The other day at work Nick noted that a couple of years ago, before car magazines became thin with the recession, a popular topic for editorials and letter submission was Chinese manufacturing. In 2009 writer Jay Chen penned an editorial article in Sport Compact Car, now called Modified as his swan song for the magazine, lamenting the rise in popularity of knock off parts. He noted their presence as a shift in the industry to a “Fast and Furious” trend of unloading parts on the cheap. He wrote:

“The market is flooded by cheap China-made copies sold through eBay. Knock-off parts, stingy buyers, and the shift of parts sales to the Internet have caused the demise of many manufacturers and magazines, good and bad” That was three years ago.

Only three years later the landscape has completely changed. The auto industry is expanding aggressively.  US companies, nearly starved to death on the home front by their own doing are investing billions in China. GM is building new plants there now while closing them here. For auto manufacturers like GM, China represents a new opportunity for sales as the Chinese economy opens for trade. China may feel the same as GM about the US market. Economic influences on the US dollar and trade bargains as offerings against US debt both encourage the Chinese manufacturer to sell goods on our shores. The western consumer, simultaneously hit by their own bad economies are magnetically forced to these less expensive products in an effort to save money. Of course, the purpose of this article isn’t solely about China, and certainly not an effort to cast China in a negative light, but about copies, about knock-off parts and copyright infringement. That conversation can’t happen without first setting a groundwork for what enables such things to happen. The lack of protection trade-partner countries offer each other to protect their domestic intellectual property, the exposure that companies face when manufacturing overseas in an effort to seek lowest-cost production and then the fickle consumer who demands low prices and low unemployment on the home-front all allow for a perfect environment for copying more expensive products and reproducing them in China and any other country that has low cost manufacturing.

The idea of a copied product being an insult and a threat to market presence is purely western. In Russia, China and other eastern countries and continents the reproduction is not only an art but a compliment. It’s been happening for years with watches, cameras, guns, boats, cars, Warplanes, even the Space Shuttle! Nearly everything has been copied. Before the Internet, Ebay, Alibaba and other global trade sites the copying served an important role, providing products that were otherwise unavailable, providing the public with a useful product. The choice wasn’t over price, but whether to have it or not. Now that essentially all products are available all over the world at all times, we would rather see ‘our’ originals sold worldwide than have our product cannibalized and resold at a price that we could never meet. The solution is to cry foul and we can only cry foul when the law allows.

In the case of GM the Chinese-built car will be no worse than the one made here, the same way that the BMW built in North Carolina is no worse than that built in Munich. The reader is left conclude that it’s not the location of manufacture, but the opportunity and reason for choosing that location.

Back to car parts for a moment, specifically one that performance enthusiasts can appreciate, the turbocharger. The turbo represents a perfect example of the consumer’s schizophrenic relationship between their perception of quality and their reluctance to spend money. If we were to tell Jay Chen in 2009 that his magazine would be full of advertisements from companies doing exactly what he claimed to be causing the demise of the industry in 2009 he wouldn’t believe us. He would never have predicted that the parts sold on Ebay in 2007 would be the new standard of quality for the industry and ultimately save his print publication from bankruptcy in 2011 with full page ads for turbos made, designed and marketed by Chinese companies. Furthermore he never predicted that these very companies producing counterfeit parts would also be saving the name brand companies by manufacturing for them at lower cost. The term “knockoff” has been completely redefined, especially in relation to the turbo, our example part. Chinese parts now have names and without naming them specifically, we see that the differentiation between knock-off and name brand isn’t more than a full page advert.

The China-turbo conundrum started a while back and if someone did their research they’d see Mike Huml’s name from Slowboy and Built Industries and various other commercial enterprises. By his own admission Mike sent a Mitsubishi Evo III 16g turbo to China in 2005 to be replicated.

“In closing, we feel genuinely bad that we sent an MHI turbo to China over 6 months ago to see if a less expensive turbo could be made and brought to market. When we learned of the quality and issues in manufacturing, we decided to pass on bringing these to our loyal DSM customers. We could not offer such an inferior product, for any price.

