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Andre: Hey, guys. It's Andre from the High Performance Academy.
We're here with a total guru that I've been following for a long time.
We've got Mike Kojima from MotoIQ.
MotoIQ is a sort of an online database of information.
It's a real resource for those who are into
that technical side of anything automotive.
Mike, you've been around in that automotive scene for a while.
You've definitely got that technical slant which we love.
Could you give us a little bit of a background, your brief history.
How did you get so involved in the technical side of automotive?
Mike: I used to work at Pep Boys when I was a kid. (laughs)
But I seriously worked at Pep Boys
as a parts counter guy and then I guess I grew up
and went to college and became an engineer.
My first job as an engineer was
at Toyota Racing Development or TRD.
Andre: Sorry. You're straight in the deep end
there at TRD.
Mike: Yeah. I worked there for maybe
about six or seven years.
Then I went to Nissan and I worked
for Nissan North America for 17 years.
When they relocated to Tennessee,
I went out on my own and here I am.
Andre: Let's go back to TRD because that's a company
everyone's heard of.
It's pretty well respected.
What were you doing for TRD?
Mike: Mostly sweeping the floors
and cleaning the bathrooms.
Andre: Sounds great. So you're really putting
that engineering background to good use.
Mike: Yes. Yes.
Andre: Okay. So the move from TRD I'm assuming
first of all you didn't end up spending your whole time
at TRD sweeping the floors.
There's a little bit more involved than that?
Mike: I was the engineer for like the grassroots
motorsports stuff not any of the glamorous sims
or anything like that, but the SCCA programs,
street performance, autocross stuff, things like that.
Andre: Cool. You then moved on to Nissan.
Sorry, we're from New Zealand so it's Nissan
back where we're from.
How did that work out?
What were you doing for Nissan?
Mike: Well, you know, it was kind of a shock
like, see I'm staring at this thing again.
It was kind of a shock.
One week I was working on racecars
and the next week I was doing floormats.
I was like, "Well, what did I get myself into?"
But the OEM side was quite a good learning experience.
I was a quality engineer for most of my stint there
so I really learned about quality like the ISO stuff,
process control, things like that, how to do mass production.
The quality stuff was quite enlightening.
I think that was a good part of my career actually.
Andre: Sure. You're well-known these days
for MotoIQ where you're sharing a lot of knowledge.
How did you come about doing the MotoIQ thing?
Mike: Nissan was pulling up from California
and relocating to Tennessee
and I really didn't want to live there.
I was trying to think about what I should do
and I was writing for Sport Compact Car
and I was the engineering editor for Turbo magazine at the time,
and I said, "Well, I think the magazines are kind of dying
and losing popularity because of the internet.
So I kind of looked around on the internet
and all the car sites were like lifestyle things
like wheel fitment, make your car all low,
look at all these chicks.
There wasn't an online resource for the really
serious enthusiasts like the guy that does Track Days,
the guy that does racing,
the guy that actually goes out and does real drifting,
goes to Drift Day or even competes in ProAM or something.
It's like I need to write or have something
where people can get that kind of information.
So we started MotoIQ and we focused on that
rather than the aesthetic parts of the market
and the social parts.
We focused on the technical part.
We've been doing quite well
because it's a huge gap in the market.
Andre: It really is a huge gap.
I think the problem is there is information
out there on the net if you want
to go trolling forums.
That tin nickel content is there.
The problem with the forums is
then you've got to try and decipher the fact from fiction.
Whereas, the stuff you are putting out there
on MotoIQ it's technically correct
and it's that in-depth tech that people find it hard
to actually find out there which is great.
I wanted to talk about your personal slant.
I guess you're best known for suspension development.
How did that become a passion of yours?
Mike: It's kind of funny because I don't consider,
I just consider myself a regular engineer,
but somehow I tell people I'm not a suspension expert.
I'm just not as bad at it as other people I guess.
Andre: You're a crew chief and you're doing a lot
of the development work for Dai Yoshihara's Formual D Team.
What goes into developing suspension
on a competitive Formula D car?
