Charlotte: not your grand dads 86

[Shady195]

I've actually started doing more work to my 2013 10 Series FRS, and because of that I have decided to start spending more time documenting her progress; where she started, where she is now and where she is going.

Charlotte isn't my first love; Sylvia was a whiteout FRS that unfortunately met her demise when a driver of an SUV decided to make a left hand turn from a Diner parking lot without creeping out to look at oncoming traffic. I happened to be cruising down the street in my, screaming my lungs out to the joyous sounds of taylor swift; to pick up my tuxedo for the day I share with my brother in his special day of love and happiness as he marries his second wife. Well as anyone who has seen an accident coming can attest. I knew what was about to happen. I moved into the median as far as I could; I knew i was about to have my car smashed in. I literally screamed "YOU STUPID F%$#ING C*NT" as I saw her face; she knew at this moment as our eyes locked. She done fucked up. *Insert sounds of airbags, and metal crushing*



About a day after my accident, the hunt was on. I was looking for cars within a 6 hour drive of me. I knew I would be free and clear of the accident as it wasn't my fault; however I did end up getting fucked out of a few thousand dollars. I did not know gap insurance was a thing.

An hour into my search I came across what was listed as a 2013 Scion FR-S, but something was odd about this particular one, could it be? My god yes its a 10 series. Why is it so cheap? It has pretty low mileage and there isn't a scratch on it.

Within 20 minutes; I had detailed pictures of 2 blemishes (minor) and I had a deposit down and told them I would be there by the end of the week to pick it up.

I drove 6 hours, and the team needed to get me on my way was kept late at the dealership to make sure I had a pleasant experience and was out of there with my new car quickly.

Here she is down the road the night we picked her up. Honestly I was beat and my wife is the one who took the picture. I was super excited to see that it came with the TRD Exhaust and TRD Springs. The windows were even tinted! Though, whoever detailed the car scratched the passenger window tint. However I talked them down to such a great price over the phone before I ever saw the car, i figured if that was the worst part, I did good.




A week after I got her, I was ready for my second drift event. Sylvia got to pop my cherry. The car felt even better with springs; my whiteout was completely stock as I opted to not touch it until I drifted it a few times. I bought my FR-S with the intention of it being a daily driven/weekend drift warrior.



Having a few drift events under my belt; it was clear my car needed a better suspension setup. I make decent money; but I like to "ball on a budget" and did not want to spend thousands of dollars on coilovers on something I was not tracking every weekend. After much debate, research and speaking with a few various respected members in this community as well as vendors, I opted to order the new Tein Flex Z's unfortunately they were not available in the US; but I was able to get them for a decent cost from overseas.



Now that I had a better ride, it was time to give charlotte some new kicks. I happened to be on craigslist and ran across a wheel I have never seen before. I dug the style, and the concave face sold me. They are heavy, but they look amazing. 3SDM's .006 wheels in 18x9.5. I drove an hour and a half to pick them up, unfortuntely they were slightly to big to fit in the car with both me and my wife while allowing us to sit comfortably. After about 15 minutes I pulled into a parking lot and changed these bad boys out using the scissor jack and lug wrench.



Last year that was pretty much all she wrote. I attended a few more drift events and honed my skills; playing with the suspension adjustments I could, trying to understand how the car handled. My biggest complaint is the lack of torque and steering angle. It takes a lot of throttle and the clutch takes one hell of a beating keeping the rears spinning. Much of that was hopefully remedied as i moved into this year and starting to install more parts and more properly setup my car.






The last event of the season was the most fun. I finally felt confident enough to tandem with a friend of mine. I was struggling to keep up and hold his line; but the excitement was so high and my nerves, with more seat time I can only imagine how much better and confident I can feel.





With this season approaching and winter coming to an end. It was time to order more parts and decide what was more important to me. I like having a nice car I drive everyday. At the end of the day it is just a car, and there comes a point when you have a daily driver that you also attend any sort of Motorsport event with, where you need to decide if you will sacrifice comfort or performance for the sake of road compliance or in my case; better skidz at the track.

