Ancient History

A steady diet of Ramen Noodles, cheap rent and a low paying tech internship put me into the first car I was enthusiastic about. It was a 2001 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS, blue ridge pearl 4-door manual with 16,400 miles on the odo. The Subaru WRX had just arrived stateside, but it was outside the reach of my college student budget. I had been drooling over the WRX for years, watching its success in rally, loving the signature boxer engine sound. I had plans to slowly convert my RS into a “Version 6″ WRX STI Type-RA with a full drivetrain swap, rear wing and all the little body trimmings. I wanted a complete factory OEM look.

Owning the car for just over a year, I had made a few modifications including STI “pink” lowering springs, clear corner lights, Version 6 lip and JDM taillights. The car was driven at regional auto-x events with the SCCA and BMW clubs. Around this time Mazda also hosted a auto-x style promotional event called the “Mazda Rev-It-Up” which I competed in. The car was slowly coming together on a shoestring budget, but not for long, because a 3am night cruise was shattered by an ecstasy-fuel joyride down Route 93N. Three police cruisers and an insurance payout later, I was into my current car, a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX.

Modern History

It was October of 2003, I was in my senior year of college. Initially I had mixed feelings for the WRX. The new peanut-eye design was better than the bugeye, but my feelings were still very attached to the GC8 chassis. It would take time before my feelings took hold for the GDA, I would need to toss-aside my original plans and come up with a new project.

In the first 2000 miles of the car, I had already installed a GReddy Evo catback exhaust, STI sideskirts and the OEM short-shifter. Soon after I installed a 3-way adjustable Cusco rear swaybar, Helix balljoint endlinks, and Tanabe GF210 lowering springs. During that time I was in the STX class in auto-x, so fairly limited to suspension modifications.

The following year I graduated college and started working, the car also graduated from STX into SM with the addition of Cusco Zero2E coilovers with EDFC, a Bosal twin-dump downpipe, STI uppipe and a new “Stage 2″ ECU flash from the addition of the Cobb AccessPORT. The exterior also received a slightly new treatment with the addition of STI foglight covers and GReddy GRacer front lip.

Eventually the car found its’ way from the parking lot to the race track by means of the BMW-CCA track schools. These events had a big impact on the direction I had been taking the car. Rather than spending money in the direction of power, I started spending on aspects that would have a bigger bang for the buck: handling and safety. Shortly thereafter I installed Schroth 4-point harnesses, an Autopower rollbar and upgraded the brakes to the STI Brembo brakes.

In 2006 myself and a friends were enjoying regular track days and time trials at various East Coast venues like the Redline Time Attack and COM. Later in the season, a few Japanese tuners shipped their time attack cars to the states in order to generate more interest in the sport via the GT Live Time Attack. During the Virginia International Raceway GT Live Time Attack, I was working crew with the DENT Sport Garage team and racing in the street class with the WRX. Here I was able to meet with the teams racing the Zero/Sports Impreza and the Garage HRS CyberEvo, both campaigned in partnership with Unlimited Works. My brief conversations with the Zero/Sports engineer in my limited knowledge of Japanese sealed the deal. I would come back in 2008 with my own time attack car. It was an amazing weekend, and DSG ended up taking home 1st place in Unlimited Rear-Wheel drive with Bills Nissan 240RS Maxi, beating the ASM (Autobacs Secondhand Market) Honda S2000 team.

2007 was a year of scaling things back a bit, I moved down a class from Street Prepared to Street Touring in time attack events in order to be more competitive in a car that was stock engine-wise. I campaigned the car in COM time trials, Redline Time Attack and again at the GT Live. I focused on suspension tuning, and generally learning about how to properly budget and campaign a successful team. It was a very busy and eye-opening season, from Toronto to Virginia. I ended up taking home 3rd place overall in ST2 for the 2007 COM season. Not bad especially since I wasn’t able to attend all the events.

The 2007 season came to an early end in September when the wheel bearings died, last set of R-compound tires corded and last set of brake pads back-plated. I shifted my weekends and finances to preparation for the 2008 season.

The RASpec Impreza is born

October started with a weekend of stripping out the remains of the interior, dashboard, carpeting and front seats (rear was already out). We looked at the cage requirements for Redline Time Attack, GT Live, COM and SCCA club racing and decided that a cage built to SCCA specifications would satisfy them all. This decision made the most sense, as it would also allow the car to be flexible enough to be campaigned in SCCA Club Racing in the ITE class as well as NASA road racing.

Engine

As the cage was being installed, I began sourcing components to build the engine and drivetrain. Luckily I was able to find a 2002 WRX with a JDM STI swapped engine with a Version 7 block, the venerable EJ207. It had a spun rod bearing and the owner let it go for cheap. The EJ207 is a 2 liter semi-closed deck block with thicker cylinder walls than the US-market EJ257 and better cooling capacity.

