The Formula Drift Scene: A Look Inside Odie's S14.5

As I stepped inside Odie's car, I was immediately struck by the sheer amount of work that had gone into transforming this S14 into a drift machine. The car is outfitted with a roll cage, which has more in common with NASCAR's than the original drift cars from Japan. This isn't just for show; it also features a fire suppression system, just in case something goes awry.

One of the standout features of Odie's car is its hydraulic handbrake. It's attached to its own caliper in the back, and this is how he initiates the drift. The cool shirt system is another innovation that I found fascinating - it's essentially a water pump that sends cool water into your undershirt, allowing you to stay comfortable even when you're sweating profusely. This thing is clutch when sitting in the staging lane, and honestly, it sounds like something that was invented by God for people who spend hours in the sun.

As I looked around the car, I couldn't help but wonder what the S14.5 meant. Odie explained that he had taken a standard S14 chassis and modified it to look more aggressive - essentially creating his own unique drift machine. The S15 has a way more aggressive base that's relatively easy to swap on an S14, which is exactly what Odie did. They call it the "Strawberry Face," but I'm not entirely sure why.

Odie's car is adorned with one of the most iconic liveries in motorsports - the Falken teal and blue paint scheme. According to Falcon, the teal stripes are kinked four ways, which endorsing a sense of freedom and being unencumbered and self-assured. It's clear that Odie's car embodies this spirit, even if it's not always the flashiest on the track.

One thing is certain, however: Odie has put in countless hours tuning and tweaking his car to perfection. He stuck to what he knew, rather than switching chassis every two seasons hoping it'll make him better. And it seems like that strategy is paying off - Odie's currently leading Formula Drift in points and proving that you don't need the glitziest gear or the newest car to be the best.

Thank you to White Line for hosting us and Odie for bringing his badass car out so we could take a look around. Thanks for watching Donut Media!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou like a good underdog story right the little guy taking on the man with nothing but some humble equipment and his wits yeah I thought so well have I got a story for you a story about a man and his car a car that he crashes and then has to build a new one which turns out to be even better than the first this isn't just the story of one car but the story of one dedicated man's racing career today we are going from intercooler to radiator which happens to be in the back bumper to bumper on this Vulcan Formula D spec miss Sun X 14.5 I'll explain that in the video what the 0.5 means big thanks to expressvpn for sponsoring this episode of bumper to bumper if you don't know a VPN or virtual private network is a great way to keep your info private when you're online I'm a bit of a Shopaholic okay and when I'm buying car parts online I use Express VPN to protect my credit card info from snoops hackers coupes spicy boys an Eagles and that makes me feel safe and secure a Shopaholic like me loves deals I bought two steering wheels so frightening and let me tell you expressvpn is a good deal it's less than seven dollars a month and it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee take back your internet privacy today and find out how you can get three months for free by clicking the link in the description box expressvpn comm slash bumper to bumper take back your privacy today with expressvpn support the companies that support dona let me set the stage Formula Drift is one of the world's most exciting motorsports competitors throw their cars around short course is set up on ovals race tracks and even city streets drivers take turns doing lead and follow runs then the winner is determined by three judges that's right first to the finish line isn't how you win in this sport the subjective nature of Formula Drift makes it different than anything else and that's what makes it unique and to win in a unique motorsport you a unique car od bok chiefs has been in the drifting game for as long as time ten years to be exact he started his drifting career in 2009 and thanks to his experience in rally racing he was able to go pro just a year later quickly earning Formula Drift Rookie of the Year award in 2011 his career took a bit of a speed bump in 2012 when a crash in Formula gervais gigas totaled his missin s 14 OD had only six weeks to build a new car and believe it or not the car you see right now is what he came up with OD is competing with a car that he built seven years ago he's up against big dudes I'm talking killers like Vaughn Gittin jr. Frederick cosbo and James Dean some of the best drifters in the entire world some of these FZ teams have dedicated facilities with full-time engineers and mechanics working on the cars after events but OD he takes his car back to his house so what makes this car so unique well that's kind of a hard question because on the surface it's not I'll explain the Nissen s chassis is ubiquitous in the drifting world the s 13 s 14 and s 15 are loved all over the planet for their superb balanced performance and affordability it's