2015 Lone Star Drift Round 4

Well, due to the low location of the radiator, a cone in Round 3 decided to crush it in.  That was fantastic...  The radiator. however, was a SIGNIFICANT change and cooled the engine beautifully.  As always, we left a bit late, but for good reasons.  Axle added an additional lower bash bar to prevent any further possible damage to the radiator.  The motor began to surge as if the head was blown.  That was scary.  Turns out a plug came off the motor and caused coolant to pour out of the motor.  After some time and getting it re-plugged, the car ran smoothly again.  And we were off.

Texas Motor Speedway had always been a challenge for us with the SR20DET.  Not as much smoke or speed.  So, we were hoping the change of adding the LSA motor would do wonders.  It didn't disappoint.

But TMS didn't go without its hiccups.  Axle ran great all day and qualified 2nd overall.  So far, we had qualified around 6th or 7th in the series, so that was awesome.  During practice the next day, Axle decided to run a tandem with the 3rd qualifier - a beautiful Honda S2000.  During the follow run, the S2000 spun out, and Axle went off into the dirt to avoid the collision.  The drop caused the fender flare to pop off and the quarter panel sliced into the tire.  The drop also flattened and opened a hole in the headers.

But the saga doesn't stop there.  While on another follow run, we used another wheel we use as a spare - and OEM 370z wheel.  Typically, the smaller tuner lug nuts we have aren't a problem.  However, then OEM wheels typically use a lug nut with a collar, and that's exactly what they needed at TMS.  At the speeds and how extremely grippy the track was, the slide caused three of the wheel studs to sheer, and it pulled two of the lug nuts through the wheel.  The wheel flipped under the car, causing the car to hop and land in the dirt, sliding.  Luckily it didn't flip the car.

That then caused a train reaction.  During our competition rounds, we made it through to top 8.  However, during a few runs, the power would cut out completely.  Not having much time between competition runs, he just went with it.  During a lead run, the car lost all power during a slide and completely died.  After being towed to the pits, we discovered the battery was laying in the middle of the trunk.  Apparently, when the wheel flipped under the car earlier, it dented the quarter panel and broke on of the battery tie downs.  Up until the last run, the ground basically held the battery together like almost in a tug of war match.  We through some tie downs on the battery, ensured it's security, and Axle when to finish the run.  Unfortunately, because of the battery cutting out, we got a 0 on that lead run and to win the round, the other competitor had to run off course or spin out....which he didn't.  And that ended our competition for the day.

Regardless, we felt great and had the satisfaction of performing well at TMS.  I wouldn't say we conquered it.  But we definitely didn't get taken by the course.

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Round 3 Prep - Radiator

You'll have to bear with me, I realize I'm starting in the middle of the year. For the moment I'm just going to focus on laying down some material, we can revisit rounds 1 and 2 later.

Where to start?! I was a little more determined to fix my car issues quickly this time, as leaving on time promotes a happy drift environment for the team. Otherwise known as "Happy wife, happy life."

 At rounds one and two the car ran HOT, far too hot to be sustainable. Working on a budget, I scavenged the radiator and fan combo from the donor CTS-V. It's quite a large unit, and instead of forward raking the radiator I was forced to lean it back, resulting in a lower ground clearance and less direct air flow, not to mention having to retool the front body hoop to secure the new unit. Once a new position was determined I began digging for some conveniently shaped scraps, such as some one inch DOM that harbor freight crushed along with my dreams. Reshaping the upper tube frame to accept the radiator wasn't too difficult, but I took my time anyway and made sure everything was kosher. I also added a PBM swirl pot to serve as an expansion tank, something I wouldn't recommend for another LS car. Because of the high coolant flow from the steam vents and radiator bleed port an extreme vortex is made, one that reaches all the way down to the return port. Translation, more air coming out of the pot than going in! I'm going to cut it up later, maybe just add a box reservoir to the bottom to cancel the swirl out. Sadly my foolish attempts at being awesome were thwarted when I didn't update my bash bar to protect the radiator, you can see the damage ONE cone hit did below. A bash bar update is definitely part of round four prep, and a new radiator. I'm also debating building a splitter before the next round, strictly to serve as protection.

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Lone Star Drift: Round 1

Well, the battle has been fought.  After finishing the LS swap (to be discussed later) around 8pm, the drift car was loaded and on its way to Houston for the 10 hour haul.  And that was just the beginning.  In order to pass tech, the doors, hood, trunk, and many other panels had to be reassembled on the vehicle.

LS motor...pushing the smoke.

With some help from friends, "Kim" was assembled and passed Tech inspection.  With that behind the team, it was on to learning the new motor, and its relationship with the car.  Kim's new heart was incredible.  The amount of smoke and grip that it put out was sheer giddiness.  Still, there was a lot of learning to do before qualifying in a few hours.

