Chase Bays goes to Drift Week!

Chase Bays goes to Drift Week!

Written by Christian Niezgoda ( @kaizokuchristian )

Drift Week has become a huge name and part of drifting in North America, but some folks are still learning what it is. Drift Week is a cross-state adventure where you street drive your drift car to multiple tracks and then drift those tracks. For Drift Week 7, there were nine track days. You are not allowed a trailer or support vehicle once the adventure has started. You are, however, allowed to trailer to the first track and home from the last track. We opted to street drive the entire trip. 

A group of friends and I built a 1997 BMW M3 for the trip in a matter of weeks. The build was full of parts I felt were necessary to make the car reliable enough to do nine track days and over 4000 miles of street driving. 

One of the most important things to having a reliable car is keeping all the fluids maintained and sealed up, such as engine oil, power steering fluid, brake fluid and coolant/water. While thinking of what this car would need to be ready for the trip, I immediately thought of Chase Bays. I knew I needed reliable and high-quality products to manage my fluids and make it through this trip. These products included:

• Chase Bays Dual Piston Brake Booster Delete
• Chase Bays Power Steering Kit with Cooler
• Chase Bays Raised Inline Filler Neck (to delete that pesky expansion tank)
• Chase Bays Clutch Line
• Chase Bays Handbrake
• Chase Bays Handbrake Brake Line Kit
• Chase Bays Coolant Overflow
• Chase Bays Windshield Washer Reservoir
• Chase Bays Engine Oil Cooler
• Chase Bays Oil Catch Can

All of these products were super straightforward to install, which was great given our timeline of three weeks to complete the car and hit the road.

Our Drift Week trip started in Boise, Idaho, with our first destination being Tucson, Arizona. After two successful days at Musselman Honda Circuit, we headed to Southern California. There, we had five total track days at three different tracks. The last leg took us to Tooele, Utah, for the final two track days at Utah Motorsports Campus. Then, it was time to return home. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, you can prep a car as much as possible, but that is a lot of driving and track days piled up next to each other. As anticipated, my fluid systems were flawless, and the brakes were insanely consistent on the track and the thousands of miles spent street driving. I could hardly remember what the boosted setup felt like because I loved the manual brakes so much. The power steering system stayed cool and consistent while pushing the car to its limits. 

Thanks to the Chase Bays Oil Cooler, the engine oil temperature was easily managed throughout the trip. Removing that troublesome BMW expansion tank was helpful. We remedied this by using the Chase Bays Upper Water Neck and welding it to the thermostat housing. Then we installed the overflow tank for the venting side of the system. We still were struck with a challenge as the 225k mile head gasket decided it had finally had enough. The compression ring between cylinders 5 and 6 had failed and caused a misfire. 

This is where another aspect of Drift Week came into play—community. We were in an Airbnb with some great folks, including Kevin and Ryan from Canada. We hardly knew them before the trip, but this adventure was not only track days and drifting but meeting new friends and building awesome relationships with those people through drifting! We hitched a ride with them and gathered all the parts to perform a head gasket repair in the garage of our Victorville Airbnb. We saw some amazing places such as Pelican Parts, Hoonigan, and Moon Eyes. Ultimately, we fixed the car. We missed a few track days due to it, but we were back at it before long.

Another thing that helped this repair be so much simpler was the simplicity of the Chase Bays parts we had installed. The Motorsport Dual Piston Manual Brake made pulling the intake manifold a breeze since the brake booster was no longer there. The cooling system was nice and simple since the expansion tank was now gone. So many aspects of the engine bay had been simplified thanks to the Chase Bays products, which made working in the bay much easier.

Once we completed the Southern California tracks, we headed up north to Utah. There, we hit a bunch of snow on the final track days. The brakes shined here as they worked just as well in the frigid cold as in the warmer southern weather (we missed the California snow track day). I could control the car consistently with left foot braking thanks to the easy-to-manage manual brakes provided by the DBBE. I could throw big entries in the wet and use the foot brake to slow the car without just locking up the brakes or jabbing them as inconsistently as you can with a vacuum-assisted brake setup.

In conclusion, we built an amazing car that was an absolute joy to drive, even with some really old high-mile bones. The parts from Chase Bays helped keep the car cool and consistent throughout the entire 4000+ road miles and 7 track days. Not a bad way to spend a week, if I do say so myself.

How Do Manual Brakes Feel?

How Do Manual Brakes Feel?