almost as if missing themselves designed this thing to go drifting OD drugs the way the S chassis drives so much that he gave up drifting another car he was being paid to drive because he thought his escort team had a better chance at winning because of this tons of people including Odie's rivals choose the S 14 as a drip platform Odie's car runs a v8 a Chevy LS based engine actually this isn't very unique either around 2012 a lot of FD drivers started switching over to v8 engine just pissed rifting started in Japan doesn't mean that EFI drivers feel beholden to use smaller Japanese engines in their cars they want to make the most power they can as reliably as they can and v8 do that job bring Bangla you know DS first Pro car the one that crashed he swapped out the turbocharged drivetrain for an ls1 engine made by Chevy he told me that the swap was his first big career milestone because he could make reliable and repeatable horsepower which allowed him to focus on tuning the suspension instead of tweaking the boost levels all the time between his runs the engine that's in there now is a little different from the LS one he ran all those years ago this is a custom-built 427 cubic inch seven liter more stirrer nothing in this engine was manufactured by Chevy Odie's engine was done by CBM motorsports in Colton California near Woodrow Wilson elementary school go Wildcats inside the engine lives the crankshaft obviously but this crank ship is called a dragon slave these things are ultra heat treated to be super-strong just like me and have super tight tolerances unlike me the cylinder heads are cnc ported meaning air flows through them a lot more smoothly despite Odie's insistence that this s4 team isn't unique he's a very humble guy there is one feature on this engine that sets it apart the supercharger the Odie's supercharger doesn't sit on the top of his engine it sits off to the side and looks like a turbo don't be bull it is not it is a supercharger od uses a vortex centrifugal supercharger which might look different than other blowers that you're used to but it works essentially the same centrifugal superchargers are driven by a belt or a chain connected to the crankshaft as the crankshaft turns the supercharger sucks in air with the impeller and compresses it because air gets hot when compressed the air is fed through an intercooler which is up front where it cools off and becomes even more dense then the air travels through the intake where it mixes with nitrous oxide so you have compressed air from the supercharger mixing with a very exploding gas and they're coming together in the cylinders what that means is way more power od says this engine is capable of 1,000 horsepower but that the team runs a measly 915 C which is roots but tons of power to break thine tires loose alone does not a drift car mate Odie has spent nearly a decade tuning every suspension component so his car drives exactly how he wants the car to drive how a car reacts to weight changes over a course is a fundamental part of a drift car setup Eck it's important to any setup so an OD got to work tuning his suspension he wasn't satisfied with how little adjusting he could do with the off-the-shelf parts he had on this car since he had worked with his dad building motocross forks when he's younger Odie did what any normal person would do he decided he would start his own suspension company that company is called feel suspension and he can find feel coilovers on all four corners of this car go check them out at field suspension store.com they're not paying me to say that which reminds me go to donut media or donut Mediacom get yourself some donut merch Odie also worked with a little company called wise fab do you even wise fab bro to test out the rest of his suspension parts like suspension arm steering knuckles Odie told wise fab not all the tweets adjustments he made to those parts in wise fab started making those changes in their manufacturing process to the point where Odie's former secrets eventually became the industry standard for s14 drift builds so how does OD like his car to drive well surprisingly OD says that this car is actually really hard to drift it's set extremely tight now what does that mean it means that it's loose okay I'll explain generally drift cars are either set up tight or loose a loose car has really stiff suspension what causes the rear tires to lose grip more easily because the cars weight doesn't get transferred to and from the tires in a smooth manner ironically a road racer might refer to this as tight okay that's the confusion a tight car like Odie's has a lot softer suspension thus more grip on the tires the drivers wear the tight car might have to use a lot more throttle than a loose driver would through a drift because every time they let off they're essentially letting the tires find more grip get it now tight cars can be identified by their tendency to lift the front wheel on throttle as a soft suspension in the rear takes the load of the cars weight off the front tires like this unlike some other Formula Drift cars the chassis and Odie's s14 is about as stock as it can be other competitors might stiffen up the chassis with seen well just makes it more rigid but this s14 is held together with only a factory spot well frankly I'm surprised it hasn't split in half after hit some competition inside Odie's