At the end of Day 1, Axle qualified 9th out of 50 drivers.  We were all excited.  That was a win, considering such little seat time.  Day 2 came with more learning.  And although we qualified well, we still had a series to compete in.  Where we finished that day would tell us where we stood starting out.

Top 32: Stephen Bayles.  We have seen Stephen compete before, and he's no noob when it comes to drifting.  His tenacity doesn't make our first round an easy task.  But with some careful and aggressive driving, Axle was able to walk away with the win and moved up to Top 16.

"Axle" Riser vs Stephen Bayles

Top 16: Travis Heath.  The battle with Travis is actually kinda funny.  Several years back, Travis was a spectator with aspirations of drifting.  Not sure what to do, he asked Axle during an event what he needed to do to start getting into the sport.  With some friendly, advice of getting a 240, setting the suspension correctly and learn how to drive the stock KA motor...Travis set out to do just that, and he did a fantastic job.  Although Axle won this round, Travis didn't let it go without everything he had.

Top 8: Ian Trinidad.  We had been at an event with Ian before.  I recall best at our final Round in 2013 at the Texas Motor Speedway.  Ian is no doubt a fighter, and wouldn't prove to be an easy battle either.  His car was set up well.  And most believed him to be the top contender for the competition.  How could you blame them? He was, of course, the top qualifier for the event.  However, Axle pulled another W, advancing him to the Top 4.

Top 4: Randall Waters.  Newcomers this year put Team MSA in a world of unknown.  Who were these drivers, and how well do they drive?  It doesn't help that we sat out last year to regroup.  This round ended our climb up the ladder.

The fight for 3rd or 4th place: Harrison Johnson.  Another unknown driver to Axle and Team MSA, it was a go for it.  Axle was on our last set of tires.  During the lead run, the tires had already gone slick.  And with the LS motor behind it, "Kim" spun out, almost causing a collision.  Harrison responded correctly, and both cars were saved.  Being the match went to Harrison, Axle did a crazy burnout, accepting Team MSA's placement at 4th.

Satisfied, this doesn't leave Team MSA at the top of the board, but it doesn't leave us at the bottom either.  Now...time to gear up for Round 2.  We didn't have time to cosmetically prep the girl, so we will use this time to do that.

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2015 Season...you have been warned.

The new 2015 season presents us with many changes and challenges.  MSA will be going full throttle, removing the LSA motor from a 2012 Cadillac CTS-V and bringing it back down to an LS3.  The lightweight V8 and the reliable 6 speed twin disc manual transmission will leave us with much to grin about. There have been other changes during the offseason and our leave of absense in 2014.  We will rewind back to those in another blog.

The Lone Star Facebook page has been steadily announcing the return and introductions of new drivers for the season.  Although, we are confident in winning, we are not so overly confident to not take these threats seriously.  For the bio's of those drivers, click here to view the Facebook page.

Did I say we are going full throttle?  We are bringing in a more professional vibe this year, looking at bringing in sponsors from the Formula Drift world, down to the ProAm series.  There is a lot of heart and love in these serious that make it not only competitive, but fun.  The friendly competitive nature of all drivers involved is a relief.  Don't get me wrong.  There are jabs and blows, but in the end, everyone laughs and congratulates one another.

So bringing in the theme of MSA's logo - the gear - we have integrated gears into a splash design.  The kit itself is being discussed but due to costs, we may forgo the idea of running Rocket Bunny fender flares for the common over fenders.  The decision hasn't been finalized, but it's in the works.

We hope to see you at one of our 6 competition events.  Otherwise, you will find us at a few exhibition events, such as LS fest and Import Face Off.  We will throw in some love also for our great friends in Tennessee at Traction Optional.  (We will talk more in depth about those guys later.)

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MSA Drift Car "Kim": 2013 PowerCruise video

MSA's practce "fun" day at the Motor Sports Ranch Houston with the crew at the 2013 PowerCruise. Despite our travel woes (story here), the event turned out to be a great practice for Axle.  The goal...to get as close to the tire and concrete walls as possible.  That meant, skimming the paint off the rear bumper during initiation of the slide.  Watch the video to see how well he did.  While you're there, subscribe to our channel...  We'll have more videos of our events as we go through the seasons.

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Formula D Pro/Am Round 5 preparations Part 1

So Round 5 will be our biggest event yet.  After not qualifying or placing in Round 2 from our transmission failure, we had to play catch up.  We have so far qualified mid range and finished 1st in the other rounds.  How we qualify and finish this round will determine the winner of the overall series.  We are currently 2nd in points standings.  However, if Tim (the current leader) qualifies higher and finishes slightly lower than us in Round 5 (say we get first and he wins second), he retains the overall points leader position, winning the series.  SO...game on.