Regards,

Mike Huml “

What Mike said was somewhat confusing as it suggested he decided to forgo the opportunity to buy from China. He later was sued by turbochargers.com David Rafes for defamation after Mike accused him in an online article of selling inferior, cheap turbos made in China. That was 4 years after Mike himself introduced manufacturers to the opportunity. He perhaps showed them that there was a demand from enthusiasts by sending this turbo to be replicated. Many reputable performance outlets sell turbos made in China. They’re named and numbered with the latest fashions and people buy them every day. Does this mean that they’re knockoffs? If the product cycle goes on and the knockoffs are refined and re designed are they still knockoffs? This is happening.

The latest comparative analysis over quality versus location is to state that mainland China doesn’t produce a product comparable to that of Taiwan. All of this is really not important though. It’s the cycle that’s important. The idea that we get comfortable with a topic, or an idea that at first is really difficult to accept and it soon becomes the new normal.

Many, or can I write all turbos (or all types!) are now made in China. Name a brand and it’s been made in China. Even turbos that come on cars as OEM equipment. At some point the consumer needs to remove the “where” and insert a “why?” to derive information with which to make a decision over a purchase. If a seller is looking simply for inexpensive, low cost product like Mike was in 2005 in hiring a firm to literally copy Mitsubishi’s work then that would define a “why?” The spread between cost and retail was a huge profit. There were no development costs. If a company like Garrett is to develop it’s own proprietary designs on a yearly basis, testing and refining them over and over then it’s sensible to seek a low-cost manufacturing model to defer the high costs of development. In the case of copying there is no development. There is also no law against such copying in China apparently. That’s the “why” when the intentions of the seller dictate the quality of a product more than the factory location.

Imagine living for a moment in the 70s when the first production turbo cars were rolling off the plant floors. The notion of a knock off then could be the second turbo 4 cylinder car to be manufactured. In the case of most parts we enjoy today the lineage of sales and manufacture suggest that everything is a knockoff. Turbos that bolt on in factory locations, standard fuel injectors that are modified, ECU ROMs changed to suit those parts. All the work of engineers who developed the technology for the manufacturer.

For a less controversial angle on the topic consider a semi-fictional company in China hired to do a run of 5000 turbochargers for a US company. The contract ends and the company is still tooled to produce. There’s no law to force them to stop. They are doing this on their own accord. Months later they appear here on Ebay. Are those knockoffs? The company who hired the manufacturer is essentially taking a calculated risk in choosing the potential of this outcome combined with huge profits over legally protected US based manufacturing.

The politics of counterfeiting are nearly impossible to skirt. Using Moto IQ’s Mike Kojima’s recent blog post about the Cusco Catch can on Moto IQ- If the catch can is remade (albeit poorly)  and sold on Ebay for ¼ the cost, does the lower cost reflect the lower quality? Is it ethical for Cusco to sell a nicer part, still made by the same people for 4x the amount? Does the consumer seek fair pricing based on production cost or ultimate quality? A famous Subaru tuning company was selling a “high flow” waterpump for over $200 that was simply a Japanese OEM replacement. They made no changes. The pump probably worked better as tested by the company but they make no changes to it. It’s also being branded as theirs. Is this a counterfeit or a misleading label?

It’s all very confusing. Companies subject themselves to being copied while trying to pull every penny from a product by manufacturing in China and the like, resellers circumvent the development process by sending products to be reverse-engineered, the consumer continues to buy from Ebay sellers who are guilty of remaking known designs, Ebay continues to allow listings that display copied items.  The consumer is never told the truth about what is made where. Things are carefully labeled “designed” or “assembled” or perhaps “built” in USA or Japan. Sometimes there is simply false labeling and the consumer is fooled outright. My recommendation is to choose on quality. Learn for yourself why the product is better. Learn about who is selling it and why they make something in one country over another. Ask questions. If they don’t get answered assume the worst. Also, if you’re sick and need cheap medicine be sure to pay the most money for the brand name. No one likes a knockoff.

