On the latest episode of Speed Academy’s DRIFT CAR BUILD OFF, Peter and Dave hook the 350z up with some Konig Dekagram Wheels as well as other accessories! Make sure to tune in and let us know what you think…
Speed Academy is running Konig Dekagram in 18×9.5 front et 25 and 18×10.5 et 18 rear. The Konig Dekagram is Flow Formed.
On this episode of The BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST: QUICK SHIFT edition, we are joined by Formula Drift Pro driver, Matt Vankirk!
Currently in the running to be Formula Drift Pro “ROOKIE OF THE YEAR 2018” (let’s go Matt!!!). We go back to FDNJ, where we got a chance to chat with Matt about how it felt to battle against his idol (Aasbo), how the mechanical grip of his car makes up for it being underpowered and making the transition from Pro2 to Pro! Also, he gives some direction to the grassroots drivers looking to create a competitive program!
If you like what you hear and see, please consider subscribing! We’re on iTunes, Google Play and of course the full video version of every episode is on YouTube! Thank you!
You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Stitcher:
Thanks for listening!
FOLLOW:
Matt Vankirk: @mattvankirk18
https://www.instagram.com/mattvankirk18/
Scott Weiss (Konig): @scott_Konig
https://www.instagram.com/scott_konig/
FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 ST. LOUIS – ROUND 2 | Aug 10th and 11th
Formula Drift St. Louis have moved to a new track and the drivers from PRO and PRO2 are dealing with the change! Below is Adam Knapik’s recap how he dealt with Gateway Motorsport Park track in Round 2 of FDSTL PRO 2 series!
“So after the first round in Atlanta there was plenty of work to be done on the car. I had to pull out the “temporary” motor, redo the cooling system and wire up new more powerful fans, redo the engine harness wiring, install an OS Giken differential into a 350z pumpkin for a taller final drive, install said pumpkin into the car, rebuild a new motor, get it tuned, and all the other little things in between to make a car work. With such a long laundry list of things to do I set out to work as soon as I got back. Since there was a 3 month break from round 1 to round 2 I had a good amount of time to get a lot of things finished up. But as always time flies by way faster than you think it will. After getting the car almost completely finished up my tuner noticed that my alternator was starting to die. I ordered a new high amp alternator that came the day before packing up and heading out to St. Louis. Unfortunately, this alternator came dead out of the box. I was so excited to slap it on only to see that it wasn’t putting out any volts. Since we where about to leave and no one could get me a replacement before I had to head out, we packed up the car and figured we would try to figure it out on the drive to St. Louis. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get a high amp aftermarket one in time but I found out that an OEM Pontiac GTO (04-06) alternator would bolt up with the correct spacing and put out the right amount of AMPs that the car would need, and only some minor wiring would be needed. We arrived to the track early and luckily enough there was a junk yard across the street from Gateway Motorsports Park. We didn’t find an alternator, but lucky for us GM uses the same plugs for a lot of harnesses. As for the alternator, no parts store within a 100 mile radius had a replacement, but we had another stroke of luck as someone local on Craigslist was parting a GTO. GOLD! We grabbed the alternator and slapped it on!
The next day was practice followed by qualifying. I was excited to get out there and see how the car ran and handled. In FD it seems like practice is always the hardest on the car. There are at least 30-40 drivers that all want to get in as much practice as possible, meaning that you do one run, and then wait in a line of 30-40. So the car will heat up, and then sit and heat soak for about 15-20 min before running again. But the car’s temp’s held up ok because of the new fans, also all the rewiring for the harness proved itself, as the gauges and logging was working great. Next run out the serpentine belt snapped and I had to pull in. The new alternator had a slightly larger pulled, making the belt a super tight fit. We through on a spare that’s a little longer, but unfortunately it was a bit too long, and we ended up loosing some boost since the belt started slipping. So with that we changed up some pullies to see if we can get the belt a bit tighter, which definitely helped a little. I was able to go out and get a few good runs and was getting more and more confident and then the car lost power and felt like it was running with some dead cylinders. With a massive pit in my stomach I limped the car back to our pit to do a compression test on the car. Luckily the compression check out. We changed out all the plugs, kicked it over, and it purred like new! Nothing but some foaled out plugs.
