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...

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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...

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Rewind...Power Cruise USA - Motorsports Ranch Houston: Travel Woes

What a good time this was. However, just like the other Drift events, travels to this one was no smooth ride. The Power Cruise originated in Australia with a very large number of people showing off their vehicles is a variety of ways - drifting, car show, short drag races, and burnout competitions. In addition, those who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to drive on a race course are able to during the events (with a specific set of rules, of course). For once, we finally left at a decent time. We weren't scrambling. We didn't do any...

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Rewind...Formula D Pro/AM Round 3 - Gulf Greyhound Park

Got ahead of ourselves. Here's a rewind back to recap what went down before and during Round 3. ...

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T-Minus 4 Days - Mexican Standoff Preparation

I believe it's important to at least attempt to keep a balance of normal life to drift life. Drift life, as some of you may know, is staying up all night working on your car. It's dumping every last dollar into making it happen. It's missing out on friend and family time, or time with your spouse. I've found my way to to keep things in check is to set aside big blocks of time for both sides. When I get home from an event, normal life begins, yards...

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Formula D Pro/AM Round 2 - Texas Motor Speedway - 4/28/13

This event will be otherwise known as the one that got away. What a week, and subsequent weekend! At this point it's even hard to remember the details given how terrible things turned out, but we learned a lot and I'll try to summarize what went down... Team MSA had just returned from a demo event at Import Face Off in Ennis, TX. We gave 64 rides to very very happy passengers that day and had some amazing runs with the Fabricated Motorsports crew. Following...

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Formula D Pro/AM Round 1 - Hosted by Fabricated Motorsports 03-24-13

MSA's 1989 240sx (S13) sr20det swap. What an amazing event with an amazing amount of cars and talent.  People of all levels of experience showed up for the event, and it was an honor to have competed with them. Replacing Kim's shoes with a fresh pair. Driving up in an unfamiliar territory is always a nervous experience.  But we were excited.  Excited at the prospect of trying something new.  It was a new venue for us,...

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Step 2.8: Suspension Overhaul Part 2

When we last left off, there had been some major changes to the rear suspension using off the shelf parts. One of the goals of building this car was to learn more about what it takes to make the 240SX a competitive chassis, and in that process create parts for the up and coming drifting scene in Arkansas. This is a time consuming process to be done correctly! Anyone who whips together parts overnight for your car without obviously having done lots...

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Step 2.8: Suspension Overhaul

Over the past couple months we have been developing our suspension to meet a new type of driving style, competitive drifting. This emphasizes a balanced car, not the kind that can lose traction running over a pebble. It uses many serious adjustments to suspension geometry and steering angle to produce a car that not only slides, but does it aggressively, predictably, and with lots of speed. Tonight I installed S14 to S13 rear subframe conversion...

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Step 2.75: Lighting

Well...at the last event, we had a slight mishap.  During a tandem event.  The lead car hit a cone, sending it into our Driver's headlamp.  Shattering it on impact.  The footage can be seen here. So after driving one-eyed for a while, we decided it was time for a permanent sleepy eye look.  We pulled a set of Rigid Industries Dually lights off the shelf and made the surgery.  And WOW the light output.  These...

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Step 2.5: New Shoes and Piping

Sitting pretty at a Fabricated Motorsports Even in Mineral Wells, TX. We quickly found she liked to burn through tires.  Without a tire changing machine at the events, we couldn't keep continuing this way.  Our next choice of wheels were some XXR's again in 16 x 8.75 in Chromium Black.  Beautiful wheels, and complimented her and her accessories quite nicely. Not being able to belt out her lungs to the full potential, the car was...

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Step 2: The Cage and Implants

The first few runs were great, and kudos to Axle for many long and restless nights to get Kim ready for her first event.  BOY did she look great tearing up the track.  She dug into the dirt once and it made a scene. Car felt good.  The slides felt good.  But something was missing.  With the big sweeper and a few other turns, smoke was just almost absent.  The car drifted very well and balanced itself very well, but...

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Step 1: The Design

As nice as the two-tone was (sarcasm end here), we had to change the color scheme.  With many sleepless nights and energy drinks, Axle headed up the transformation process to get ol' Kim dressed up in formal wear.  It was rough in the beginning.  There were lots of rust spots.  Nothing that couldn't be handled.  A special Thanks to Ben Chase for assisting on the project! While Axle was heading up the bodywork and paint,...

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The Beginning..

The Car: I bought this car back around 2007 with the full intentions of fixing it up and selling it - 1989 240sx Automatic with working H.U.D. (Heads Up Display). However, my mother-in-law was in desperate need of a car, and after fixing it up, I handed her the keys to a working vehicle in primer black.  She later decided that flat black wasn't her style, and her friend decided to add a little rattle can flavor.  Hence...the two-tone beauty...

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