We Look Inside Fredric Aasbo’s Papadakis Racing Toyota Corolla iM Drift Machine

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To get enough angle without overcentering, sticking and wobbling, the car is converted to front steer with a reversed steering rack.
 

Custom knuckles fabricated from chromoly plate are used that lower the car without messing up the roll center and bumpsteer. The knuckle is shortened to speed the steering ratio and to enable the rack to generate more steering angle.  

The bottom part of the knuckle is removable so different bottom sections with differing amounts of Ackerman and different Ackerman curves can be tried without building new knuckles.

 

The front lower control arm is fabricated to allow camber and caster adjustment.

The front arm is a lot longer than stock to make more room for more steering angle. Generally, drift cars also handle better and understeer less if the front track is wider than the rear.

Notice that the car does not run a front anti-sway bar even though the control arms have provisions for one. 

 

Like many drift cars, the Papadakis racing iM uses a KRC power steering pump to control the steering effort even though the steering rack is highly leveraged. The KRC pump is very versatile, the pumping volume can be varied in 3 steps and the line pressure can be adjusted as well. The overall flow rate can be varied as well with different pills with varying sized orifices that can be interchanged on the high-pressure side of the pump.

A new car built on an all-new chassis that has never been used in competition has been the downfall of some of the best teams in Formula Drift. We are pretty sure that this is one of the only first time builds of an all-new chassis that has been competitive in pro drifting right out of the box. The car is a working tribute to the capability of Stephan Papadakis and the Papadakis racing crew. 

With the car being super competitive, we are eager to see what the team has in store for the likes of James Dean and the seemingly invincible, Worthouse team next year!

 

SOURCES

Papadakis Racing

Fredric Aasbo

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