blog.CarlRydquist.com: Scrambled to success!

Welcome

Hey, welcome to my official blog!

This is the place where you will find pics and updates directly from my race weekends, plus a lot of other fun stuff such as stunt driving or things not always about racing.

Cheers! /Carl

Pic of the week

Grid before the race, Nordschleife 2008.

Songs to check out

1. Foo Fighters - The Pretender
2. Span - Baby's Come Back
3. Adam Tensta - My Cool
4. Outkast - Take Off Your Cool
5. Alexandra Stan - Mr Saxobeat

Food and Drinks

1. Redondo Beach Brewing Co, CA
3. The Standard, Hollywood, CA
3. Nic's, Bevery Hills, CA
4. Vino Pasta, Gothenburg, SWE
5. Paradise Cove, Malibu, CA

Other things

Spot to be filled with useful content.

Scrambled to success!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

FD pre-tech went well with the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing 350ZTT + Won 1st place at NOS Center Orange Show Drift Demo wih new Carbonetics diff.

We have had tons of work on the City Tire / Kallusive Clothing FD car during the last couple of weeks. Especially the last half week has been insane - to finalize all the small things on the car we had some long long days and NO BREAKS for rest, just a constant push. Anyway, after finally wrapping we got to UTI in Rancho Cucamonga at the very last minute before Formula Drift Pre-Tech closed and yes it was worth all the efforts, the car is now FD approved with only a few really minor things (like marking out the new tow straps and putting the windshield wiper back on)to do until the season premiere at Long Beach this upcoming weekend.

From there on it was another scramble to get over to NOS Center/Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino for a Saturday night drift demo/competition, nice job by Naoki at Drift Day to get us in there, props.

It was a lot of fun to come to a spectator event and a track I've never seen before, just having a quick driver's meeting where it was decided to do three-car team tandem demo comp and then roll onto the track. This is the type of challenge I value at this point in order to build my drift experience.

First outing out everyone was feeling the surface out a bit, Just Drift Matt from SD was trying out his new engine and I was testing the new hydraulic handbrake, new rear springs, new camber arms and new differential, a lot of changes at once but they were all carefully considered and dialed in, and it felt soooo good, we were basically spot on with adjustments. A thank you note to Fredrik @ FEKE Engineering back in Sweden who has been my race engineer at all my 24 Hours of Nurburgring races for bouncing and/or confirming ideas reg the suspension setup over the phone.

The crowd resonse was good on our first outing but that was nothing compared to our second run when all drivers went all in to try and win the trophy. I ran with Ryan Litteral and my tandem practice buddy Michael Essa this outing and we were really hungry to take it home even though the San Diego guys Tommy and Matt are really top notch tandem buddies that would be hard to beat.

I led our team and went for a lot of smoke and big angle with keeping moderate speed in order to have Ryan and Mike come up close, we then ended it with some freestyle stuff that really got the crowd going after the actual comp run - and we got voted to 1st place! It was just a demo competition but great for the crew after all the hard work to get some kind of reward.

Overall, I am very happy to finally feel that the car is sorted out. Even though we can always work with weight reduction it is now behaving like I want it too. Our hydrualic e-brake solution was also a major improvement for the Z, it was NIGHT AND DAY difference from the stock junk. Anyone with a 350Z who's interested can hit up John at City Tire to discuss a similar installation.

The Carbonetics diff was a really nice addition to the car, all of a sudden it got so smooth, doing the same job. It was definitely a different feel from the 2-way steel plate diff I used so far, especially after transition, where I now as a driver need to put effort into the entry, otherwise it acts more as a 1,5 way and would straighten out unless I do something about it (ebrake or clutch kick). What it really means is that I can make much more aggressive transitions during slowing down without the car losing control or just sliding a long way before getting some sort of grip and allowing me to change direction or follow a line. The effort it took to install and break in the Carbonetics was totally worth it.

I also like the feel from the adjustment we did to increase the front caster using our new camber arms, I got a bit more angle to work on and self-steer felt really fast/accurate.

Pics and some video clip will be posted very soon. Formula Drift season premiere coming up this weekend, starts with a drift car parade in downtown Long Beach on Thursday night. I'll write more soon. /Carl

Labels: Drifting, Events, Media, Testing

posted by Carl Rydquist @ 8:20 PM

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