While working on the motor we noticed that our radiator had a pin hole leak coming from one of the welds. Unfortunately qualifying was starting and with so little time to address it we decided to throw some JB Weld onto it and hope it holds. My first run was super conservative so that I could put a score on the board. The team and I thought it was good enough to at least make the show but with more and more scores coming up we quickly realized we would be on the bubble. So lining up for the second run I knew I had to throw it in much harder. On initiation the slave cylinder failed and it threw off my line. With this being my second qualifying run I tried to make up this error on the last outside sweeper, I went in a little too fast and just barely put a wheel off the track. Since Gateway has grass off the track, if you touch it even a little, you’re going off, and OFF I went. So my first score of 74 would be what we are betting on to get into the show. We watched our position drop slowly, and then with 3 runs to go, we where sitting at 16th. The anxiety was real. Unfortunately we got bumped down to 18th and just like that we where out.
We didn’t make it into the show, but nothing major went wrong with the car, and the team did great under all the pressure. Texas is round 3 and we’re looking to come out swinging! See you soon guys there!”
Adam is running Konig Rennform in 18×9 et 23 all the way around. The Konig Rennform is Flow Formed.
[Not a valid template]On this episode of BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST: FD Edition, Scott and Joey Redmond talk FDSTL and how it all went down! From adjustments to the new St. Louis course(Gateway Motorsport Parkway) to Reeder being better driver than most of the PRO drivers? FDSTL was definitely filled with amazing moments and jam-packed with awesome match-ups. Tune in and give us some feedback!
You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Sound Cloud:
Thanks for listening!
FOLLOW:
Scott Weiss (Konig): Scott_Konig
Joey Redmond (Wrecked Magazine): joeyredmond
Konig Wheels USA Instagram: @konigwheelsusa
FORMULA DRIFT St. Louis, LA – ROUND 6 | August 10th and 11th
Vankirk takes on the Gateway Motorsports Park grid and brings the heat at Formula Drift St. Louis! Still in the lead for “Rookie of the Year”, Matt tells us how it all goes down at FDSTL! Check it out and hope you enjoy…
Formula Drift St.Louis held at Gateway Motorsports Park is a new track to the series! With it being a new track and us in our rookie year with half of the tracks being new to the team, I felt like we had more of a fair fight coming into this round than the others. Before the event we had the track made into Assetto Corsa and was able to try out the car in it to see how our gearing will do etc before we made the venture to the East Coast. Formula Drift saw us on our livestream drifting the track in the game and contacted us to help them with clipping points etc. We thought it was awesome that FD used our car and simulator to help them prepare for St.Louis as they have never seen the track in person. The team and I were excited coming in to this track and left Seattle looking forward to the upcoming weekend!
Before we knew it we were lined up on grid ready for our first practice run on Thursday! After doing half a lap I knew right away there was something wrong with the car especially since how fast this track was, any minor changes in alignment or with the car will feel drastic. After going back to the pit we noticed that the right rear wheel had toe in a quarter of an inch while the driver wheel was zeroed out. Crazily enough I believe it has been like this since right after Atlanta when we hit a wall during a grassroots event we stopped by at Lanier. Lesson learned, we will be checking alignment before every event from now on. After we aligned the car to the best of our abilities we went back on track and completed our first lap! Wow did an alignment make the worlds difference, the car felt a lot more stable and controllable. After our first lap we learned one thing, this track is fast!! After a few more laps and communication between our spotter Craig we were able to dial our line in and enjoyed the fast speed drifting in a few tandems while also adjusting tire pressure. Thursday we ended up doing about 9 laps and decided to call it quits so we don’t run out of our 16 laps before qualifying.
