Monthly Archives: May 2012

Toyota 86 Drive Experience @ Changi Exhibition , Singapore 15th and 16th May 2012

The FT86 or Toyota 86  is certainly one of the most anticipated car of this century. Said to be the modernized version of the iconic AE86, this car had everyone clinging to their seats for almost 6 years since  it’s announcement. Singapore’s Toyota distributor, Borneo Motors took deliver of the first ever batch to arrive in the Sout East Asia shores  and wanted to do a launch for the members of the  press and also use this opportunity to show case the car’s attributes and also experience first hand, to their own sales staff  to aid them in their sales.

Being an AE86 enthusiast myself ,  I literally jumped at offer of given by PitCrew to not only  drive , guide and instruct  but also, as requested by the distributor, to drift it!!

A few days later,  I caught a flight to Singapore  and took a cab straight to the Changi grounds where  set up was being done. Upon arrival, I was greeted by  the sight of not one ,but a fleet of eight Toyota 86s .

 

The first I did was to pop up the hood to see for myself how low the engine is mounted. The engineers in Toyota and Subaru, had mounted the engine as low and as far back as they could to improve the roll center and weight distribution. What I had noticed was the lack of front wheel well which was replaces by plastic inserts. This allows bigger wheels and more aggressive caster that normally forces us to either knock the wells out or just cut them!

Interior wise, they had a nifty steering wheel which was said to be the smallest ever on a production Toyota car.

The dash was nothing to shout about  and center console was literally dominated by the  air con control!! I suppose they reckon keeping the driver cool is one of the most important factor in performance

They didn’t have to tell me twice to drive the car around to familirized myself with it. I drove the auto first; honestly knowing that this car only had 200 bhp at the crank, I wasn’t expecting much.  However what I was most impressed was how good the steering was. Very sharp with tonnes of feed back. The chasis seems to respond very well to the slalom course and what I love the most was how comfortable the ride was inspite of the lack of bodyroll.  Next was the 6 speed mannual, it had a bit more grunt and the gear change had a nice positive feel to it. The clutch felt a bit weak which was normal for a production car but the torson rear diff would be great if it was tighter.

 

Later that day , we were briefed  on all the modules that were to be done and Ivan Lim and I were requested to do a drift demo. The Toyota 86  by no means is an easy car to drift! Even with all the electronics and drivers aids all turned off, it took a bit of an effort to kick the tail out! This is attributed to how well balanced and sorted out the car was. Besides having  a torson LSD, the 86 had some positive front  chamber dialled into the car just to make the car slighlty understeer at the limit!

Speaking of understeering, I was really amazed how well the  drivers aid electronics worked. We demoed and encouraged the participants to unstablized the car , with throttle lift offs and abrubt  steering turns at about 80 km/h,  but it refuses to unsettle the rear!! We tackled the wet corner at speed but were greeted an initial understeer followed by a sharper turn in then understeer,  alternating  between the two throughout  the duration of the corner which allows the car to actually turn unlike other drivers aid which just feeds you gobs of understeer thus forcing you to stomp on the brakes to sharpen the turns

 

TRD version… Bodykit , full exhaust system ,19 inch rims and 6 pot and 4 pot brake calipers!!!

 

. Besides the  wonderful PitCrew guys and my co instructors ,driving the 86 made it feel like it wasn’t work at all throughout the 3 days I was there!. Though not a big fan of the looks, I loved how the car handles and behaves. I was so comfortable with the car that I was doing  3rd gear drifts  in the tight space we had without any problems. However,the Toyota 86 by all means is not and should not be limited to only drifting. The balance of the car allows it to be versatile for any other forms of driving. With a bit more power, I believe other manufactures will have trouble coming up with something as well sorted out as the Toyota 86!!

Would I get it? You bet!!…..once I could afford it laa :p

Ultra Racing Labour Day Gymkhana @ Mines 1/5/2012

As our weekends are always filled, we were glad that Labour Day holiday fell on the middle of the week as Jeet Singh from Wheelspin motorsport had planned a Gymkhana event on that day.

