ruski Posted August 24, 2007 Posted August 24, 2007 The Beginning: I know how everyone likes good long write-up on projects, especially ones for motorsports cars. Well here is my story. Just over a year and a half ago I had graduated college and was very interested in acquiring a 2005 STi. With lots of lots of looking and a bit of patience I came across and STi on Nasioc that was being sold for a decent price. The seller informed me that the car had a salvage title, so before purchasing I had the car checked out by a mechanic and nothing appeared wrong. Soon afterwards I had a shiny “new†Quote
ruski Posted August 24, 2007 Author Posted August 24, 2007 Next we decided to do the splitter. Finally the cage was set to be finished. The door bars were to be finished and integrated into the B-pillars. A floor bar was put in and integrated with the tunnel, an integrated rear strut bar, and two diagonal bars in the rear were added as well. At this point the cage is completed and is a sight to behold in person. While the pictures do show a lot it just isn’t quite the same as looking upon this jungle of metal with your own eyes. Quote
ruski Posted August 24, 2007 Author Posted August 24, 2007 Completed Car: The future: The aftermath has been incredible. The car no longer gets light during high speed turns and drops. It is absolutely glued to the track. Sponsorship or not, the diffuser and splitter have increased my confidence in the car, feel, and pure outright grip. I can never see driving the car without them again. I’ve done two NASA weekends since the work has been completed and the car feels fantastic. It still needs some suspension tweaking, but the car is almost set up perfectly. At Infineon raceway Brian Lock and I took turns driving the car. I was in Group 4 and he was running it in Time Trials. I was able to run a 1:55.9 lap and Brian was able to run a 1:52.9 lap, not bad considering the difference in our experience levels. This is also with not all the weight taken out of the car and including a passenger as well. Pulling these lap times with a car weighing nearly 3700lbs is an impressive feat. Brian and I took turns being passengers with each other and frankly, it’s scary as f***. When you get to the point where you can feel everything the car is doing: the slip-angle, the lateral grip, the braking ability, and you know how close the car is to the edge, it becomes a different experience to be a passenger. I now understand why the Locks aren’t always thrilled to come on rides with me anymore. At least I know I am picking up some speed. For now the car is set up very well. A larger turbo may be in my future, but I still need at least another year to fully master the power that I already have. When I decide to go that route I will be consulting heavily with GST Motorsports to make sure the route I decide on will give my car both strength and reliability. Later this year I will be running in the Redline TimeAttack series, street class at Laguna Seca. Depending on what I decide next year I may run in the WORKS endurance series racing events here in Northern California. The possibilities are endless and all will be fun. Brakes: One thing I have learned with the STi is that its brakes are not all they are cracked up to be, at least if you drive the car to the edge. While the stock Brembos hold up well they can not take the heat generated by R-composition tires and heavy duty racing brake pads. This last event at Thunderhill one of the pistons on the right front caliper partially seized and caused the caliper to get so hot it started to bubble and burn the paint covering it. Mike Warfield, from GST Motorsports was up at Thunderhill helping with the tuning and setup of the GoTo: Racing Legacy. After talk with Brian and Mike, Mike decided to help me out with my brake problems. He recommended a set of Stasis Alcon 4 piston calipers with 340mm rotors. While my fun was over at Thunderhill, within 48hours of leaving the track my car has the new Alcons installed and was ready to go again. A track day on the Wednesday of that week at Thunderhill showed that the Alcons were up to the task of the braking challenges that I am going to send their way. A huge thanks to all from Calculated Risk whose fabrication keeps my car more stable and my body safe at the track, and a huge thanks to GST Motorsports and Mike Warfield for working with me to get all I can out of my car safely. http://www.calc-risk.com Quote
max1os Posted August 24, 2007 Posted August 24, 2007 Nicely done. Take full advantage of all that motor sports have to offer, there are many lessons one can learn that will be directly applicable to everyday life. Two thumbs up to the Calculated Risk boys. -M Quote
ruski Posted August 27, 2007 Author Posted August 27, 2007 Update: I had brought the car to the dyno to receive a return for 100oct gas. The car gets setup and starts the initial pulls. We put in some 100oct gas and start the new pulls. Shortly their after Mike Warfield comes out with this stern look on his face, "Turbo is blown" However it wasn't as bad as I had initially thought. While "blown" the turbo wasn't dead. It was not able to hold more than 19psi and it would drop to 13psi at redline. According to Mike the VF39 has a casting design flaw which sometimes will cause cracks at the waste-gate and prevent the turbo from holding boost pressure. The car still runs very strong but doesn't pull hard at all up in the RPM range. With this info in mind I am going to complete the setup of the car and then this winter try and remove the turbo to fix it or just outright replace it. Evan Quote
