RC Drifting in North Carolina

Last week I took a trip to North Carolina to visit a good friend of mine. While I was there we made sure to get in a full night of drifting at his friend's warehouse:

Don't Call It a Comeback

Active Countersteer Kit *Ver. 2* for TA05

This weekend I received the new Active Hobby TA05 countersteer kit:
Active did a great job machining the pulley. It slides easily onto the spur gear holder, and there isn't a hint of play once it's in place:
I opted not to use the belt included with the kit and used a spare TA05 IFS-R belt (#54045) instead, which fits perfectly without any modifications like I had hoped. This is great news because IFS-R belts are readily available on eBay and Tamiya USA's e-store:
My driving impressions should be posted within the next couple of days. Unfortunately, because of bad weather and a busy weekend, I haven't been able to spend more than ten minutes trying it out.

Drift Gettogether

Yesterday afternoon a few friends and I got together for a small drift session. Here are some of the pictures I took throughout the day:

Ai Circuit in Kasai, Japan

While browsing Yodo's Drift Blog last week, I noticed a picture of him standing on what appeared to be a 1/10th scale mountain pass. After doing some searching over the weekend, I learned that it was indeed a 1/10th scale mountain pass at Ai Circuit in Kasai, Hyogo, Japan. The track opened in April of this year and, next to the mountain pass, has a standard drift track as well. Enjoy the pictures, courtesy of RC-ART Blog.

Under Construction:



Completed:

TA05 Countersteer Setup

Last year my friend Sunny introduced me to countersteer drifting, but it wasn't until recently that I decided to give it a real try. With a countersteer setup the chassis' rear wheels spin faster than the front wheels, which transforms its handling characteristics to those of a rear-wheel-drive car. This allows for more countersteer to be applied while drifting. To achieve this effect, a smaller diff pulley and larger center pulley is installed for the rear belt, and vice versa for the front belt. So far I've only changed the pulleys for the rear belt:

Tamiya 18T pulley (#53989):
XRAY belt tensioner (#303071):
Tamiya 32T pulley (#50877):

New Pulleys

A month or two after installing the Square Drift Conversion on my TA05, I noticed the pulleys started turning yellow. It wasn't really a big deal at first, but the yellower they got, the more it annoyed me. I don't think anyone else even noticed them, but to me they stuck out like sore thumbs. After almost a year of this, I couldn't take it anymore. I ordered a set of black "Limited Edition" pulleys, and when I was done installing them, I wondered why I waited so long to replace them.

Old pulleys:
New pulleys installed:

Arpil 4th Drift Session

Here are some pictures from yesterday's drift session at Warrick's Hobby Superstore. Despite being one of the hottest days of the year, there was nonstop drifting all day long:View from the Drivers Stand:

Tamiya BMW 320si - Photo Shoot

Yesterday I took the car out for an "official" photo shoot. Here are the results:

HPI Toyota Levin - Completed

Some of you might remember this body I started a while ago but never officially finished. I wanted to try something a little different, so I painted it inside and out to give it a primered look. It came out a little lighter than I anticipated, but I was still happy with the results.

To finish the job I recently added a custom painted muffler from ABC Hobby (with custom exhaust piping), Tamiya side mirrors, and a set of SpeedWorks RS wheels: