Zenki or Kouki?

Choose your poison. My vote goes to the Kouki as I like the angular front more

P.S. For confused non-Silvia aficionados, read here. Actually both cars are Zenkis, with one doing the Kouki front conversion :)

Photo Credit: Eclipse, Driftgarage

80% of Singapore's S15s

Nice montage put together by Ah Neo. There's about 40 to 50 S15s left in Singapore and here's 36 of them!

Format67 Silvia

We first highlighted Format67 back when they did a BMW.

So how can I pass it up when their new Silvia video is out?

I LIKE their stylized treatment. I would have LOVE it if there's a wee bit more drifting action.

Touge Monster

Interesting repost I see on the hachijyu to 81 blog

Rob of Roadsterdrift.com showing us how to drift a S15 on his local touge while getting acquainted in passing with local wildlife.

Time Attack Nissan 200 SX 3D Rendered

Here the time attack/street Nissan 200 SX that Bo Zolland of Virtualtech had designed for a Swedish client.

The car will use a 600 horsepower turbo engine and will use a Venturi Tunnel to hold the car firmly down while helping to increase speed. Using a racing chassis and a body built entirely from carbon fiber, the 200 SX is inspired by the GT 500 Super GT racing series vehicles.





Source: SeriousWheels.com

Stroked, Wide and Black

Owned by Eddy, this black S15 is running a stroker engine, custom wide body with a M Sports front bar. Tough looking machine eh?

Rims are Volks' popular GTC and the rear has a unique combination of the Spec R spoiler paired with a ducklip.

Look out for a full feature in the future when I have time to sit down with Eddy.

Silva Supper Club

About 12 of us gathered for supper at one of the prata shops opposite Beauty World in Upper Bukit Timah on Friday. Car talk after supper is mandatory as a matter of course.

The usual mutual 'poisoning' took place. Chris' huge Origin 3D GT wing garnered plenty of attention while Alvin's high-mount Greddy turbo was the envy of many. I am guessing many will be going parts shopping after the meet-up!

Everybody's rides are looking great. Look out for more individual features from Silva Club Singapore soon!

The Recession and S15s

I still remember when I bought my S15 almost three years ago. The economy was booming and I took a long time before securing the car at a reasonable price. Back then, sometimes there wasn't even a single S15 listed on sgcarmart.com.

Nowadays, there's anything between 4-6 S15s on sale, which is a lot considering that this number represents more than 10% of the S15 population in Singapore.

As they say, it's a buyer's market now and if you have the means, it's a great time to be snapping up one of these collectibles at historically low prices. Some of the S15s are going for S$6k depreciation per year, a 50% (!!!) drop from the prices two years ago.

For that price, you get a slow slung JDM sports coupe from the golden age of Japanese sports cars, where RX7s, Supras, Silvias and GTRs rule the Wangan.

Oh yes, did I mention the exclusivity? No more than 50 S15s in Singapore means you won't be seeing every Tom, Dick and Ah Beng driving past in one.

If you are in the market for a sports car in Singapore, go get a S15 NOW.

SX Appeal 2

Remember our lovely friend Shannon (her of the horsepower 'fetish' and 'ladies with their babies' quote fame) ?

Where in the world does she find her fellow Silvia-driving femme fatales?

Dino Juice Delivery

Somebody's red drift weapon has a serious new fuelling system. How does an an in-tank Walbro 255, external ATL fuel pump and surge tank, linked nicely together with Earl's fittings and steel braided hoses sound to you?

HKS SG Garage R Time Attack S15 Rd 2

First the video, now the pictures. Ings+1 bodykit + Chargespeed carnards + Ganadors aero mirrors + SARD GT wing = Gorgeous

Don't you wish your enginebay is hot like this? I don't even know how to begin to list out the parts orgy before your eyes. HKS GT2835R SPL Turbine, HKS Step 2 Cams, Hypertune intake manifold, Garage Defend radiator cooling panel are stuff on my own S15's wishlist.

JDM porn. Endless 6 pots calipers with 345mm 2 piece rotors

Ikeya Formula everything...

The S15 in its natural habitat.

The real appeal of this car is that it represents the modified car owner's dream of having a vehicle that can take names and kick ass on the track easily, while still maintaining perfect functionality as a daily driven street car.

It's just a matter of time when this S15 go below 2'30" at Sepang. Stay tuned.

Down Under for The Hat Trick

First, its the Scotman who makes frequent trips to Japan. Then the Irish bloke who make even MORE trips to Japan. And to complete the trilogy of JDM-loving Caucasian car bloggers, we have Alexi Smith, an Aussie who in his own words, "moved from Australia to Japan to go drifting."

He added cryptically "I brought a camera and computer with me", then you realize he's a regular contributor on the Speedhunters site.