Coming into Friday we decided to focus on our lead runs and make sure we can consistently put down a near 100 point run for the judges. After a few laps we let the car cool down and chatted with some fans before our first qualifying lap. Going into qualifying I was feeling pretty confident, there was only one part of the track I was having troubles with so all my focus was going towards the outer touch in go and transitioning to the last outside zone and keeping the car close to the edge of the track on the last turn. After qualifying we didn’t get the results we wanted but we scored a 78 which put us into the show! We headed to autograph session and that night the team and I talked about what we can do regarding the last turn which the car kept wanting to fall off with the amount of grip we had dialed in the car.
The main event was here and we were facing Chris “The Force” Forsberg! Forsberg is one of the best in the series and has three championship trophies under his belt. We knew this was going to be a tough battle but I was looking forward to it and was glad we got paired up against a great driver. I was looking forward to going against Forsberg because I knew I can drive all out against him with no hesitations and also to prove ourselves that we can compete among the best in the world. Chris and I lined up to the starting grid and my heart was racing. The lights turned on and as they turned off I took off following Forsberg into the first turn as I initiated he straightened up and I almost slid right into him. My spotter and I thought we were going to get the win as we did not see any cones hit or restart flag. I pulled back to the grid and it was a restart so I am assuming he must of hit a cone or jumped the light. On our second start I got a good jump off the line and stayed right next to him going into the initiation. Chris and I were door to door through the first inside clip and also through the second clip going into the straight. I did not let off the entire time and gave everything our car had to keep up with Forsberg on that big fast manji. Going into the outside zone Chris’s line was slightly off and he had to ebrake to bring his car out a bit away from the inside clip, this gave us the opportunity to surge in and get right back on his door through the last turn. Coming out of the last turn I was completely blind in the smoke but we ended up coming out unscaved and what I thought was a great follow run against one of the best!
Knowing we had a good follow I was completely focused and putting an even better lead run in. After following Chris I knew between the first two clips into the straight I can pull away as I had to let off when I followed him. As we came to the entry I initiated and when the car got settled I stayed completely floored through the first and second clips without letting off and went down the straight faster than we have all weekend. We hit all the clips and stayed high on the final turn which we had troubles all weekend doing. Finishing the lap we pulled up to the finish to find out who won the battle. I thought forsure it was going to be at least a one more time after watching the big screen next to us but Forsberg ended up getting the win unanimously which put an end to our weekend. Even though we had lost our battle I could not of been more proud of the team and everyone involved. We put on a great show and an awesome fight against Forsberg and the crowd loved it! We are currently still leading rookie of the year and these next two rounds are going to be crucial for us. I want to thank everyone involved and all the new fans and people we got to meet in St.Louis that are rooting for us! The team and I are looking forward to a great round in Texas!
Cheers,
MVK Racing
Matt is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25mm front and 18×10.5 et 25 rear in Race Bronze. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.
[Not a valid template]FORMULA DRIFT PRO 2 ST. LOUIS – ROUND 2 | August 10th and 11th
With great match-ups and some sick shredding, FDSTL was definitely an awesome watch! Even more excited for us was watching our friend, Travis Reeder leave St. Louis with a 1ST PLACE FINISH in the Pro-2 series. Check out below as Travis breaks-down how he came out on top at FDSTL! Congratulations Travis!
“While sitting here on my couch, stuffing my face with Oreos, I’m trying my hardest to figure out how to sum up Formula Drift St. Louis without writing a novel. An insane event with even more insane results, I don’t know where to start to explain the madness that was FDSTL. And After an exponentially long break between Atlanta and St. Louis, I was chomping at the bit to get back behind the wheel of my car again. A new track and even playing field had me excited to see how the weekend would unfold.
After arriving at the track my team and I jammed through the process of unloading the car, prepping it and getting the pit space organized for the coming week. Later that day with the sun out and the humidity high, we jumped into practice. Right out of the gate we were struggling to find our gear ratio and alignment setting that worked well for the track. The track was extremely fast and had a ton of grip in it, which was difficult at first for the car and I to navigate.
