Another cool circuit.

Another really cool circuit in Japan... I am loving the two way traffic. (6:05-6:30ish is awesome check out the passes!)

just found it online.

just saw this on youtube. Looks like a FF, but still looks like it has some cool action shots.
Not even sure what language it is...LOL

Out of hibernation

I just pulled my car out of hibernation for an upcoming track event on the 20th...
So I decided to bring out an old S14 shell out of hibernation as well. This body with all the lights, seems to work a lot better then my smoke chaser body. I think it's because it a lot more weight up front...


Can't wait to do a little more driving with them both!

This weekend's Arai session

Looks like I missed out on anther fun track. But the guys at Arai are really tearing it up now with the countersteers. This happens to be Robsta driving Katsumi's custom front engine Yokomo CGM...AWESOME CS Action!

Dear Santa,

Happy Thanksgivings everyone!

Since it is the Holidays, I figure it's a good time to review what Countersteer Drifters would want for Christmas.

Yokomo D-Max, HPI/HB TC-D, and Alex Racing CER

She is back... CS Driftmaster LE

We'll she is back... My Yokomo CS Driftmaster LE has been striped, cleaned and reassembled with some new and improved parts. During the rebuild I add new 2mm CVDs in the front and back. I also added the new 1.5 rear CS gears from Yokomo.
But in addition to the new parts I have decided to try some new shock oil and springs, as well as moving some of the electronics more forward in the chassis. I am hoping these small changes help.
I guess well just have to see...

Another cool thing is I just recieved a set of D-Like 11T Real Drift Setting Gears! Whoo-hoo!. I figure, even though the gear ratio front to rear is about the same as the Yok 1.5, I give them a try next. I think this set-up might be easier to gear anyways....

Super light aluminum, very clean CNC... cool!

MIT, counter-steer - NICE!

Not sure what mods are made, and I know I don't dig the music, but the CS is looking good...

HPI TC-D

And here is another look at the HPI TC-D...looks promising too.



(nice find Ulyz)

This gear sounds pretty good to me. From my test, I seem to like 1.65 range. So sounds prefect.

D-MAX!!!

Wow, not sure about all the details, but SLIPPER Clutch! Looks like a rear wheel drive. Awesome!!! (my post back in Aug. Dmax)

Time for a Full Rebuild of the CS DM

I haven't gotten a chance to play in quite a while, so I thought I might as will do a full rebuild. I have been waiting for a while and now that I have the new Yok 1.5 CS gear set and the new Yok 2mm CVDs, I might as well redo everything.

Now I am really wondering if I should go for a front engine conversion???

In this image I striped the chassis pretty much clean.

Here was my progress from this morning.

And this is what it looked like before I started.

JDM Countersteer Tandems

Chance Circuit in Japan.



Kazama Auto Service (Not Counter Steer, but check out the bank!)

Shaft Drive Conterster !!!

Wow, just saw Katsumi's new video of his front engine SD with the new Yok 1.5 CS gears. It is looking good. Now I am wondering if I should consider doing a front engine conversion on my LCG???



Awesome Katusmi!

Welcome myself back...

Ha ha, I have been on vacation for a while, but now that I am back, it seems there are so many cool parts that have come in. Can't wait to check them all out.

But in the meantime. Here is a really cool link, fellow Team Arai member Masa found on youtube.



AWESOME TRACK AND VIDEO!!!

Driftspeed outdoor session this past weekend.

It was good to get out to Driftspeed this weekend for another Arai open session. It was a bit of a change to the indoor Arai tuning I was use to. The Type T tires definately don't have the same slide as the Kawada indoor. But it was still fun. I got to see a bunch of the guys we don't normally get to drift with and it was good seeing every have fun.

Here's a pic of our indoor pits and the return of the my Smoke Chaser...














Thanks again Katsumi, Minako and Driftspeed for another fun session!

OEM Yokomo Counter-Steer Gears for SD coming soon!

Wow. Just found this on Katsumi's blog. Very interesting. Sounds exciting!!!

Looks like the ratios work out to be a 1.48:1 front to rear ratio for the Standard and a crazy 2.0:1 ratio for the high grip. Hummm. So far from my experience a 1.6 ratio seems ideal. ???

Check it out...

RC Rally Track #1

RC rally track...Looks fun

Gymkhana 2.1

Just so awesome I had to add it to my blog...



=)

Not a smoke machine, but a sound machine....

