180SX – WTAC

Firstly thanks to my sister Carmen for being my official photographer for the weekend, this post will cover the 180SX at WTAC

So its been a pretty crazy month, the 180SX has mostly just been sitting there waiting for some love, last week i spent an entire day making sure its battle ready, two things needed fixing after round 2 of Vic Drifts championship, first was the dump pipe to turbo housing, the thread in the back of the turbine housing was now non exsistant so i removed the BRAE manifold, machined a V band adapter and welded it to the back of the turbo.

Once that was done it was time to add a flexi joint into the exhaust and rework it after Denzo clipped my tailpipe at Calder the entire exhaust was a little bent. After that was done i made a new hot pipe that incorporated a 90 degree bend welded onto the compressor housing. I have learnt that any silicon hose next to a hot manifold is just waiting for failure.

Friday lunch time was my first session on the track, it went well and i was super happy that the stupid 200 tread wear rule was non existent at this event. With the introduction of the 123s tyre i believe the 200 tread wear rule should be thrown in the bin. The Federal 595 RS-R is an amazing tyre and should be available for use in all competitions in Australia, whenever i fit this tyre onto my rear rims my car feels amazing, nice and fast, predictable and very very drivable.

I had a good chat to Naoto Suenaga about the car and he explained to me that the selection of parts and how i had used them made him feel at home, he said this car reminded me very much of his own, he said it would be the ideal practice car but needed more HP and larger tyres to be competitive both here and in Japan. He agreed that it was a good match for a small budget operation.

V8 Supercar Driver and WTAC record holder piloting the Nemo Racing Evo checks out the ETS setup and speaks to Robbie about how awesome Federal tyres are.

The profile of WTAC really made it a place where you could bump into anyone, please meet Jamie Ma the Federal Tyre CEO, we had a good chat together about the Federal Tyre company and he let me in on a few secrets regarding some exciting new releases for the future.

In the competition i qualified 23rd and then got knocked out by Tom Monkhouse, it was a little more short lived than i had hoped but with very little car development since last year i had kind of expected it. Its a fast track with a full drag race to the 160KPH entry into the long RH corner.

Its events like this i start to feel a little left behind, looking at the speed and acceleration from the “good guys” i get the feeling that it is all about speed and grip, spend big dollars on HP, rear grip and a driveline that will handle it and your automatically in the running. I don’t have the budget to do this and i really like the way my car works as it sits. I will finish the ute off and start thinking about what i need to do to be more competitive.

8 Comments
  1. Love the updates, always great to see – it keeps those of us also on a budget from getting too down about how limited it can be for us at times.

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  2. Awesome post as always but what is the 200 tread wear rule?

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  3. Or compete in NZ in the 180 😛 the street circuits will be perfect for something as well setup as the 180 and no huge HP needed.

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  4. What happened when it seemed to cut out and you pulled to the in field?

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  5. the accelerator cable came off! hence no go! i thought nige had snapped a tailshaft or something haha

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  6. Keep on keeping it real homie! Don’t sweat the horsepower kings, we’ll pull em back into line next year 😉 Be good to run a level playing field again!!

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  7. Sounds like drifting in the US. It’s a shame to watch our sport turn into drag racing. Keep up the good work man!

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  8. Mate Seen You Drift, Seen The CARS (wild) Bought A Jacket And I Was That Guy Watching You Getting Interviewed While Sitting On You Bike… ( I actually Wanted To Look At The Bike… I’m Not A Weirdo) Your Stand Is What I Wanted To See Second To The Cars Actually Driving. Good Work.

    Reply

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