Prodrive WRC Impreza (GD) Rebuild

Ben and I were emailing about his newly acquired ECR33 and he sent me a link to the UK GTR forum (GTROC) that shows an early (circa 2002) Prodrive WRC GD Impreza being rebuilt. I think it's somewhere in Trinidad or Barbados if I were to guess. The thread has a lot of cool pictures. Here's some of them:

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VQ35 on the Engine Dyno

Several months ago when we had the VQ on the engine dyno at Cosworth, I snapped a couple of pics. Since I never got to work on engine dynos very much in the past, I thought it was way cool to see a street car engine that we [the mostly unibody car crowd] commonly build/tune/whatever on a professional grade engine dyno. The ease of working on the engine is nice: there are no cut arms, burnt hands, busted knuckles, and emanating under hood heat blasting you in the face like on a chassis dyno. The amount of data we can collect is ridiculous too.

In the US, we do not have transient dynos. I think Cosworth has 7 transient dynos in the UK, but that is the SUPER big dollar equipment for ...

Redline Time Attack! Buttonwillow 3/29/09

It was a nice day today at Buttonwillow with the exception of some wind and dust here and there. I think I got a hardcore farmer's tan too. There were the most people (participants and spectators) I've seen at Buttonwillow to date so I believe the Time Attack sport is definitely growing. The standard time attack track configuration was used: clockwise #13. The American built unlimited class cars are definitely getting quicker with the Factor X NSX and Billy Johnson busting out a 1:45.5. They broke a turbo so were not able to run the last session. Second fastest for the day was the C-West S2000 and Tyler McQuarrie with a 1:46.7 (Khiem I didn't see the other S2k that was supposed to rock t...

Crazy Week and Time Killers

This week is CRAZY busy. Daytime is Cosworth and we're cranking at 125% right now trying to finish up the multitude of projects that we have going on. In the evenings it is time attack help. Lucky for me I am not actively campaigning a time attack car so I am not ultimately responsible for entire cars. I get to play free agent so I can finish my work and gtfo. I remember the days of trying to run a shop and then having to get a race car ready: IT SUCKED.

Anyhow last night I ended up having dinner with Tarzan and Mr. Omoto who owns C-West. Tarzan is here to drive the Crawford STi and Omoto-san is here on vacation with his fami...

Specialty Z 1009whp Z32 300ZX TT

I'd love to have a Z32 one of these days. I still have fond memories of the Z32 even though I haven't driven one in a long while. Back in the day when I was 20 (circa 1993), Jeff the Tokyo Pimp and I did several Z32 NA and TTs with 150 shots of direct port nitrous. Those were my first experiences with involuntary lane changes and smoking tires at 80mph. While I probably didn't have the driving skills back then, I was too dumb to lift either. Youth and ignorance are awesome. Those were the days...I'll have to dig up those pictures. Even with all the fond memories, I still wouldn't build a Z32 myself (no time or patience). I'll j...

Design Craft STi

How buff does this look? Lanny and Gary at Design Craft fabricated the bumper and splitter. Gary is talking about making them out of dry carbon in the near future. They're thrashing away at this car and the C-West S2000 in preparation for this weekend's Redline Time Attack this at Buttonwillow. I guess this means I'll be on the chassis dyno at XS some late nights again this week...

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Cosworth Subaru Inlet Manifolds RELEASED!

The Cosworth Subaru Plenums/Intake Manifolds/Inlet Plenums started shipping last week finally. Depending on who you talk to, it seems intake manifolds go by different names. The British like to say "inlet" whereas we Americans tend to say "intake". A "plenum" is defined as "a space in which a gas, usually air, is contained at a pressure greater than atmospheric pressure" and a "manifold" is defined as "a chamber having several outlets through which a liquid or gas is distributed or gathered" so it's really both in our case. Whatever you c...

I'm not sure if the EVO IX was just way faster, the GT-R driver was out of talent, or if it's the laws of physics (which dictate that a 4000lb whale cannot hang with a 3200lb rally derived platform in the twisties regardless of technology):

R35 GT-R Out of Talent

I'm not sure if the EVO IX was just way faster, the GT-R driver was out of talent, or if it's the laws of physics (which dictate that a 4000lb whale cannot hang with a 3200lb rally derived platform in the twisties regardless of technology):

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Epic Failures

Andy from Cosworth UK sent me a link to a thread on Scoobynet which is a UK Subaru forum. His email simply said, "omg-must-see-poor-workmanship. W T F ?" and a link to the thread. Normally Andy and I shoot the shit back and forth a bit about the happs with Subys in the UK or Time Attack stuff, but with the absence of the chit chat I knew this one had to be good. The Brits like to use the word "epic" so I titled this post in honor of my UK friends.

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Hyundai Genesis 2.0L Turbo & Differences

There seems to be a lot of buzz starting regarding the coming Hyundai Genesis coupe. Hopefully it will be a solid foundation that people can easily modify and beat the crap out of without breaking too easily. Anyhow, last week I was working on the 32 over at XS and Gary from Design Craft stopped by in a blue decked out Genesis 2.0L turbo. He already had it decked out with wheels, Stoptech brakes front and rear, custom Apexi coilovers, Turbonetics turbo, intercooler, Sparco seats, Design Craft custom roll cage, etc. It turns out its a 0-60 Magazine project car so look out for ...