Larry Chen: Mad Mike’s turbo four Rotor Mazda 3 tackles Pikes Peak Video

Larry Chen Video Transcript

Foreign [Applause] Foreign So nice what an entrance the Beast mine’s ready for his close-up we’re past tick nice well except for my numbers are too small so oh being a sticker guy I’ve got some more numbers we can make some numbers easy task but other than that it’s good to go so we officially we’re

In we’ve had a couple of runs up the hill two weeks ago car felt freaking awesome scary scary fast I honestly have not felt nerves like that for a long time you know Formula Drift cars are crazy they’re fast we’ve actually built this just quietly the Formula Drift

Rules but what we want to showcase how fast the drift cars are how much you brought a drift card 1400 horsepower rear-wheel drive converted Mazda 3 so good to go so cool but um it’s good to see you here in the US last time I saw you you made a guest

Appearance in my video in Japan I took it all this long exactly took it out of salon and you were actually meant to bring this here last year for the 100th running yeah but uh for a lot of things happen yeah with that said 101st running no problem you’re here you’re ready to

Go it passed Tech I think you’re hyped oh man I’m freaking psyched man we got out like I said two weeks ago had a uh blat up the hill so I was like we were meant to run the top section that was the main section we

Wanted to run just because of the tune because altitude is so high uh about 14 000 feet in elevation at the top where we were testing we were still 8 000 feet in elevation so still good for us to you know better see where it’s at from sea

Level obviously we only run this car in Japan once at okayama so it’s a high speed like old-school Formula One Track to head the car up to speed there’s a bunch of changes we wanted to do did those met Trevor out here at Motion Auto

So we’ve been based out of his shop for a couple of weeks got to go their local Track Club I think it is I don’t know if I pronounced that right or wrong Pablo yes the win out there had a little Shakedown event on the mountain and like

In our class we were fastest in our class I think seventh fastest outright which is pretty good I mean you know it’s it’s a lot to take on I do I took a like done a lot of study on the simulator that’s about as much as you

Can really do other than coming here and driving a rental up and down which costs you 12 bucks each time whatever it is but um dude all I remember is getting about four corners in and I was lost I came breaking into a corner and I’m like it’s like a flat six

Gear sweeper and then so I was like until I got to more the windies and the switchbacks were a Drifter you know you kind of like you just relate to double a pixes and all that yeah then I was into the groove but it was sketchy conditions

Too because it was obviously snowing up the top so we couldn’t run the top section we ran the bottom but it was a good good way to shake out the nerves at five o’clock in the morning that’s for sure so then is this something that you’ve been thinking about for a long

Time coming and is Pikes Peak one of the things as a New Zealand is this something that you wanted to do I think like for myself and kuato is like never stop challenging you know if we’re always about what’s next and it’s it’s not the event or the

Record or the the film shoot it’s always like the car as well you know it’s half of it so producing a new car whether it’s a Formula Drift to take on you know the world’s best or whether it’s to you know a new challenge for ourselves for

Us to just get to the top of the hill we’re in a rotary and like there’s a lot of records that we could try and set throughout you know this weekend um but for us it’s just accomplishment to get to the top you know even just

Getting the car here in a limited time frame a lot of Worlds firsts again just building the car and yeah never stop challenging do you know when the last time a rotary ran up this mountain was yeah it was a long time ago it was in

The dirt and the dirt so not on tarmac I mean I don’t remember it because I started in 2011 last year the dirt 2012 obviously first year of the all pavement yeah since then I don’t remember a rotary no we had the fastest man up the

Mountain which is Rod melon and he was faster than Mazdas so yeah there’s masses there’s rotaries there’s a few things that we’re you know potentially could accomplish but you know for us like I said man we’re just in terms of a rotary you brought a machine gun to an iPhone

Like this is just crazy yeah there’s more than the machine gun this is the whole freaking Army we’ve got the whole Air Force in here it’s funny because anytime I see you I ask you to make the the rotary noises you don’t need to do that

Nothing’s yeah this will do it yes we’re running twin Garrett g40s we’ve converted this car was supplied by Mazda Japan which was right-hand Drive we’ve converted it to left-hand drive just purely for the fact the time frame to build the car and obviously fitting two big turbos all the manifolds the exhaust

It’s a lot of work like our formula drift car we’ve got the same setup but it’s a lot of work where if we can just for me it doesn’t really bug me whether I’m on the left side or the right side really I feel like a couple of laps it’s

More so the coordination where you’ve got the steering wheel handbrake and shifter some people have it like shifter handbrake as long as that’s in the sequence I’m used to then I’m good to go so my Stadium trucks left hand drive that’s so funny to me though that it was

Started out as right hand drive and you had to convert it to a us and it was simply just to make the work easier for kawada as you can see just the fabrication right to do all the manifolds and to squeeze a steering column into that talk about a heat

Shield oh my God yeah well this thing’s Hot Wheels man we were 132 degrees which I don’t know what that has is in Fahrenheit but it’s Celsius it’s hot it’s hot so if that’s the oil tamper that’s water temp oh my goodness yeah I mean we’re used to ducting