mjorgensen Posted October 2, 2007 Posted October 2, 2007 Does your diffuser actually work without a complete belly pan? From what we have seen it would just scoop up the air at the rear since the reason for the splitter and diffuser are to control air flow under and around the car. The open areas will not hold the flow smoothly to the botton and help the vaccuum at the rear, there is alot to making this work properly. Quote
Members Brian L. Posted October 3, 2007 Members Posted October 3, 2007 Does your diffuser actually work without a complete belly pan? From what we have seen it would just scoop up the air at the rear since the reason for the splitter and diffuser are to control air flow under and around the car. The open areas will not hold the flow smoothly to the botton and help the vaccuum at the rear, there is alot to making this work properly. A belly pan is being added right now. This should dramatically increase the effectiveness of the diffuser. We know from doing all the aero on GST Motorsports time attack car that a proper underbody and diffuser can make amazing downforce. As far as it working without one... Yes some air will get on top, but that is why it is vented. It is also better than a bumper cover hanging in the breeze. But no, it will not be as effective without the underbody. Quote
ruski Posted October 18, 2007 Author Posted October 18, 2007 After the last track, event we decided that the car really needed to have the flat bottom completed and we had to do something about the gold wheels that now looked totally out of place on the car. Calculated Risk has been extremely busy, but the day before the event they were able to complete the full flatbottom on the car. Having never driven a car with a flatbottom I was not sure what to expect, though after the first high speed corner I knew it was entirely worth it. We decided to leave a small gap in the under tray to make sure we were able to vent the engine bay properly. In the future we may decide to find another way to vent the engine bay and seal up the entire under tray. In slow speed corners you would be hard pressed to tell a difference, but in medium to high speed corners you can feel the difference on the car. The faster I went the more of a difference the flatbottom made. You could feel the car becoming more planted as you increased speed, it was fantastic. Here are some pictures of the belly: Rota was also kind enough to send of two sets of Torque wheels in a 17"x9" rim with a 30 offset. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of them at the moment as we are trying to work out fender clearance, but I will get them up shortly. The wheels give the car a much more aggressive stance, and the dark silver color works with the cars scheme. Quote
Rob S. Posted October 18, 2007 Posted October 18, 2007 Looks great. I would put some naca ducts on the undertray/diffuser to get air to the center and rear diffs otherwise the oil will get cooked and you'll be going through diffs quickly. Just make sure you have a vent somewhere for the air used to cool the diffs. Quote
ruski Posted October 18, 2007 Author Posted October 18, 2007 Looks great. I would put some naca ducts on the undertray/diffuser to get air to the center and rear diffs otherwise the oil will get cooked and you'll be going through diffs quickly. Just make sure you have a vent somewhere for the air used to cool the diffs. Whoops, I forgot to to mention that. Really the flatbottom in 90% complete. We are going to be adding naca ducts to the rear diff, and come rear brake rotor/hub coolers. We will mostly likely be adding a transmission cooler with its own naca duct as well. Evan Quote
DaveWright Posted October 22, 2007 Posted October 22, 2007 Nice thread Evan. I especially liked the Isuzu video. On a serious note. Thank you for letting me use your rear bearing of the integra for the race. I wouldn't have made the podium without it. Quote
ruski Posted October 22, 2007 Author Posted October 22, 2007 Nice thread Evan. I especially liked the Isuzu video. On a serious note. Thank you for letting me use your rear bearing of the integra for the race. I wouldn't have made the podium without it. No problem, anytime. Evan Quote
ruski Posted October 22, 2007 Author Posted October 22, 2007 Pro VS Amature Here is a video of my last event at Thunderhill. What is shown is one lap by two different drivers side by side. Thunderhill Raceway, Clockwise The audio is from the video on the left, driven by Brian Lock. It cuts out at the end as I could not get the two different audio streams to overlay properly. Have fun! Evan Quote
ruski Posted October 22, 2007 Author Posted October 22, 2007 Yea, i blew the spelling. Sorry, and it took to long to edit it to go back and fix it. Evan Quote
DaveWright Posted October 22, 2007 Posted October 22, 2007 Hey Evan if you get a chance put up the rest of the session of me and Brian. Quote
max1os Posted October 22, 2007 Posted October 22, 2007 Nice job Evan! Tell Brian I especially liked his lines from 15 through 10. -M Quote
austincrx Posted December 30, 2007 Posted December 30, 2007 Hey, what material did you use for the undertray and front splitter, ABS Plastic?? how did this help your high speed stability and top speed on the track? thanks Quote
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