I would argue that the most talked about topic when it comes to manual brakes, is what do they feel like? There are a few variables that determine this, but in short, they feel great. A lot of times people will state the pedal is to hard, or it feels like the car wont stop.  If you are feeling this, something is wrong. A proper manual brake setup (matched ratio with master cylinder bore size, good pad compound, and Front / Rear Bias Adjustment) will net a great pedal feel with the exact same braking every time.

The pedal will feel a little more firm than a brake booster variant, but not in a negative way. The brake boosted variants always have a lot more travel than a manual style and will be significantly more sensitive to input.  So over the years, people have the muscle memory for that and think that is normal.  A properly sorted manual braking system will only feel slightly stiffer than the booster version, in a good way.

The modulation of max braking just before lockup is where manual brakes really thrive. We call it the 90-99% zone. Finding the exact level of leg pressure to get that exact threshold is just not possible with power brakes, as stated above they’re too sensitive which create inconsistency. So YES the 90-99% zone is a little more leg effort than power brakes but that’s what makes it so great. This is massively to our benefit in finding the right leg force every time. Even on a daily driver, it will feel more consistent and positive than the alternative.

In summary, properly sorted manual brakes are easy to drive on the track and street. There are many benefits as we have discussed previously, to a manual braking setup.  You will be very pleased with the drivability and on track performance from a manual braking setup.

How Manual Brakes Improve Lap Times

How Manual Brakes Improve Lap Times

11 minute read

By Bryan Leonard, Pro Race Car Driver and Chase Bays Builds Manager
https://www.instagram.com/bryan_leonard_racing/

The fact is, manual brakes are on the fastest road race cars in the world. From IMSA to F1. But how is this possible!? You read online it was like trying to put your foot through a brick wall! How exactly can manual brakes improve lap times?

The major point I drive home to all those that I coach; consistency. If you can be a consistent driver and make decisions with intention rather than reaction, you are setting yourself up for success. So to be fast we have to be consistent drivers. We are the throttle, brake, and steering actuators on a car.

That means we need those things to be consistent. Throttle is generally consistent (unless you get into DBW with throttle shaping but thats not for this convo). Steering can be consistent if it is either manual, electronic, or properly cooled and managed hydraulic power steering. We also assume our suspension setup is correct and not out of alignment, producing consistency there too.

Braking consistency, this is the last step. I have and will always stand by the comment: braking is the hardest thing to do to extract a lap. How you get on the brakes, how long you are on them, when you release them, the time frame you release them in coupled with steering angle. That's hard stuff.

There is a reason why you see Miatas at the track beating up Corvettes and Porsches. Of course there is the driver mod, but doesn't that mean the Miata driver is utilizing the brakes more effectively? Because they certainly are in a lesser power car.

Now here's how we pull it off. I spoke of consistency earlier, we need to be proactive not reactive with everything we do. In order to accomplish this, we have to have a consistent pedal. The manual brake is the surest way to accomplish this. In a prior blog, I used the analogy of pressure from your finger to a wall. Here is a refresher, if I ask you to place your finger on a wall and give me a little pressure, you can do that, if I ask for a lot of pressure you can do that as well. Just because the wall didn't move doesn't mean there was no pressure applied to the wall.

So with a more firm pedal we can produce brake pressure that is consistent and predictable. With this you will be able to repeat results each lap because the pedal feels the same way. You will have the confidence that heading into 10a at Road Atlanta, that your brake pedal will feel exactly the same each time, thus allowing you to play with brake zone depth and releases. As we stated before, its also important how and when you release the brake pressure as well. Now that we know what the initial force feels like and how quickly the car decelerates. This will allow us to properly set up braking zones.

In conclusion, the opportunity list looks like this.

1. Consistent pedal feel (assuming proper setup, no air in the system, or overheated brakes)
2. Allows us to easily explore gains and loses in the braking zone by playing with brake timing and release.
3. Trains us to be proactive rather than reactive to our pedal. Power brakes inconsistency in pedal feel cause slight hesitation. This lowers driver confidence thus hurts lap times.

This is an example of a power assisted brake. Notice how the pressure is inconsistent? This could be due to the fact that the pedal moves to much and the driver "pumps" the pedal trying to get it to slow down.

This is an example of a manual brake trace. Notice how the initial braking force is high and slowly tapers off. This is what the brake trace should look like, this eliminates braking distance thus resulting in faster lap times.



