A racecar Noob, a Sube and the Mexican 1000 Rally

[drc42]

Go Paul Go! Hope it is as successful as the old Honda!

So you are planning on driving it all the way to the race? Hardcore man! (and a bit crazy )

[rhlrdr]

In

[oregoncoast]

Originally Posted by drc42

Go Paul Go! Hope it is as successful as the old Honda!

So you are planning on driving it all the way to the race? Hardcore man! (and a bit crazy )

Wait a second....are you calling me crazy??

Originally Posted by difuser

Paul @ Primitive is a great source of info and parts. You also have All Wheels Driven down in Bend too.

The Subie shell is a good start but flexes a bit. If you already have your cage in you know what I am talking about. It's a night and day difference....Consider building a footbox for small storage in the passenger footwell. Helps the co-driver brace themselves for comfort better. We build ours for a firstaid/ fire extinguisher/ tow strap mounting and storage. A little grip tape and a hinged door. Simple and effective.

Lower control arms, stockpile a couple of extras in your spares mix. They are strong but in the terrain you'll be in a good hit and they will fold back and hit the fenders. Good news is they are $20 at the local yards and a 20min fix.

We raced an RS in PGT and the car has evolved into a Full Open car with an entire STi drivetrain in it. Much more fun and alot faster the old GC8 chassis shows its age against the new STi chassis though. We mostly run it in RallyCross not due to its age.

Good luck looks like a fun project. If there's any questions I can help with pm me.

Subsribing to the thread to watch it unfold.

Thanks for the suggestions. We will definitely be carrying spares such as lower control arms. Also, can't wait for the cage to be done. I have been bugging the guys at Primitive for awhile now, All Wheels Driven is 4-plus hours away, so they have been saved from my pestering so far...

Also been in contact with Charles at Safedrives. I am trying to support the PNW shops when I can. So far, they have all been extremely helpful!!

[oregoncoast]

This jumps ahead in our story a bit, but: Yesterday, Laura and I went out to the dunes just for some quick testing of the Subaru's motor and suspension upgrades. She took a couple of quick, very shaky videos with her iPhone. We turned on the NPR opera music for effect


They aren't much to look at, but they'll give you an idea of some of the places we will be testing/beating on the race car. Much better HD videos to follow as the build/testing progressess....





Now I know that any old stock Subaru would be able to traverse the dunes, especially on this day because the sand was wet and a little packed down.

But I did find some nice fluffy stuff and I am very happy with the little Frankenmotor She just keeps pulling real hard....hopefully David will get some more installments done we can see exactly what he did to this thing to get it purring so nicely!

[TwinDuro]

Awesome!!!

The Opera music in the background is great, but the Pavarotti-like sound coming from the engine is perfect!

[Ladybug0048]

You two are going to have so much fun with this car.

[ADK]

The music from the closing credits of "On any Sunday" would have been better.

[oregoncoast]

Originally Posted by ADK

The music from the closing credits of "On any Sunday" would have been better.

I agree, but it wasn't on the radio at the time, and I wasn't about to edit those shaky things!!

Here ya go, just open two screens and play this:

[Road Rash]

Love listening to Laura giggle...........reminds me of when I take Sue in the sandrail

[Wannabeeuro]

Can't wait to see this in action.

[oregoncoast]

The latest from David:

BALANCING ACT
All engines are balanced from the factory, they have to be. However, close enough for your average car was not good enough for us. Beside we were changing the flywheel and front pulley for lighter weight units. The stock flywheel on this Subie weighs 25 pounds. At 6,000 rpm's, that saw blade like thing is sitting down by your ankles rotating at a speed of 600 times every second. Even a couple grams off and it will shake the car. If my calculations are correct, 1 gram at the edge of a flywheel spinning that fast becomes a 40 lb force. Scary. Anyhow, our new flywheel weighed about 13 lbs and we ditched the 5 pound harmonic balancer for a 1 pound under drive pulley.





My local machinist dynamically balanced the crank, pulley, clutch and flywheel together. I statically balanced the rods and pistons. All the pistons were exactly the same from the factory and only one rod was off by 2.5 grams!



American made cars are usually off by pounds! (kidding...a little).

