Gary, what's that tow hook bolted/welded to? I've got IC pipine in the way in there, and I'm running the same IC as you, so I'm wondering how you pulled it off.

It's welded to the chassis frame right under the IC piping. It's where the front bumper structure would normally bolt to.

Gary
Sheehan Motor Racing
www.teamSMR.com

That hook must be significantly longer than mine... I think if I welded mine there, it'd stick out about half an inch... looks like I need to get a piece of steel welded in there to attach the hook to.

Classic! I just assumed mine would still screw in.

I should get someone to show me how that works (screwing in the front toe hook thingy)

1. Use a coin to pop out the hole cover in the bumper
2. Take towhook from toolbag in trunk and screw into bumper
3. Do not install FMIC

The sti does not have that little cover...Instead, you just remove the entire fog light cover and the hole is exposed.

Oh. :oops:

Either way, I've got a FMIC in the way of my stock tow hook, so I picked up one of these:

http://www.writerguy.com/primitive/img-body/tow-eye.jpg

But I haven't figured a way to mount it yet.

I really liked the tow hooks sticking out of one of the Vettes at the autoX last weekend. They were bright green or somthing. Sorry, I know I'm no help.

It will be tough for the Subaru. Even the Nissan Skyline R34 is having a rough time being competitive in the GT class.

Btw Scott, where did you get the tow hook?

Primitive Racing... they do a lot of rally type stuff for Subarus, like skid plates and the like:

http://www.get-primitive.com/

Time for some research. I'll look at this also. I do have some steel fabricator resources for a custom piece. I haven't looked at the piping and how it covers the hole.

I still think it's pretty classic that I didn't even realize this problem with the FMIC. At RFR I made a point to take out the tow hook and put it in the car so I would be ready! (on more than one occasion)

I think a steel bracket welded to the frame with holes that allow for the mounting of the above pictured tow hook and a slot cut into the bumper should be fairly straightforward. If I knew how to weld, I'd probably just tackle it myself.

There's only one way to learn!

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=55247

:D

I tell you, every time I walk by the welders at Lowes, I'm tempted... but frankly, I need to at least read up on welding to know what I need to buy and what the difference is between MIG/TIG/ARC. All I know about welding is that I don't know anything about welding.

All I know is I've done it once and it's a lot harder than it looks. :p Isn't bruspeed a welder?

Gary is way better driver than a kid in that Skyline..

HAhahahaha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welding

If you end up doing any welding yourself, you'll be doing wire-feed MIG. It's the easiest to use & cheapest of the arc welders. Stick is a pain in the ass (at least I thought it was), because you go through electrodes so fast & have to keep changing them out. TIG makes some sweet-ass welds but a machine is going to be at least $1000, where a light-duty 110v MIG is less than $200.

rubber biscuit is a welder

Bump because the race is on from 11-noon today on Speed...

So I'm guessing the team learned alot, and the car survived, so I guess it was a succesful race.

I'm watching the race right now on the DVR. :D

Cool Race.

I saw the last 12 laps. no STi shots!

Best STI shot was the starting of the race...

I gotta say, I'm very impressed that *anyone* is attempting to run an STI in that series. Right now it's sort of a "knife to a gunfight" situation... it's going to take a ton of work to make the necessary power out of a 2.5L 4-banger to match a racebred Viper or Vette. But it looks like the rest of the car is there: handling, reliability, braking, etc.

From what I've gathered the car is running a GT35R turbo on a built motor.... something that a ton of people are running on the street. Which means two things: a) they've got their own development program funded by idiots like us that spend a ton of money on our own cars trying stuff out :lol:, and b) since they're basically running a "streetable" motor right now, changes are there are some gains yet to be made at the expense of reliability and streetability.

Unfortunately, I don't know the WC-GT rules, so I'm not sure what their options are for power adders. Perhaps WI might help, but they're already running the spec 104 octane fuel, so I'm not sure how much there is to gain there. A bigger turbo and more boost is always an option, but then you have to think about anti-lag to combat the slow spool... which may or may not be legal in the series. Hopefully the smart people working on the car will be able to come up with something!