-DSG

Bill is really responsible for the project’s success. He had to conceptualize and fabricate virtually
the whole car. The only functional component that remains to be changed is the rear differential (maybe we’ll do that next year). The front end of the car still looks like a BMW but under the flip-forward hood resides a Nissan S13 Sr20det motor. For those not Nissan-versant that’s a Japanese market motor, all aluminum 2 liter 16 valve turbo. Of course the DSG version is slightly different. This project started so long ago the Darian Nguyen, formerly a DSG engine builder, now owner of Boostees Clothing Co built the bottom end of the 2 liter with forged pistons and ACL bearings.

Tony, one of the owners of the 2002 drives an Evo X ( quite well we might add)  He upgraded the turbo on the Evo and this left us with a spare Evolution X twin scroll turbo. Was it well-sized for the 2002 project? Absolutely. Bill got to work on the adaptation of the Mitsubishi turbo to the Nissan motor by constructing a manifold to join the two parts in hot steel matrimony. As the reader knows DSG is a New England shop.  As New Englanders we need to keep a reputation for being resourceful and clever. This Yankee philosophy wasn’t lost on the 2002. Instead of mounting the Nissan motor to the BMW front subframe, doing the usual and making custom mounts to mate the two, Bill decided to use the entire front subframe and suspension from the newer, more advanced Nissan 240 on the old BMW. This meant cutting the ends of the subframe and reconstructing to allow it to bolt to the BMW frame rails. The advantages were many. The engine was supported in it’s original cradle. The BMW lost the old style steering box and gained a modern steering rack from the Nissan, it lost the tiny front brakes and gained low replacement cost and much larger OEM Nissan brakes. The 2002 even uses Stance coilovers up front built for the Nissan 240! Bill then made a custom transmission tunnel and ordered a custom driveshaft from The Driveshaftshop. The steering column is custom, passing over a custom pedal box with a black-anodized billet aluminum gas pedal and dual brake master cylinders with bias bar. The brake lines are all stainless braided lines running all the way back to the Ireland Engineering big brake kit in the rear.

Vdo Vision Series Gauges behind the Momo wooden wheel

Inside the car the originally upgraded Recaro cloth seats were re-employed. In front of them a flocked fiberglass dashboard with custom picked VDO Vision series analogue gauges. Even the fuel tank was modified to use a sender for the new gauges and a high flow fuel pump. (the M10 engine that the car came with was carbureted!) The old steering wheel was reclaimed, a wooden Momo wheel seemed perfect for the old car, now mounted on a quick-release hub. The
interior was painted in a glossy grey paint that’s tough enough for foot traffic. Before the paint was applied DSG’s roll cage fabricator Chris Howard installed a very simple cage to ensure driver safety and strengthen the chassis.

On the outside Alex gave the car a very simple semi-gloss black paint job after Bill mounted the 2002 Turbo style fender flares. The airdam is a 2002 Turbo replica as well. The nasty metal bumpers were removed to harken the image of the Alpina GR.5 2002. The wheels, were ordered at the very beginning of the project from Volk in Japan. The custom bronze TE-37v arrived about 4 months later in staggered width, 14” diameter on front and back wrapped with big, sticky Toyo R compound tires.

Everything was coming together. A simple body harness for the car’s spartan electronics was constructed and Bill made switch panels for the operation of the lights, blinkers and wipers.  A couple of weeks ago the crew loaded the car onto the dyno for Matt to tune the Vipec ECU. With age in this case comes the benefit of using a stand-alone computer and maintaining Massachusetts legality. The Australian Vipec computer and resulting Vipec/Nissan EFI system is also far better for the environment, creating much fewer emissions even at this power level than the Weber carburetors did!  The cold start was programmed and later that day the car was doing some power pulls. The car sounds like no other we’ve had on the dyno. Bill thinks it’s too quiet even though we employed only one large stainless muffler. The exhaust is oval for a section and up front the twin scroll turbine housing on the turbo somehow equates to a very smooth tone with no rasp or cam-lopiness. Matt tuned the car to make just under 300whp. There’s plenty still available- the custom cooling package; radiator, surge tank, Garrett-core intercooler also built by Bill will keep things cool with even double that power but the car hardly weighs 2000lbs and the low weight makes it very rapid even with low(er) boost. The tires spin from a roll in second gear. Perhaps in the future we’ll upgrade the rear differential and turn the boost up!