These are all dual master setups with balance bars. They are great, but it’s not exactly in most of the grassroots/amateur motorsports worlds budget. Enter the Chase Bays Dual Piston Brake Booster Delete with Bolt-On 6:1 Pedal Ratio. This system allows you to receive many benefits from the manual brakes, without the fab/cost of an expensive system. Having now driven with this system, and won our first race with one, I can confidently say this is your ticket to faster laps. We took someone with zero experience with a manual brake, installed this system on his car, he immediately went faster. The only piece of advice I would give is to pump your brakes before the braking zones. Not a large amount of pressure, maybe 10%...just enough to reset the pads. Unless you have anti-knock back springs you need to do this. The power brakes give off the false sense of not needing to do this. I can assure you, you need to. When you strike curbs or load a side, the pads will push back a little. Thus the pedal will travel further making it seem like you have a long pedal. This happens on manual or power brakes. The power brakes just mask this a little bit more. By giving the brakes a small tap with your left foot pre-turn, you will have knocked the pads back into place.

Anyone that I have introduced to manual brakes have questioned why they didn’t do this sooner. I would list this Chase Bays mod as a must for any track day/ grassroots/Am racer where the series allows it. Its compact, its attractive, the engineering is already finished.

As I said before braking is the most crucial thing you can do on track. People should stop worrying about horsepower and start wondering how to get their mid corner speed up. The way to do this is to properly execute braking zones. Ditch the factory components, get a Chase Bays Dual Piston Brake Booster Delete. You will easily go faster immediately and become a better driver. Things to remember:

  1. Set the pads in the straights right before a braking zone

  2. Initial brake force is the highest, trail off, as you wheel angle increases, steering angle should decrease.

  3. Release gradually, do not snap off.

Why Manual Brakes are used in the Fastest Track Cars

Why Manual Brakes are used in the Fastest Track Cars

8 minute read

By Bryan Leonard, Pro Race Car Driver and Chase Bays Builds Manager
https://www.instagram.com/bryan_leonard_racing/

When searching for speed on track, the most misunderstood and hardest to accomplish properly...and best place to find a lap time...is in the braking zone. How you apply brake pressure, when to apply it, how much is needed, and when do you release. Those are crucial to getting the speed out of your car. I have driven everything from bone stock miatas to big horsepower time attack cars to 992 GT3 cup cars, and everything in between. I have driven these cars from a general track day to a professional wheel to wheel race series, and again, everything in between.

The one thing all properly built and sorted race cars have in common? Manual brakes. There are multiple reasons for this but the biggest one is, consistency. The brake pedal feels the same way everytime. When you can rely on that, you can produce a much better lap time. Is the pedal harder? Absolutely, and that’s a good thing. Its not hard enough to generate fatigue. If it's that hard and the car doesn’t stop properly then the bore size or pedal ratio is incorrect (assuming the right pads are used and/or heated properly if a race pad is used). I have completed 4 hour stints with manual brake setups and haven’t remotely felt any leg fatigue.

The analogy I always use with newcomers to manual brakes is as follows. If you press your finger against a wall, and I ask you for a little pressure you can feel that in your finger. Now I ask for medium pressure, you press harder the wall doesn’t move, you feel that in your finger. Now I ask for a lot of pressure, you can see where this is going. Just because the wall didn’t move didn’t mean there was no pressure. The same holds true with manual brakes. There is some movement in the pedal since you are displacing fluids.

In our analogy, you can see that your finger feels the pressure. The wall is consistent therefore you can easily apply different pressures without having to worry about an inconsistency in the wall. This is true with a manual brake as well. Under braking you will be able to feel in your body the exact pressure you want. Every lap of every turn you will be able to build a game plan. Also not all braking zones are the same, some require high pressures some require just enough to scrub a couple MPH off. With a manual brake you can feel that pressure much easier.

Have a look at this brake trace, for those of you who haven’t seen brake traces through data acquisition such as VBOX or Motec, a brake pressure graph shows you how much pressure and at what point in time you used it. Initial brake pressure should be your highest, generally, and you should trail off as you add wheel angle. As you can see in the first photo, my brake pressures are almost vertical each zone. This is good. The car is a Porsche 992 GT3 Cup car with no ABS. You can see in the second photo how much more pressure I was able to use with ABS in a different car, in this case a Cayman GT4 MR.


So imagine those lines, now, with a brake booster those lines end up building what I call “mounds”.

