Florida Rally Series and Beyond - B13 Sentra Content

Oh man. All caught up on this thread. Epic!! This looks like a ton of fun, great driving, and I probably would have picked the same car. The shorts while racing crack me up.

Sorry about the black one. I've totally experienced the same guilt that you did about taking a car off the road. Having done the same thing to my S12, I felt pretty bad cutting it up and building it into a race car. Thought about it a ton. I came to the conclusion that, in the condition it's in, it's just as likely to end up in the junkyard or crashed into pieces by a drifter. And even if you ruin a car, you gave the thing a warriors death. You have pictures, videos, and stories to take with you for the rest of your life. IMO that's far better than hanging on to a garage queen. 

If you want to send me, or tell me where to find your sanctioning body's cage rules, I'll take a look at them and let you know what I think is wrong with your door bars. By looking at them I have no idea why they wouldn't be acceptable, except that I never see FIA cages with door bars protruding out that far... Which I don't necessarily think is less safe. Maybe they are supposed to be flat so that the bars are in tension in a collision... I don't know, but I've become somewhat of a hobbyist cage nerd after building the cage for my s12. 

Great work. Keep it up. Bravo man

Teaser - Rally Car Update coming later this week. We ran the last race of the series. It was epic as always! 

Well that's a wrap. 

I finished 1st in our class - somehow - holding off the SUPER fast Tom Ebert in is Fiesta ST. I jumped out ahead by 10 seconds on the first 2 lap stage session and he worked his tail off to narrow that lead by the end of the day... But alas. I held first the whole day.  Tom won 1st in class on the season and I took third. Not bad considering our DNF to start the season with the black car. 

This year's rallyx season at The Firm had tons of highs and lows. It was an absolute bummer to lose the little black car. I was so grateful for the chance to drive that car. I won't lie to you... I get attached to cars and that black-ish SER was awesome and I was sad to see it go. 

The red car that we have now is freaking amazing. It's properly sorted now. The stock-ish suspension coupled with the new progress sway bar handles extremely well. I do believe that we may have bent our driver rear strut but that's a cheap quick fix. If that's all that we go through each season ill be happy. 

Running the 14x8 wheels and the 12 year old Toyo R888 worked really well. They had tons of grip on both the tarmac and the graded limestone sections of the Nitro Rallycross circuit. They definitely struggled in the deeper dirt and clay BUT where they were slower there we were MUCH faster on the tarmac sections. 

The plan for next season at The Firm is a little unknown. There has been some conversation around running something more similar to the rally sprint stages they ran before through the woods AND track sections, but only for cars that have some form of "cage" and still running the Nitro RallyX Circuit style events. Our plan would be to run both of those. 

Our plan for the car will be to pull apart the suspension and make sure that everything is good to go. Im considering adding half of a bump stop on top of the one in there to help a little more over the jump on landing. Our clutch is pretty much done. It was really starting to slip on the last stage of the day so we will put something beffy in there. We have kicked around the idea of throwing a turbo on the car. That would make this car absolutely NUTS to drive. These cars are easy to turbo and you can do it for cheap using all factory JDM parts. So we will see. 

Other than that she is ready for another epic rally season at The Firm. If you live or around Florida you have to get a car together to come rally with us. Its absolutely one of the most fun things I have ever done. The Firm team is incredible and this is not your grandpa's scca rally cross. This is much closer to a true euro style rally cross or rally sprint here in the US. So come join us. 

Hope you will enjoy the pictures and video below. 

Here is some video for you: 

Day overview with some drone Footage: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxOyjrcap2w

My last run of the day running in reverse around the jump. 

https://youtu.be/M9IxSwPuegg

Super cool!  So glad to see the Sentra went to a good home!  Just one observation, being a safety nut, do something to brace the seat a little better, you're getting a ton of flex through it.  If anything happens, want to know that you're safe & secure as possible.  Keep up the updates, it's exciting!

In reply to HoserRacing :

Yeah the seat we slapped in it is pretty crappy. It's a cheap NRG seat and with the slider setup it's far more flexy than we had hoped. It's on our list for us to change out before the next season. We are safety guys too. I think we are the only dudes wearing a hans out there. But id rather be safe than sorry. 

By the way!!! I got the title in the mail on Monday. So that is a huge deal. The reasons for needing a title are two fold. More on that later.

Sentra was rippin!  Sounded so good!  I'm excited for the potential double rally events at the firm next season!  

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

Dude me too. I really hope that they follow through on those plans. My self and my buddy dave (white civic red wing) are planning to use our companies to sponsor the rally events at the FIRM next year. I hope that gets more folks to come out and allows for the doubled-up rally event schedule. 