With the 2002 almost done we’re trying to make some big things happen next year.  Since we opened about 8 years ago we have been dedicated to landing our reputation amongst the top motorsports operations in New England and we’ve working hard to stay the course. There are a few things in the works for next year that we can’t divulge yet.

Other things around the shop have been Subaru-centric. Somehow we’ve got 5  Subaru in for engine work.

Subaru engines in Progress. From Front, 2.0 WRX, 2.5 STI and 2.2 Tomei

We’ve done more motors this year than any other in the past and we’ve been having great success the builds, both for track cars and commuter cars. About a week ago we put the final touches on Chad’s STI, a GT30 powered STi that sees a lot of track use. It’s got a Vigilant Track series block and a Mocal oil cooler kit with a thermostatic filter housing that is designed and sell from the shop. The car made great power and should be a class winner at the track next year.

The barren interior of Nick's BMW E36

The shop race cars are also coming along. Winter is the season for projects, and big changes. Nick is building his red E36 M3, stripping the harness and prepping the interior for a roll cage.  Bill is changing his SR20DE cylinder head to a SR20VE which uses technology very similar to Honda’s VTEC.  This requires a few changes including a new intake manifold which has been designed with Solidworks (another recent advancement).  In addition to the engine, the ECU has been upgraded to a Vipec V88.  The R200 rear differential has been sold and a Speedway Engineering IRS Quickchange will be grafted into the rear end of the Maxi later this winter.

Alex is building a new engine harness, a stroker motor (2.2 liter) and doing some bodywork to increase wheel travel in the rear.

The beginnings of harness work. Paring it down before re-shrinking and re pinning.

A build gallery for the 2002 can be found here:

http://www.dentsport.com/gallery/projects/?album=9&gallery=187

Matt would like to mention that he has been continually updating his dyno graph repository on Picasa. The link is here.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107596502778874744799/DynoGraphs

We’re in the thick of it now. Summer is passing so quickly and things are busy at the shop. “busy is good?” well, not always. We hate rushing; everyone does.  In an ideal situation we could all pool our skills on one car at a time giving that car full concentration of intellectual assets. That’s the ideal. With crashes, broken clutches, worn brakes and race cars that need tuning by tomorrow things never operate smoothly and the only way to compensate for inefficiency is to work more, work harder. Busy is good.

There hasn’t been an update since Ken Stouffer was kind enough to write about us in his My Life At Speed Blog which is gaining major traction after some serious Pike’s Peak coverage. Out here on the east coast, things were notably simpler at Mt Washington Hillclimb which, in perfect Yankee fashion there were no manufacturers aside from Subaru, no carbon fiber prototypes, no television networks, just some serious steel and serious drivers.  Reading about Pike’s Peak had me envious of their huge event until I did Climb To the Clouds and thought how perfect it was that the right people were there, the right amount of “extra” effort to mark it as a special event and not push it into that place where the participants and audience’s expectations were built and not met.