The onset of your brake pressure is more rounded with the peak being in the middle of your brake trace. What happens is you will continue to brake for too long, then snap off your brake pressure. So you end up with a “mound” then a snap off. The reason why is, you realize you have been braking to long and its time to turn, thus snapping off brake pressure. This will unsettle the car and cause a fight between you and the car at mid corner. I do not have an example of a power brake with data since we do not use that type of system in race cars. I drew a theoretical one compared to an above trace. Hopefully this helps with the question, why are manual brakes better. There is certainly more detail available but this is a good generalization.

 

Now that we are convinced and believe in the manual brake, we should discuss cost effectiveness. The two cars I showed have incredibly expensive systems. If you were going to create your own, you would start with a pedal mount system which is roughly 900 dollars before you purchase master cylinders. Now you have the option, floor mount or overhung? Both have extreme challenges from a fab standpoint. If you aren’t doing this yourself be prepared. We built a system for a Gen V camaro that was just over $9,000 dollars from modifying the floor board to accept the pedal assembly, to the parts (brackets, master cylinders, throttle pedal, throttle pedal attachment, false floor, lines, fittings, etc) the labor to cut and weld and build something beefy enough to not rip the pedals from the floor during heavy braking. There are a few setups that are firewall mounted that protrude into the engine bay that run roughly $4,000 dollars for a few select cars.

These are all dual master setups with balance bars. They are great, but it’s not exactly in most of the grassroots/amateur motorsports worlds budget. Enter the Chase Bays Dual Piston Brake Booster Delete with Bolt-On 6:1 Pedal Ratio. This system allows you to receive many benefits from the manual brakes, without the fab/cost of an expensive system. Having now driven with this system, and won our first race with one, I can confidently say this is your ticket to faster laps. We took someone with zero experience with a manual brake, installed this system on his car, he immediately went faster. The only piece of advice I would give is to pump your brakes before the braking zones. Not a large amount of pressure, maybe 10%...just enough to reset the pads. Unless you have anti-knock back springs you need to do this. The power brakes give off the false sense of not needing to do this. I can assure you, you need to. When you strike curbs or load a side, the pads will push back a little. Thus the pedal will travel further making it seem like you have a long pedal. This happens on manual or power brakes. The power brakes just mask this a little bit more. By giving the brakes a small tap with your left foot pre-turn, you will have knocked the pads back into place.

Anyone that I have introduced to manual brakes have questioned why they didn’t do this sooner. I would list this Chase Bays mod as a must for any track day/ grassroots/Am racer where the series allows it. Its compact, its attractive, the engineering is already finished.

As I said before braking is the most crucial thing you can do on track. People should stop worrying about horsepower and start wondering how to get their mid corner speed up. The way to do this is to properly execute braking zones. Ditch the factory components, get a Chase Bays Dual Piston Brake Booster Delete. You will easily go faster immediately and become a better driver. Things to remember:

  1. Set the pads in the straights right before a braking zone

  2. Initial brake force is the highest, trail off, as you wheel angle increases, steering angle should decrease.

  3. Release gradually, do not snap off.

Bryan Leonard

Team Jenkins SEASON UPDATE - D1NZ Grand Final

Team Jenkins SEASON UPDATE - D1NZ Grand Final

Well, what a massive last few months it has been for everyone at Team Jenkins HQ.

We recently completed the D1NZ National Drifting Championship off with Round 5 - The GRAND Final at Auckland’s Pukekohe Park Raceway in New Zealand. To start, Pukekohe is somewhat a HUGE round for us being not only in our home town , but also being super close to our Naming Rights Sponsor - Brian Roberts Towing. To add , this track is well know for it’s high entry speeds which ensures all drivers give full commitment when entering the drift section. Consisting of a large right hand sweeper followed by  a couple of tight turns - all drivers have to bring their A Game to this track to ensure that you don’t end up in the wall. Over the 2 Day Competition Weekend - We saw multiple cars making contact with the outer barriers and sand traps - Something the Team Jenkins Silvia’s were lucky not to touch once!

To start the 3 Day Weekend , Friday kicked off with a relaxed Setup and Test Event which allowed us to unload our large amount of gear and setup our pits to ensure we were all set come the competition day on Saturday. Testing proved valuable to both Troy and Ben - giving the team time to trial adjustments to the tyre pressures , Suspension Dampeners and ride heights. By that afternoon , both of our Team Jenkins Nissan Silvia’s felt strong and ready for more practice and qualifying throughout Day 1 of the D1NZ Competition.
Saturday and Day 1 of D1NZ started off well with the weather playing in our favour for the first time in 3 years of competing at Pukekohe Raceway. We didn’t waste any time in speaking to the D1NZ judges to ensure we got the line right before our morning practice session. Completing multiple laps and gaining feedback from our Spotters and Judges , both Ben and Troy felt strong before heading into the qualifying session later that afternoon. The weekend wouldn’t be right without a quick speed bump being thrown our way with Troy blowing a Differential on the last corner of the section in Practice. With plenty of time to spare - Our Crew quickly got the new Differential installed into the rear of the RB30 Powered S15 and we were back on the Tarmac to get one last practice right before Ben’s Qualifying session.