car is outfitted with your standard Formula Drift fare there's a roll cage which honestly has more in common with NASCAR's than the original drift cars from Japan there's a fire suppression system in case god forbid od catches on fire which did happen to that field last year of course right here you got your hydraulic handbrake it's attached to its own caliper in the back this is how you initiate the drift initial drift Odia also has something that I could use right now there's no AC in here it's called a cool shirt system which is basically a water pump that sends cool water into your undershirt and you wear it under your race suit this thing is clutch when sitting in the staging Lane sweating your little push-off honestly it sounds like something that was invented by God for me I want one for my desk now remember in the beginning when I said that this was an S 14.5 you might still be wondering hmm what does that mean with all the work that Odie's done underneath and the countless hours spent making my new adjustments that reached drift nirvana the car still needed to look like a drift car it needed those final aesthetic touches because after all you can't do YouTube shows without fresh air and you can't do drifting without a fresh look so what did I mean when I said that this was an S 14.5 well I meant this front it is not from an S 14 it's from the later as 15 s 14 was available in the US between 1995 and 1998 unfortunately missin stopped selling the S chassis at the end of 1998 and we did not bring the S 15 to the US because we didn't buy enough s 14 so we do it to ourselves okay the S 15 has a way more aggressive base that's relatively easy to swap on s 14 and that is exactly what od did 15 plus 14 divided by 2's 14 point but I think it looks great they call it the strawberry face I don't know why tell me in the comments why they call that Odie's car is adorned with one of the most iconic liveries in motorsports the Falk entire teal and blue you've probably seen this paint scheme if you've ever watched any sort of car racing ever from Nurburgring conquering GT cars to off-road and trophy trucks those Falken boys and girls wrote deep deeper than Adele but not just any car can wear this paint scheme right according to Falcon the teal stripes are kinked four ways and I quote wings endorsing a sense of freedom of being unencumbered and self-assured if there's anything that demands freedom being unencumbered and self-assured its drift driving baby by his own admission Odie's s14 might not be the flashiest car in Formula Drift but what od has done underneath spending years tuning and tweaking his car to perfection is what makes it so special while other drivers switch chassis x' every two seasons hoping it'll make them better od stuck to what he knew and it's starting to pay off Oh ds1 to events so far this season and is leading Formula Drift in points proving that you don't need the glitziest gear or the newest car to be the best you just have to know your car the best thank you to white line for hosting us and OD for bringing his badass car out so we can take a look around thanks for watching donut media I really really mean that thank you if you guys didn't watch this then we would just be a bunch of weirdos hanging out in a room filming me talk which would be strange if you liked this video please hit that like button to let me know cuz thank you we got a lot of new shows coming this summer one of those new shows I'm talking about it's called how to stunt every wonder how they do those awesome movie stunts well so did I so we made a show about it where I find out we drove a car under a semi-truck just like in the Fast and Furious it's awesome follow me on instagram at JS pump 3 follow donut on instagram at donut media also on twitter for both of those things by the same name i love youyou like a good underdog story right the little guy taking on the man with nothing but some humble equipment and his wits yeah I thought so well have I got a story for you a story about a man and his car a car that he crashes and then has to build a new one which turns out to be even better than the first this isn't just the story of one car but the story of one dedicated man's racing career today we are going from intercooler to radiator which happens to be in the back bumper to bumper on this Vulcan Formula D spec miss Sun X 14.5 I'll explain that in the video what the 0.5 means big thanks to expressvpn for sponsoring this episode of bumper to bumper if you don't know a VPN or virtual private network is a great way to keep your info private when you're online I'm a bit of a Shopaholic okay and when I'm buying car parts online I use Express VPN to protect my credit card info from snoops hackers coupes spicy boys an Eagles and that makes me feel safe and secure a Shopaholic like me loves deals I bought two steering wheels so frightening and let me tell you expressvpn is a good deal it's less than seven dollars a month and it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee take back your internet privacy today and find out how you can get three months for free by clicking the link in the description box expressvpn comm slash bumper to bumper take back your privacy today with expressvpn support the companies that support dona let me set the stage Formula Drift is one of the world's most exciting motorsports competitors throw