Private Tuning Hands v3.0

i give mad props to my friend john. we were suppose to caravan from the bay area the night after but he was tied up at work so he said he will follow. 4:30 in the mourning i got a call from john: "hey paul what room number are you in?" WOW! he made it! even though he only got few hours of sleep, he was able to wake up that morning. we arrived at the track but i was wondering why there are few cars. some people didnt come so we have an open track from the beginning.

i learned a lot from this session. it was my first time to downshift to a lower gear while drifting. i know its ulgy, but at least i was able to address this essential skill in drifting especially in a corolla where you have little power. in turns such as the off-ramp corner at buttonwillow, you can enter drift at 3rd gear but have to be in 2nd at mid-corner in order to keep the power. the other thing that i was happy about is that for the first time, i was able to chain-drift the cotton corners. i start out at 6500~7000 rpm in 2nd gear and clutch kick. i waited, and waited, and waited, until the front of my cars is pointing far away from the other turn then i start to snap the car back the other direction. i observed that if you dont drift a longer arc in the first turn, i cannot complete the other turn. another thing i have started to observe is the momentum build-up while drifting. you need to keep tabs with the momentum build-up if you wanna counter to opposite drift or straighten out effectively.

sometime in the afternoon, i rode with juan, fellow drifter from fresno. he was pretty good! drifting slight coners that i dont really drift. after that, i rode with nim in al's orange coupe. he was mad crazy too! there and then i realize that there is really different drifting styles for different people. compared to others, my style is quite mellow. i think i seperated the tire bead from my rim when i went off-road thats why i flatted my 1st pair quickly. overall it was a great and fun event. at the end of the day, me and john did a time-attack on the track. my best was 1:11.69 while his was 1:07:77. i'll beat him next time, hehehe. looking from the previous private event, this is what change i have to say: clutch kick is not brute, it is a necessity in a corolla; the crappy micheliens i mentioned before, weren't all too crappy, adaptation perhaps? 

Feb. 28, 2004 - D1 GP Rd. 1. man what an awesome experience! i had a great time in this d1 event. i was able to have ueo's autograph in a picture of yuki doing autox. i also had the autograph of imamura, asamoto, tanaka, tarzan yamada, itsumi, and many more d1 drivers. i could just cannot believe how fast pro level drifting is! they probably start out to drift in the banked turn at ~80mph, 120kmh!!! i give big props to us drivers for giving a great performance. it just shows that the us drivers are developing skills quickly. i have heard that ueo was having some problems with his ae86. he wasn't able to qualify for the best 16. alas, i was happy to see the other d1 drivers that i admire in the best 16: gerasaki, suenaga, and yoshiyoka. kazama was just doing very good that day. i still cannot believe in my own eyes that he drifted the whole freaking track! and it was a very tough battle between tanuguchi and kazama in the finals. i am very happy for kazama for winning the 1st rd. of d1gp '04, im sure irwindale speedway will have a special place in his heart. they have also announced that option will try to have d1 series here in the us at least once a year, yehey!

bondoggle IV! again, a fresh new season for scca sfr region. its nice to see yeat again familliar faces and cars in the paddok. the track eye-catcher in my opinion is the yellow lotus ellese that was trailered to the course. all of my autox friends (yap, kuya mark, chap) did fairly well. chap's chalk mark's in the tires help s an indicator whether the tires are over or underinflated. i picked up a habit from kuya mark too; he lists all the tire pressures he had run so that he can gather enough info in which set-up is the best/worst. i had 40/40 psi - track is dusty and little dampped - i felt that the tires does not respond well to my quick inputs. maybe ill try a lower psi setting later. round 1

yuki fix up! it was cool of kuya mark to squeeze his spare time to fix yuki's leaks. we started on jan. 27 evening. on the onset, yuki was not cooperating with mark, we can even remove the darn crank pulley! we are almost out of luck when kuya mark saw his pulley remover tool lying in his garage. when we inspected the thermostat, mark saw saying the i was lucky! the thermostat was totally shot out! it was way past midnight when we decided to finish it the next day, i crashed in their house for the night. in all, we (or shall i say kuya mark?) replace the cam seals, crank seal, o-ring in the distributor, and removed the ac compressor to boot! thanks kuya mark!

 ncda drift. it is the 1st ncda event at thunderhill racepark. man, there's a lot of cars! the drift section is mainly run by 240's but its all good. saw familiar faces and made new friends. it would have been nice if the whole half track was utilized for drift, we were only able to drift 2 corners. man, i never realized that skipads are fun! even w/ my open diff. yuki, it didn't discourage me from taking on the skipad. but during the halfway of the event, dorihachigo started belching white smoke!  am i done for? how will i go home!?! upon further observation and tips from roy of manila autotech, oil went its way back to the intake manifold through the pcv hose. when i cleaned the afm, filter, and intake hose, it was full of motor oil!!! moral of the story, CATCH CAN! i said to myself that i was not about to waste the fee i paid so after carefully cleaning the intake components, i went at it again. at the end, there was an open full track session but abruptly stopped becasue care are flying all over the track!

i fainally had the time to mess around with my car. i have always said to myself that i will remove my ac someday. and i finally started on it today. my ac isn't working in the first place. i have no idea wether R12 is still in the ac lines. upon further inspection, i saw one of the hose fittings disconnected! well, that's one less trip to the ac service shop. my engine bay now looks less cluttered. see, no reciver or condenser! only the oil cooler and radiator. on the left is the stuff i yanked out of my car. and on the right, no more ac line near the thorttle body. i'm still not finished though, i still have to remove the compressor and the cooling unit.

merry christmas to all!  slowly but surely, i have started on my threefold project for yuki during the holidays; maintenance, power-up, and footwork. i ordered from gabrial from techno toy tuning a front strut bar and in a couple of days, its already at my doorstep! this is a fairly easy strut bar to insall. once the bar is secured to the two strut towers, adjust the whole rod for zero slop. initial observation showes that the car gained significant rigidity. ride is harsher, more bumpier on the pothoiles and such. steering gained some stesetivity, as bump steers are more pronounced. gotta get my butt working on those RCA's, its collecting dust in my closet. i hope i could complete my project for yuki berfore the NCDA drift event on jan. 17.