Everything to go sideways so so then uh wire twin setup just for lag well yeah for a little I mean we run twin g35s on the Formula Drift Championship winning humble RX7 and that’s got like super good response still over a thousand horsepower this here didn’t need to be

Quite as responsive as the drift cars because we got so much momentum going on this hill and then with the Hollinger six-speed ratios are so close the windows quick change in the back we can really gear it to the hill yeah we just wanted more power and why not because

It’s kind of cool to put twin g40s on a forwarder so then all out power at sea level how much could this make we’re 1400 and we’ve backed it down to about 19 pound boost which is super reliable where had no issues at 8 000 feet in elevation and we’re still over a

Thousand horsepower no traction control like that I mean I’m still just trying to Bitter this thing to get it up the hill without you know I’ve got to make the tires last for a whole hill Formula Drift is like two or three corners I

Mean I bet you if you had your FD car going through the W’s you could connect every single one of those suckers oh yeah trust me it’s gonna be hard to hold me back if especially if there’s people on a corner to not clutch kit you see I’ve got the hydraulic handbrake because

People like well no stability control no traction control no stability control is right there is a hydraulic handbrake oh really yeah that’s stability control if I need to correct the car then I’ll just I’ll use the hydraulic hand brake so we run the same brakes as in the Formula Drift so

We’ve got the twin caliper well it’s a twin piston single caliper oh set up so so it’s Hydro e-brake first and then that little handle right there that’s that’s the shifter yep got it so that’s why I’m talking about the sequence because when you’re drifting right you’re flicking it in freaking all sorts

Of crazy angles and you’re never looking at the shifter if you’re plugging in you’re kind of like no that’s the handbrake that’s the shifter but sometimes when you’re driving different cars you’ll flick it in and you’ll go to pull the handbrake but you’ll shift up another gear or something you know so as

Long as that configuration like a steering wheel handbrake shifter or the other way around I’m good to go amazing amazing passing your seat of course because that’s the coolest part of my job is taking people for uh hot laps oh yeah that’s right Formula Drift you also have to have

Passenger seat so because not many of these other Pikes Peak vehicles have a passenger seat no this thing’s pretty heavy this is the first time we’ve actually waited with me and everything and we are over 1600 kgs 3 500 pounds so it’s heavy well I’m sure you put you

Took a lot of weight out but we did but then I still got safety in the time frame like our doors we’re still running Factory steel doors oh um yeah we’ve put all right perspex through it but but this and this is a factory door Factory door but it’s just

Sealed shut you know there’s the dream list that you want to do and then there’s like the priority list of what has to be done and the the main the main ones oh oh this is all perspective okay obviously Priority One must put a rotary

Into it and number two was make it rear wheel drive which is what it should have come with man imagine this Factory they would sell like hotcakes especially in New Zealand that’s for sure yeah yeah that is incredible yeah I always really loved this chassis and you know while in

Previous generations they had the Mazda Speed 3 I feel like it could have had a rotary it wouldn’t you know what’s crazy is also this body kit the wide body is also designed by Mazda so you know we work with mirassan on all our projects

Um at rocket bunny but this here was a a factory Mazda deal they wanted the job to design the wide body so it’s not as crazy as some you know obviously being a Time attack car Hill Climb car a lot of the Aero you see here is proper wild but

This Mazda still wanted to resemble a Mazda 3. so you know some subtle wide body we’ve added on some diffusers and stuff for a bit of downforce obviously the big we’ve got rock bunny wing on the back um but yeah it’s a it’s a good balance but got a fan yeah so then

Um this is cool in that you actually had a chance to work with Mazda in Japan with this build crazy to think when I was 13 we were literally scrolling like trade uh trading exchange which was a paper Willow before the internet but you could buy old Mazda my first car was a

Four-door Mazda 3 uh three to three before the Mazda 3 and we put a 12 we shoe horn the 12 hay rotary into it and here we are going full circle four-door hatchback just with four out of twin turbo 1400 horsepower so yeah but going back to those days 100 bucks you could

Buy yourself an old Mazda 200 bucks an old rotary engine crash star X7 and pull that you know that’s where I live man I never met my father I was never no one in my family into Motorsport just self-taught and rotaries were so basic they were cheap they were loud they’re

Obnoxious they were fast people either loved them or hated them and I was just hooked from the second I heard one because I was always like Moto two strokes and yeah now I get to represent them all around the world and film shoots and drifting comps and so did

They actually help with the engine package for this honestly that this the the technology in this motor is 90s 80s and 70s it’s still old technology and yeah of course a lot of the parts are genuine parts the only thing that’s really not genuine in this

Engine is the crank which we build in New Zealand and Apex seals which are quados own Apex seals that he does himself everything else is Factory Mazda Parts the housings the side plates we just modify um you know every rotary Builders got their own secrets and the way they do

Everything Testament to coato and the way he does stuff um and we’ve won some of the biggest championships around the world drifting and pushing these engines to their absolute extremes so is it all rear mounted heat exchanger setup like yep so we’ve got pwr dual custom cooling so