Bottom line is: Gary did a great job getting an STI into World Challenge, and finished the race placing higher than he qualified. You can't ask for anything more than that considering the stage of development of the car. Congrats Gary! :D

Good first showing Gary, congrats! Sorry to hear about the brake problems you were having. Have you gotten those sorted out? Did I read somewhere that you were running fans in your brake ducts or am imagining things?

Looks like WC-GT is coming to Road Atlanta in Oct, I'll have to come out and watch.

Gary's recap from NASIOC...

I just watched the end of the race... Ron Fellows is the fucking man. Text book driving: used the handling of his car to setup and beat a faster, more powerful car. Awesome finish.

JC, IIRC the fans on the brake ducts were on the USTCC car, but I could be mistaken.

Ron Fellows is the man, Who passes on the outside on a street circuit? For a part time Cadillac driver, he sure knows that car well.

Anyway, it was great to see Gary in the event, and finishing their first race is a huge accomplishment. Good work.

Gary is the man, with the issues after the 3rd lap with the master cylinder to turn the lap times he did is nothing short of amazing.

I am nothing short of proud to have been able part of the team.

Mike

What actually happened to the master cylinder anyway? It held up for the 15 hrs at T-Hill, then the WCGT practices and qualifying... what made it go on L3 of the race? You guys going to switch to a beefier one... or is there no such animal?

What makes you think it held up during practice and qualifying? :D We had issues with the braking from the get go and spent the best part of the weekend working on resolving them it was not until the actual race (or after it) that we came to the master cylinder after fixing the ducting and such during the earlier parts of the weekend.

I would imagine they plan to run something better on the next outing.

Mike

Ahh... I was assuming the problem was a "surprise! no brakes" after hours of flawless track time.

Are you guys running StopTechs front and rear? Will you have an issue w/ brake bias if you switch master cylinders, or are you already running a proportioning valve?

I need a new master cylinder myself (I'm still running the WRX one with STI brakes, so I've got a ton of pedal throw). I'm insterested to hear what you guys come up with for a solution.

http://www.tiltonracing.com/images/3ped.jpg

(If they're not already..)

Watched that race, the STi just seems like a midget among giants. The lap time difference during the race was pretty huge but I'm sure not having any brakes was the majority of the reason.

Does anyone know if the ESX STi is still running the AWD system or is that car now a RWD? What motor are the Porsche's running? NA or turbo? It seems that if the Porsche's can be somewhat competitive then the STi should stand a chance too.

What rules does the Speed GT series have about homologation? Do the cars have to come from a car lot and be built or can they be factory prepped race cars?

It seems you could buy one of the almost turn-key Prodrive Impreza WRC S10 cars and set it up for street and you'd have a pretty competitve package... semi-auto trans and all the bells and whistles.
http://www.prodrive.com/default2.asp?M=368

I doubt a Prodrive WRC car would be legal in WCGT. The sequential gearbox certainly won't be, as the cars are required to run factory specified gear ratios.

Gary's WC car uses the factory STI AWD 6-speed, with factory diffs, etc. It's the same stuff that comes on the car from Subaru. The motor's a built 2.5L with a GT35R turbo on race gas... so they're probably making 400 to 450 hp at the crank.

The Porsches use the 911 GT3's motor IIRC, which is a 3.6L flat-6 making 380 hp in stock trim... figure the race motors are in the 450-500hp range, plus the Porsches are generally the lightest cars out there. And even then, there are a ton of Porsches in the field and yet the races tend to be all Vette, Viper, and CTS-Vs up front... which makes sense, since those cars all make 400 to 500 hp *stock*... figure they're pushing 550 to 600hp in race trim (though the cars are quite heavy).

Gary's car is simply just under-developed at this point. Similar to the Skyline GT-R that's in the series, no one's tried these AWD cars in this series, so the learning curve is very steep. I think Gary mentioned his STI seems capable of keeping up w/ the others in the corners and under braking... the car is just over-weight and underpowered. If they can drop some weight, they should be able to our-turn and out-brake the competition... and then all they need is enough power to keep up on the straights.

I don't think the STI will ever make the power needed to chase down the V8's in the series, but if they can be close, then they should be able to out-handle the big cars, then get the jump on them out of the corners due to the higher cornering speeds plus the AWD traction. Then it's just making the car as "wide" as possible and running a defensive line. When you can run the inside line, and still turn as fast as your opponents, you become very hard to pass. You just have to hope there are no really long straights where the big horsepower cars can eat you alive.