their cars around short course is set up on ovals race tracks and even city streets drivers take turns doing lead and follow runs then the winner is determined by three judges that's right first to the finish line isn't how you win in this sport the subjective nature of Formula Drift makes it different than anything else and that's what makes it unique and to win in a unique motorsport you a unique car od bok chiefs has been in the drifting game for as long as time ten years to be exact he started his drifting career in 2009 and thanks to his experience in rally racing he was able to go pro just a year later quickly earning Formula Drift Rookie of the Year award in 2011 his career took a bit of a speed bump in 2012 when a crash in Formula gervais gigas totaled his missin s 14 OD had only six weeks to build a new car and believe it or not the car you see right now is what he came up with OD is competing with a car that he built seven years ago he's up against big dudes I'm talking killers like Vaughn Gittin jr. Frederick cosbo and James Dean some of the best drifters in the entire world some of these FZ teams have dedicated facilities with full-time engineers and mechanics working on the cars after events but OD he takes his car back to his house so what makes this car so unique well that's kind of a hard question because on the surface it's not I'll explain the Nissen s chassis is ubiquitous in the drifting world the s 13 s 14 and s 15 are loved all over the planet for their superb balanced performance and affordability it's almost as if missing themselves designed this thing to go drifting OD drugs the way the S chassis drives so much that he gave up drifting another car he was being paid to drive because he thought his escort team had a better chance at winning because of this tons of people including Odie's rivals choose the S 14 as a drip platform Odie's car runs a v8 a Chevy LS based engine actually this isn't very unique either around 2012 a lot of FD drivers started switching over to v8 engine just pissed rifting started in Japan doesn't mean that EFI drivers feel beholden to use smaller Japanese engines in their cars they want to make the most power they can as reliably as they can and v8 do that job bring Bangla you know DS first Pro car the one that crashed he swapped out the turbocharged drivetrain for an ls1 engine made by Chevy he told me that the swap was his first big career milestone because he could make reliable and repeatable horsepower which allowed him to focus on tuning the suspension instead of tweaking the boost levels all the time between his runs the engine that's in there now is a little different from the LS one he ran all those years ago this is a custom-built 427 cubic inch seven liter more stirrer nothing in this engine was manufactured by Chevy Odie's engine was done by CBM motorsports in Colton California near Woodrow Wilson elementary school go Wildcats inside the engine lives the crankshaft obviously but this crank ship is called a dragon slave these things are ultra heat treated to be super-strong just like me and have super tight tolerances unlike me the cylinder heads are cnc ported meaning air flows through them a lot more smoothly despite Odie's insistence that this s4 team isn't unique he's a very humble guy there is one feature on this engine that sets it apart the supercharger the Odie's supercharger doesn't sit on the top of his engine it sits off to the side and looks like a turbo don't be bull it is not it is a supercharger od uses a vortex centrifugal supercharger which might look different than other blowers that you're used to but it works essentially the same centrifugal superchargers are driven by a belt or a chain connected to the crankshaft as the crankshaft turns the supercharger sucks in air with the impeller and compresses it because air gets hot when compressed the air is fed through an intercooler which is up front where it cools off and becomes even more dense then the air travels through the intake where it mixes with nitrous oxide so you have compressed air from the supercharger mixing with a very exploding gas and they're coming together in the cylinders what that means is way more power od says this engine is capable of 1,000 horsepower but that the team runs a measly 915 C which is roots but tons of power to break thine tires loose alone does not a drift car mate Odie has spent nearly a decade tuning every suspension component so his car drives exactly how he wants the car to drive how a car reacts to weight changes over a course is a fundamental part of a drift car setup Eck it's important to any setup so an OD got to work tuning his suspension he wasn't satisfied with how little adjusting he could do with the off-the-shelf parts he had on this car since he had worked with his dad building motocross forks when he's younger Odie did what any normal person would do he decided he would start his own suspension company that company is called feel suspension and he can find feel coilovers on all four corners of this car go check them out at field suspension store.com they're not paying me to say that which reminds me go to donut media or donut Mediacom get yourself some donut merch Odie also worked with a little company called wise fab do you even wise fab bro to test out the rest of his suspension parts like suspension arm steering knuckles Odie