Been a long time since I updated here.
I have been daily driving my NB Miata for 6 years, but it is showing age, the A/C stopped working, and there is an exhaust leak that I can't seem to nail down, both made it not ideal for daily driving through the summer. So I ended up buying a nice daily off of Duke's sister, a well maintained tough a bit rough on the outside 2002 Toyota Solara. I call it my grandpa car, but I actually really like it. Comfy, A/C & heat work great, decent fuel mileage, nice big trunk. It's been solid since July, but a few weeks ago the water pump gave out. Fortunately I was very close to home and made it back. I replaced the timing belt and water pump over this past weekend, and am back to driving it again.
The weekend before last, me and the guys had a trip planned to go to Drift Evergreen. I took Motley, and it was a good time, though I didn't do quite as well as I had hoped. Drifting at Carlisle has gone well the last two years with it, so I had high hopes, but a combination of things made it less ideal.
1. I kinda forgot till day two that to REALLY get into the drift, I have to steer into it more, the car won't do it all on it's own. After I remembered that, I spun out a lot less.
2. The track as Evergreen has a LOT more rubber than Carlisle, so I had a lot more grip, which was not helpful for a stock power Miata to spin tires...
3. Knowing that I had stock power I wish I had thought ahead to try and assist myself more on that front with some alignment adjustments. Right now my rear Tires are either at 0* or -1* Camber, if I put more camber into it, less contact patch = less grip = easier to spin tires. Also, my rear toe currently is right on 0, I have heard that if I gave it a touch of toe in, that would also create less grip as I guess the rear tires would basically be constantly fighting each other.
I'll have to do my best to remember these things for next time. I always feel like more power would be awesome (and it would), but I also know that others drift stock power Miata's better than me so I have room to learn still. Besides the fact that I don't really have the chunk to put down for more power right now.
Also, I am keeping an eye out for the Kia ring and pinion that fits the Miata diff for a 4.77 ratio as that would also help here.
Here's a couple pictures from the event:
