Inside Matt Field’s Drift Assassin Nissan S14

Inside Matt Field's Drift Assassin Nissan S14 

by Mike Kojima

We have been watching Matt Field for the last few years.  Matt originally was a hero of the “keeping it real” stretched tire scene but has evolved from the time we first noticed him in 2010 to become a fierce competitor whose time has come.  Matt has always fielded (bad pun) really nice looking cars and his latest ride not only looks damn good but is packed with some of the latest state of the art drift technology. 

A lot about Matt's car reflects his spectacular, super smokey, never lift, high angle driving style and his super aggressive, always attacking tandem strategy. It is interesting how his car is set up to provide the driveabiltiy for high angle driving yet still have the speed and forward grip needed to cut and thrust in tandem.  

Check out our look at what makes Matt's car tick and maybe learn some things about todays technology packed high tech drift cars.

 

Matt's engine is an interesting study of getting tons of reliable power through displacement. The S14's KA24 engine is long gone, replaced with an LS based race engine.  Although there is no LS really left, the engine shares a lot of compatibility with the LS.

The engine is built by CBM using a RHS tall deck block.  The RHS block has a 1″ higher deck allowing a long rod to be use.  This keeps piston speed down for longer life and better volumetric efficiency. This is because the piston accelerates more slowly away from TDC giving the cylinders more time to fill. It also puts less stress on the engines internals. 

The engine uses Manley platinum forged pistons with a 4.125 bore and a 10.5:1 compression ratio. The pistons are fitted with Sealed Power rings and hung on Callies Ultra I beam rods with a 6.125 length.  A Calles forged crank with a 4″ stroke is also used for a displacement of 427 cubic inches.  The crank spins in Clevite 77 H bearings which are also used on the rods,

Surprisingly in a world of dry sump oil systems, Matt's car is still a wet sump with a Melling high volume oil pump, a Canton baffled road race style oil pan and an Accusump oil accumulator keeping things alive at high G loads.

 

On the engine's top side a Holley LS3 high ram intake manifold feeds the CBM Pro-X heads. The heads are held down with CBM head studs and sealed with Cometic stopper type head gaskets. 

Centrifugal blowers depend on bypass valves to prevent stress on the system during part throttle high RPM operation. A huge Vortech BV57 bypass valve is used and located in the upper intercooler tank of the big Treadstone vertical feed intercooler.

 
The Vortech YSI supercharger pokes through the Seibon carbon hood.  The supercharger has an upgraded CNC machined compressor wheel for greater efficiency. 
The engine breathes through stainless Daft Innovations long tube headers with 1 7/8″ primary tubes. The engine is fired by stock GM LS1 coils through Granatelli heat resistant plug wires and NGK Iridium plugs.

Plug wires burning up are a big problem with domestic powered V8's since drift cars heat soak a lot in operation. The plug wires are protected from this fate by DEI EXO heat sleeves. 

 

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