Fredric The Great, a Look Inside the Papadakis Racing Scion tC of Fredric Aasbo

,

We don’t need a stinking V8.  The Toyota 1AR-FE is a big 2.7 liter 4 cylinder with variable cam timing.  With its high tech fast spooling Borg Warner turbo system, this engine shows that there is still hope for the small displacement 4 cylinder in pro drifting.

For the 2011 Formula D season Fredric got the big break he deserved.  Scion, Hankook tires and EA games had taken notice and Fredric suddenly found himself a works driver filling the space on Papadakis Racing’s roster vacated by the legendary Tanner Foust.  Tanner had left drifting to pursue a full time Global Rallycross ride as well as a growing role in the Top Gear USA TV show.

Converting a transverse FWD car to a FR longitudinal mounted engine means that everything is a tight fit.  This photo shows how tight the packaging of the car really is.

The 2011 season was going to be challenging as Papadakis racing was going to build a new car based on the just released second generation Scion tC.  The challenge came in two parts, the tC is a FWD platform and it is powered by a 4 cylinder engine.  In today’s world of big power NA V8 engined drift cars, could a 4 cylinder be made a winner?

The cylinder head uses Supertech Ti retainers and higher tension valve springs to allow more rev headspace.  However, the head itself is pretty stock.

Papadakis racing’s previous tC was converted to RWD and powered by a Toyota NASCAR V8 engine.  That car had as many haters as fans because the build was very controversial due to an altered firewall and a large amount of engine setback.  This was actually the only way to fit the engine in the older chassis and was really not any further back than say a Mustang but the limit of the rules was pushed and questions of the car’s legality haunted it.

The intake ports are HUGE and remain mostly stock.  They did receive seat matching, valve unshrouding and a radius valve job from Portflow Design.

With FD tightening the firewall rules to prevent cars like this from being built, Papadakis Racing decided to use a 4 cylinder engine and turbocharge it for packaging reasons.  We feel that deep down inside Steph Padadakis wanted to show the drift world that his team could mix it up at the top with a 4 cylinder for the intellectual challenge and to avoid anti V8 backlash.

A close up view shows stock valves and a mostly stock intake port.  Look how big the port is.