told wise fab not all the tweets adjustments he made to those parts in wise fab started making those changes in their manufacturing process to the point where Odie's former secrets eventually became the industry standard for s14 drift builds so how does OD like his car to drive well surprisingly OD says that this car is actually really hard to drift it's set extremely tight now what does that mean it means that it's loose okay I'll explain generally drift cars are either set up tight or loose a loose car has really stiff suspension what causes the rear tires to lose grip more easily because the cars weight doesn't get transferred to and from the tires in a smooth manner ironically a road racer might refer to this as tight okay that's the confusion a tight car like Odie's has a lot softer suspension thus more grip on the tires the drivers wear the tight car might have to use a lot more throttle than a loose driver would through a drift because every time they let off they're essentially letting the tires find more grip get it now tight cars can be identified by their tendency to lift the front wheel on throttle as a soft suspension in the rear takes the load of the cars weight off the front tires like this unlike some other Formula Drift cars the chassis and Odie's s14 is about as stock as it can be other competitors might stiffen up the chassis with seen well just makes it more rigid but this s14 is held together with only a factory spot well frankly I'm surprised it hasn't split in half after hit some competition inside Odie's car is outfitted with your standard Formula Drift fare there's a roll cage which honestly has more in common with NASCAR's than the original drift cars from Japan there's a fire suppression system in case god forbid od catches on fire which did happen to that field last year of course right here you got your hydraulic handbrake it's attached to its own caliper in the back this is how you initiate the drift initial drift Odia also has something that I could use right now there's no AC in here it's called a cool shirt system which is basically a water pump that sends cool water into your undershirt and you wear it under your race suit this thing is clutch when sitting in the staging Lane sweating your little push-off honestly it sounds like something that was invented by God for me I want one for my desk now remember in the beginning when I said that this was an S 14.5 you might still be wondering hmm what does that mean with all the work that Odie's done underneath and the countless hours spent making my new adjustments that reached drift nirvana the car still needed to look like a drift car it needed those final aesthetic touches because after all you can't do YouTube shows without fresh air and you can't do drifting without a fresh look so what did I mean when I said that this was an S 14.5 well I meant this front it is not from an S 14 it's from the later as 15 s 14 was available in the US between 1995 and 1998 unfortunately missin stopped selling the S chassis at the end of 1998 and we did not bring the S 15 to the US because we didn't buy enough s 14 so we do it to ourselves okay the S 15 has a way more aggressive base that's relatively easy to swap on s 14 and that is exactly what od did 15 plus 14 divided by 2's 14 point but I think it looks great they call it the strawberry face I don't know why tell me in the comments why they call that Odie's car is adorned with one of the most iconic liveries in motorsports the Falk entire teal and blue you've probably seen this paint scheme if you've ever watched any sort of car racing ever from Nurburgring conquering GT cars to off-road and trophy trucks those Falken boys and girls wrote deep deeper than Adele but not just any car can wear this paint scheme right according to Falcon the teal stripes are kinked four ways and I quote wings endorsing a sense of freedom of being unencumbered and self-assured if there's anything that demands freedom being unencumbered and self-assured its drift driving baby by his own admission Odie's s14 might not be the flashiest car in Formula Drift but what od has done underneath spending years tuning and tweaking his car to perfection is what makes it so special while other drivers switch chassis x' every two seasons hoping it'll make them better od stuck to what he knew and it's starting to pay off Oh ds1 to events so far this season and is leading Formula Drift in points proving that you don't need the glitziest gear or the newest car to be the best you just have to know your car the best thank you to white line for hosting us and OD for bringing his badass car out so we can take a look around thanks for watching donut media I really really mean that thank you if you guys didn't watch this then we would just be a bunch of weirdos hanging out in a room filming me talk which would be strange if you liked this video please hit that like button to let me know cuz thank you we got a lot of new shows coming this summer one of those new shows I'm talking about it's called how to stunt every wonder how they do those awesome movie stunts well so did I so we made a show about it where I find out we drove a car under a semi-truck just like in the Fast and Furious it's awesome follow me on instagram at JS pump 3 follow donut on instagram at donut media also on twitter for both of those things by the same name i love you