After minimal practice time and not having a setup we were very comfortable with, it was time to go into qualifying. I pulled up to the start line slightly nervous, made my pass and awaited my score. I had been given a 72, which at the time was in the 14th position with a few drivers sitting on lower scores or zeros. As we made our way through the list the scores got higher and we quickly dropped below the 16th position, meaning at that moment, we were not qualified for the top 16. With the pressure now on I took off for my second qualifying run. A score of 78 was given which seeded us in the 14th position for competition the next day. We had barely qualified but the team was glad we were in the show.
My team and I spent some time the night before brainstorming ideas to make the care more drivable for competition and had it buttoned up and ready for top 16 practice. I pulled up to the burnout box to warm tires and had noticed some rain on the windshield, and by the look of the clouds, we new this was just the start. I made a few passes in the rain during practice but before we knew it all hell broke loose. 60+ mph winds, hail and lightening were tearing through Gateway Motorsports Park. We rushed to get the car back to the pits and under cover and during that process almost any equipment or belongings left outside were taking quite the beating. To no one’s surprise, the event was shut down for the rest of the day and pro2 competition was rescheduled for Saturday morning bright and early.
Its 8am Saturday Morning, were on the hot grid and ready to finally kick off top 16 competition! After a couple practice laps we were happy to know that our changes to the car worked and I was feeling confident and ready to get the party started. Our first battle in the top 16 was against Ola Jager, who was the winner of Rd 1 in Atlanta. So, I knew if I wanted to catch him in points, I had to push hard and try to move on to the top 8. I was in the chase position first as I had a lower qualifying score. During my chase I had stayed on his line with a consistent 1-2 car gap and matching angle. In the lead I made a high scoring qualifying run and Ola ended up making a large mistake and straightened off of the touch and go. I was awarded the win unanimously and was moving on to the Great 8!
Coming into the top 8 I was paired against Hooman Rahimi and he was set to lead first based off qualifying position. During my chase run I initiated on his line with good proximity but coming into the power alley towards the touch and go I got lost in the smoke and transitioned slightly late. I ended up putting three tires off in the dirt and receiving an incomplete on my chase run. Luckily during my lead run Rahimi had made a mistake leaving the start line and fell back roughly ten car lengths in the chase position. He was given an incomplete as well for his chase run so it was up to the judges to find a winner based off of lead runs only. The judges had concluded that I had laid down a higher scoring lead run and I was awarded the win, on to the final 4!
Alec Robbins was my opponent coming into the final 4. I knew that if I wanted to get to the podium I had to beat Alec, as he was the highest qualifying driver in the final 4 and would get the third-place trophy no matter what. Once again, I was in the chase position first due to a lower qualifying position. I chased him off the line and initiated a few feet from his door and carried that proximity through the first 2 inner clips and the touch and go but fell off slightly in the last outer zone near the finish. In my lead run, Robbins had fell back on the start and was unable to gain proximity throughout the course. That mixed with my lead run that had minimal mistakes was enough to get me the win and move the team and I to the finals!
Were in the finals! And with no one other than my good friend Dylan Hughes. Dylan had taken me out in the great 8 in Seattle last year so I was looking to level the playing field. In my chase run I knew I had to apply some pressure because Dylan’s car is fast but consistent. I did just that and chased him down on his line with a car length gap for majority of the run. In the lead at the touch and go Dylan had fallen back slightly and wasn’t able to catch back up before the last outer zone and inner clip.
My team and I had won formula drift St. Louis! After struggling with car setup, weather and other unsuspecting variables we had gone from the nearly not qualifying to the top spot on the box! It was an amazing overall event and I can’t wait for Texas next month. Thanks to all my amazing family, friends and sponsors for believing in me and giving the team the support that’s needed to do what we love! As I could not do it without you all.”
Travis is running Konig Ultraforms in 17×9 et 25mm front and 18×9 et 25mm rear. The Konig Ultraforms is Flow Formed.
[Not a valid template]Time Attack Festival at Mantorp Park
The new King of Mantorp!