With the block decision made, I began looking into options for the rods, pistons and crank. Around that time I had been watching the results from the HyperMeeting and RevSpeed time attacks hosted at Tsukuba circuit. A little-known car campaigned by Prova and Tomei had been making impressive lap times, the Arise Impreza. This car was powered by a 2.2 liter stroker kit by Tomei, typically a Nissan tuner, but expanding their business towards the Subaru crowd. I liked what I saw, a forged piston and rod kit with a custom journaled balanced and palsonite-coated crankshaft. This particular kit bores the cylinders by 0.5mm and lengthens the stroke from 76mm to 79mm. I now affectionately call the block the EJ227.

A search was on for a set of the rare STI Spec-C heads. These heads only came on a limited models of the WRX STI in Japan, specifically designed to be homologated for the World Rally Championship. These heads are factory-ported and polished. It was a long search, but I eventually found a car in California with a Spec-C engine that had been involved in an accident and subsequent engine-fire. The heads looked to be in questionable shape, but the price was right and the gamble ended up paying off in the end. A trip to the machine shop and they came back looking factory-new. When mated with a set of Cosworth 275 camshafts and SuperTech valves, the setup looked simply breathtaking.

With the block and heads sorted, I looked towards the WRC S09 and S10 Impreza for inspiration. Prodrive had done their homework and came up with a few unique designs for a front-mounted intercooler design with a reverse-mounted intake-manifold to achieve a shortened intercooler piping. I sourced a JDM STI intake manifold, these don’t come with the TGVs, giving it more high end flow. Paring that with a set of Power Enterprise 800cc injectors to feed the cylinders. Add a quick-spooling Garrett GT3076R ball-bearing turbo and you have a machine with good midrange torque and a nice topend.

Transmission

In order to transfer the power to the ground, I began piecing together a 6-speed transmission to replace the 5-speed I currently had. The 5MT stood up to the track surprisingly well, but I wanted to take advantage of some of the improvements the 6MT had to offer. I began searching the NASIOC forums to put the swap together. The transmission came from a brand-new 2006 STi that had been rolled with only 3000 miles on the odometer. An ACT 6-puck clutch and ProLite flywheel will transfer power between engine to transmission. Kartboy supplied the 6MT short shifter kit and bushings to give an amazingly quicker shift and positive response. The rear differential would be replaced by the larger STI R180 housing and a Cusco 1.5-way LSD. A new crown wheel and pinion gear was required to convert the 3.90 rear end to the 3.54 ratio transmission. The 2005 STI debuted with a new PCD at 5×114.3 and a much stronger and more easily swappable bearing and hub design, so new axles and knuckles were sourced all around. A bit of machine work was required of the front knuckles to fit the 2004 WRX lower coilover brackets. The old wheels were replaced with a set of 17″ x 8″ Enkei RC-T4 wheels, the same white multi-spoke lightweight wheels seen campaigned on the Japanese Super Taikyu endurance cars.

Aero

Rounding the car out with a distinctive aero package will occur in stages, starting with a basic body kit. The front end will be an INGS+1 front bumper, APR splitter and Seibon carbon fiber hood. INGS+1 sideskirts and STI rear skirt carry the look around the car, and a Seibon carbon fiber trunk and carbon GT wing will round out the aero package. APR GT mirrors will remove a bit of drag.

Finally

Building a car is a big learning process. I’ve met so many people through this project, made so many connections that I’m still amazed. Its very much a lifestyle.

I would like to thank the many people who have made this project come from a dream to reality including:

• Dent Sport Garage: Bill, Alex, Quy, Nick, Matt and Scott for bringing this car from a dream to reality.
• Ron Williams at RAW Performance (Formerly Axis) for sourcing the right cam cap for me.
• David O’Brien at API Engines in the UK for sourcing the left cam cap for me, these things are more rare than hens teeth.
• “Russian” Alex for letting me use his garage early in the project and advice.
• Guys (and girls) in IDP Racing and COM for keeping me grounded.
• Zero Stage Monster pals: Tristan & Charles for sharing in on the fun and telling me to do it because hot JDM babes will want me super bad and the spirits of Aryton Senna will help me.
• The engineers from Garage HRS and Unlimited Works for taking the time to explain some of their design decisions for the CyberEvo and Zero/Sports Impreza. I still owe you a beer!
• My girlfriend Aya for translating Japanese car forums and issues of HyperRev magazine, following me to far-off races without complaint and allowing me to skip buying you Christmas and birthday gifts so i could by car parts instead.
• Matsuo-san from Subaru Customize Shop Emotion Fukuoka for motivation and a few free parts for the project!
• All the folks on NASIOC who sold me parts (There are too many).
• The Internet. Without you this would’ve taken much longer.
• The folks at RalliSpec for sourcing jdm parts fast.

We’ve got a long way to go, with the build, and the race campaign. Keep watching this space for more details on the Visual Assault / Dent Sport Garage RASpec Impreza s08-01! Checkout the gallery below and this gallery for more pics!.

-Ron
Visual Assault / Dent Sport Garage / Zero Stage Monster

Spec sheet

Some photos