer.  You can spot to Nissan 240SX’s (S13 chassis) hatchbacks on the oval’s banked turn getting ready to run.  Then there’s another S13 hatchback in the “pits” with a Toyota Cressida behind it with its hood up.  Yes, your grandma’s Toyota Cressida.  But, hey!  The Cressy has rwd, an inline 6 and you could find a few with a manual trans (or swap a Toyota Supra manual trans and heck, a turbo motor while you’re at it). 

This S13 hatch’ was running what I think was a turbo RB20 (or maybe RB26), which is a Japanese Skyline engine.  It definitely sounded different than the 4′s.  He kept smoking from the front.  Must have been rubbing the front fenders.  He had good speed though.

When I arrived, I heard what I thought was a stock car on the oval.  Happened to be this small Chevy (LS series V8) swapped RX-7 (FC Chassis).  This car hauled!  He was by far the fastest and most skilled drifter out there.  The sound of this beast grabbed attention.  When he’d come out for some sideways runs, a few people watching the drag racing would look over.  He also got pretty close to the wall.  As he’d go by, you’d get hit by small rubber bits and smoke.  Ahh yes, what a blast!!!

This section is where the cars come off the oval and hit the apex next to the big orange cone where they head back onto the oval.  The black S13 hatchback was SR20 (turbo 2.0L DOHC 4 cylinder Japanese engine) powered and was easily the busiest car out on the track.  He lost his front AND rear bumper during the night.  His lowness was just ride I guess.  Ha Ha.  He had good speed and knew what he was doing.  He was fun to watch.

Here’s the first corner the drifters take and its up on the banked oval.  You can see a hint of sparks from the inside rear tire.  Getting down to the steel belts!  This car certainly looks like your typical amateur drift car.  First of all, its a Nissan 240SX (S13 chassis, 1989-94 production years), has mismatched wheels (usually they’ll have various wheel/tire combos to use through the session to maximize track time I guess), stock body, lowered suspension, and something hanging from the rear towhook.  In this case, it looks like a flash light. 

This is Marco and his clean S13 Coupe.  Yes, another 240SX.  I met Marco back in the pits and snapped a few pictures.  Look for those in an upcoming blog post.  This was Marco’s first time out drifting.  It’s mostly stock.  It has a mild lowering job, some wheels and that’s about it.  It’s all you need to start learning the slideways of the force. 

Next time I need to figure out how to get closer on the action.  Shooting through the fence was rough and I was too far away.  Plus this was my first time shooting at night with the D90.  I screwed up bigtime.  I had the shutter speed set too fast.  It clicked when I was looking at the pictures on the laptop back at home that they were too fuzzy/blurry/noisy.   Too fast a shutter speed doesn’t let in as much light.  Lesson learned. 

You guys wanna see more drifting?  I’m thinking of hitting up the Las Vegas Formula Drift event in August.  Let me know if you guys would like to see more drifting and drift cars.  I’d love to give drifting a try someday.  How do I unhook my front axles on my WRX?  Ha ha, just kidding honey.  Mostly…

Hechtspeed

The Rubber Hits the Road at Grand Prix of Long Beach

Truth be told, I haven’t been to an indycar race since I was a kid. At age 9 I was convinced I would be an indycar driver when I grew up. That profession was won over by being a doctor, then being a designer… and on and on the years passed.

But when I got an offer for some tickets to the Grand Prix of Long Beach this weekend from Optima Batteries, I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather do on this beautiful Sunday. Ever since I by chance ended up driving these streets while they were blockading them off for the race, I’d wanted to check this event out. It’s not some boring circle track – this 1.98 mile track has hairpin and ninety-degree turns and is on the actual streets of Long Beach!

This has been a whole 3-day event, but the culmination of it was with today’s IZOD Indycar Series race. All 170,000 spectators saw the 25 drivers speed away from the finish line (of these 25 drivers, I’m glad to say 3 were women!) I’d forgotten that there’s nothing quite like all those cars starting up their engines at once.

As they blurred around the track for 85 laps, I knew I should cover my ears but I just didn’t want to! Other than the surprise of how fast a 200 mph car looks rounding a curve in the road, there weren’t many mishaps. On a track like this, passing one another is hugely difficult and I didn’t see any of that. The only crash was, I believe, a single car incident involving # 67, Dollar General’s racecar.

In the end there were 17 cars left in the running with only 33.165 seconds seperating them. Leading it with first place was Ryan Hunter-Reay in the IZOD car. Trailing behind by 5.603 seconds was #22, Justin Wilson. A little further back (-8.5 seconds) in third place was #12 Will Power (really?…his parents named him that!)

After the indycars finished, a short demonstration of the drift cars took to the track and OH-my-goodness! Watching drifting on TV is amazing and the little bits I’d seen live were also. But I’d never seen this many cars drift on a track at once! Having three cars drift around a ninety-degree turn with what seems like mere inches seperating them is simply amazing! (For a small experience of the feeling check out this great video featuring drifting by Justin Shreeve on MotorMavens.com)

So now that the day’s over, I just can’t decide. Do I want to be a indycar driver, a drifter, or stick to my guns and hope I’ll one day get to drive at Bonneville to set a new land speed record?!? Last November I got the opportunity to suit up on a road course and I never thought that would happen. So who knows what the future holds – but I bet its fast! Until then, you can be sure that next week I’ll be driving down to Long Beach so Stude’s tires can at least pass over the road where all that rubber was burned this weekend!

