Drifting

So you lika da flied lice? People didn’t seem to appreciate Krusty the Klown’s Japanese impressions all that much, but the Japanese have sure made an impression on us. The sacred art of Drifting has taken over North American spectatorship, but what about the drivers? Can North Americans actually compete in this insane sport?

Back that thang up! Many people misunderstand drifting; picturing it as oversteer out of a corner. Before we get into the technique, let’s all define what we’re talking about. Drifting is much more complicated than hammering on the throttle after marking an apex. Of course, oversteer is a part of the show, but real drifters are able to pitch the car sideways before an apex is even in sight. Keeping the car sideways between the turns demonstrates much more skill than following the guided lines of a track. In an oversteer situation, it is very simple to make the back end light, and bring weight over the front end. When the weight distribution is shifted to one or both of the front axles, very light throttle modulation can overshoot the rear of the vehicle, while keeping enough pressure on the front tires to guide the car quite safely through the turn.

If you enter a hairpin properly at 30 miles per hour, you can maintain that speed or even increase it if you take the right line. Taking the right line ensures a contact patch that tries to place as much load on each tire as straight line acceleration does. In a drift, however, you intentionally decrease speed around the bend, loosing enough friction to spin the tires and generate stupid amounts of smoke.
Therefore, one must enter a hairpin at 45 or even 60 miles per hour, pitch the car into a drift, and balance the weight of the car enough to push through the turn with momentum. Hitting 30 miles per hour when entering at 60 is common, and hard to do. Many drifters exit a corner going too slow, experiencing turbo lag and gaining traction on the rears. Entering a corner quickly and abruptly ensures enough speed in case an immediate transitional drift is necessary to make the chicane right in front of you.

Drift hard, but drift smart. That means away from people. Even at the track. A real drifter tests the limits, and breaks the rules, as per Japanese Subculture 101. That means you will crash, and it will hurt. It is a risk of injury to the spectator, but a guarantee of injury to the driver, physically, emotionally and financially. But that’s all part of the game. You can dust it off and try again…

If you guys and gals have been watching Sports Car Revolution religiously, you know all about our Mugen Acura RSX build up. We had the opportunity to test the car on the dyno after each upgrade was added, and this was a bitter sweet relationship. Like when a Mugen Intake/Exhaust combo only added 5 hp, but we lost 12 hp from putting on bigger brakes, due to the increased inertia of rotational mass required to spin each tire.

So why didn’t we keep it so JDM and not slap on a turbocharger, like many have done in Japan? The answer is simple. Well, not really. The answer lies in the compression ratio of the K24.

The stock RSX has a 9.8:1 compression ratio, which would lend all right to a couple pounds of boost, but the Type S, which we chose to mess with a super high 11.0:1 compression, making it a nightmare for a turbo. As the piston moves upwards in its compression stroke, it compresses the air/fuel mixture in ration form. Therefore, the Type S compresses the air it intakes 11 times before reaching top dead center, and firing. The higher the compression ratio, the more R&D has gone into making the most efficient use of air possible for a naturally aspirated engine. That means less air can pass through the system via valve overlap. Higher octane is needed for higher compression as there is less room for error, or else… Knock, Knock. Who’s there? The boys at Garrett, sucka.

When you’ve got high compression, you create more heat inside of the combustion chamber as the molecules become more condensed, resulting in a higher likelihood of knocking and/or detonation (the premature explosion of air and fuel during the compression stroke). Adding a turbocharger, or any forced induction system to this set up can be dangerous for a few reasons. One, the air being forced in raises that compression ratio (for simplicities sake, in a perfect world with no transfer loss, 14.7 pounds of boost could double the compression ratio), and thus increases the likelihood of detonation; and two, the compressed air shot into the engine via the compressor wheel is a lot hotter than regular air.

So how do you get a turbo into your RSX Type S? I don’t freakin’ know. I do know, however, that it’s been done all across the world. For your car, determine your compression ratio first. You need to know how many cc’s of air your piston compresses on it’s compression stroke. There is a ton of different ways to calculate the compression of your engine, some utilizing deck height and valves into the equation and some that don’t but if you search online , you’ll find a lot of calculators that do this for you. The one reoccurring part in all of this is the inclusion of bore and stroke into the equation. Raising or lowering the stroke length of the connecting rod does indeed raise or lower compression, and is much less costly than boring out an engine. Thicker head gaskets and valves also lower compression, which is a sure fire way to avoid detonation in a turbocharged vehicle. That’s why the stock RSX would have been a better choice to turbo, over the Type S.

Next month, we’ll look deeper into the world of static and dynamic compression.

Mike’s TT Feature Article

Can we say stuck on Church street with a purse? That’s really what I was expecting people to holler when I rolled up in a bright yellow Audi TT convertible. Hell, I was expecting a lot worse than that. My Silvia has been sitting at the top of my driveway collecting dust now that I’m driving around all the craziest cars ever, and believe me. The neighborhood is giving me a ton of flak.

