In an action packed RPS13 dedicated weekend I took the drive up to Winton Raceway to reacquaint myself with both the car and the track. In fact I don’t think I have visited Winton in over a year so it was a welcome sight to drive through the gates and see the amazing turnout that Vic Drift always gets. As I took the car off the trailer, switched back to the Bee Racing rims and did a quick check over I fired the car up and headed out onto the track.
ETS RPS13 at Winton Raceway from Engineered To Slide on Vimeo.
I have always loved the power delivery of this motor, with the last tune some 3 years ago it makes around 240 rwkw with a really strong and stable mid range delivery, the bottom end is still the same motor, pistons and bearings that it rolled off the showroom floor in Japan with, I have upgraded the head gasket, head studs and cams and have left all the valve train factory. On the exhaust side there is a TD06L2 8cm turbo and that feeds the Hypertune inlet manifold.
I knew this would be a different car to drive from the Hilux, having spent two full days behind the wheel of the ute in NZ its now my new benchmark of what a drift car feels like, firing this 180SX down the straight for the first time in 2014 was a different feeling, the speed aspect of the car was similar to the power the ute had (rememeber the ute was down 130kw on what it is now) but the handling couldn’t be any different. First thing I notice is the unresponsiveness of this chassis and the lack of feel and feedback compared to the ute, the speeds where way down on what the ute needs to comfortably drift but its comforting in some respects as you can be as lazy as the car is, once I feel its strengths and weaknesses I can manipulate it to do what I want it to do.
Its a relaxing car to drive, the only time you have to work it hard is when you need to switch quickly, the ute will swing incredibly quickly, this wont, You have to flick the wheel, wait and then respond to the angle change, it feels like it takes forever compared to the ute. Why? well I guess that’s the weight, the rubber bushes and the flexing chassis all taking their own milliseconds to respond to my steering wheel inputs.
Both Winton Raceway and my RPS13 are like stepping back into an old shoe that fits perfectly, I like this track, I like this car and I love driving it, I would like to thank Yoshi and the Victorian Drift Club staff and all the people that attended making it what is is…………… FUN!