A little over a week ago the National Drag Racing Commission in Jamaica held its fourth staging of its drag challenge series for the year 2015. I was lucky enough to be able to attend this meet and I must say it was a great meet overall. Check out the clips I was able to get of the days happenings. The event saw several records being broken and each class from 16 secs right down to the 8 sec class had intense competition.
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How many of us starlet owners has what it takes to push our machine to the edge like the video below.
Leave a comment if you would or have... Cheers
The little turbo charged 1.5L Toyota engine has been tested time and time again and has proven its worth on more than one occasions. The video below shows just how much bang for your buck you can get from a tiny power house of an engine. Not only does this Toyota starlet put out in horsepower, but it also manages to maintain a sleeper look down to hub caps that has to be removed when the car got on the dyno. Having been out of the starlet world for a while since selling my previous car the page has been pretty much abandoned. I have however in recent times acquired a new starlet and have decided to add its journey in my hands to the page. It has been previously owned by two good friends of mine and when my last friend decided to part ways with it I was more than glad to take it off his hands. It is truly a joy to drive even though the built engine is yet to be tuned. My plans for this car is to enter as many events as I can and have as much fun as I can.
More info on the car can be found by clicking here : New starlet The road to this meet was one that was filled with a lot of doubt. A week prior to the meet the car showed signs of overheating. This had me thinking if it was a wise idea to take part in the upcoming meet. Having missed the April meet however I was feeling the itch to race and with encouragment from my teammates I gave in and decided to race. I made some adjustments to the car to address the heating issue with the help of my brother (crew cheif) and headed out. Day one started out with the usual scramble to get registered and scrutineered, that however was quickly handled by my teammates(thanks guys) and so I could now focus on the task at hand qualifying in a good position. At the close of qualifying I was fourth place on the grid and ready to go. The first race did not go all that well for me but I was just enjoying being out on the track. The rains came and seeing that this event was a two day event, with the following day carrying more spectator support I decided to preserve the car for the following day. Day two had more to offer. Our race was pretty early on the schedule which is good as it ment no rain. Then came the moment of truth; Because I finished 10th place the day before means I would be starting in 10th place on day two. This did not bother me as I was very focused. I had a game plan and I was going to stick to it. The race it self was exciting. Had a couple of close calls, near passes but all in all a good race. When the smoke cleared and the times checked I ended up with first place as I stuck to the game plan and did not break out of my class. Looking forward to August..... Click here to check out some shots from the day.The final dover meet took place over the past weekend. Day one was the worst I have had at dover.
I reached to dover somewhat early, just at the beginning of free practise. I hurriedly got registered as I wanted to get a few practice laps in. Got through the paper work and was now waiting to be scrutineered, this however proved to be quite a task. After spending two hours chasing the scrutineer we finally got scrutineered by this time however free practise had already ended. Now qualifying for my class was at 1oclock in the afternoon so I was suited up from 12:45 and sitting in my car only to hear that its been pushed back to 1:30 to allow people that were late for another class to qualify. This I thought was grossly unfair because if it were the class I was racing in we would not be allowed time for being late as our class seem to be looked down on because we are using our street cars to race. Finally we were given the go ahead. I did a good deal of laps to practise and to refamilarize myself with the track. When qualifying was over I qualified with the slowest time. This was due to two reasons. Firstly I wasnt pushing as hard in qualifying as there were only four of us in the turbocharged class at qualifying which means even if I qualify last i was still going to be fourth on the grid come the next day. Race day was better than the day before. Things went according to the schedule for the most part and we were on the track for the first race close to mid-day. The first race I had one plan that was to stick with the top three cars. For the first three laps this was achieved but on the end of the third lap I notice the car temperature going up so I had to decide; do I continue to press hard and prepare for engine damage or do I fall back and preserve the engine and try again in race 2. In the end I decided to fall back and coasted for the remainder of the race. Now in addition to the heat problem it seemed I had a faulty plug wire that was causing the car to break up at high RPM’s so trying to push the car hard was futile. The second race was not much different After a few weeks of putting it off, I finally made it to the dyno over the weekend. I have been wanting to make the trip for a while now but something always seem to come up causing me to put it off.
After some minor works the day before to correct some exhaust leaks, I was finally ready to put the car on the dyno and have the Super AFC tuned. I contacted SPI (Starlet Performance International) to carry out the tuning duties and amids the pouring rain we strapped the car on the dyno and began the process. After a couple of base passes we realised that the line to the boost gauge had loosend and was causing some issues. That was quickly remeded and we on our way again until we realised that a plug wire was faulty. We were able to borrow one from a starlet that was also at the tyno to be tuned. With all that corrected we were able to squeeze out 173 HP on 10 psi with a smooth air to fuel ratio graph. This may not strick one as some great figures but it was good enough for me as my concept as well as that of the tunner is to have reliable horse power seeing as I planned to hit the tracks next week at dover. Since the tune the car feel a whole lot better. More responsive and a whole lot smoother through the RPM's. I hope to do a video as soon as I get the time so stay tuned for that. Want to express thanks to all those who helped out especially Jameil and Keeflyn. Thanks also to Spi and Lance for taking care of the tuning duties. Check out some photos from the day here Entering this Dover I had two objectives:
1. Complete both races 2. Get a feel of what it was like to race amoung the pack (as the last time I raced from the back). Thankfully I was able to achieve both objectives. On the first day during qualifying the car had an issue where the check engine light would come once I decided to do a hot lap and once it was on the car would not clear. However once I return to the pit and switch off the engine and switch it on again all seemed well. I managed to complete qualifying and got fourth place on the grid. Race day went smoothly. Car performed exactly as expected and gave no problems. When the dust setteled after the races I managed to pick up first place in race one and second place in race two with first place going to a fellow JAGDYB Friendship Racing team member and starlet driver as well. All in all this was a good experience and one to remember. Im now shifting focus on prepraing for then next meet in October. Hope things go as good or even better. Its been a while since I have posted but that was due to the fact that nothing much was really going on as I was gathering funds to carry out a couple of modifications.
Well since my last post I have done a few things. Firstly I am now running full synthetic oil ( Amsoil) which seems to be doing the job just fine as the car runs nice and smooth. I have also repaired my gearbox. Was having some issues with forth gear and thought it would have been an easy fix.It turned out that there was a lot that needed to be done as there several worn parts that had to be replaced. Finally I have managed to get my hands on a Greddy Profec B Spec 2 boost controller. I am yet to fully configure this new piece of equipment and from what I have been reading up it might take a while to get it right. All in all I am quite happy with the progress i have made thus far. I still have a few things on my to do list but one by one I hope to achieve them all. The first dexterity event for the year 2010 kicked of last Sunday February 7.
The event was a good one. The track was well laid out and fun to drive. Though spectator turn out was a little low in comparison to other events, it was a good turn out none the less. The event was dedicated to the memory of a marshal in the motor sport arena who was tradically take from us a few weeks ago. There was neck and neck compition all day long with a constant battle for the top spot. I too was fighting hard for a podium finish but at the end when the dust settled I just barely missed it and finished fourth overall with the top spot going to the driver of a neat little blue starlet. There were lots of rookies at this event and the team of which I’m apart JAGDYB Friendship Racing Represented well. Looking forward to the next event in Portland. Click here to see some pics of starlets in action at the event |
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September 2018
About the AuthorI am a Starlet enthusiast who has been previlaged to own 4 starlets to date and have picked up a few things about these little vehicles. There is always more to learn and im always willing to share info and thats what my aim is with this site. Categories |