Man this is a sweet thread, giving me some ideas for my NX that I should probably not execute on given that its also already rolled over once lol

On suspension, I think the NX2000 came with stiffer springs than SE-R, not sure on the rates though

In reply to papamilad :

You are correct. I'm running NX springs next year. I have a set in the garage just haven't mounted them. 

It was great seeing the NX at the Challenge. The car looked solid despite a rollover. You should definitely rally it. If you need parts I know a guy that has literally EVERYTHING you could need to upgrade, fix, or restore the car. 

Best of luck. Thanks for reading along. 

Its been too long since I last update this thread. Life has been crazy and we haven't done any racing. My full time job and overland side hustle business have kept me busy and there hasn't been much time for car stuff. We have missed the first half of the rally season at the FIRM but we are pumped to get back at it here soon. At our last event the clutch was starting to slip pretty bad. Its actually impressive that the stage 1 exedy clutch held up as long as it did. So it was time to upgrade to a something new. 

So, 6 Puck clutch from ACT was locked down and installed. Its REALLY nice. Definitely an upgrade. 

Our 12 year old R888s were toast so I snagged some Falken Azenis which should do really well. Similar to that of what we experienced with the R888s but should grip better in the dirt and last longer. 

Im also really pumped to share that my buddy Dave and I have a full blown shop now to work on our stuff. Its a long story, but the short version is we got a huge space to work that needs TONS of cleaning but it has TONS of room for all our vehicles and a huge lot our back for more cars. Right now we have 1 lift and I will have a second one put in soon. Got a little bit of everything going on over here. Pictures dont really capture all the room we have but im really pleased with this development. Especially since im going to have to start moving my dads collection up here. Ill have to find another space for all of that but having a dedicated space for working on our projects and Loads of outdoor and indoor space is a huge plus. 

Tune up time for the Rally Car. 

New cap and rotor. New battery.

Mounted up the new tires on a set of OEM NX2000 wheels. These wheels are probably the strongest wheels Nissan made. They are heavy but i have never seen anyone break one even in rally conditions. 

These tires are going to be great. I have run them for track days over the years and I have been impressed. For the mixed surface rally stuff we do I think they will get even better offroad grip than the R888s did while not loosing much in the paved sections. 

Parked up at the motorcycle shop next door to my shop for some cleaning. 

Is that a Lifted B series swapped Civic????

I enjoyed reading this whole thread again from the beginning. I'm at the Firm frequently for autocross and have done a couple of track days there.  I don't own anything that I can use for rally, but I wish I did. It sure looks fun. 

In reply to ExcessKuma :

YEP! LOL. Technically it's not lifted as much as it is setup for rally. He runs in my class. He has a dirt track circle track background so he went with that wheel and tire combo. Honestly he is realizing that he needs to run a smaller wheel and tire setup. But yes, swapped, caged and on K-sports new rally coil over. He is my buddy that I co-own the shop with and while his car is faster in a straight line.... Im a better driver and he knows it 

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

Its a great time. Honestly... out of all the types of "racing" I have done..  RallyX the way the the firm does it is the best bang for the buck experience around. I have a goal for next year to build a safe but low budget car that people can just borrow and run out there. Id love to help guys like you experience it that way! 

B13Birk said:

In reply to ExcessKuma :

YEP! LOL. Technically it's not lifted as much as it is setup for rally. He runs in my class. He has a dirt track circle track background so he went with that wheel and tire combo. Honestly he is realizing that he needs to run a smaller wheel and tire setup. But yes, swapped, caged and on K-sports new rally coil over. He is my buddy that I co-own the shop with and while his car is faster in a straight line.... Im a better driver and he knows it 

I absolutely love that. Maybe I should do that with the foxbody if I ever figure out a gameplan 

In reply to ExcessKuma :

Im telling you. The rally stuff is SO MUCH FUN. 

In reply to B13Birk :

Okay Google, How do I lift a Mustang?

ExcessKuma said:

In reply to B13Birk :

Okay Google, How do I lift a Mustang?

Stock height is perfect.   No need to lift it.  

A fully stock foxbody gt with modern shocks and tires would be pretty good at the firm.

In reply to ojannen :

It sure would!!

In reply to B13Birk :

Would I get passed by much faster stuff on the track? Absolutely. But will I feel cool as hell ripping a v8 down a dirt track? Absolutely.

Or maybe the Probe once it comes from PA, though I think that's earmarked for challenge/TA duty