Drifting with 14″ Tires

Not just any usual sized 14″ tires, but the ones from the Toyota Avanza, which comes in 185/70/R14!  Now that’s what I call fat! LOL!

Anyhow, Sia called me up 2 days ago and told me he had 4 Avanza tires that he needed to get rid of, so I’m the first guy he thought of contacting, wise choice my friend, wise choice indeed.  While I visited his home to pick up the tires, I also spent a good 10~20 minutes checking out his monster spec AE86, but I’ll get to that in my next post.

 

Charmant rocking 185/70/R14 tires at the rear

After I got my tires, I went straight to my usual playground, called up a new friend whom has been bugging me to give him a drift ride or two, and began my long awaited drift session!

Drifting on 14″ tires was definitely a first for me, I didn’t knew what to expect, but that uncertainty feeling disappeared as soon as I popped my clutch in first gear, ‘Hey it’s pretty much the same!’.  And so I went and did a couple of donuts and figure 8s in first gear, just to get myself warmed up.

After feeling more comfortable, it was time to move up to 2nd gear and do some choku doris down the straightaway.  Now the 1st gear was piece of cake, but doing it in 2nd gear was way different, I was having a hard time to snap my rear out with barely any angle, without any Ebrake to assist me, I tried hard on clutch kicking, feint and also power over (worst technique to attempt in this situation though, LOL!) and somehow none of the techniques felt right.  When I did managed to get in some good angles, I’d usually spun at the following transition, ewww!

After 5 minutes of non stop attempts in some louzy ass choku doris, I noticed that my water temp gauge is not working, I parked my car at the side and got down to check on my engine, and the view was shocking!  I have oil ALL OVER my engine bay, I was petrified!  The first thought that came to mind was “OH MOTHERF*CK! HAVE I JUST BLOWN MY 3RD ENGINE, AGAIN!!??”

But thank god that was not the case, I knew there’s something wrong, but the engine was still running very smooth and healthily at the time, so I was suspecting it could be a loosen fuel hose or something, but I just don’t know where the leak was, I quickly packed up my tires and gears and drove straight to my mechanic for help.

 

Messy and greasy engine bay

The picture above doesn’t show much justice on how messy it was as I snapped this the day after the incident… Anyhow, back to the story!  After a quick check from my mech, he told me the leak came from this…

 

The yellow hose is actually hanging loose to the bottom end of the engine bay

Notice the yellow hose coming out from my valve cover?  Well that was supposed to connect to my intake manifold, the one where I have a brown hose tucked on it…

 

The yellow hose supposed to go to the Intake Manifold!

Since I’ve modded my intake manifold, the 2 holes are now misaligned and although I can still connect them both with the current hose, it would not be wise.  And that’s why my mech decided to simply point my hose towards the bottom, as he didn’t expect my driving would spill oil all over the engine bay!  Another possible reason could be the fact that I’m now running higher fuel pressure from my regulator, which sorta made the matter worse, I guess…. (someone please correct me or my mech if both of us are extremely wrong!)

Long story short, I am in urgent need of an Oil Catch tank if I wish to do more drifting, oh and about the water temp gauge not working problem, it was just my sensor socket came loose, LOL!

In the end, I’m glad it wasn’t much of a serious issue, thank god!