As an example of his connectivity with the JDM scene, here's an excerpt from his recent post which I really like:

"When I lived in Australia, I used to help run a drift club that put on track days about once a month. The circuit we used most of the time was no more than an hour’s drive away from most people in Sydney, yet you’d still hear the occasional whinger complain about the distance.

This S14 Silvia belongs to a girl named Michiko. She drove about 500km/310 miles from Nagoya to Utsunomiya to drift at Nikko Circuit, then drove back home the same day."

Oh, and Michiko (the one on the right) is pretty cute too.

Lastly, Alexi had this great shot of Nobuteru posing with his 180sx in a new pitch-black paintwork. Great underground JDM stuff you won't find in car magazines anytime soon.

Visit his blog Nori Yaro here.

Driftworks S15 ver2009

if you are in Silvias, you will know this car. Previously orange, it's sprayed in black for the 2009 British Drift Championship season.

Yes, it's the infamous Driftworks S15 with a 2JZ engine conversion.

In action at yesterday's DriftWhatYouBrung at UK's Santa Pod Raceway.

Some might not like the choice of wheels and over-the-top styling, but a S15oc member, Mark D, who witnessed the car in action said, "The pictures really don't do it justice. Especially when it's on the track. I'm not a great lover of the wheels on it either, but believe me, when you see it in the flesh. It's the last thing you worry about!"

Here's where the magic happen. Check out the unique turbo placement and how ridiculously short the turbo piping is... Yep, no turbo lag here.

In case you are still wondering about how much power it made. Yes, it's THAT crazy. This is what my S15 want to be when it grows up.

HKS SG Garage R Time Attack S15

Time Attack S15 Project by HKS Technical Factory Singapore Garage R & Onward Motorsports.

Video footage recorded during free practice at Traction Circle Club's (TCC) 9 March 2009 Trackday at Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia

Timing is about 2'33" right now but Garage R is confident it will go into 2'20"-ish as the car had full interior, audio and air-conditioning, not to mention drift-spec Hipermax D coilovers, 2-way LSD and only semislicks tyres during the run.

For the next round, LSD has been changed to a more tractable 1.5 and a new front splitter fixed on for better aerodynamics.

Stay tuned.

Carbon Clad T-Shirts: Driftmania in April!

From April onwards, our sister site www.carbonclad.com will launch a new t-shirt collection every month.

With our D1GP All Star-inspired t-shirts, fans of drift kings like Kazama (above), Nobuteru, Ueo, Kumakubo and of course Keiichi, are in for a treat in April!

A big thank you to those that have already purchased our t-shirts! For those that haven't, there's ten more days till the end of our opening promotion. From now till 31st March, key in coupon code 'CC' when you make your purchase for an additional 20% off.

Visit www.carbonclad.com today, buy a tee or two if you like the designs and tell your friends about it. Spread the love!

Singapore's one and only Kouki S14!

Silvias are known for the various front conversions that can be done, with the S15 front being one of the most popular (read: common).

Our man Raymond has a Zenki S14 and with no Kouki S14 officially or even parallel imported into Singapore, he set about to make his ride the one and only in Singapore.

Regular and eagle-eyed readers will remember his car looking like this.

After parting with much dough (a new set of bonnet, front bumper, headlights AND front fenders don't exactly come cheap), his S14 is transformed into a sharper and more intense looking creature.

So Zenki or Kouki, which one is your favourite?

Lean, Mean and Green Drifter

I know I am supposed to focus on the Singapore and Malaysian scene but what's a Silvia lover to do when gorgeous photos of a professional drift spec S13 all the way from UK landed in my inbox?

The British Drift Championship 2009 is set to commence on 11th April 2009, with Donnington Park (new home of the British Formula One Grand Prix) being the first venue.

Our man John Glaister here will be contesting in the 5 round national drift competition. To ensure a good showing, he transformed his S13 from...

this plain Jane...

to this lean, mean, drifting machine.

LOOK - Paying homage to the temple of JDM comes easy when John's S13 is equipped with an Origin Lab body kit and a custom two tone paint job, Triumph Roulette green for the body and black metalflake for the roof. Mismatched staggered rims add to the drift look with SSR mesh rims in front and Work Emotion CRs at the business end. Keeping things steady at terrifying speeds is a drool wBuddy Club carbonfibre gt wing

GO - With the lightweight chasiss, response is the name of the game with the S13 running HKS' fabled GTRS turbo. Other bolt-on go-fast bits include the usual FMIC, headers and exhaust. This produces a highly linear 310 horsepower and 308 lbs/ft of torque.

