Kelsey’s drifting for August 2019 – The “Fix” is in!

August was another busy month of drifting for team Drift Chick.  First up was Round 3 of Formula Drift Pro2 competition.  Having developed a new method for mounting our power steering pump, and having finally identified and resolved our round 1 crash related issues, we were optimistic heading into the event.

Formula Drift St. Louis

We arrived in St. Louis August 6, ready to head out to the World Wide Technology Raceway for Formula Drift. The team felt good with the new power steering set up as we had a chance to do some quick, but short, testing before we departed and all appeared to be good.  The new set up, which we reviewed in the June/July newsletter, dramatically reduced power steering pump speed and should make a big improvement in pump reliability.

After checking and prepping the car Wednesday, Kelsey started the first of two practice sessions early Thursday afternoon.  With all drivers seeing the new St. Louis track layout for the first time, everyone was taking it easy in the early runs, feeling out the new course. Kelsey looked OK her first run, but upon returning to the hot pit she noted the steering had stiffened up. We were all quite disappointed with this turn of events. Given two practice sessions were scheduled, the team decided to forgo the rest of the first session to head back to the pits to more thoroughly check the car. Given the pump seemed to be working we were at a loss as to the cause of the stiffness. We changed the steering rack in the event that was the problem and carefully flushed, bled and rechecked the system.

Kelsey headed out for the second practice session. For her first run, the steering was fine, but suddenly it stiffened once again.  At this point we realized the problem was heat related, but were still not sure the cause.  So we improvised. After each run Kelsey shut the car down once back to the starting grid. The extraordinary crew happily pushed the car all the way to the start line. When ready to go, Kelsey fired up the car and took a run. The bandaid solution to manage heat was working and she managed to get in a few more practice runs. But, on this new course, we feared missing the first practice session would be a real disadvantage.

Early Thursday evening it came time to qualify and we continued to manage the heat problem as we did during practice. Unfortunately, the loss of a critical practice session was evident as Kelsey failed to qualify in the highly competitive field.

On Friday we spent more time investigating the heat issue. We now had a theory and we removed the steering shaft assembly to test it.  Sure enough, we found that as the steering shaft heated the shaft would bind in the bushing that holds the shaft in place. After Round 2 in May we replaced the shaft and bushing asthey were impacted by the severe Round 1 crash. It may well be the new shaft was just ever so slightly larger than the steering shaft we replaced and heat from our exhaust manifold now heated the shaft just enough to expand and bind in the bushing. Kelsey attended two other events after the shaft change, prior to St. Louis, and experienced this very problem to some degree. Not realizing the cause, we assumed we still had pump problems during these events. We even changed pumps at these events, which did not help once the car heated up again. We also thought significant change in pump mounting we made priuor to St. Louis had solved the pump problem (it did).  Little did we know it was the bushing.

The steering fix is in!

Upon returning from St. Louis we implemented a few changes.  We slightly enlarged the bushing to allow more room for thermal expansion. We also removed an exhaust manifold and applied a ceramic thermal barrier coating to help reduce heating of the shaft.  After completing these steps we then tested the car at Orlando Speed World. During the test we allowed the to car idle while changing tires between test runs to simulate competition conditions and to provide the maximum heat input to the steering shaft.  The results were good. No binding.  But, the ultimate test before competition would be the Grid Life event.

Gridlife South

Next up was the GRIDLIFE South 2019 Music & Motorsports Festival held August 23 through 25. The event was held at the beautiful Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. With a tremendous crowd on hand, a number of different motorsports were brought together with a broad array of musical talent to again create one of the best festivals in the U.S. Of course, most fans came to see the drifting. And, with a number of amazing drivers, the drifting did not disappoint.

Over the three day event Kelsey had a few sessions each day to drift the car.  This was a great opportunity to really test the changes made to steering set up. We are thrilled to report the issue seems to have been resolved as Kelsey had no issues whatsoever with the steering bind we experienced in St. Louis.  Overall, an excellent weekend and excellent event!

Moving Ahead

Next up is Round 4 of Formula Drift Pro2 which will be held at the Texas Motor Speedway September 12 through 14.  This will be the season finale and we are looking forward to finally having the car working well for the event!  Preparation is now underway with the primary focus being placed on our transmission which we just removed and inspected. We determined some gears will need to be replaced to help assure reliability. We are hoping hurricane Dorian, which is headed our way, won’t affect parts deliveries or our ability to complete repairs and maintenance before we depart for Texas on September 10.

Looking Good

Kelsey’s Voodoo Ride S14 always looks great for photos. How do we do it? Prior to and during each event the car gets some much needed TLC from a number of the amazing Voodoo Ride detailing products. The Crew Chief is quite impressed with the spray detailer and glass cleaner.  Check them out at VoodooRide.com.

As always, we will continue to get out there to compete hard and to constantly learn and improve.

All the best to each of you!
Kelsey (aka Drift Chick) and Dan Rowlings

www.driftchick.com
www.facebook.com/KelseyRowlings
https://www.instagram.com/kelseyrowlings/

Kelsey is running Konig Hypergrams in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9.5 et 25mm rear. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.