- When it comes to competitive drifting, we've seen the power levels rise year
after year.
However power isn't everything in a professional drift car and grip is just
as important in order to get speed.
We're here with James Deane who is no stranger to professional drifting,
having won the European Drift Championship six times, the Irish Drift Championship
five times and Formula D in the U.S. for the last two seasons.
Now James is more familiar to the Nissan S chassis and he's got a relatively fresh
build behind us, a BMW E92.
And my first question James is, why that change when you're so familiar with that
Nissan S chassis, you've probably got that pretty dialled in, you know it back to
front and why make such a dramatic change to a completely new chassis?
- Yeah so for me I've been pretty much competing in the Nissan S chassis for
almost 10 years and we know this car inside out, we know its strong points,
its weak points and to be honest for me, I wanted to try something new.
And just going back to competitive drifting, as you say, grip is a huge thing.
The biggest downfall with the S chassis I think is forward grip but it's probably
the best overall car, you can just sit in, drive, it's nimble, it reacts just the way
you want it to.
But you can see a lot of the more modern chassis just have that bit more forward
grip so that was a big part of it for me.
We decided to go with this E92 because the rear suspension setup is a lot
different, it has quite a lot more mechanical grip.
Kristaps from HGK Racing in Latvia, they actually build these chassis and he was
competing in Formula Drift in the U.S. for the last two years and his car was probably the
fastest car on the track so I was watching his car and thinking man if I ever had the chance
to build something new I think that's the route we'll take.
- And just to back up there, because a lot of people, even those who are familiar with
watching drifting would think that that mechanical grip is maybe not that critical
but essentially now with those power levels rising, you really almost have a drag race
to that first point where you initiate for that first corner, that's what you're talking about
there, getting that speed to that first corner?
- Yeah the grip game is just exploding, especially in the last couple of years.
In Formula Drift the majority of cars are pushing like between 900 and 1100
and they're actually putting the majority of that grip to the ground.
As you said it's a drag race to the first corner but as soon as you initiate it's also as fast
as you can get through that course while feeling all these slips.
So grip is a huge important part about it, tyres are very important, everyone is
running semi slicks and sizes between 275 to like 315 so big tyre to put on the back
of a car that you want to slide around a track.
- 100%.
Alright I think we've got to the bottom of that mechanical grip aspect so I think we just
want to go through the car and obviously you're not running the BMW engine,
you're running the Toyota 2JZ, can you tell us why the choice of the 2JZ?
Obviously it's no stranger to drifting anyway but give us some insight there.
- Yeah for us the 2JZ is just amazing at drifting.
Super reliable engine, relatively affordable in comparison to like a V8 from the U.S.
And you can just get that power, reliability and for us personally, my brother builds
these engine back in Ireland at DeaneMSport, our shop back there.
Great experience with the motor and drifting in competition is all about
reliability as well so keeping the car on track, we just have experience with this
motor and as it's a new chassis, we have a lot of other things to worry about
and try to figure out but we know the engine's solid.
- Now with the 2JZ in stock form at least being a three litre capacity, you're competing
against a lot of cars now with perhaps LS swaps, LS swaps with turbochargers,
so when you're looking at an engine that may be in the vicinity of six litres versus three
litres that's got the potential for a much wider torque curve.
How much of an issue is that?
- Yeah so in this car we're running nitrous which really helps with that low end power.
We're actually using it from 3500 to 7500.
At the start we started using it just for spool but nitrous kind of gets a bit
addictive.
In the U.S. cars we were using direct port 150 shot of nitrous and this is quite
impressive and we're using it the same way, 3500 to maybe 8000.
We revved the cars in the U.S. slightly higher.
But in general, it gives you a big power band so we don't really have an issue.
You can see the V8s sometimes have a small advantage rolling off the line because
they can just slowly roll on to throttle and just get away without breaking traction
because this, when it comes down to it, it can break quite easily.
- That's one of the problems with nitrous, if you've got a 150 shot, the instant that
nitrous is activated you've got all of that additional power and torque going
through the rear wheels so traction can potentially be an issue.
How are you activating the nitrous, is it based on throttle position or what other
options have you got there?
- Yeah so for us we're using it on throttle position, over 85% throttle, positive
boost pressure and as I said, between 3500 to 7500 or whatever you want.
It's very reliable, we've been using it the last few years and it's just such an
easy power adder.
- What sort of power in total are you getting with the engine both with and
without the nitrous?
- This motor's about 800 at the engine, nitrous it's a 70 shot so we actually,
it was spinning on the dyno but we expecteed to keep it probably
close to 100 or something in that region.
And in the U.S. it's pretty much the same, same setup in both cars but with the 150
shot it's a lot more aggressive.
- Now that's not really sort of ground breaking power levels for a 2JZ,
we've seen them, particularly in drag racing now making well over 2000 horsepower,
of course you're trying to hold the engine together for a lot longer.
So can you give us a basic rundown of the mechanical specification, what goes into
the engine, what parts are you using?