Mike: I'm not the crew chief.
Scott Dodgion is the crew chief.
Andre: My apologies there to Scott.
Mike: Scott makes everything happen.
I'm just the team engineer,
but like what do we do?
I guess drifting it's a lot different
than what you would think for chassis set-up.
Andre: With drifting we've seen a change over the years.
Obviously, it's risen in popularity.
There's a lot of professional drivers in there
and there's a lot of big manufacturers backing it.
I see it from back in the day where it was
all about reducing the amount of grip
so the cars were sliding around.
Now we're seeing completely the opposite.
The cars are going faster.
They're making more power and you're actually working
on improving that traction so the cars can actually maintain speeds.
Is that a fair comment?
Mike: Yeah, that's correct.
We try to maximize grip because in tandem
if you're the following car and if you can't keep up,
you get left behind and you lose.
The kind of things we look toward is
it's stuff like what you would think
trying to make the car so it slides easier
or oversteers.
It's actually we're looking like sprint cars
like asphalt sprint cars, road racing.
We're looking for a lot of the set-up comes
from those two things.
Andre: You're not really actually looking
at a just specific suit-up.
You're really kind of mirroring
what we'd see in a road race suit-up these days.
Mike:Road race or like a asphalt sprint car.
I guess a pro drift car is a lot different
than maybe an amateur like a Drift Day
because those cars don't have the tire and the power
to use all the grip.
You put our set-up with a regular guy that drifts for fun,
the car won't even slide.
We're pulling tremendous G loads.
On the flats, we're generating 1.4 lateral G's.
We're over 2 G's on some of the bad courses like 2.2, 2.4.
Andre: That's an insane amount
of electrical G force for something
that's going sideways as well.
Look, let's talk a little bit about the suspension technology
and particularly the shock absorbers
or Demners that are going into these cars.
How important is tuning the suspension
to actually make the car work at a specific track?
Mike: It's super critical.
We have a different set-up for every course on the circuit.
The way things are going it's pretty sophisticated
so your typical pro team usually has
a three-way adjustable shock nowadays.
Andre: For those who aren't familiar with that,
when you say three-way adjustable,
what does that exactly mean?
Mike: You have independently adjustable damping
for the rebound and typically high and low speed compression.
Andre: Again, just to explain that.
What's the difference with the high and low speed compression?
Mike: Low speed compression is body movement
and shock shaft movement between zero
and let's say maybe two and a half inches per second.
Mid-speed is maybe from two and a half
to maybe about six or seven.
High speed is anything above that.
Andre: High speed might be bouncing a curb
or something like that?
Mike: Yes. Low speed is where a lot
of your platform control is.
It's what the driver can feel the most.
That's what controls your roll and how the car
responds to steering input.
That's really important.
High speed is like how the blow-off circuitry works,
and how the thing responds to high frequency bumps
and ripple bumps, hitting curbs, big bumps.
Andre: Let's talk a little bit about how you go about adjusting
those settings on the car to suit a track, maybe to suit a driver.
Are you relying on data analysis for that?
Or are you relying solely on input from the driver?
Mike: We use a lot of input from the driver.
A lot of it is my observation by looking
at the car and how it's working.
We also have a full data acquisition suite
so we look at a lot of the data too.
Andre: When you say full data acquisition suite,
are you talking shock travel sensors as well?
Mike: Yes. Shock travel sensors, laser ride height.
We have GPS and what else do we have?
Andre: Just about everything you can fit in there.
Mike: Yeah, just about everything we could put on there
like when you get old, the short term memory goes
so I'm having a brain fart plus there's this thing
in my face and the camera so I'm all nervous.
Andre: We'll let you off it. So sorry.
The last time I saw you I mentioned
you'd had a pretty hectic week here.
Look, Mike. It's been really interesting
to have a chat to you about
the suspension development for a Formula D car.
We wish you guys all the best success
for next season.
Thank you very much for taking the time
to chat to us today.
Mike: Thank you very much for having me.
Andre: No problem.
Voiceover: For online tuning courses
visit learntotune.com.