Here is a crazy video of a sound machine installed on a drift car. The faster you go the more noise that comes out. This one was found by fellow Team Arai member Ulz.



The track is also pretty cool. I like the up hill / down hill course...

HPI Home movie contest...

Saw this online. Pretty cool, but I think there are definitely some cool drift videos that could have been up there too...

Upsidedown CS car cam

A friend at work had a small (Epic) digital lipstick camera. So I tried strapping it to my CS Driftmaster to see what it would look like. I originally planned to edit the video by flipping the image, but then, I noticed I don't know how to do that. Oh well, I will try again later with the camera mounted right-side up, but anyways here the 1st test...

Driftmaster Counter Steer Vid. (Gil)

Here's a video of one of my custom 40/10 front gear ratios on a fellow Team Arai member's Car, (Gil's DriftMaster.)
With only a few tuning sessions, the car is looking pretty good. Probably better then mine...(now only if I can find some time for some real Arai tuning too?)



Yay for the Team Arai Counter Steer Team...LOL!

RC Drift Tracks #3 Monster RC

Okay this track isn't in Japan, but it sure is a cool track that I would love to try. Monster RC in New Zealand. Maybe some more local can build one. If you do, let me know...

Wangan Midnight!

This preview looks so cool. I really want to see it when it comes out. Wangan Midnight is such a classic. It reminds me, I have a ABC Hobby S30 that I built a while back...

RC at the Sk8 Park

Saw this on youtube. Pretty cool RC at the skate park. Looks fun...

Yokomo D-Max?

While doing my Japanese RC web surfing, I found this blog that had some info on a front engine shaft drive drifter from Yokomo. Seems like it is kind of a hybrid of a Yokomo B-max AWD off road racer and a standard Yokomo Driftpackage. Not sure if it is a custom deal or maybe a sneak peek at what might be coming. But either way look pretty promising. Not sold on the saddle pack batteries, but the steering kind of looks like the old Rayspeed steering, which has a lot of lock. Check it out....

I hope they also come out with some over/underdrive options too!

Hot off the press, RC World Magazine feature on Countersteer

Check out what I just found on the Web, an update on countersteer gears in Japan. Printed in RC World, is some of the new upcoming gears on there way for shaft drives...

RC Drift Tracks #2 Uras Square

This indoor carpet track is on top of Numuken's very own tuner shop. It's called Uras Square in Fukuoka Japan.
http://www.uras.co.jp/square/index.html

[img]http://www.uras.co.jp/square/event/090419/s/IMG_7947.jpg[/img]
Nomuken and his son.

Mini- Minami Course.

More an more Tuner Shops in Japan, seem to be opening up there very own RC Drft tracks. Uras, Kazama Auto, Tex Modify, and D-Like.

Here is another one opening up Mature panel shop as covered by the NoriYaro Blog.
http://noriyaro.com/?p=3676

This smaller indoor carpet drift track is a miniature of the famous Ebisu Circuit’s Minami course
(I love how the far sweeper leads into a downhill drop to the wall clip)

Pretty cool stuff. I would love to go to all of these tracks and drift. I might just have to make me a list of all these cool tracks?

I thought I lost my Heros...

For a minute, I was very sad to find out all the cool D-like videos where gone and the nozaki0313 account was closed, but then I found them listed under a new Youtube account. What a relief. I love watching these guys Counter steer videos. They are now listed under:

DRIFTstageDLike777




They even added a Driftmaster video shot in the rain!



Great Stuff D-Like guys! Keep up the good work!!!

2JZ...no shit?

Funny stuff...



LOL!

Got to try this one day: http://www.xtranormal.com/

Gears, Gears, and more gears...

I guess there are alot of ideas regarding CS gearing for SD cars.

Check our a few I was informed about....

http://green.ap.teacup.com/babango/172.html

[img]http://green.ap.teacup.com/babango/timg/middle_1247068927.jpg[/img]

http://green.ap.teacup.com/babango/177.html

and

http://ameblo.jp/kazama2026/entry-10284756896.html#main

[img]http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20090621/15/kazama2026/a0/69/j/o0480085410200493793.jpg[/img]

cool stuff...but I am still holding out for my idols at D-Like...

http://www.d-like.jp/driftstage/

Exciting CS info!!!

Increased gear ratio part 1 for the Driftmaster...

Well, I still haven't gotten a chance to modify the new 35/20T rear diff gears I got last week, but after looking them over some more, looks like it will take a bit of customizing to get it to work in my LCG. I guess that will be part 2.