The Ultra Racing Labour Day Gymkhana was held at a fairly tight  parking space at the Mines convention center in conjunction to some motor  show being held there.

Jane was not able to make it on that day , so I got Terence Lim to join the event and also Lawrence to hang out with.

Like any porno actress/actor, Jeet Singh , the organiser, loves his toys,motorised kind may I add. For this event he brought out a cool shifter Kart with absorbers and springs! A rally Kart I was told it was and Jeet did a couple of laps in it

As the course was fairly tight , having a smaller car gave you the added advantage and I would help tremendously if your handbrake work , especially for those tight U-turns and donuts.

Photo by Hei Najdi

Terence , unfortunately had issues with his handbrake and suffered the whole day with his Putra.

 

One of the added attraction of the event was the inclusion of bikes in the gymkhana, a huge number of Motards and MX bikes attended the event and also a handful of Pit bikes made their appearance at the end of the day

The bikes had no problem negotiating through the course and did better times than the cars , which wasn’t surprising as to how tight the course was.

Photo by Hei Nadji

Believing in taking baby steps, I did a few minor changes in the Blackie’s setup since the Race of Champions . Though not perfect, the changes made was a huge improvement since its last outing .

Though not the fastest  overall , I managed to win in the RWD open category and 2nd in the 1 class Open category.

Which I credited to the tips given to me by Terence Lim and also the videos took by Lawrence helped a great deal .Thanks guys!!

RESULTS

Champion Open RWD Category   ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD

2nd  Class 1 Open Category           ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD

ACE Drift Challenge @ Seremban 2 , 21st 22nd April 2012

All photos are by Tan Chin Fu

We got a call from Lim from ACE suspension saying that they got a place in Seremban 2 that they are planning to run weekly events. He reckoned that the best way to promote the place was to hold a drift competition there. Initially he wanted to limit the entrants to just beginners but decided to hold two separate competitions based on our qualifying results. The first qualifier till 8th will go against each other and from 9th till 24th will have their own tandem battle competition. As this was meant to be a fun event, I decided to bring J4m8u rather than my regular competition car. Having my drifting scrutinized and given some pointers on how to improve from the event before, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to test out what I have learnt.

The course in Seremban 2 had a fairly short run straights before we are to initiate to a long gradual corner that leads to a fairly sharp hairpin. Ideally it would be best to short shift into 3rd before initiating and power your way to the hairpin. However as J4m8u was painfully underpowered, I was forced to drift in 2nd and feather the throttle to avoid the engine from bouncing off the limiter all the way to the hairpin. It took a bit of practice but by I managed it in the end and was also able to experiment different techniques I wanted to try out.

Jane where else had no trouble drifting the course and was putting in some perfect consistent run by the end of the day.

 

The next day was qualifying and I narrowly made it into the top 8th by qualifying 7th. I am a bit confused as to what were their main judging criteria but I assumed they reckon my entry speed was slow as I was only using 2nd gear  and was penalized for it. Ironically the tandem battle that follows, I had no trouble initiating  door to door with my opponents, so though only being in 2nd , my speed was up there with the rest.

Anyway, I managed to climb my way to top 4 and had to go against Yoong. I was no match going against the v8 and it was left up to me to go against Along for the final spot on the podium.


Having the advantage for the first run, I was confident to be able to take Along on for the win. While initiating, I could hear a loud mechanical groan as  the tail of the car suddenly veered a lot wider than expected , sending the rear hitting the tire wall ending my run. Just like the 1st round of the WestLake series, it appears that  I do not seem to have much luck with LSDs as it  decided to give way on my final run…oh well.

Jane on the other hand due to some weird tandem battle allocation was paired up to tandem in top 16 where by right she should have gotten a walk over due to only 22 participants entering.

Not wanting to kick up a fuss, she  went through it but  unfortunately had straighten during one of her OMT runs due to some intermittent misfiring of her car.

Inspite of all our shortcomings, we honestly  had  a blast! I had the chance to try out new things and Jane improved on her consistency , which is very important in this sport!! We can’t wait for the next event!! Rock on!!

