Project: Red Rocket - Prologue

Christian here, with a new project.  After a couple of years of planning, plotting and some bench racing, the Middle Georgia region of the SCCA has announced that they will be hosting some rally cross events in Milledgeville!  I haven’t raced on dirt since my Baja SAE days and I've been waiting for a chance to get back into it.  Only one problem: I do not have a vehicle suited to dirt driving.  I’d prefer not to cover the Z06 in mud and dust and the repair costs would be burdensome. The F-150 would handle the dirt and mud, but is too prone to a roll-over for racing.  So it was off to craigslist to find an appropriate ride.

Import Alliance: Racefriv Randomness

So I'm going to go ahead and give you the tl:dr right here. Import Alliance was HUGE this year, it was much more organized at AMS than it ever was in the Atlanta locations. Besides one small wreck everything went pretty smoothly for a car show with around 1000 cars. So you get the  idea, now I want to talk about something else, something else I noticed when looking through all the pictures I took. That something else is called character. A lot of sites describe how unusable a car is on the street, that gives it character, how much of it is zip-tied together, that gives it character, or how many times the oil pan has been busted, which is stupid, but character none the less.














Today I wanted to talk about real character, that little thing you can't really put a finger on until you see it. That special charm that certain cars have even if they're not the baller-ist cars on the road. What better way to do that than with the pictures I took of the massive IA meet. That explains why I picked such a strange photo for the cover and why you're about to click read more.

Technical Corner - What is Diesel Exhaust Fluid?

Phil B here. I know the vast majority of our readers don't have a diesel powered vehicle, and those that do probably don't need Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF for short).  You're probably thinking that this is a joke thing that you send the new guy to fetch from the warehouse, like muffler bearings or blinker fluid.  Its a real thing though so I thought it might be interesting for the nerds among us to delve into the science of it.

FY Friday: The Best Car Related Video of All Time.

Quite possibly the most emotional stirring car related video Ive ever seen. Its just brilliant.  Watch it and prepare to enjoy the next 16 minutes of your life.

Project Scrap Metal: Part 7 Grip, Rip, and Whip

So its about time I write a little update on project scrap metal. So were at part 7 now? Crazy how far I've come!  Since we last talked there was another drift event at my local track (AMS) and as normal I busted ass the weeks before the event to get there with a working car. The last time we talked I had a moving car that needed a few tweaks to get it in shape. This time I started to chisel away at the little things the car needed to be a truly badass drift car. Click read more!!!

Project: Scrap Metal Makes the Hoonigan Blog

Funny what a short clip of a burnout does. Hoonigan picked up our little Birthday Burnout idea with my permission of course and made there own youtube channel for it and everything. The 240sx (as you can see) has been coming along well lately so expect to see another build post in the near future. Thanks for sharing this video everyone and we still expect to see some of our racefriv friends try to out-do me. Hopefully you can!!! Till next time stay frivolous!

Birthday Burnout

Introducing Birthday Burnouts... It was my birthday, therefor a burnout is needed in celebration.
Go ahead and click on the video...its what you think it is. If you think you can do a better one on your birthday send it in.

A Tour of Road Atlanta in a Z06

So while we were all out drifting at the KMS event our racefriv friend Christian Retter was out  getting some track time in his rust colored C6 Z06. Hes got a cool setup with his go pro now with gauges and such so Id thought Id post it up.  So hit play if you want to see what its like hitting the hills at Road Atlanta in a 500hp car.

The State of the Scene: Builders and Naysayers

So Its been awhile since I made a post on the blog due to working on the LSVert and some other awesome personal stuff that's going on this month. I was going to wait to make a post after the KMS drift event but I've been looking around the Internets the past few weeks and noticed a few trends. Every so often I like to talk about my feelings on the car scene even though I'm sure no one cares. It's nice to take the time to write things out, instead of making a comment only to be buried in a sea of trolls and fanboys on some huge website. So If you care/dare to read more, you can check out what racefriv has been thinking about lately.... besides your mother of course...

Via Speedhunters.com

Minus Blue

While Phil and I both have/had blue WRX's you never see to much of them on here. I guess when you DD something you start to think its not that special, you take it for granted, while others still worship it. I supposed this is why you don't see too many pictures of our suby's on here. We see them everyday so it's hard to see why others would want to look at pictures of them. While I sold this Subaru about a year ago, I took some farewell pictures, thinking to myself in about a year I'll want these, and now I know why, its to share it with you guys. So click read more for a little lesson on sold cars from a true car nut. 

Quickie Review: Cheapo Chinese OBDII Adapter

I don't even need a page break for this.  All I need to say is that I bought this and it worked.  I plugged it into my 2011 Subaru WRX, I downloaded the $5 Torque app from the Google Play store for my Android phone.  You plug it in, turn on the car, pair your phone to it and you are done.  The android app is very nice, i'm sure there is something similar for Apple users.  It lets you do 0-60 runs without pushing any buttons, as well as all the cool diagnostic and data logging stuff that you expect.  I'm obviously a bit shocked that something so functional is so cheap. It's possible that your results may vary but at this price it seemed like it worth the risk.  Start reading your own DTCs today...(or hooning around doing 0-60 pulls for giggles, whatever)

Oh and I got 5.1 seconds with a full tank of gas and it gave me 235hp at the wheels.  That's a healthy estimate for car with 265hp at the engine from the factory, folks do say that Subaru sandbagged the rating a little on the newer WRX's.  Someone in a magazine claimed a 4.8s run but most are 5.1 so at least I managed to do my job properly as an automotive journalist right?