Pro-Touring + HellaFlush = Ill-Touring

Being passionate about modified rides, I spend a lot of time on websites that span the spectrum of hotrodding to “tuning” and everything in between. Two favorite build styles of mine are Pro-Touring and the Street Drift style called HellaFlush. HellaWho? I’ll explain in a minute. Call it DetroitFlush or Ill-Touring (Ill, as in Siiiick wheel fitment dude!). We can nail down the name later. Let’s dig into this concept a little and see what you, the reader, has to say.

First, lets define the two components of DetroitFlush individually.

Pro-Touring. The Pro-Touring.com’s definition as a reminder, is old muscle with new sports car performance. Modern suspensions, brakes, big wheels/tires and late model drivetrains (like a 6.1L Hemi Crate motor, 6 speed Tremec and 20″ wheels with 315/30/20 Pirelli’s like the TerraCuda built by Chip Foose)

HellaFlush on the other hand is the concept, “Offset Is Everything” and traces its roots to Japanese Street Drifting which pushes the limit of fenders on import cars such as WRX’s, EVO’s, 240SX’s and RX-7′s. As seen in the picture above from the HellaFlush website, the wheels fit flush to the fender. Simple in concept, difficult to achieve, especially for a street driven car. It takes careful engineering and attention to detail to fit 18×9.5, +35mm wheels in fenders designed for 16×6.5 +45mm wheels (ie Subaru WRX stock wheel size) just as it does fitting a Shelby GT500 Supercharged 5.4L V8 into the bay where a 260 ci small block once lived, like the Pro-Touring Comet we featured.

Ill-Touring or DetroitFlush… Starts with a Detroit classic, add Pro-Touring modifications like big brakes, upgraded suspension, interior and exterior updates and a modern EFI mill. Then add aggressive flush fitting wheels. Both Pro-Touring and HellaFlush movements are gaining momentum and the definitions will continue to morph. As an example, check this RX-7 ‘vert with a Mustang 5.0L featured on Speedhunters. For this discussion, let’s ask Willy Wonka. The candyman would say, “Strike that, reverse it”. Take the RX-7′s wheel fitment and transplant it onto a ’64 Ford Falcon Sprint or ’72 Chevy Nova SS. Today, we won’t dive into the HellaFlush ways of the force in achieving perfect wheel fitment, but to simplify, the Cliff Notes version would say: fender flares, fender rolling and massaging, serious negative camber, stretching tires, stiff adjustable coilovers, and wide low offset wheels.

Any hot rod artists on board want to bust out some renderings of this concept? I’ll take one of a ’64 Falcon in white running either a Turbocharged original inline-6 or high revving 289 with black Rota Torque R’s in 18″x9.5″ all around, a CF front splitter, rolled fenders, and nasty front camber. Anyone else see the potential I see or am I off my roller rockers? Time will tell… maybe I need to build my own Ill-Touring Falcon to demonstrate my illness.

Let’s hear what you have to say! Is Ill-Touring crazy cool, or just crazy! Tell us about your own crazy hot rod ideas. Leave a comment below!

Hechtspeed

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Drifting Photos from Drift Day 26 in Wisconsin

Drift Day 26 Story and Photos by Daniel Lo over at Corner Speed Photo Thanks Dan!

This past Sunday marked my first time shooting 4 wheels for me. My first love is the 2 wheeled variety over at Corner Speed Photo. Thanks to some professional guidance, I think it worked out!

Held at USA International Raceway in Shawano, WI, “Drift Day 26″ featured big names from the Midwest drift scene with the likes of Simba Nyemba of GripGambler and Mike Pollard of TMF Opposition in attendance. All this was made possible by my friend and pro shooter Danny Lim who was covering the event for Wrecked Magazine and was kind enough to invite an amateur to tag along. Check out his coverage of Formula Drift at Long Beach this year.

Having had fairly minimal exposure to the sport of drifting beyond watching The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and the odd YouTube clip, it took me a while to understand what exactly I was supposed to be shooting. Fortunately, Danny was on hand to coach me thru the basics so I had a bit of a jumpstart on the day.

Shooting a drift event was in a lot of ways the total opposite of what I’m used to. When you’re panning it means the front of the car is pointing towards you and when it’s coming or going, you see the car’s profile. Unlike shooting motorcycles, or possibly most other forms of motorsports, wheel spin is pretty much always visible so you can never quite get away with cranking up the shutter speed without losing sense of motion.

However, the real fun started towards the end of the day when I was able to put the camera down, throw on a helmet, and hop into Simba’s purple 240sx for a ride. Say what you will about drifting, but there’s no denying the ridiculous amount of precision and skill that must be required in navigating a car sideways around a track and experiencing it firsthand was nothing short of mind-blowing. Thanks again Simba!
(no that’s not me in the passenger seat)
When it comes to racing, my first love will always be 2 wheels so I probably won’t drop shooting motorcycle racing in favor of drifting anytime soon, but would I do this again? Definitely!

Click here for some more pictures from Drift Day 26

(Give Dan a shout and tell him to shoot more cars! – Pikesan)

Want to see more stories about drifting at MyRideisMe.com? Let us know by leaving a comment.

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