As you could see from the videos, the engine is in and running great David was working through some engine codes when I arrived to pick up the car. He got it running great and told me to go and try and break it (but not really).

The plan was for me to push the car pretty hard so we could see what the weak points were. The first thing David noticed was that the rear struts were gone. Kerplooey. But before replacing them, I had the car for a weekend, so I put it to good use. I needed to install a fence on our property and Laura was using the van. So.....



With the rear interior removed, there's quite a lot of room for 6 x 6 posts, goat fence, concrete, etc...

I brought the car over to Lonnie's so we could discuss the paint scheme and graphics. Honestly, Lonnie is a motorcycle guy, and cars are not his thing. But, I think with enough persistence I can get him to get excited and bring his usual A-game to the design table!!



I also picked up our Christmas tree in it last night. After all, the idea is to run it as much as possible!

We thought maybe just the rear struts were bad, turns out they all were. I went with KYB's as there is not much better until you start getting into a set of Teins or something, but I do not have the cabbage for those yet.



http://www.tein.com/products/hg.html

Damn I love those things! Anyone have $2700 they want to donate??

I couldn't afford the Teins, and I wanted to stay away from coilovers, because you have to start spending several thousand dollars to get away from the cheap Chinese coilovers that are all over eBay. And most are really designed to lower the Subarus, not lift them and they are not built for he abuse of off road driving.

For now it will be KYB's with a 2" lift (more on that later) and perhaps some King springs, which are a bit stiffer and will help keep the car from sagging with all of the weight we will be putting in there. We'll be getting our Kings from Primitive.

But I am getting ahead again. First, I changed the rear struts. Here's a clue when your struts are gone. They are not supposed to stay compressed like this all by themselves.



By the look of all four, they looked like they might be the original units With 179K on the car, doesn't surprise me they were gone. But here's the thing, Even with them all blown, the car still handled in a manner that one could still drive the car pretty hard. I wonder if I could do that with a busted coilover? Besides, I actually got the rear struts delivered for $120 bucks for both!. I got the front ones from Primitive Racing and Paul Eklund sell's them at a nice low price, so I was glad to give him the business.

When I went to pick up the front struts from Primitve, I got to take a nice look at the cage from their wrecked rally car. It was nice to poke around and get some ideas for the Outback.







I went by and try to bribe welder Ray with a sweatshirt hoping he can squeeze the cage into his super busy schedule

Ok, that's all for now.

[Range Motorsport]

Here's a few resources if you haven't found them yet. Should have a lot of parts available and knowledge too.

www.specialstage.com
www.rallybc.com/html/classifieds.html
http://www.racedandrallied.com/rally...parts-for-sale

[oregoncoast]

Originally Posted by Range Motorsport

Here's a few resources if you haven't found them yet. Should have a lot of parts available and knowledge too.

www.specialstage.com
www.rallybc.com/html/classifieds.html
http://www.racedandrallied.com/rally...parts-for-sale

I have been spending some time on specialstage.com, but not the other ones. I will check them out, thanks for the links.

I have also been spending a ridiculous amount of time lurking over at http://www.race-dezert.com/forum/

They actually have a NORRA section but its not very active. The desert racing section is very active with Baja regulars and lots of drama mixed in with some really good information. Just like with any internet forum; gotta weed through lots of stuff to find what you are looking for.

I also find myself wandering toward Rally Raid stuff and expedition vehicle threads too, as they apply as much as rally stuff for this particular build.

[Range Motorsport]

Originally Posted by oregoncoast

I have been spending some time on specialstage.com, but not the other ones. I will check them out, thanks for the links.

I have also been spending a ridiculous amount of time lurking over at http://www.race-dezert.com/forum/

They actually have a NORRA section but its not very active. The desert racing section is very active with Baja regulars and lots of drama mixed in with some really good information. Just like with any internet forum; gotta weed through lots of stuff to find what you are looking for.

I also find myself wandering toward Rally Raid stuff and expedition vehicle threads too, as they apply as much as rally stuff for this particular build.

There just tends to be a whole lot more Subarus in stage rally that can provide parts for your car. I like second hand parts for my budget race vehicles.

[oregoncoast]

And here's a visual reminder of why I am anxious to get the cage installed in the car; found on a Subaru forum: