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SCCA Autocross Prep- D-Stock Street Tire 2011 Subaru WRX

For the 2012 season, Eric K and I will be running his 2011 Subaru WRX in the D-Stock, AWD Street Tire (RTA) class. Just because we are in D-Stock doesn’t mean the car has to be 100% stock (dumb right?). We are allowed to do a few limited mods. A sway bar (a choice of front or rear), shocks, drop in air filter, brake pads, cat back exhaust, and any alignment with factory adjustments.

Our first setup will be: Koni Sports all around, Eibach 22mm rear sway bar on soft setting, alignment set to max negative camber, and smidge of toe out front & rear. We have 2 tire setups, a set of new 255 wide RS3’s on modified RPF1 17×8’s, and a set of 235 Starspecs on 17×8 Drag wheels.

Installing the Koni’s:

Rears: No problem, direct bolt in and go (except for drilling out the top hat).

Fronts: Not a bolt on and go. This required cutting, drilling, and the use of glasses. The Koni is an insert and not the full strut. So cutting up the stock strut and removing the old shock needed to be done. Here are some pics to show you:

Drilling hole to release nitrogen and shock fluid.  watch out, she squirts….

Now to cut out the stock shock:

Making lower mounting hole for Konis:

Insert Koni, tighten bolt, good to go:

Installing rears:

Drilling out top hat:

Sway bars:

Now we just wait for the first SCCA-Milwaukee event on April 29th.

Evo Front Splitter Part2

Ok now that we have the template, let’s commence the cutting! I picked up a 4×8 sheet of alumilite from a local sign shop for a bit over $100. It’s very strong for its weight and much cheaper than a full carbon setup, plus easier to work with.

It would be nice if I could just bolt up the alumilite to the bumper as is, but that leaves the splitter at an upwards angle.  The goal is to keep the splitter parallel with the ground.  To do this, we need to make an air dam.

With the splitter mounted directly to the bumper, the front tip was about 2.5 inches higher than the back.  After several hours walking around home depot, the best thing I could find was some aluminum fascia.  Its flimsy but it should do the trick.

Cutting the template:

I cut some pieces of alumilite to sandwich the aluminum air dam on the bottom.  I then made some spacers to mount the lower lip of the bumper to the splitter.

Bumper mounted:

 

Now for bracing.  I picked up some flat aluminum and found some locations to brace the splitter.  I also used the factory tie bar locations for the rear.

Instead of using really long (and expensive) splitter support rods, I found some steel cable and a few other things at the local hardware store.  I wanted this to be somewhat painless process for removing and installing because it surely won’t make it onto the trailer with the splitter installed.

Now, the “will it hold you on it” test that everyone says it needs to pass.  Well, it did!

I decided to give the exhaust some more clearance and allow for some air to escape from the engine bay.  So I made a small cut out.  After doing so and test fitting (for the 50th time), I probably should not have dropped the cutout so far down.  It’s probably going to hit the ground for those times I cut in to far over the rumble strips.  Oh well….

All finished up:

I will have a part 3 in a month or two once I have some real track testing with it.  stay tuned!

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