We've been discussing a few things, and I won't disclose everything that's going on.  We have a "secret weapon" that we hope will give us the edge we need.  It's not something I'll disclose until the event, but it'll be pretty neat.

With our engine seeing compression as low as 112, we were averaging about 120.  Those are on the very low end of the spectrum, so we knew that it was getting weak.  The fear was that we would go out on the track, and the engine would just give up.  We definitely didn't want that to happen.  So the search began.  We ended up with CP Pistons and Eagle Rods, both of which received great reviews and had good prices.  Oil pump, water pump, and a few other goodies that came when we bought the engine will be swapped just in case.  We didn't want to get in a situation where either of these components failed during competition.  Although we had 10-15 minutes between runs to "fix" the car, we didn't want to be in that situation again.  Our manual boost controller was a great tool, but it still allowed for boost spikes.  So an EBC (electronic boost controller) is being installed for more control over the boost spectrum.

As of today, the motor is out.  Rods, Pistons, and the "secret weapon" have arrived.  ARP head bolts are on their way.  So to the machine shop the engine will go...

Overall, this will be a fun event, and we'll see what happens.  We are all on edge to see what will happen, and I'm sure our competitors who have read or seen our Facebook posts are all curious to see what we are doing.  Our little 350hp (estimated) SR20DET has done well keeping up with these 2JZ and other motor swapped cars with double our power.  We shall soon see who will be the victor in this year's battles.  It certainly has been an exciting one, and no matter the results, we plan on entering this series for the 2014 season as well.

Bryan Lin
CEO, The Motorsports Authority, Inc. | MSAStore.com | BCRacingDirect.com

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Rewind...Power Cruise USA - Motorsports Ranch Houston: Drifting

What an eventful day.  After our travel woes, we finally made it to the event.  By the time we arrived, we were down a few cars.  Several had started to break misc parts and were no longer operational.

MSA Drift car getting prepped

Axle started the car and got on course.  It was interesting fitting the drifting between the "cruises" around the track and the short drag race events.  But it offered enough diversity to make it entertaining. The course was very large. Axle had enough areas to allow cool down periods for the car.

MSA Drift car testing out the track

We thoroughly enjoyed the track, but because of our tardiness, we were only able to make a few laps around the course during Day 1.


Day 2 proved to be more eventful. They shorten the track for the drift events to a more manageable area. Because of how the track was set up, it was difficult as a spectator to see the cars at all times and the shortened track was a huge improvement.

Being a "fun" track day event, Axle decided to see how far he could push the limits.  His goals were to see how much paint he could scrape off the corner of the car on the concrete dividers without damaging the car. He was successful. We ripped many of tires apart, including a time where he didn't notice the tire was gone and continued to drift the course.  One of the attempts was perfect. The car just barely kissed the wall.  However, the barrel on the other side of the turn was not so lucky. The impact smashed in the rear corner, sheared the retainer tabs, and popped off the rear fender flare. Shortly thereafter, a tire blew.  Despite what happened, it was an amazing watch for the spectators, and a much better setup for photos.

Overall, it was a good time. I will be posting our video of the event soon.

Bryan Lin
CEO, The Motorsports Authority, Inc. | MSAStore.com | BCRacingDirect.com


Notes from the driver...

Drifting at MSR Houston in the middle of summer is a huge treat and a bit of a nightmare at the same time. Road courses are a blast. Unlimited course design, unique corners, tighter limits... makes for some wild moments. On the flip side, road courses beat up a driver and car. Flying off track (you have to push to get better), rumble strips (I broke a wheel), and concrete walls... tire slaying heat, engine and fluids get too hot too fast. The organizers had us run the full course on day one, and it was very taxing. We had some fun, followed some friends around the track. Blasted the corners as best I could having "slept" in a well worn chevy passenger seat the night before. The next day however, was the real fun!

A good nights sleep did amazing things for my driving, and the course was shortened to a noodly shaped rectangle right in front of the stands. The first turn is identical to one in an iconic Japanese race track, theres a nice big slightly banked sweeper, and then a wall. I haven't had a comfortable opportunity to scrape a wall up until this point. The only wall you can scrape in Memphis is 100+ mph, and I love this car too much to try that mid season. Driving this smaller course in front of the crowd was great. It was a good opportunity to focus on a smaller set of corners, really get to push the limits. I got my wall scrape, but it wasn't enough, I had to try a couple more times and eventually knocked the bumper off. Tires were only lasting 4-5 laps at this point, I stayed on the gas all day!

 All in all it was a great time. One track I definitely want to go back to, just not too soon. Some local chinese topped the day off and we got back to the hotel for some shut eye. The return trip was uneventful. We kept the radiator full, and the throttle down. Enjoyed coming home after a good nights rest, we rarely leave an event in the daylight.

Axle

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