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Justin Banner posted on July 24, 2012 03:07
Formula Drift Round 5 – Evergreen Speedway
By Justin Banner
Anyone who says that this 2012 Formula Drift season hasn’t been interesting is not really being honest with themself. At the start of this season we saw the introduction of the Legend of Drifting, Daigo Saito in the Achilles Radial Lexus SC430. We also watched Justin Pawlak in the Falken Tires Ford Mustang win Long Beach and Atlanta while Daijiro Yoshihara in the Falken Tires Nissan 240SX lost at Round 2 where he was viewed as a favorite. We have also seen the judging get called into question, but that is actually nothing new.
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Making his debut run in the BC Racing/Nitto Tire Mazda RX-8 is Chelsea Denofa. Denofa replaces Joon Maneg in the Bergenholtz Racing RX-8.
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While the forecast called for and did rain, it only did so during the morning of Qualifying day. The rain held off from then on and it turned out to be a beautiful weekend, save for the mud puddles. Qualifying presented a good bit of drama for the weekend, though, with both Daijiro Yoshihara and Daigo Saito both having to use their second run to break the Top 32. However, in doing so they also knocked out Tyler McQuarrie in the Mobil 1/GoPro Chevrolet Camaro, making this the first time he has not qualified this year. They also knocked out Jeff Jones, who protested his run due to the Judges’ claim that he had gotten two tires off. They reviewed the replays, saw that they were wrong, and Jones won his protest, but it was not enough to get him and the CX Racing Nissan 240SX back into the Top 32.
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| A blown engine prevented Kyle Mohan in the Mazdatrix/Nexen Tire Mazda RX-8 from compeating this weekend. Despite this happening prior to qualification, they did not carry a spare with them. |
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| To start keeping up with the big displacement engines, Ryan Kado in the Forged Racing Nissan 350Z now uses a turbocharger to make up for the lack of liters. But there is something going on in that engine bay... |
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| No, you are not seeing things! That is PVC Pipe and metal straps being used as a turbo plenum for his engine. I did not know that PVC could stand boost, but it did all weekend without much of a hitch. (Correction: The Plenum is ABS not PVC) |
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| Canadian drifter, Alex Lee, had an engine change over the season. He is now deploying a V8 under the hood of his Toyota Cresta. |
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| Your Number 1 Qualifiter for the weekend was Vaughn Gittin, Jr in the Monster Energy/Falken Tires Ford Mustang. Justin Pawlak in the Falken Tire Ford Mustang took the Number 2 qualifying position. Toshiki Yoshioka, Pat Mordaunt, and Chris Forsberg round out your Top 5 in Qualifying. |
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 11:08 AM
I like the PVC intake manifold... and from spudgun research back in the day, it's probably well under its design maximum operating pressure, even being derated for temperature. Also like how it's hooked up to Extrudabody ITBs.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 12:43 PM
PVC is rated to work at hundreds of psi (depending on the size) when used with water. No reason to think it wouldn't hold any boost pressure you'd be pumping into an engine. In industrial applications though you can't use it for compressed air because it bursts when it fails. ABS would be a better choice and may actually be what was used here. ABS has a higher temperature range and splits rather than shatters when it fails.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 3:20 PM
It's ABS not PVC! We received the turbo from Garrett the Friday prior to the event and had a marathon weekend trying to get it all working. Unfortunately the sheet metal plenum we had fabricated failed on the dyno and we had to load up the car and head to the event. Somewhere in Oregon we had the idea to stop by the local home improvement center and raid their plumbing supply department. The factory Titan manifold as well as many factory manifold are made from ABS plastic so we figure it couldn't hurt to try. Worst case we could still run the car naturally aspirated. We fabricated it at the track Thursday and somehow kept it together for the entire event resulting in a top 8 finish. Still can't believe we pulled it off!
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 3:38 PM
Once again I love that this site has the actual people involved commenting. If it hasn't become clear, damn cool improvisation, no matter which plumbing plastic. I thought the OEM plastic manifolds tended to be glass reinforced nylon or something though. ... hmm. And here I am with a 3d printer that can output in ABS...
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 4:12 PM
Yeah unfortunately the stuff on aisle 12 isn't that high tech. But we make do with what we can. Man I'm jealous I'd be dangerous with something like that. Imagination and innovation that's what it's all about!
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 4:28 PM
Well, it's not what one would call *fast* at printing things; it came as a kit bundled with some CAD software for a grand, but puts out pretty nice results for all that. I actually was tinkering with using it to output stuff that gets turned into investment castings (another type of plastic burns off quite nicely) but it never occurred to me that ABS might be okay for underhood stuff, temperature-wise.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 6:14 PM
Hat's off for finding a successful fix in desperation. That is what the real pros do when necessary! The OE manifolds are shot in Nylon 66, but I would bet one of the newer rapid prototype resins would work. And it would help keep the intake air temps down versus aluminum. It would take some design work and a couple of days to print (and some good $$$).
Tuesday, July 24, 2012 7:02 PM
At my office, we have a 3D printer that uses an ABS material good for about 210F. We could print in an optional PC (polycarbonate) material good for about 280F.
 
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