TURN - Being a competitive drift car, the S13 has everything but the kitchen sink thrown into its suspension system. Read all this in one mouthful: RG type D coilovers with pillow ball top mounts, Driftworks front adjustable lower arms, rear adjustable upper and lower arms, adjustable tension rods, solid steering bush, rose jointed steering arms with angle spacers, Nismo front subframe and finally, Cusco front and rear strut braces......

STOP - Uprated R33 GTT 4 pot callipers are matched with ceramic pads and grooved discs all round. The handbrake system has been fitted with the customary drift button together with an additional Driftworks hydraulic handbrake.

John welcomes potential sponsors big or small, so if you are looking for exposure to the fast growing British drift market, drop him a mail at glaisterps13@aol.com to discuss further.

Here's wishing John all the best with the BDC a mere few weeks away!

Let's Get Down

Found this gem about downforce in the Nissan Infiniti Car Owners' Club.

BrianHarte, one of the forum members, posted an informative Drift Tengoku article that ran a test on the different amount of downforce generated by different rear wings on a zenki S14

Here's the overall results as shown on the graph, plotting downforce generated (dependant variable) against speed (independent variable) up to 150 km per hour. As shown from the lowermost gray line, the stock s14 with no wing experienced negative downforce (i.e. 'lift') of almost 40 kg! Now you know why your car feels 'floaty' when you are zooming along the North South Highway...

From ascending amount of downforce generated, we have the following results:

Stock wing generates a measly 3 kg of downforce. Well I suppose its better than having lift...

B Wave wangan/whale tail wing generates a surprisingly high 36 kg of downforce. My guess is that Wangan style wings have to compromise between downforce and top speed.

The Cusco GT wing shown above generates decent downforce of 62 kg, about the same amount of stability you will get if you have an average sized passenger in your car. Now we are talking...

Another Cusco GT Wing, the '3D' model with higher stands (from what I can gleam from the Japanese words) tops the comparison with 89kg of downforce.

If you analyse the data, some important findings can be observed:

1) Whether ancilliary aero aids like front carnards generate meaningful downforce. The test car has front carnards but as you can see the wingless S14 is still experiencing lift. However, no test was done on a wingless AND carnard-less S14 so we can tell how much downforce the carnards generated on their own. But I will venture a guess that it's not that alot.

2) Automotive aerodynamic design has come a long way and performance cars nowadays generate downforce right out of the box. I tried searching for data on the amount of downforce a R35 GTR generated but could only find that it has a low "coefficient of drag of 0.27" and "negative lift (downforce) generated at speed". A more specific quantification comes from the Dodge Viper ACR which generates 1000 lbs (454.5 kg!!) of downforce at 150 mph (240km/h)!

3) The most important finding: Wings are functional even at normal driving speeds. A common misconception (which I have previously as well) is that wings only come into effect at high speeds. But the data show that at 90km/hr (expressway speeds in Singapore), a S14 with a Cusco 3D GT wing is generating 40 kg of downforce versus the wingless version experiencing about 15kg of lift! That's a significant difference of 55 kg at normal speeds...

Some would argue about GT wings being too ricer for day-to-day cars. While I wouldn't necessarily disagree, at least the data shown here is that they are without a doubt, functional.

Ichigo-faced, F430-rear

After Vincent's GT-style S15-front 180sx, we bring you another hybrid 180sx. The ichigo front conversion needs no further introduction. This particular 180sx sports a C-West front bumper which is a common JDM (Johor Domestic Model!) ripoff from our neighbours up north.

F430-inspired rear is a pretty cool idea. Guess which exhaust is there for aesthetic purposes only? Overall, unique looking car. Props.

For Love of the Game

The modifying game that is.

The last two weeks have been the most frustrating time of my life where ownership of the S15 is concerned. In short, the tuning and wiring were screwed, resulting in the S15 breaking down 4 times in a row and I had to have it towed 3 times, including once on the highway at midnight...

Sometimes I really wonder whether driving a modified Japanese performance car is worth all the hassles - the pathetic fuel consumption, the erratic unreliability (I mentioned half in jest to my girlfriend at times that my theme song should be Coldplay's "Fix You"), the endless attention from traffic cops......

Goddamn it, my S15 couldn't even make it for the Silvia Club Singapore shoot which I organized last Sunday.

Finally, I got everything fixed by ST Powered - new ECU harness wiring, properly set-up earth wiring in the engine bay, new NGK spark plugs, Splitfire coilpacks and a fresh tune by Furukawa (more on his renowned tuning in a later post).

When I finally fired her up, blipping the throttle a few times for good measure and felt the roar of the HKS exhaust reverberate throughout the cabin, my doubts went away.

When I heel-and-toe and power through the corners with a sh*t-eating grin on my face, I consider myself blessed to enjoy the thrill of a turbo-charged, well-sorted, gorgeous-looking, rear wheel drive sports coupe.

They just don't make 'em like they used to anymore.