But you know what? I can care less. My Silvia doesn’t have an ‘S-line’ badge, or twin exhausts. Or leather seats. Or a 3.2 liter 250 horsepower V-6. But the TT sure does. And that’s why I chose to take it away for the weekend.

Say what you want about it being a Convertible with Tiptronic, but looking up at the sky at night from a vehicle is something I’ve never experienced before (from the front seat), and I must say, it’s pretty neat.

Again, Audi seems to have a firm grasp on the market it’s aiming at. Let’s start with the exterior before we crack open the egg. As always with Audi, the differences are in the subtleties. Like the ragtop for starters. It sits pretty and follows the similar rounded contour as that of the hardtop. It’s a half manual half automatic job to get it down, but don’t expect your average soccer mom to be able to release the hinge. Pressing the PRESS button down and releasing the lock handle is a bit tough to do. Without trying to sound sexist in any way, this little bit that requires added strength makes me think of a young, affluent German man asking his feminine girlfriend to lower the roof. When she can’t get it done, he guides her through the motions, hand on hand, with his strength pulling it back. Whatever. That maybe the most sexist thing I’ve ever written.

The point is, this car is not just for the females. Interior trim is basic, and functional. No little power window diagrams, no power seats and no navigation. Exactly how a Roadster should be. I know this. You know this and most of all Audi knows this. The center console is quite neat, and unconventional, as is the seat heater controls that retract and protrude very futuristically (if that’s a word?). My only critique is with the lack of full seat adjustment. Me and my manhood had a tough time sitting comfortably with the top up. But who cares? Part of the performance comfort level goes with drivability discomforts. I want harsh suspension and I want near manual steering. I just don’t want to bang my head on the ragtop’s support beams over every speed bump.

Tires, anyone? Audi is pumping out so many large tire and rim packs, you’d think Funkmaster Flex was their CEO. Riding on slick 17’s with 225/45 series Pirelli P Zero’s, I’d be more concerned about this car sitting on cinderblocks that I would about something getting stolen when it’s parked in Regent Park with the top down. Oh yeah, a trick convertible cover is included in the package with some simple 2 button on and off hook up. It takes about 5 minutes to get the finicky thing on, but it looks real smooth as the cover blends well with the silver anti roll bars.

New for this year as well on the TT (other than the 3.2) are the ‘S line’ badges on both rear quarters, redesigned headlamps and skirt package, new rear TT badging and a new and improved rear spoiler. It looks more like a prototype than an egg with the redesigns.

Now lets tear the thing to pieces. On ramps at triple digits, chicanes at triple digits, hairpins at… high doubles. Do you see a pattern? (other than the fact I’m 2 seconds away from getting my license suspended?) The Quattro system is clearly what separates this car from the rest. The AWD handling is so precise, it’s almost impossible to lose control under banking and turning. Even with the Traction Control off, the car handles superbly, and best of all, it stays quite predictable. Understeer is a bit of an issue when you cook things up a bit, and that’s mainly because of that heavy V6 sitting pretty close to, if not in front of the driving axles.

The Direct Shift system really caught me by surprise, though. No matter how hard OEM’s try to replace manual cars with manual automatics, we still seem a few years away from perfection. Even the pro’s don’t have it sorted out. Recently I was in the 1000 horsepower Signal Auto Nissan Skyline, and it had a super strong, super durable Trust Sequential set up. Getting the car into gear literally involved hitting the stick forwards as hard as you could. Shifting suffered the same beating, so the fact that OEM’s like Audi have integrated small, quiet paddle shifters into their package is quite a feat in itself. The Direct Shift system, however, goes the extra mile, in that it features a double clutch system design. One clutch is always active and the other is in reserve for those high rpm engagements. Even on downshifts, the TT feels standard. The coolest part, though is perfecting the downshifts to a heel and toe pattern. Blipping the gas actually makes the downshifts smoother and less jolting. Perfect for an on ramp… I mean track, day.

The engine and gearing don’t seem to fully match up, though. With a throaty V-6, you’d think the TT would be able to pull like crazy to 260, but really, it can’t. The gearing on the car seems a bit short as well, with an upshift required at 88 kilometers per hour, just 15 kilos short of a first - second 0-60 time. The TT still dials in at 6.6 seconds and is regulated, as all Audi’s are, at 209 kilometers per hour.

But it seems like I can’t stop talking about a car I couldn’t stand 10 minutes ago. Audi’s done it again. The Oh Yeah symptoms creep up like venereal disease. Competition will be the key thing here, and it’s only a matter of time before Audi matches the performance of the other cars in it’s class. But when it does, it may just reign supreme.