Andrew
Brilliant's Time Attack GST
Drew's GST is one of the fastest and most competitive 2G DSM's in the world. This vehicle's racing history began nearly a decade ago when Drew built the car for land speed racing. The goal wasn't only to go fast, but to prove a point. It's uncommon to see convertibles used in land speed racing. Furthermore, it's unheard of for street legal cars to compete for land speed records. Drew drove his GST over 400 miles from his home in San Francisco to the El Mirage dry lakebed to chase down a land speed record. After a weekend of racing Drew drove home in the same car he set out to shatter a record with. Drew's results were intimidating, coming within .1 mile per hour of the record that previously had been set by a fully prepared race car. Some saw it as a threat and made an effort to make it impossible for Drew to race his daily driven car in a land speed event. The record Drew chased was defended not by speed, but litigation. The year that Drew would have claimed the record was the year that new rules made it impossible for Drew to compete in land speed racing. At that point Drew's car would never see a lake bed in the spirit of competition again. That did not stop Drew, however.
The next frontier was time attack racing. Making a convertible DSM competitive in a road racing environment is an engineering exercise in itself. Summer of 2008 I worked with Josh at Yoshifab to reconfigure the chassis from the land speed configuration and prepare it for road race use. This included suspension modifications and fabricating a new roll bar. After completing the chassis conversions Drew came to me to design and build the electrical systems for the car. Drew wanted to run a MoTeC M4 engine management system in place of the finicky AEM EMS that was used for land speed racing. To ensure reliability and redundancy we decided that it would be necessary to replace the old, rotted, and hacked up factory engine wiring harness with a new harness that was cleaner, lighter, and more robust than the stock harness. Drew's car was fitted with a custom engine harness made exclusively of mil-spec tefzel wiring. The new harness terminated directly into the MoTeC, eliminating the need for an adapter harness. In addition to the engine harness, the factory chassis harness was heavily modified to remove unused circuits and integrate the wheel speed harness for the MoTeC Traction Control Multiplexer. The bulky factory fuse box normally located in the engine bay was re-located to the inside of the dashboard by means of a custom wiring harness.
I am also responsible for a vast majority of the fabrication work on Drew's GST. The engines current fuel system, induction system, and most safety systems were designed and/or built by NSFabrication. After race weekends I am also responsible for preparing the car for the next race. These duties include suspension adjustments, engine adjustments, dyno tuning, and other general work required for vehicle maintenance and up-keep. The body work is the only aspect of the car in which I had no involvement during the 2009 race season.
The GST flaunted some impressive accomplishments in its debut season:
The track tune produces 622 whp, 555tq on E85 fuel
Drew's GST is one of the fastest and most competitive 2G DSM's in the world. This vehicle's racing history began nearly a decade ago when Drew built the car for land speed racing. The goal wasn't only to go fast, but to prove a point. It's uncommon to see convertibles used in land speed racing. Furthermore, it's unheard of for street legal cars to compete for land speed records. Drew drove his GST over 400 miles from his home in San Francisco to the El Mirage dry lakebed to chase down a land speed record. After a weekend of racing Drew drove home in the same car he set out to shatter a record with. Drew's results were intimidating, coming within .1 mile per hour of the record that previously had been set by a fully prepared race car. Some saw it as a threat and made an effort to make it impossible for Drew to race his daily driven car in a land speed event. The record Drew chased was defended not by speed, but litigation. The year that Drew would have claimed the record was the year that new rules made it impossible for Drew to compete in land speed racing. At that point Drew's car would never see a lake bed in the spirit of competition again. That did not stop Drew, however.
The next frontier was time attack racing. Making a convertible DSM competitive in a road racing environment is an engineering exercise in itself. Summer of 2008 I worked with Josh at Yoshifab to reconfigure the chassis from the land speed configuration and prepare it for road race use. This included suspension modifications and fabricating a new roll bar. After completing the chassis conversions Drew came to me to design and build the electrical systems for the car. Drew wanted to run a MoTeC M4 engine management system in place of the finicky AEM EMS that was used for land speed racing. To ensure reliability and redundancy we decided that it would be necessary to replace the old, rotted, and hacked up factory engine wiring harness with a new harness that was cleaner, lighter, and more robust than the stock harness. Drew's car was fitted with a custom engine harness made exclusively of mil-spec tefzel wiring. The new harness terminated directly into the MoTeC, eliminating the need for an adapter harness. In addition to the engine harness, the factory chassis harness was heavily modified to remove unused circuits and integrate the wheel speed harness for the MoTeC Traction Control Multiplexer. The bulky factory fuse box normally located in the engine bay was re-located to the inside of the dashboard by means of a custom wiring harness.
I am also responsible for a vast majority of the fabrication work on Drew's GST. The engines current fuel system, induction system, and most safety systems were designed and/or built by NSFabrication. After race weekends I am also responsible for preparing the car for the next race. These duties include suspension adjustments, engine adjustments, dyno tuning, and other general work required for vehicle maintenance and up-keep. The body work is the only aspect of the car in which I had no involvement during the 2009 race season.
The GST flaunted some impressive accomplishments in its debut season:
First
place Street FWD, Second Place overall Street class, Redline Time Attack!
at Willow Springs International Raceway
Record
holder, Street FWD, Willow Springs International Raceway 1:31.267
Overall
Champions Limited FF, 2009 NASA Super Lap Battle, Buttonwillow raceway
The track tune produces 622 whp, 555tq on E85 fuel