[UNCC_BRZ]

Wow...that sucks about the accident, I would have been hella pissed, especially because it looks like she wasnt even supposed to be turning left, double solid yellows....glad you are ok, and found a nice replacement!

[themadscientist]

I hate to see nice cars like that smacked up.

I like the new ride and the build philosophy.

[Shady195]

Almost made a new thread forgetting I had made this one...

It's been awhile so lets do some recap from where we left off last year. Wow can't believe I decided to come back to this almost exactly a year later.

Last season was an interesting one, a lot happened and things moved quickly due to some positive unforeseen circumstances. (Read: Bachelor Party, Blackjack, and my first and last time doing Cocaine) More on that series of events later.

Last year I purchased Asseto Corsa for my PC over the winter months, it looked to be the new popular sim for drifting and I figured what the hell, if anything it'll be a great way to work on throttle and wheel control as even if its not completely realistic.. it gets you into some really good habits, at least in my opinion..

My car remained mostly the same aside from a handful of added bits to the suspension and driveline. I was running a nameless/PLM header, an OTS E85 Tune, my Tein Flex Z's along with a stiffer rear swaybar, 90A Poly rear sub frame collars, the whiteline differential inserts, 90A Transmission mount. My thinking was the stiffer bushings would really help make the driveline more responsive, and the stiffer rear swaybar would act similar to removing the front sway bar in that it would make the rear a bit more snappy during initiation.



Here you can see the bushings and rear sway bar, as well as my pit crew lending a hand.






A really good friend of mine is also into cars, but unfortunately lives 3 hours away. I don't mind making the drive and make it quite a few times throughout a year to spend some time with my buddies down there, and im lucky to have a friend with the means to own some cool tools that I get to make use of..

I decided to do a custom alignment and corner balance my car. He had just bought all the equipment and the scales to do this sort of thing and we were both excited to get our first go at it so I brought my car down and went to work..

After a long night of learning how the car reacted to certain conditions and changes, it wasn't perfect but we were able to get the car setup better than it was originally as far as weight goes.



Here you can see a wild Rob in his natural habitat picking his nose



After we got the car all balanced out the best we could, we were fine tuning the alignment when we came across a problem. Unfortunately I was unable to get the toe adjustment needed. I was 3 hours from home, i had to drive my car back and we came up with a solution. It did not h ave to be permanent but it had to work, so we cut a little out of the toe arms and welded them back up..



To be honest I got a lot of flack for this, stating how unsafe it was... and while its not ideal I totally did a drift event on them just to prove they would be fine before I bought a proper adjustable set of toe arms. I was in a pinch and needed a solution.


So while it was nothing major a lot changed with my car from the previous year. I had a few weeks until my first drift event, but i was loving how my car felt even on the street. Unfortunately all these hard poly bushings made daily driving a little less comfortable.. but RACECAR

As I drove the car more and more, I realized I was going to have to make a choice, and as time goes on the car is becoming less and less of a car I want to drive on the street everyday.. so at this point I have 0 issues turning this into a drift slut, while doing my best to keep it road legal so I can at least enjoy it from time to time between events.

On to my first event of the season:

Wow, right out of the gate I had a decent run and the car felt amazing. All the little meticulous work I had done felt like it had amounted to something.

The car flicked in nicely, it felt like it was easier to keep the rear wheels moving, and I felt just overall the car felt easier to drive.

I really felt like Asseto corsa made me more comfortable trying to Manji and that was huge. I never really did it on purpose before and while its a bit weak I felt so good being able to do that while keeping clam..

Heres a cone I took out, followed by a gopro of that run. The pic was taking right at the end of the video when I lost my steam.



[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjhTEhbszXw"]LVD Drift 5/27/16 run - YouTube[/ame]

The few events following this were all pretty much the same for me. I felt more confident, still not that great but I was enjoying it more and more everytime I went out.. Heres a few more runs.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPc1ZMguPIo"]LVD Drift 5/27/16 Run2 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGgIZ33DzVE"]Helmet cam run LVD Drift 6-17-2016 - YouTube[/ame]



Anyways thats it for now... Theres more to this story but that will be in another post to come later today/Sometime soon.