Last week saw the biggest event of the year for time-attack, the Time Attack Festival and King of Mantorp event in Sweden. The lineup for this years event was the best ever seen with 17 entries for the fastest Unlimited class, among those 17 was some of Europes fastest Time-attack teams including the King of Mantorp 2014 and 2016 European champion Valtonen Motorsport leading the Finnish teams assult, also featured was SMR Porschen that hold the tintop record for 4 years until it was broken by us at the last TANU round.
In between TANU Round 3 and the Time Attack Festival the car saw an upgrade package being launched including new bigger D2 front brake discs following the overheating issues seen at Rd3, new front knuckles with lower weight and further adjusted geometry. The rake angle and overall ride height was changed as well as some minor aero updates. Also a late decision was made to scrap the current boost control strategy that had seen issues all the way from round 1 and never worked to ouor satisfaction. The new boost control Strategy/setup and wastegate settings where implemented on friday/saturday before the race and the car loaded and shipped of to Mantorp.
Sunday – Race day
The warmup was used to fine tune the new boost control at a lower boost setting, after a few visits to the pitlane it was all working fine. For Q1 the boost level was increased to normal setting and some fine tuning was done also here. It was now time for Q2 (3 qualifying rounds in total and then the top 5 would advance to a superlap final deciding the winner). In Q2 the goal was to set 2 quick laps and then do some fine adjustment for Q3 where the record attempt would take place. Due to some incidents on track a full lap on attack could not be completed but at least it was enough to get a feel for the setup.
Coming in to Q3 the boost was raised to the “lap-record” setting new tires where fitted and the car left the pitlane for a 1 lap shootout for a new record. The lap was put down and coming to the line the clock showed 1:13.4 a new lap record by 0.15 se and by far the quickest time of the day so far. However the goal was to go sub 1:13 and the car was much quicker this time around then at Rd3 when the 1:13.5 record was put down. When reviewing the logs from the lap compared with the old record it was obvious that the extreme headwinds down the long Mantorp straight was the cause, the top speed had decreased by 25km/h and almost a second was lost over the straight alone.
Time for the superlap final. At the courtesy of being quickest in qualifying we were the last car to go out on track. Due to a runoff in the lower class before the Unlimited class the finals were running late and the 2 warm up laps where shortened to only 1, also the headwind was still super bad although slightly better than in Q3.
The lap was started and by the first sector the delta showed -0,1 sec. Coming to the end of the long straight the headwind was obviously less and the delta showed -0.4 sec. Coming to the braking after the long straight the wind gusts had been causing issues all day with some big aero instabilities during braking so some margin was left for the hard braking zone not to risk throwing the overall victory away. Entering the final sector the delta showed a estimated laptime of -0.35 sec (1:13.2) when coming up to the line the timing showed a laptime of 1:12.6 crushing our own record by 0.9 sec after a mega last sector. The time also meant we won the overall event by almost a 2 second margin.
The feeling after the final was great, this was the first event when the car performed 100% without any issues all day, also the boost control was now working perfect and the upgrade package launched before the event did what was intended. All in all a perfect race day (disregarding the windy conditions).
It´s now two races left this season and we dare to promise two more lap records if the weather is on our side.
Frederik is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25mm all around in Matte Grey. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.
[Not a valid template]On this special edition episode of BEHIND THE WHEEL PODCAST, Scott and Joey Redmond of Wrecked Magazine discuss what went down at Formula Drifts Seattle Round 5 in Evergreen Speedway and much more! Tune in and give us some feedback!
You can also, subscribe or download the podcast on our website, iTunes, Google Play, Youtube & Sound Cloud:
Thanks for listening!
FOLLOW:
Scott Weiss (Konig): Scott_Konig
Joey Redmond (Wrecked Magazine): joeyredmond
Konig Wheels USA Instagram: @konigwheelsusa
TANU: Kinnekulle Ring – ROUND 3 | June 29th and 30th
The Big Lap Record!
This weekend it was time for round 3 of TANU this time at the most legendary track in Scandinavia, Mantorp Park.
