FY Friday: Subaru Wagon Built for Drift

So fair warning to everyone out there, the video is a little shaky and the music is a little annoying, not the usual stuff we post here. BUT There is one really badass, important thing in this video a RWD Subaru Wagon built for drift. Yes you heard that right. Its awesome, and yearn to learn more about it. Anyways watch the video and enjoy some awesome wagon skids. Its MAD and perfect for Fuck Yes Friday.


Golden Gate Drift ProAM Round #2 from Paulo Acoba on Vimeo.

Project: Red Rocket - It Hits the Fan

A lot has happened since my last post, a long 10 days ago.  Removing the head was my first goal, since that would allow me to inspect valves and pistons and get an idea of what sort of work I needed to prepare for.

Stare into the void long enough...

FY Friday: Retro Revision

So ran into this photo on reddit a few days ago, turns out this was some original content from a Stanceworks contributor named Travis Cuykendall and its just to sick not to share. This is what I call perfection when it comes to old school 911's, super retro yet so in tune with the times when it comes to the automotive world these days.  The whole set of photos is amazing make to sure to check out his other work here! his whole flicker page is badass!

Slammed Society @ Formula D ATL

Hey everyone, Joel Lopez here! Aside from all the (interesting) action that Formula Drift brought to Atlanta. Fatlace made their way out here from California to showcase their premiere car show "Slammed Society". Taking a two year break from any action in Atlanta, Slammed Society definitely made a lasting impression in the eyes of many that were out here for the first time. Atlanta also showed that a little on and off rain wouldn't affect anything as everyone stuck through it the whole day. The whole show was definitely a success as there was a wide variety of vehicles and the placement was perfect. Situated right in between the track and the pits, the show received a ton of attention through out the day. Custom made trophies were made for the event and were rewarded during halftime to the top three cars in their respected categories. Winners of the show also received some Fatlace, Illest, and Hellaflush decals, a Slammed Society license plate frame, and cleaning supplies. The show as a whole was awesome and and a major success since there was the two year break! If you weren't able to check it out this year, definitely check it out at next years FD! Click read more to check out the rest!

Happy Birthday to the ground!

The Engines of Formula Drift: An Engineers Delight.

So this year at Formula drift I wanted to concentrate on something a little different. The engines. As an engineer I can say the one thing that always brings me back to FD and makes me realize it's probably the best motorsport in the world is the variety of platforms and motors that are allowed in FD. To have a race series that basically says do whatever you want with the drive train but keep the chassis production is an engineers wet dream. Unlimited possibilities is what FD is about and gear heads across the world love it for that reason. So this formula drift I made a point to take photos of all the engines I could get good shots of and talk a little bit about them here. Click read more to check out some of the beast under these hoods!

Project: Red Rocket - Discovery

Now that I've got a shiny new  slightly used  recognizable Eclipse in my driveway, its time to take a closer look around.  I need to know what I've got on my hands before I start ordering parts.  The car is a repo, so the original owner will not be any help here.

I know that there's a pile of spare parts in the trunk, maybe there will be some clues to the condition or history of the car...Click read more to find out!

Its like the worst Lego set ever.

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.