Pro Sport Qualifying kicked off with a bang as the first few drivers launched into the wall as they over did their entry speed into the first corner. Ben being told by our spotter just to keep it cool - he put down a fantastic first and second run , putting him in 2nd place for the main game later that day.

Troy’s Pro Qualifying session followed shortly after. And after watching the Pro Sport Session - Troy knew that the judges were rewarding big commitment and speed into the first corner. Using that knowledge , Troy entered into the section with a speed of 182KM/H. Followed by a large amount of angle , Troy put the Brian Roberts S15 into the Top 5 Qualifiers straight away. Feeling confident he wouldn't move much from that spot. Once the Qualifying Session had finished , we were placed in 7th Spot for the main game - giving us a By Run first up and moving Troy straight into the Top 16 Battles.
With it unknown what Mother Nature would throw at us in regards to the weather over the weekend - D1NZ Organiser Brendon White signalled to get as many of the Pro Sport Battles completed on the Saturday as possible. From this , Ben’s Pro Sport Battles commenced with our first battles being up against another S13 Silvia , but powered by a crazy V8 Engine. Ben drove a clean and precise lead run , followed by a very good chase behind Jase Brown in the S13. Taking the win from this battle - Ben then moved up to battle yet another S13 Silvia , but this time that of Scotty Dinsdales. Another close battle from both of the S13’s , it was Scott who would be in error on his lead run , giving Ben the win again and moving him up to Top 4.
Top 4 would prove interesting as the driver that Ben was supposed to battle unfortunately having to DNF as he had a large amount of damage from colliding with the previous car he battled with. This wasn’t the way we would have liked to win , but we moved up to battle for 1st and 2nd straight from that! 
The Battle for 1st and 2nd would be the biggest we had seen. With the fast entry and 2 very good drivers , both Fans and Our Team were on the edge of their seats to see what would unravel in the final battle. A very clean chase run from our opposition gave Ben the energy he needed to stay up close on his opponents door. Ben did just that! And managed to put his Brian Roberts S13 on the rear wheel of the C33 Laurel that he was battling.  Everyone was ecstatic! It wasn’t until Sunday’s podium that we found out that Ben had won first place for the Round! An AWESOME result to end the season on a high for both the Team and our Sponsors!
Troy had a very similar scenario in the Pro Series - With receiving a By Run straight into the Top 16 - He would battle Team DSR’s Adam Davies first off. This was someone who Troy has battled many times before in the past. 
As Troy had qualified the highest out of the 2 - This meant he led first. Entering the section at pace , Troy put down a very clean lead run to which Adam made an error behind him and put a wheel off in the chase. After our Spotter notified Troy of this , he knew that we would have the advantage. Not backing off though - Troy followed Adam down the front straight at close proximity. Only to be signalled by Adam that he had an issue with his car right before the Sweeper - Giving Troy the win straight away and into Top 8.
Top 8 saw us up against the Championship Leader - Cole Armstrong. Both Troy and the Team knew this was going to be a HUGE battle , so we would have to give it our all if we wanted to continue on from here. Troy didn't hold back! And put down a very tidy and close chase run first off , followed by an unfortunate error shown by Troy when he went slightly wide on the last corner , giving Cole extra points for managing to grab the last inner clip. It was here unfortunately that Troy’s weekend would end as the win was awarded to Cole - He then also went on to win the Round AND the Championship for the season!
To finish - This whole Season has been a learning curve for Team Jenkins Motorsport. Introducing another driver - Matty Hill from Australia , To run under the Team Jenkins umbrella for the season - Whilst also developing our cars further to ensure we remain competitive and consistent throughout the Championship Season. We believe that we have gained some crucial data and track time on each of these tracks , only to not get that special Podium Finish until the Final Round of D1NZ. We have seen the Team Jenkins Motorsport Car’s compete in 7 Competition Events , Along with 2 Special Show & Shine events to which we had the cars on display for both the Sponsors and Fans to check out the cars up close and personal.

- Troy and Ben Jenkins
Owners / Drivers of Team Jenkins Motorsports