But what I was able to do is install the new 44T gear with my custom 10T. The mess is not as good as with my stock 40, but I think if I shim it a little more it should be good. Right now its really noisy, but seems to work pretty well. New gearing is now 1.87:1 and it has required me to pretty much start over with the suspension tuning. Now tuning is more like the Cyclone, where I need to maximize rear grip and minimize the quick transition speed.
Lucky I have a better idea how to tune for this now. Tuning the front weight, rear toe, rear ride height and rear swaybars have helped a lot.

More Gear Options!

As I mentioned before, in addition to my new custom 10T gear, I was able to get a hold of some custom gears from a new friend I meet in Taiwan, through the Groovydrift forums. Thanks to him, I now have even more CS options for my shaft drive.

Check out (professionally made by his friend) custom 20/35T gear combo for the rear I have. I haven't installed them yet, but the quality looks very nice, as nice as the original gears I think.
I was also able to source from him, some more 44T gears, which are handy to have, cause they work well with the 13T or 10T I have. (thanks

Before I was limited to a 1.56 ratio, but now I can mix and match up to 2.285, if I want. Not sure if that is too much, but should be fun to try.

Now all I need is some Arai track time... (too bad, I am not sure when that will be, probably not this weekend, but maybe next!!!)

Countersteer at SWP!

Looks like even the the home court of Speedway Pal is getting into the Countersteer drift action. I have a feeling most advanced drivers will eventually go the way of the Countersteer...

http://batikons.web2.jp/blog/archives/2009/07/06200748.html#more



so you better start now...LOL!

Kenny form the Block

Cooler then Gymkhana 2, I think...

Custom CS Gear Ver.2...

From what learned from the first one, I applied a few different techniques to this 2nd one.

Ouch, my fingers hurt now from cutting and grinding. Hopefully this one will mesh a little better?

Countersteer looks good.

Just another cool JDM video I found on youtube. Countersteer!

If you can't buy it, make it yourself...My Custom Gear

There are a lot of new gear sets people are making for Countersteer transformations. I even ordered a couple of them to try. I in fact am about to get one more version now. But I have recently been really intrigued by one I found in Japan. I contacted them to see if I could buy them, but they are not ready yet. So I finally decided to make one myself. I know it proalbally wont be the best. Infact I have just installed it and it's loud and probally won't last too long, but I figure it will good enough to test with.

So after a lot of thinking and a lot of cutting and grinding, this is my custom CS- SD gear. Below is a little step by step of what I did. But now that I have done it once, I have some good idea how I can make it better. But I guess that will have to be version 2. Anyways check it out....

I'll have to see how it drifts now.

Please don't contact me about making another one for someone else, it's too much work, but if you want to give it a try yourself.... GO FOR IT and let me know how yours comes out!

Crazy and Awesome at the same time...

WOW! I don't know if I would dare drive my Driftmaster in the rain, but with their custom front gear, it drifts so nice. Somebody roll up there side windows...LOL!

TGIF

I was trying to think of something good to post, but couldn't think of anything, so I thought I would go random....

Here's a picture of my Katskinz Cows collection at work. How's that for random? LOL!

CS Session 3 Test and My Results...

This past Sat, I had a long session getting to tryout various front to rear gear ratios on both my CS Cyclone and Driftmaster CS.

First I compared the grip I had on the Cyclone with the a 40/15 vs 32/23 set up. To get it to work right for me I had to modify the engine mounts so I could run a crazy 80/15 Spur and Pinion. This worked out to a 1.87 to 1 ratio. This made full lock countersteer drifting, but the rear end was just didn't have enough traction for my style of driving. After trying a few other ratios, I ended back at more conservative 1.668 to 1 (40/15 vs 32/20 with a 80/17)Which works pretty good, but still just not enough traction in quick transitions. But I think with some more suspension tuning, this might be the way to go for me.

Next I set my attention to my Driftmaster shaft-drive. With this I started off with the same 1.49 to 1 ratio. (42/15 vs 39/18). The car had much improved grip over the belt car, and was super fun to drive. The counter steer still wasn't that great. But then I got hooked up with a new 44T (which made it 1.56 to 1), this along with some more rear toe, and stiffer rear spring, made a pretty good improvement on countersteer. But still maintained all the traction I wanted. It was now super fun to drive. Again, I don't think this setup is ideal, because it could still use some more under or over drive. But for now it's still pretty fun. Below is a quick video Katsumi made of my car running at Arai.