We’ve put Radiator in the back again it’s just to what I know we know how to build a good drift car so we’ve just you know if I was to build a WRC car we really would not know how where to start it would take me a year to drive a car

To figure out where we want the weight where we need the power same with Hill Climb car so for us it was like let’s build it to drift rules because one then we know exactly weight distribution for me driving wise I’ll be able to you know

Put the car where it needs to go and it’s crazy to me because as soon as you slap a set of your drift tires on here I bet you could just rip this thing well this thing straight off the pipes goes to part shot Max back

Down in LA and I’m gonna do a full steering kit for it and then we’re gonna have some real good fun yes I want to see that bring it back to Pikes I want to see that yeah just a regular normal door yep normal door handles still

Factory Dash which we kind of put on to resemble the Mazda3 got my signature steering wheel in our G there now you’re running oxygen number one of 300 actually I don’t know how that happened but that’s happened but first time running oxygen yeah so we ran with

No oxy on the lower section I felt all right but yeah totally exhausted after a four minute run you’re when you’re driving you don’t feel it so much but as soon as you stop man that’s when you’re like oh light-headed spaced out a little bit so

Yeah got oxy on board for the for testing this this week in qualifying but yeah haltech we’re on the haltech and here so we’ve got the Nexus R5 yeah all the PDM this cage is incredible too yeah there’s a lot of a lot of work so again building it to

Formula Drift rules but at the same time FIA rules so we can run Pikes that is incredible is that a water injection yeah so that there is literally we’ve just gone down because we’re getting hot so we’ve gone down to the Home Depot brought a spray unit for a quad bike to

Spray out your um weed killer and we’ve mounted that in the back with some Garden squirters we’ve done a lot of testing on the uh Jets the misting the 360 sprays the 90 degree sprays and we know exactly which ones to get but a kiwi Ingenuity I remember

When we first hooked those up Formula Drift 2010 Las Vegas and I have my lot of water squirters spraying on the radiator and they’re like oh man you’re out you’re out you’re leaking water I’m like no bro it’s just the water scooters they’re like what the

Hell and yeah that’s how we keep our cars cool so you you keep mentioning Formula Drift is there a future with this informal address I would love to come back to the states of course it’s a big budget it’s a lot of travel a lot of

Time I do really miss what I miss most about Formula Drift is the fans like USA man and the hottest thing I found was my driving style probably wasn’t suited as much to the judges to the fans and I’m uh and my Entertainer man so it’s always

Hard to find that balance to swap around you know but I don’t know I mean I think the sport has evolved quite a bit since you’ve left yes like 2016. I think it’s evolved quite a bit but also another thing is a lot of people didn’t understand the fandom until

You know for example Formula Drift or window 2016 top 16 intros yeah I don’t know if you remember oh yeah yeah it was just so the crowd yeah lost it Mad Mike what else they were so loud yeah and I told Jim Laos like wait till they announce Mike’s

Name you know it’s it’s just incredible yeah um how how the yeah like I say man I definitely miss it for the fans because you know no disrespect to any of the American drivers but to come over and be the fan favorite is like absolutely mind-blowing because I grew

Up as a kid in New Zealand chasing a dreamer being Ricky Johnson who was California and freaking world Supercross Motocross champion and that was my dreams that then have that opportunity to come to USA and be the fan favorite awarded two years in a row and you just

Feel it then get get goosebumps every single time you’re in the car not just because our crazy and fast it is but just that no I’ve got the fans on my side so I know I’d love to come back or my son my son he’s only yeah we would

Love to see you back but uh 15 and whether it be you or your son you know I I think it would be super cool like that that’s uh hopefully that’s in the future soon yep we’ll bring some of my events to uh here bring summer bash or drift shifters or

Something like that yeah yeah drift shifters would be really really cool yeah I’m so sad I haven’t had a chance to check that out one day one day but um dude good luck I don’t want to hold you up I know you guys have a lot of

Questions we take like I say pressure’s off now all I gotta do is put some bigger numbers somewhere I don’t know where because there’s not much room all these people thank you so much it’s a lot to list but that’s what makes it possible mate for me yeah you’re running

Kw’s uh you’re still running toyos on here yeah we’re on Toyo so toy have actually made us a custom select I’ve also made us a custom wet weather Tire we’ve got mismatching on there at the moment because we just needed to tick the tire but just endless brakes this is

The JDM dream right here yeah so it’s on that rear so it’s the same it’s a drift caliper uh-huh so it’s a single caliper but um it’s got two lots of um separate Pistons inside so one for the hydraulic handbrake and then one for the foot brake so it’s essentially set

Up still like my drift cars which is like a motocross bike front brake on the feet and rear brake on the handbrake it’s very challenging to drive up the friggin oh that’s for sure but that is wouldn’t have it any other way I love it it looks so good too it’s just

Such a pretty car awesome well thank you again thanks for your time good to see you Larry good to see you as always man hey thanks for watching if you want to support us directly go to larrychenprince.com I print and sign every single one of these

This is the perfect gift or it’s the perfect piece of art for your wall We need [Applause]