DSG why have you left me with no new posts?

Sorry Sorry! This last month has been nothing short of madness. I would like to really encourage all of our customers and friends to plan big projects for the winter. I have a few reasons for this and I know that there are plenty of valid reasons for not doing it on your end.

On a selfish note, during the winter don’t have a lot going on so the benefit to our business is that we would be spreading the work out in a way that keeps the bills paid. For the car’s owner it’s a great time for a big project because we have plenty of time to obsess about the details. Summer is a time for “get it done, I have an event.” Winter is the time for optimization and planning.

So that’s why it’s been too busy to post. We’ve been working seven days a week to get cars back on the track, back to meets and making the commute to work for some just a little bit quicker.

Bill will augment this post with some of his own thoughts and hopefully some photos of cool things he’s built in the last few weeks.  We’ve been working on several race cars. Today, an FD RX-7 that belongs to Jim M. It’s a former Canadian touring car with a big turbo and a nice layout that we’re optimizing now with a tune to bring the power out of the turbo, big injectors, a fuel rail, regulator and Denso fuel pump. In the control center we’ll be installing an AIM dash to simplify the instrumentation and finally an RE-Amemiya spoiler and new Enkei with Grand-AM takeoff tires.

The Red E30 M3 is back for final touches. Charbel is going to be doing his first track day with COM in a few weeks. We’re going to put the car on the dyno for logging and some small changes first. We’re also working on details that we didn’t finish before, new gauge from SPA; a dual gauge for oil pressure and water temp, also fixing the headlights, horn, windows, installing a fuel level sender in the ATL fuel cell and making it work with the factory gauge cluster (a big project!)

In Rally news we did some work on Wazoo Racing’s SP Impreza, enabling the dash for datalogging and also on another Subaru GC8 Rally car that was in for a re-tune before Team O’Neil Rally last weekend.

Photo Wazoo Racing, Tim Penasack driving. Photo Joel Sanford

We traveled to Washington state for Olympus rally a couple of weeks ago as technical support for Team Rally-Tire. TRT has tapped the skills of Ramana Lagemann, our friend to finish the season in their Subaru STI SP class car. We crewed for him as he brought home a first-place finish (by several minutes) and 5th overall, not a small feat for a car that is technically well behind an open class car. This week we travel again to the west coast, this time to Oregon for Oregon Trail rally. Burak Tuglu, TRT owner will also be driving his Ford Focus at this event.  We have high expectations for this event after Washington.

Photo Andrew Snucins. Ramana Lagemann in Team Rally Tire's STI

Other interesting things from the shop-

Longtime customer Kenny Nguyen came to visit Matt for another tune on his homebuilt STI. Kenny, a machinist’s apprentice machined his own compressor housing to an HX-35 turbo using a manual Bridgeport and clay to control compressor-to-wall clearances.  He fitted this to a motor he built himself. He wanted an aggressive tune to see what his truly custom setup could do. He was using  pump gas  and made an incredible 505whp on our dyno. This is the second most powerful Subaru to ever hit the rollie.

I went to Monticello for a track day with COM. I instructed two great drivers and had a great time. A couple of our friends didn’t have such a great day. Vlad has a broken piston in his poor Subaru and Dan has yet another broken MFactory equipped gearbox. This will end our short relationship with MFactory and also underscore our honest and open testing policy. Dan broke 4th gear again. This was after only 4 track days. Next week we will be doing really the last and most fruitful upgrade to Dan’s wagon; a JDM 6 speed swap with the big hubs and bearings, R180 rear differential, new wheels, fresh tires and yes, the newest Cusco Zero 3R three-way adjustable struts from Japan. We are now direct with Cusco and will be getting what will probably be the first set in the USA.

Dan C at Monticellon in his WRX/STI before the transmission failure

Tony P at Monticello.

Testing and development-

I’ve written a few times on our website that we are committed to racing. Everyone knows that. You probably won’t see us at too many meets. Sure it’s good for business and it’s a way to pretend that we’re not promoting our business while shaking hands and casually drinking coffee like “oh yeah what a coincidence you’re here” but we don’t learn anything at meets. We won’t be better mechanics by doing that. We won’t be better at choosing what parts fit your car, or choosing what parts last longer by doing that. It’s not that we’re trying to be “too cool.” There’s just not time to do both during the summer. Here’s a quick list of products we’ve tested lately.

Garrett bolt-on Evo X turbo-

Installed on Tony P’s car. Tested at NJMP and Monticello race track, 4 days total even double driven by Tony and myself for two days. 1 month now at 364whp and it hasn’t missed a beat. Quicker spool up and more torque than the FP Red. It’s on our “strong buy” list. The only downside, and this might be true for the red also is that the turbo has to be removed to swap the clutch, or service the transmission because the compressor housing prohibits the t-case from coming off to remove the transmission. A small price to pay for reliable power.  Evo X also need surge tanks for the fuel system. Another finding.

Project MU Club Racer brake pads-

Tested at NJMP and Monticello again in Tony’s car. Very strong initial bite. Great resolution even with a heavy ABS equipped car. I’d recommend them more for a lighter car than an AWD turbo with big power but for time attack or time trial format they’re perfect. Some fade after 5+ laps with an experienced driver that likes to push deep into the braking zone and brakes hard in short intervals. Might fade sooner if the driver prefers trail braking and has long braking habits.

Subaru EJ25 Pistons-

When will this company get it right? I went to the dealership and they had literally 5 LGT and Impreza apart for broken engine replacements. This seems to be pandemic among 2009 and 2010 cars. A shame because the cars are otherwise really nice. Vlad’s piston broke at the track in his 2007 STI. Another customer had a piston break on the dyno in his LGT. The car was unmodified. Very lame.

Bilstein PSS9 struts for STI-

A great solution for someone who has a little more to spend and wants a quality, revalvable coilover package. We installed these and tested them at the track. The handling with dampers set haphazardly in the middle and no other alignment changes provide with mild understeer which would be correctable with tire pressure changes if it weren’t for a test-session cut short by Subaru pistons (see above). Bilstein are quality product and we can service and repair them through our partners in the USA. The compression isn’t harsh like some other China- built units that try to give a sport-like illusion by having slow compression damping.

Tomei ARMS turbocharger for EJ25 powered Impreza-

What was another decent bolt-on turbocharger for Subaru ended up to be a really, really good turbo once we ditched the restrictive Greddy exhaust for a true 3″ exhaust. Our test WRX with STI block made 360+ whp with this turbo with a high boost setting. It was quite surprising and puts this turbo at the top of our list for bolt-on turbos for Subaru. AVO turbo gets the temporary “fail” for shipping us a turbo with a compressor wheel that was in full contact with the housing, wasting our time and our customer’s money.

That’s about it for now. We’ve probably serviced 60 cars since our last post.  I hope everyone’s happy with the work we’ve been doing. We”re always open for suggestions if a customer would like to see changes.

Next big event is Oregon Trail Rally; Ramana Lagemann, George G, Burak Tuglu

Ascutney Hillclimb- Pierre, Alex, Niall, Kevin R.

COM at NHMS- Alex, Bill, Tony P, Charbel K