The team headed up to the track early on Friday morning after working late on Thursday to get the car ready (late arrival of parts for the new silencer setup). Having found and fixed the boost/missfire issue from Rd2 the team had big hopes for the weekend. Going out in practice session 1 the car felt good and the engine was running very nicely at full boost with no issues at all. However the joy was short as on the 3rd lap at full boost in 5th gear there was a huge boom noise and the engine lost all power. Coming into the pits it was found out that it was not to bad as it was only the pressure hose from the outlet of the turbo that had simply burst under the boost pressure. A new pressure hose was fitted and the team headed out for practice 3. However during the first full throttle run on the straight the same boom and boost pressure was gone again. This time however the hose hadn´t burst but simply slid of the pipe. The problem with the spare hose was that it was slightly shorter then the original hose that was secured by double clamps at each end. However this was not possible with the shorter hose. The team tried some different solution to fix it for practice 4 but to no affect so it was simply to pack it up for the day. Meanwhile in our hometown Street Performance had already prepared and delivered a big box of all different kind of premium pressure hoses from their shop for the team to bring with us on Saturday morning.
Saturday – Race day
With new (better) hoses fitted and secured the team headed out for the warmup, Unfortunately one of the Pro cars in the heat before had a engine failure and poured out oil on the track. The Xtreme Rescue Team that TANU uses during their events did a great and quick job (as usual) to fix the track but unfortunately the delay meant only 1 warmup lap could be done. At least it was enough to see that the hoses stayed on at full boost.
Now it was time for Q1.
Coming out to Q1 not a single complete lap had been run at full attack but fearing that more issues could occur there was no gambling and a fast lap was to be put down directly. Two warmup laps where done and then the first attack lap was started. The car felt amazing and coming over the finish line the dash showed the time 1.14.49 beating the old track record of 1.14,6. A second lap was started but in the second corner however the next issue arrived as the brake fluid boiled and all brake performance was gone. It was simply the fact that at the fast Mantorp and running at the higher power the front discs was simply to small to handle the engery put in and thus boiling the brake fluid (to much weight savings). The entire team was quite shocked that the (supposedly hardest to beat) record had been broken on the first attack lap. It was now time to crush it….
The car was pitted and prepared for Q2. Knowing we only had 1 lap to put in a good time the tire pressures was adjusted accordingly. However the troubles was not over as during the warmup lap something in the front suspension broke in a right hand corner. After coming back into the pit it was found out that the wheel bearing hub had split into two. The team went to work to get the car ready for the Final and it was rolled out of the garage just 5 min before the closing of check in.
Winning the race was ofcourse of big importance so to not risk it the brakes was not used at all during the warmup lap thus having cold tires starting the attack lap (impossible to get enough heat in the front racing slicks without braking). It was a full attack lap and coming up on half lap distance the time was almost exactly the same as the record lap from Q1. During the second half of the lap the tire temp came up and the lap could be finished of almost 1 second quicker meaning a new lap record of 1.13.525 destroying the old record. The second lap was started but in the last corner before the long straight the brake fluid boiled again and the lap had to be aborted. The time up on the previous lap in the first sector? A whopping 0.8 seconds.
The team is super happy with another win and to crush the overall tintop track record. Regards to the what could of been lap, don´t worry in 5 weeks time it´s time for the biggest event of the year at TANUs time attack festival at, you guessed it Mantorp Park.
So if you want to see a new track record be sure to save the date, also the rumors says an update package is being fitted for the time attack festival. Don´t miss it!
#UltimateEVO #No1 #TANU2018
A big thank you to all the amazing people involved in this Ultimate EVO build, without you this would not be possible!!!
Frederik is running Konig Hypergrams in 18×9.5 et 25mm all around in Matte Grey. The Konig Hypergram is Flow Formed.
[Not a valid template]Wheel & Tire Giveaway – Caleb Quanbeck
Konig Wheels U.S.A. and Tire Streets have teamed up with Caleb Quanbeck to give a lucky participant a chance to win a set of Wheels and tires for FREE! Below are the rules you must follow to be eligible for this giveaway!
TO ENTER:
1. Follow @konigwheelusa and @tirestreets
2. Repost / Share the image below
3. Use hashtag #quangiveaway
Giveaway rule points:
