A Look Inside Alec Hohnadell’s Get Nuts Lab Nissan S14

A Look Inside Alec Hohnadell's Get Nuts Lab Nissan S14

by Mike Kojima

Do you want to see a future Formula Drift Champion? Look no further than Alec Hohnadell.  At only 20 years old, Alec already has 3 seasons as a pro under his belt and is the youngest driver in Formula Drift. 

Alec was born to compete, he began racing motocross at the age of 4 and had seen over 100 podium finishes until he transitioned into racing jet skis at the age of 14. There he won 7 national championships and one world championship. 

At 16 years of age, Alec attended a local drift event and fell in love with the sport.  After six months of drifting at local events, Alec entered the Streetwise Pro-Am drift series and podiumed at every event!  With this, he managed to win the Pro-Am Championship. 

Alec decided to skip Pro 2 and go straight to the super competitive Pro 1 series and compete with the big boys at the tender young age of 17.  Only Ken Gushi was younger when getting a pro licence. 

Last year Alec got his first podium at the Seattle FD round. For this year Alec decided to step up his game and build a state of the art pro car. He enlisted the help of Forrest Wang's Get Nut's Lab, the builders of some pretty damn pretty and competitive cars to create the beauty features on these pages. Let's check it out!

 

The heart of the S14 is a potent Chevy motor built by Golen Engine that starts with the extra stout GM Motorsports heavy duty cast iron LSX block.

The LSX block features six head bolts per cylinder vs the standard for an LS except for the LS7, 4 bolts per cylinder.  The LSX block also has extra beef in the cylinder walls, deck, and main cap area.

The block is rated for over 1000 hp and forced induction.  The bottom end features Calles rods and 4″ stroke crankshaft with 10.5:1 compression 4.125″ bore Wisco forged pistons and displaces 7 liters. A Golen Custom roller cam allows the engine to rev all the way to 7500 rpm.

 

The engine is force-fed by a Magnuson TVS 2300 Supercharger system.

The Magnuson system uses an Eaton sixth generation TVS 2300 blower features 4 vane rotors that twist on a 160-degree helix that provides internal compression and thus a lot higher adiabatic efficiency than a traditional roots blower which is typically around 50 percent efficient.  

The TVS 2300 rocks with a peak efficiency of 76 percent and a 2.4 pressure ratio.  This means less intake charge heating and less parasitic loss at the crank with all of the great low-end positive displacement boost and response of an old school roots blower. Note the rear blower drive and the jack shaft to the front of the motor so the blower can have a straighter shot to the throttle body.

 

The LSX engine has a direct fired one coil per cylinder ignition system and thermal wrap on the custom stainless headers.

Note the thermal boots on the plug wires.  Drift cars make a tremendous amount of heat, have poor airflow through the engine compartment and heat exchangers because the cars travel sideways, then heat soak idling after a run waiting for the judge's decision.  This is the reason why so much effort is put into thermal management on drift cars.

 

Mast Motorsports provided their Black Label LS3 style CNC ported heads.  

The heads are six bolt compatible and feature large 280cc intake ports and a machined 70cc combustion chamber. They use huge 2.200″ intake valves and 1.600″ exhaust valves.  With the ability to accept six bolts and a hefty 0.750 thick deck the Mast Motorsports heads are perfect for forced induction use.  The heads house Jesel shaft roller rockers and dual valve springs.

 

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