Stay Frivolous,
Phil B

RFOF: A Little Trail Riding on a Sunny Day

So what do you do when your hobby is cars and you need a break from it, but still want to do something vehicle related, because lets admit it, you love vehicles. A lot of people I know are so obsessed with internet fame, quarter mile times, or auto cross time slips they forget what brought us to cars in the first place. Fun. What if your hobby is just hooning cars in circles for fun and you need a break from that? Well It seems that a lot of the racefriv crew has found the answer to that and it comes in the form of 4x4s. As some of you  know I recently bought a Jeep Rubicon and I've wanted to take it out for a day of fun ever since. Seems like a lot of my drift buddy's had the same ideas recently and went out and bought themselves some 4x4's too. We took them out to fuck them up a bit. Click "read more" for some pretty awesome pictures of a fun hilly hoonage day.

FY Friday: Rally Cross FD RX-7

So here at the racefriv HQ we were discussing what a shame it is that we dont have a proper rally cross circuit in America (GRC not included im talking grassroots NASA or SCCA here) . It seems like a really bad ass way to have some cheap fun, and I for one would build a car just for this if it was an option. Sure we have a type of rally cross here but its more like an Auto-X where you are just racing against the time by yourself, which is just no fun. Anyways In my google search for more rally cross information I came across this sick FD RX7 powered by a RB25(i think) rally crossing like a boss! Video of  this beast after the break so hit read more!

All this info comes from carbonetic europe!  Check it out!

The video is a little shaky but if you want to see what a real rally cross is like check out the video after the break.

FrivGarage: The "skinny" on shop lights

I'm going to try to keep this brief because its not at the really cool stage yet.  We're starting this segment called FrivGarage to share some pictures and talk "shop".  It's just a series on garage equipment and improvement ideas that you might like. The emphasis is on low budget ideas for the typical 20x20 home garage that enhance the workspace making you want to work on your car instead of playing video games or looking at cats on Reddit.

Visiting the Birthplace of Corvette - Bowling Green, KY

Hello folks, Asian Phil here.  I've been pretty worthless and I haven't made any contribution to Racefriv since 2011 Christmas...but whatever; For a month now, I have an opportunity to work in Nashville, TN. Downtown "Cashville/Nash-Vegas" was alright, but live music, young people, and cheap drinks eventually got old.  Who wants to listen to "Rock me mama", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Chicken Fried", and "Fishin' in the Dark" every night anyways?

Little as I know, Bowling Green, Kentucky is only an hour away from Nashville.  All American gear head knows Chevrolet Corvette are assembled in Bowling Green.  So I took I-65N and paid them a visit.  Originally I was going to take the assembly plant tour, but they were closed to prepare for the (upcoming at that time) preparation of 7th generation Corvette.  I visited the National Corvette Museum on January 12th instead; ONE day before the official release of C7 Corvette.

Luke I Am Your Father...NOOOOO

Our good racefriv friend Justin Dennis popped by my house the other day to show off his new FRS (which he has mostly converted to a GT86 now) and I couldnt resist getting a few pictures of our matching 86's before it got to dark. Later on were doing a full review of the cars to stay tuned for that but for now you'll just have to settle with some wall papers I tossed together. So click on the pictures to enlarge them and get yourself a new desktop!!

2012: A Racefriv Review

Man 2012 what a crazy year! I ended the year thinking we could have done a lot more racefriv stuff but once I went back and looked at what we covered we really did do a lot. Our first Formula D events, trips to the Nurburgring, trips to San Deigo, LS1/240 builds, and photo shoots in between. It was a pretty busy year and 2013 looks to be even crazier. So before we get to 2013 shenanigans lets take a look back at 2012!

Project Scrap Metal: 5.7 Liters of Organized Chaos

Well I know a lot of people didn't think I would actually finish it this year but here is the LS240 Vert in all its glory. Project scrap metal has come a long way since we last saw it here. Last time I explained what I did and didn't like about the build and well... instead of bailing on the project I did something about it. I really wanted to build a car to tandem with and not have to worry about too much. There was only one answer, a 240sx. I had huge plans at first and picked up an LQ4 block but at the time I really didn't have the cash to finish it that way. I sold that block and built a KA, which was a big mistake. So I sold the KA and picked up an LS1 to do it right, and here is that build!. Click read more to check it out!!

Formula 1 returns to the United States!

Christian here, racefriv didnt have any of their usual crew going to the US Grand Prix, so I agreed to take some pictures and write about it!  The first Formula 1 race I attended was at Indianapolis in 2006.  This was the year after the Michelin fiasco, so tickets were subsidized and affordable for a college intern.  The experience was incredible.  I had been to ALMS races before, but it did not prepare me for the noise of an F1 car.  Sitting on the front straight during the start still stands as one of my favorite motorsport moments ever.  When the FIA announced that F1 was returning to the US, I knew I had to find a way to the race.  I traveled to Austin, Texas, with my friend Ian to celebrate F1 coming to the first purpose built Formula 1 track in the United States.

Yaer does Irwindale

Wow, Yaer always does a fantastic job with there videos but this one is just heart touching. I love it and wanted to share. Cant wait for next year!!!!!



FD - Irwindale Final 2012 YAER Productions from Ryan Davis on Vimeo.