:drool: I want to put a Tilton pedal box in my RS. The AP Racing one is even bettar, but it's like $4k ;)

Really? I would think a GT35R on race gas should be easily over 550hp at the crank? They are making 500-600 WHP on street cars.

600 whp? :lol: I don't think anyone is making 600 whp on a "streetable" STI motor. Hell, is anyone even making that much on a dedicated drag car? 600 whp is like 850 hp at the crank... w/o nitrous, meth injection, and a ton of other WCGT illegal bits, no one is anywhere near those numbers.

Um, plenty of people are making over 600whp on STis, some are even daily driven. I know there is at least one guy on nasioc running 720whp.

Nasioc is down but here is one running 530whp on pump w/meth injection, they have a one on nasioc putting out 590whp. Granted that's on meth but it's also on pump not race gas. I didn't say the ESX car should make that much, but even with WCGT restrictions more than 400 at the crank should be easily doable. Unless they have to run a decent size restrictor.

http://www.wrxatlanta.com/forums/sho...ighlight=gt35r

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=983345

Yeah, but the whole point of TopSpeed's thread was "we're gonna crank the boost and dyno this bitch until it breaks." Not much of a tuning philosophy for a race motor. ;) I think that 400 whp is possible on a race-reliable tune, but that's probably the ceiling. Qualifying tunes might be able to get away with 450-475, but that would be risky.

I didn't say they should be anywhere near 590whp, just that it was doable with a GT35R. But Scott's figure of 400 CRANK hp seems really low to me when there are street motors making way more than that.

Yeah, like Scott's. :p

I'm sure the turbo can make a pirate's booty load of power... it's got the flow. The question is how to make that power w/o nitrous/WI/MI, and with enough torque and power band to be useful at road racing, all on the supplied 104 octane.

I didn't know there were people approaching 1000hp on the 2.5L motor, but I do know that those cars would be one step from useless on anything with more turns than a drag track due to the huge late power surge. Hell, on my TD05-20G trying to get smooth exits out of a turn at autocross is an exercise in anticipating the boost and letting off the throttle as the power comes in ('course that's more an issue w/ my suspension than anything else). Nevermind the reliability of a motor like that under road race conditions.

My estimate for the current WCGT car of 400-450 was based on hearing that during the T-Hill 25hr qualifying they had an over-boost situation of like 26 psi where they estimated they were making like 650 hp. Since the WC tune is at much less boost, I figured 450hp would be a pretty realistic number. I doubt they're making much over 350 to 375 at the wheels (at least that's what I would have tuned it for if I was attempting for some semblance or reliability since I don't believe they have spare motors on the hauler at this point) which is still at or under about 500 crank hp, which is still just equalling the *stock* horsepower of the Vettes and Vipers. :eek:

Well based on the fact that the cars with the numbers being quoted within this thread all still run around the 122-126whp with there huge 530whp+ power numbers I would say that the numbers being quoted as WHP are useless.

What I am getting at is that on the dyno this car was tuned one (The ESX car that is) 400whp with a reasonable driver will run 11.4-11.6 at 120-124mph so you should be able to work out where the difference in quoted WHP is coming from. The last time the ESX car hit the rollers it span them to a little less than 400whp. The car is only allowed to run 22psi and was only running at the most 21psi all weekend (we have issues if the car goes over 22psi!).

Something else to remember when referencing street cars with C16 and meth and 30psi is that this car runs nothing better than 104 octane and has to with stand 50 minute races not mid to low 11 second passes.

Mike

I assume you mean 122-126 trap speed? Not to stand up for Topspeed but keep in mind our high here yesterday was 88F, heat and high humidity are certainly going to affect trap times. The car making 720whp ran a 10.2 w/ N20 and 2 people in the car, should be a 9 sec car at some point soon. So I wouldn't say they are useless. I'm well aware that a road course car isn't going to put anywhere near those numbers, my only point was that a turbo that can flow damn near 1000hp on the same motor + power adders should be able to add more than a 100hp on a race setup. In no way was I trying to say you should be able to make more power than you are right now. Just trying to get a decent guess of where you are at.

Well that answers that, it's nice having the guy who tunes the car on the board. :) Do they make you guys run a restrictor?