We would like to thank Lawerence Chong for taking care of Johanna while we both were out on the track..thanks bro 🙂

 

RESULTS

4th ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD Team Sync Optima

9th AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH Team Sync Optima

Malaysian Race of Champions @ Speed city 8th April 2012

Jane and I had received an invitation by Jeet from Wheelspin Motorsport for  their  first Malaysian Race of Champion Series.

This  event gave  the opportunity to people from different motorsport discipline to go  against each other in a head to head  autocross battle.

 

We were divided into respective groups based on our discipline; Autocross, Rally,Gymkhana and Drift.

We, then had to compete in our respective groups  against each other where the  eventual winner will represent their respective discipline  in a head to head battle against winners of the other groups.

On my very first round , I had to go against Yoong and was quickly dropped from contention faster than I could say ”  Jack Robinson ” or should I is say “Jeet Singh”. I was using the ” Unlike everyone here, I’m driving my road going car for this competition” excuse but in actual fact, there’s alot of work needed to be done in my autocross driving skill as I haven’t been competing for almost 3 years now and the level had certainly stepped up a few since then!! So it’s time to woodshed

Anyway, Jane competed in the Women’s category and managed to win in her category in spite of a major mechanical failure!! The piping from her turbo had cracked causing her to drive without any boost pressure.

As you all would know, driving a turbo equipped car without any turbo boost is worse than driving a car naturally aspirated car as turbo car are tuned richer and have lower compression engines! So it was a fairy great feat for her to win the event!!

We would like to thank Jeet for organising the event and rest assure we will be back for more!!

RESULTS

Women’s Category

1st AZRINA JANE ABDULLAH  Sync Optima

2nd LEONA CHIN Ultra Racing

Open Category

NP ARIFF JOHANIS AHMAD Sync Optima

Sabah Drift Challenger round 1@ BSA Kota Kinabalu 14th-15th April 2012

Once again the Borneo Sports Arena , affectionately known as BSA, plays host to the Borneo Drift Challenger competition. Held at the facilities car park,this drift event had competitors   coming from all over east Malaysia.A total of 28 drifters from Tawau, Miri , Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu had made the journey to get the chance to compete with the best drifters in East Malaysia.

For the competition, main organisers Kinabalu Sports car Owners Club (KSOC) and All About Cars had roped in Ee Yoong Chern, Ariff Johanis Ahmad and Azrina Jane Abdullah, all accomplished drifters and experienced judges, to design the track lay out , manage and also to judge the competition.

A unique two point location judging system were used , where two judges were placed at the traditional judging point and also one on  the course. This allows the judges to get a wider perspective of the whole competition thus eliminating the chances of judging error.

This two day event had the drifters pushing their limits on the fairly high speed  technical course. A high speed 3rd gear entry  course were laid out, which was a new experience to  a large number of the drifters which saw them  struggling initially but soon got the hang of it towards the end of the first day.

Besides the drift competition a race queen search was also held where the winner would be crowned  Miss Borneo Drift Challenger 2011.

Crowd favorite Ms  Nicole Ngu   literally stood head over heels to grab the title from 15 other girls in the pageant.

Joining the festivals were also car displays and stereo system sound off  which added to the carnival like atmosphere of the event. Booth selling car parts and merchandise were also included .

M7  being one of the official sponsor of the event , made it’s presence known in Kota Kinabalu by having a section , selling their products which included their Drive energy drink.

Day two saw the drifters returning with more aggression during practice, knowing that soon will be the qualifying round which will lead to the head to head tandem runs.

 

Thankfully the weather held as it threatened to shower numerous of times and we saw Teh Soo Jin crowned as the victor of the event after defeating local Kinabalu drifter Bob Mohd Syarin on a close battle. Sharing the podium in third was Ah Heng from KSOC.

With the roaring success of Round 1, Sabah Drift Challenger Round 2 is schedule to be held in September at the same location with the final round by the end of the year. Stay tune for more updates!