The team did great. Kevin Rhoads drove well and would have placed high in H4 had his motor stayed together. We made the discovery of a low-on-compression cylinder 4 days before the event. (wish we hadn’t checked!) and lost some sleep on what to do. A new motor just didn’t come together as we were doing exactly that on Mike Sureau’s STI. We all hoped Kevin’s car would hold together for one last hurrah but it didn’t, letting go on day 2 of practice. Back at the machine shop his new motor was in process. If it were only a month ahead of time. Bill’s car performed better than ever (in my opinion) laying down some serious times in the wet for a 2wd car making it’s way up to 4th place in seeding. His second timed run (and also second run at speed to the top) would have been significantly faster because it was drying out and he could finally turn the power up. That effort was curtailed by a loose shift fork in his Saenz transmission which stuck him in between gears and on the side of the hill.  The Pleasure Evo performed well, showing no signs of slowing after a long vacation (unlike it’s driver) The car required no service over 3 days of use which is a new record by 2.8 days. Bill’s huge efforts on making the car a complete working unit with parts that last paid off for me in a big way. My last run of the weekend landed me in 5th overall. Bill took second in Class behind James Melhuish. I was really happy to race with some of the guys 0n that start list. I think we all were.

We’re hoping to run again next year. At least the three of us know what to expect now and we all know that we can go a lot faster.

http://www.climbtotheclouds.com/general-info/results/

Dent Sport Garage has a YouTube Channel now. Where we’ve compiled some new videos from this season. We’ll be adding to it. Please subscribe.

Recent projects-

At STPR we brought home the goods and with Maine (New England Forest Rally) coming we’re running Ramana Lagemann’s 2010 Subaru STI again  in Super Production.  Ramana’s season has been shaping up. Scot has been working hard with Bill on re-preping the car. The ATL fuel cell had a small leak from being hit by a big rock, and went out for repairs. The front and rear differentials have undergone some real testing now and with OS-Giken onboard with the team we’ve been able to get the car much closer to the way Ramana wants it.  OS differentials have a very good amount of adjustment and this has helped in dialing the handling of the newer 2008+ GR chassis STi.  The effort is showing and the results are coming.  Scot spent a huge amount of time tending to details for this coming event.

We’ve had great customer success at the track so far this summer as well. Troy Velazquez, Brendan Mulcahy, Eric Heinrich, Jeff Wasilko all had killer finishes, some records even at Mosport for the club, Heads Up Motorsports gets pole and win as well as outside pole/win at NER SCCA season opener in their Miata, all cars tuned by Matt K here at the shop. Just this weekend Jeff Baker took a win at NHMS in COM’s time Trial Series in ST-4 class. With Matt’s Megasquirt tuning. So far so good!

The BMW 2002/SR20det is coming along. Most remaining small Nissan parts are ordered and the engine is almost ready to go into the car for good. It’s been a long road for this project and we’re all happy to see that it’s almost done. This summer we’ve done 5 Subaru motors so far. There’s another one coming. We’ve been using Vigilant Motorsports for shortblock assembly since the disappearance of Ron at Axis. Sean at Vigilant has been producing some reliable shortblock assemblies for us with good customer service. Bill is conducting two transmission rebuilds at the moment, both Subaru. One 6 speed and one 5 speed.  Six speed Subaru transmissions stay together very well but under racing conditions require upkeep such as bearings and syncros after every few  rallies or every few seasons in a track car. The SP rally cars are hardest on them.

Bill has been invited to write for the popular motorsport  website, MotoIQ. Possible subjects could include an inside look at a current SP rallycar, the 240RS Maxi, antilag systems, and a few of our hillclimb/time trial ventures.   Other contributors include chassis/suspension guru Mike Kojima, Cosworth’s Eric Hsu, SCC’s Dave Coleman and Garrett’s Khiem Dinh Check it out.

Read Ken’s impressions on DSG here-

http://mylifeatspeed.com/archives/2131

This has been a challenging season. When we started the business almost eight years ago there were 5 or so shops that we would call competitors. For one reason or another those shops are all gone, moved, out of business, insolvent. For whatever reason they slipped off the map and into irrelevance over the first three years or so of our existence. We were lucky but we  also always pushed hard to learn the latest and take care of people as best we could.