- Yeah so this motor is, we're using the stock Toyota crankshaft.
It was actually a brand new block which is amazing, you can still get new Toyota blocks,
so that's a new block, we're using ZRP rods, they're from Greece.
CP pistons, 9.5:1 compression ratio.
1mm Supertech oversize valves, dual springs, 280 degree BC camshafts.
The head is CNC ported, Hypertune intake and exhaust manifold and BorgWarner 9180
EFR turbo.
- I just wanted to get onto that turbo, the engine really is just there to support the
power level and obviously the head's important for the air flow in and out
but really it is that turbocharger that is so critical.
So you've got the BorgWarner on there, what sort of boost pressure are you running?
- We're using 1.6 bar so it's relatively safe, we can push it more but to be honest,
you also want to match your power to what you're putting to the ground so if you're
over spinning the tyres sometimes you're just, you're losing speed whilst drifting.
- Now there's a couple of things I want to unpack there, so the first thing is with a
BorgWarner, it's pretty well known they have a critical turbo speed so you do have to
watch the boost pressure.
Is that an issue for you ro are you nowhere near that maximum safe turbo speed?
- At this boost pressure we're quite safe.
We've been using these turbos for the last three years and never had a failure,
so touch wood on that, they seem very reliable.
And very responsive too for the size of it on a three litre capacity engine.
- Particularly when you add that nitrous as well.
Now the other aspect you just touched on there was the matching of the power or
torque to the available traction so are you using any aspects there such as
gear dependent boost or is that not really an issue for drifting?
- Well not usually for me personally, other teams might do it differently but
I try to rely on my own feeling, just try to drive the car knowing that it's the same
every time I get behind the wheel.
So we really keep that side of it very simple.
- Now you mentioned the Hypertune plenum there, can you also tell us what injectors
you've got fitted there?
- Yeah we're running Injector Dynamics 1750cc injectors.
- Which brings us to the next question, what fuel are you actually running
the engine on?
- Ignite Red 114 so ethanol based, really really good stuff.
- So that's a professional competition based ethanol blended fuel?
- Yeah blended fuel, most of the people in Formula Drift are using it and it's
starting to become very popular in Europe too.
It's very good because you'll see with a lot of ethanols that you can have issues
with injectors and filters and fuel pumps but this is really clean and we've haven't
had an issue.
- I think the other aspect there as well is with a lot of people who rely on pump
E85 is that the ethanol content, they don't really realise but the ethanol content varies
so that also varies the amount of fuel you require and can end up with reliability
problems, particularly on an engine that's near the limit.
Alright so I think at this stage, we've covered the engine combination pretty well but
getting a reliable drivetrain is just as important as maybe power in the first place
so what's the gearbox backing the engine?
- Yeah so we're running Advanced Clutch Technology, clutch and flywheel are
triple plate.
Samsonas five speed sequential gearbox, Driveshaft Shop driveshaft.
Winters quick change differential which is just the norm now in drifting and
Driveshaft shop axles.
- Now with the Samsonas sequential gearbox with a dog engagement sequential gearbox
obviously there's no need necessarily to use the clutch to change gears.
Are you using any flat shift mechanism there or is that not really a requirement
for your use?
- I think the flat shift works better with like an electronic throttle body, we're still running
the manual cable one and I just like to keep it as reliable and simple as possible.
And another issue you will often see with drifting and flat shift is because if you're
getting wheel spin on a straight line, sometimes you have issues with the flat shift.
- Moving into the electronics package controlling it, obviously that's the key to
making the whole engine reliable and getting all of the performance out of it.
What is the electronics package fitted to the car?
- So we're using Ecumaster from front to rear, running two PDMs, PMUs, one for the rear
one for the front.
Their dash, ADU.
- So for those who aren't familiar with that term, can you tell us what is the PMU?
- Power management unit, it's really tidy, you get rid of all the switches and relays
in the chassis.
Reduce a lot of the wires that you need to run through it and it's just simple.
What's great about this is you can see what everything is drawing in terms of amps
and you can often catch something, if something is running more amps
than usual, you can catch it before it might fail so it's very good for logging and tracking
and it's just tidy.
- And then the other aspect that's often overlooked as well is with a conventional
fuse and relay setup, if you have a problem and a fuse pops, that's it, you've got to stop,
you've got to physically remove and replace the fuse or reset a circuit breaker,
whereas with the power distribution modules like this, solid state switched electronics,
you can actually program them to retry certain circuits.
So particularly for motorsport where reliability is so key, it gives you a
potential chance to get to the finish line where otherwise you may not.
Look James it's been really great to get some insight into the car.
Obviously with your fairly well known history in drifting, we're likely to see your
name on the top of the podium in the future so we wish you all the best.
- Thank you very much, same to you guys, myself, my brother and family and friends
are big fans of High Performance Academy, very intersting stuff and I think you're
doing great things for the motorsport world.
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you guys.
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