A MASTERPIECE: Takurou Watanabe’s ultimate knuckles
January 9, 2009 12:30 amThis is CLR’s Takurou Watanabe, and he is getting ridiculous angle.
Well known and liked in the Japanese drifting community, Takurou has a long history of interesting mechanical innovation, with his creations regularly being featured in Drift Tengoku magazine. This is his latest effort, a set of steering knuckles that turn this car into a “right-angle entry” 180SX.
Oldschool modified knuckles like Mitsuru Haruguchi’s gold-coloured Banchou (gang leader), and Atsushi Kuroi’s Riverside parts have been joined in the past few years by multiple workshops that have been performing a bit of cut and shut research and development into getting maximum angle from a drift car. Takurou’s knuckles are called “Kinjitou”, which means “Masterpiece”.
Before the engineers and mechanics amongst you get all fidgety and start mumbling about not cutting and welding steering components, remember that this is Japan, and the regular laws of physics and common sense do not apply to this country.
They way they work is by massively shortening the steering arm of the knuckle, which along with allowing the tie-rod to pull the 16×8-inch 205-tyred wheels much further around into the wheel well, alters the steering’s Ackermann geometry which allows the car to roll through the corner with less drag.
The lower arm is from Ikeya Formula, with the steering stoppers removed. The tie rod is also Ikeya Formula, with 6.5mm rack spacers
This, combined with setting the rear tyres at a low 26psi to stop the car spinning out, allows Takurou to flick the 180SX out as hard as possible, with as much angle as possible, and hold the accelerator flat through the corner.
It didn’t look particularly easy to pull off, due to the inherent twitchiness of the steering, and only about one in five attempts were successful due to Takurou’s lack of practice with the car’s new setup. When he did pull off a good run though, it was quite spectacular, and netted him a first place prize at the Tochigi Baka Matsuri’s back straight manji competition.
Tags: 180SX, Caroline Racing, Nikko Circuit, Nissan, Takurou WatanabeCategorised in: Profiles プロフィル
This post was written by Alexi
24 Comments
Insane!! I love it. And he didn’t even bother tubbing the front wheel housing, he just cut it out and job done! Function before looks seems to be his motto. 🙂
Nice post!
oh snap!!! any idea if there is video of this?
I read in the drift tengoku mag that he disconnected the swaybars to let the car slide out easier too.
OMG BRO
That angle is nuts, it looks like his wheel is going to fall off!
I don’t think that anything can hang with these Knuckles.
You gotta love them wacky Japanese fellows!
Now that is some crazy lock!!! U turns would be a breeze…
Angle is nuts but the car is more than a little ugly… 🙁
Fack . . . .badass
I must have !!!
both swaybars are disconnected on this car… comes with the territory of reducing understeer
there is another guy (who has a brother i think?) that goes to nikko regularly, can do the same entries, as crazy as takurou even
行くバカ行く!。。。
that is insane be awesome on fast long entry like sugo (i think)
not a fan of the rest of the car tho thats just me tho
Insane angle but at the price of consistantcy, will be good when he gets it dialed.
don’t forget, both front and rear stabilizers are disconnected…they’re just nice decorations
I want to see a video of this. That is some massive angle.
haha look at the wear on the inner side of the tyre! this mod, now matter how awesome, can’t be good for tyre life 😉
sheesh! i give him 10 points for innovation but -10 points for his body styling lol. great picture of it sideways, it shows the extreme steering angle for sure.
that car must run a little weird with afm so close to turbo
I think I may be the only person that DOESN’T like this.
jaw dropping stuff right there,
first picture looks whack.
For those who criticize the “body styling” usually when you test those kind of innovations, you don’t do it on “jdm tight omg so baller” car, just coz you don’t know what will happen!!
This guy rock and I wanna see this in video!
you can see the brake calipers in the 1st pic!
I am getting there master!
One day!oooo 1 day
Man! that is awesome angle,
Nice mods
Nice man! This is polish masacrator with huge steering angle, pics from Wembley JDMA, he was 1st there 🙂
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4102/4937336062_a2ff808341_z.jpg
http://doristars.com/v-web/gallery/albums/jdmw/DSC_7527_copy.jpg
http://doristars.com/v-web/gallery/albums/jdmw/DSC_7569_copy.jpg – Paweł “Trelabata” Trela himself 🙂
http://doristars.com/v-web/gallery/albums/jdmw/DSC_7304_copy.sized.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i57/RoccoMark/SpoiltTrelaJumpFlame.jpg
best regards from poland 🙂
Alexi, are you positive there are no bump stops? I imgaine his rack would overcenter without bumpstops. Do you have any pictures of the knuckle from a different angle? maybe with the wheel off? I would really like to see them in better detail.
To all who talk about how ugly this car is, it’s a test only car, kinda like a missile.
Contact patch? what’s that? LOL