In 2011 there are some new shops out there to challenge us and we welcome them because they will make us better.  The arrival of these new shops has cut a little into our new client base by offering a choice, the same as when we started.  For this reason we do fewer tunes and maybe fewer easy jobs like downpipe installs. We miss those jobs a bit and after some consideration we surmised that some people shopping for service might not have reason to appreciate a place like ours.  We feel strongly that our experience in motor sport and our passion for racing  is meaningful and relevant in this situation.  With other dyno shops emerging lately we encourage the first time DSG customer to consider what saving $200 might get you in the ownership cycle of a $35,000 car. Is the potential savings worth having a new guy tune a car over the guy who has done it successfully for 8 years?  Next, consider that most of the other shops charge the same as we do. We own our dyno we don’t rent or share. The customer comes to one shop for everything. We are invested in what we do and we charge competitive prices.

We recently asked a group of 20 or so long time customers who have trusted us literally with their lives to write brief accounts of work we’ve completed for them, and what they use their cars for.  Their machines hurdle through the woods or around a track with nuts and bolts tightened with our hands. We asked them to write why they chose us in hopes that the new customer who is internet shopping for potentially simpler services might understand why working on racing cars makes us better at working on cars that may never see the track.

For example, a “conservative” tune (a term commonly thrown around on forums) means nothing to a shop that has never tuned a race car. A tuner who has never tested and measured the lifespan of a given engine or pushed one to it’s limit can’t understand how to make a street car last. There is no point for comparison without competition, no experiential data for measurement of the limit or a lifespan. There is also no knowledge of what makes a car durable, fast or better. This is why the words of the people who contributed to the Testimonials page are very meaningful to us and we thank them.

We hope that someone who has never called or emailed or visited might read one of those testimonials and find that the commonality is that customers are satisfied. Customers that are knowledgeable and expert at what they do are satisfied.

http://www.dentsport.com/about/customer-testimonials/

On to new business. The next rally is in Washington.  Our team, Team Rally-Tire will be leaving for that in a few weeks, running a big team again! We’re all excited at the prospect of constantly improving the cars and the team’s operation. After Washington we’re going to leave the cars and equipment with our friend Derik at Dirtfish Rally school and come back soon after for Oregon Trail Rally. This is a challenge because the cars aren’t going to get too much attention in between events unless there’s an emergency.

In-shop projects including the rally cars, are coming-along nicely. The project Civic K Series swap is looking great. Nick has the car almost all back together. We’re going to be installing a dash-display unit and a new radiator this week as we try to bring it to a finish in time for the track season. Bill has been working overtime on the MGB GT-1JZGTE.  It’s really coming together. The wiring harness is done, the cooling package is complete. It should be done in about a month or so.  The 2002 BMW-SR20det is really looking great now, wheels arrived after a 4 month wait from Rays Foundry. The car has a nice roll cage now thanks to Chris H. Time frame for the ‘02  completion is about 3 months from now.  Photos can be found in the projects gallery on this site.

We’ve been working on a lot of Evos this year, installing clutches, performing tunes and executing other maintenance like timing belts and track day check-overs. Matt has been tuning more Nissans lately using Uprev. The program is really great. We wish it was around 3 years ago when tuning a Nissan meant installing a cumbersome Greddy EManage piggy-back unit and dealing with the fallout of computers battling eachother for authority.  Things have advanced so much in the last few years in a way that has helped Matt do his best work.

Bill and Alex were accepted to compete at Mt Washington this summer in the 2011 Climb to the Clouds. They are both excited to make this the top event of the summer for the shop Evo and 240rs Maxi. They will compete in two classes being of different drivetrain configurations. Bill will be competing in H1 and Alex in the Open class.  We’ll post more about the event as it approaches but the spectating should be awesome. It’s on June 22 and goes over the weekend.  Bill is working on fitting a much heftier Saenz 5 speed dogbox with straight cut gears to the 240. Alex is still fitting bumpers, oil cooler and other small jobs as Bill completes the lion’s share of fabrication duties. The turbo is the final step for the Evo which is still up in the air.

We’re moving a lot of the fluff updates, daily blogging and snapshot photos to Facebook. If you aren’t one of the 720 people who follow our work on there check us out! We’re also on Twitter under dentsportgarage. We use twitter at all of the events including Rally America (now RallyCar) so be sure to follow. We don’t tweet a lot so you won’t have to hear about what we’re eating for lunch.

