In the final rounds it was almost comical to watch Ueo's cute little Corolla trail Nobuteru's evil 430hp S15 and Imamura's high-revving, flame-shooting FD. During both rounds, the Seven and the Silvia would rocket ahead in cacophony shredded rubber and excess boost pressure. On the fast sweepers at the start of the course, Ueo would fall behind. By the first hairpin where the big boosters of Nob and Imamura would slow to make the corner, Ueo's tricky Trueno would come right up (and sometimes even pass them!) with a smooth, flowing, perfect drift.
"In a 200 meter turn the turbocharged cars must modulate their throttle inputs," explained Ueo. "They cannot step on the gas all the way around the corner. But in my car I can throttle it all the way around the corner. At the D1GP USA, the judges are right in front [of the tightest corner]. The other cars had to slow down and get off the gas, but with my car, I could stay on the gas all the way around."
Ueo's D1GP USA car you see here is the same car he used to win the 2002 Championship; it makes about 180 hp on an engine dyno. Ueo's 2003 season car recorded 204 hp on an engine dyno. Ueo told us that the new car made between 230 and 240 hp on a chassis dyno because the engine dyno he uses has more resistance than a chassis dyno. An unrealistic load was placed on the engine dyno in order to make sure the motor will stand up to the stress that occurrs in competition.
While these aren't major numbers, I was still curious as to how he got 200 naturally aspirated ponies out of the old 4AG motor. I owned a 4AG, but my tuning was limited to an old-school TRD oil filler cap, and I never dynoed it to check the power increase. It's good to see that Ueo's mods are much more plentiful.
For the engine build, Ueo turned to Hitoshi Matsuda of Revolver in Osaka. Matsuda builds all of Ueo's engines, and he selected a '91 4AG AE92-kouki motor for this car. Matsuda bumped the compression and bored and stroked the inline-four with a late-model AE111 crank and rods and Revolver GT pistons and rings. Up top, Matsuda prepared one of his ported and polished SPL AE92-kouki heads with "Ueo Secret Type" prototype cams, Revolver valves, TRD springs, and Toda retainers.
Matsuda feeds his little beast with nothing less than a Skyline R33 fuel pump and a Sard regulator. Big gulps of air are brought in through a Toda air intake, a modified manifold, and factory AE101 throttle bodies. A Revolver header and exhaust handle the spent gases, and a Nissan CA18 catalytic converter was added for good measure. Finally, the brains behind this outfit are powered by a Tomei REYTEC ECU and ignition system. The '85 factory five-speed transmission is still used but an Exedy prototype clutch and Cusco LSD help send the torque to the rear wheels.
"I don't need power," Ueo adds. "It is all about balance. If I have more balance, then I don't need the power."
Ueo finds this balance through his chassis setup. Because he has built so many Corollas, Ueo has discovered exactly which areas need to be strengthened for drifting. Once again, he relies on Revolver's Matsuda for the chassis prep.
First the unibody's seams were stitch-welded and a cage was installed. The Revolver coilovers are "Ueo SPL" units with Cusco pillow ball mounts. Like many of the leading D1 drivers, Ueo uses Largus front and rear stabilizer bars. The rest of the mods include a Revolver front strut tower brace and a host of Cusco pieces such as adjustable pillow ball tension rods up front and lateral links and a trailing rod assembly out back. There are no massive 22-piston big brakes on this car. Ueo likes to keep it simple with just iMAGE pads and Earl's lines.
"With the brake pads, not too strong and not too weak," Ueo said. "The [choice of] pads should depend on the weight of the car. The [D1GP US] driver [Calvin Wan] of the red FD3S had enough power, but his brake bias was not right. Too much in the rear, which is why he spun out in the same spot twice. And because he was unstable, that is what made him crash."