From my test, and my driving style I am guess a good front to rear gear ratio is about 1.6 to 1.7... but I think depending on your driving style it could be way different.

I think with a little more practice this set-up is still capable of constant countersteer. I just need to get use to using a little less throttle. After we filmed, it got the hang of it a little better...

Ask for smoke and there it is...

In my last post, I was saying how the countersteer set-up looks so real and that all we needed now was some smoke. Then I discovered the SG Drifter guys have done it.

This is so cool. Not sure how they do it, but it looks like they can control the amount of smoke that comes out, with how much throttle is applied. I hope someone comes out with a kit like this.

This with on a countersteer car would be perfect!

My CS-headed Supra...

Well, I am still thinking over the gearing like, mention in the last post. I switched out some gears and am ready to make a comparison. But until, I figure that out. I thought I would post up some more images of my CS headed Supra. Katsumi and Masa posted up some pretty cool images on there blogs. So I stole them to post here too...



This car below was my inspiration, now all I have to do is figure out how to get some smoke going....

Very nice Countersteer Drifting...

I was just about ready to give my conclusions of what I think works at Arai, but then I just watched my friend's Jhon's crazy countersteer video on youtube. It looks sick! I don't understand how his setup with a front ball diff, 1:99 to 1 ratio and crazy final gearing work (according to my math it's 5.33 in the rear?), but it definitely works for him. I noticed, at Arai we had some different ideas, but in the end I guess it really does depend on your driving style. I'll have to think about this stuff some more.

Anyways, check out his new video. good stuff and even more amazing to me with his setup...Great driving Jhon!

It's Back for Countersteer duty...

Back a couple of years ago, I built a Jun JZA80 replica, with a targa top and a driver that had his head move with the steering. It was pretty cool, but without a Dbox and still running normal AWD drifting, it just didn't work out that good. But now, with countersteer drifting, this shell has found a great spot. I love it! It drifts good, and it really looks pretty cool when you are up close and can see the drivers helmet look in the direction it is going...

Plus it's Yellow in honor of our new World Champion Lakers! Whoo Hoo!!!

It will be back in action at Arai this Sat... Cant wait, yestedays session, taught me a lot and I didn't even have to make too many changes. I'll fill you in on what I learned as soon as I have time to sort though my thoughts...

More JDM inspiration...

Here's a pretty cool video from Japan I found a couple of days ago...
This shows some nice countersteering. I like it because the the traction looks good and there transitions look pretty realistic.

Fine line between Countersteer and no traction...

While now I am still looking forward to testing out the cars Sunday. (too bad I might miss the Lakers though....Hopefully they win tonight, and I can record the Sunday game and track it with the old iphone app)

Anyways I just reduced the gearing on the Cyclone form the (1.81 to 1.70) and I am liking the extra traction in the back. Below is fellow Arai member Ulyz' Cyclone at Arai, this past weekend. (running a 1.67 ratio) Looks good. Can't wait to try mine. Seems like there is a really fine balance you need to find in the overdrive ratio to chassis setup... Hope I can find it soon.....

Here's Katsumi's video of Ulyz... enjoy

The same but different... Belt Drive vs. Shaft Drive

Well this isn't really a comparison, but I did want to post up where I am at with my Belt drive CS Cyclone and my Shaft drive Driftmaster CS. After doing more work on both steering systems, the cars have pretty much the same steering angle. (pretty cool since I haven't seen another LCG with that kind of steering before)

Both cars are getting close, but just are not quite there yet. I know I have been trying a lot of things, and one week I post one thing, then come to find out next week the opposite is better. It's tough working on new ideas, but so far:

The CS Cyclone (1.81)has good countersteer, but lacks rear grip for transistions. This makes it hard to control sometimes. But the steering angle looks great. (current setup 39/15 33/23 but planning on going 39/16, 33-2/23 soon)

The Driftmaster CS (1.21) has good rear traction, but lacks a lot of counter steer. But it is still really fun to drive and it actually looks more realistic with less countersteer. (current setup 42/13, 39/18 but looking for a 44)

Both are good in there own ways, and both really fun to drive, but still both I think can still be better.




























This Sunday I plan an going to Arai Driftland again for some more testing. I have a few things I want to try. It will also be good get some input from the other guys.

(One really cool thing about a CS setup, is since you use a lot of camber and a wide track isn't necessary for speed, you can slam the body down low. I love it!)