One thing you may have learnt from our last blog post is that we have a Nissan Skyline #r32 sedan drift car based in WA. I thought we’d give you a bit of insight into what we’re up to with it.
At the National _D1WA Drfitwars event we got our good friend, gun mechanic and ex ADGP driver Damien from DC Auto Repairs to drive the skyline. I’ve had mixed results with the car over the D1WA season and needed some feedback from a pro, I’m glad I did.
Damien and his team at DC autos had just finished installing some new Tomei cams and a built T56 gear box to help get a bit more punch and drive train reliably so theoretically the car was pretty much good to go.
Set up wise it’s a basic tried and true skyline deal all done by DC autos; adjustable upper chamber arm’s, Tein Castor arms, 25mm extended and braced Lower control arms, steering rack moved forward 25mm, 20mm screw in rack extenders, Maxima tie rods and new rack ends coupled with my zero Ackerman knuckles. Alignment wise I had -5⁰ camber, +7⁰ castor and 3mm total toe out.
For a good explanation of Ackerman check out this video from Engineering Explained https://youtu.be/oYMMdjbmQXc
The feedback from Damien was that the front end was doughy and didn’t have any feedback making it hard to tell what the front was doing until it was too late. The judges wanted an aggressive Japanese style single flick entry into the first corner; this should have suited the zero Ackerman knuckles, needing that four wheel slide. What Damien found was that there was too much grip up front for this making the car want to loop out easily. We took off the Kenda semi slicks that were on the front and went with the Kenda K20 street tyre (the same was what we run under the back for the 300 tread wear tyre rule). This gave the car a bit more balance but uncovered another issue - as mentioned with the front feeling a bit doughy, the point at which you got the feedback the car was already understeering and it was too late to correct with the car already sledging off line. Basically by time the driver had a chance to realise the front was at lock and understeering it was almost too late to change your input and get the back around, this created a couple of hairy moments as the judged section had little run off and the tyre walls had claimed a couple of cars already. To top it off we had some clearance issues we hadn’t picked up before.
The car is back at DC autos and Damien has been working his magic to try some small changes to test out at the upcoming D1WA Matsuri. Damien has modified the Tein castor arms and pick up points to give more castor and clearance. With this we are going to try a different, more aggressive alignment setting. We plan to drop the camber to -4⁰ and max out the castor hoping for close to +8⁰ making the most of the rack already being moved forward.
Will keep you posted on how this goes at Matsuri before we put the R32 on a serious diet. As always as special thanks to DC Autos at Gull Yokine, Hyperdrive, Penrite Oil, the Luxe Performance team for the ongoing help with the R32 and of course Nathan Sixssmith for the killa shot of Damo on the lock stops.