Photos will follow!

Bill left for Michigan on last Wednesday in a literal whirlwind of snow and busy guys running in and out of a yellow truck trying our best not to forget tools, spares, fuel and of course, clothing. He hit the road at about 2pm with the black trailer attached, inside it the freshly vinyl-wrapped Subaru STI rally car. He headed for Michigan and got to about the middle of Pennsylvania on the first night. The second day of his drive landed him at our fuel pickup point, a place called Aggressive Manufacturing. The owner, Jeff was kind enough to let us leave our trailer there and receive a shipment of fuel for us. That was Thursday night. I arrived at around the same time that Bill was conducting errands and picked up a rental car late in the night at Alpena airport, a small regional airport about three hours north of Detroit. I  landed at 11:30pm and was the last person in the airport. Literally everyone had left except for the Hertz employee who was born when Henry Ford was still building cars. She placed her reading glass on the counter and handed me the keys to a Chevy Malibu, described only as a “silver full-size” equipped with a foot actuated handbrake and well, nothing else matters.

The drive from the airport to the Canada Creek Ranch, where the team was headquartered was about an hour. Roughly 1/20th of Bill’s drive but still a challenge at night given that the ranch was located literally off the map on a small hunting and vacationing ground skirting a lake. The rental car did several laps of the completely snow covered dirt roads until I snapped and started screaming at the GPS which tried to send me down a snowmobile trail. Bill had it worse in the 25 foot truck. He faced the same navigational challenges and gave up, surrendering to a hotel back in town. I called and disturbed our team’s driver and co-driver Lauchlin O’Sullivan and Scott Putnam until they reluctantly answered their phones in a sleepy haze to talk me in (and down). Thanks guys. Upon arrival at about 1am there was no receptionist at the desk, just a couple of envelopes each containing two keys. I took both for one room not wanting to leave a duplicate key to my room on the front desk. (sorry Bill) Later I called him and learned that he was in the hotel.

Parc Expose

Wake-up was at 6am the next day. We had to get the car to testing on Friday morning. Testing took place on a closed section similar to the rally stages. We made some suspension adjustments for Lauchlin and set tire pressures. Scott and Lauchlin tested both the ice tires and the loose snow tires opting to use the snow tires for the start of the rally. For those who are curious studded tires aren’t allowed in Michigan so all of the teams were relegated to rubber only. This really cuts down on speed and braking ability but everyone’s on even ground in this regard.  Testing was short and simple. We fueled the car and drove it to apply stickers and remove the seat for a fore-aft adjustment in a local mini-mall’s parking lot while some Subaru enthusiasts snapped photos.

Parc Expose was next in town where we drove over and parked the car and caught up to all the friends who we missed in the off season. The whole rally took place on the upper part of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Most rallies are in remote locations of the US because high dollar and high population areas would forbid it while these usually-opposing areas invite it with open arms as a boon to their economies. The resulting host towns are usually low population places that someone from New England or the west coast would never go for vacation despite their being generally nice places. I’ll be honest I don’t like some of these places. Mostly because I’m snobbish about my diet and I can’t stand the starchy roadside Midwestern fare that seems to proliferate rally zones. This part of Michigan was gorgeous.  It snowed every night. You could see every star in the sky the air was clear and fresh. It was about 10 degrees every day but one tends to forget when working.  The people in town were generally very nice.

When work began we had some problems with our own organization but made due with some frozen jacks that refused to work well, easily drained gun batteries and a generator that while perfectly functional, exhausted it’s white diesel waste directly into our fancy new work tent nearly suffocating us and our neighbors. We tried in vein to redirect the smoke with a flexible plastic vacuum cleaner tube. It worked flawlessly until it melted over the course of two minutes.

Service on day one was simple. The car was running great. Unfortunately, Lauchlin got high centered on a snowbank which frustrated him.  It lost him 17 minutes on day one, seemingly an insurmountable delay which added to his frustration. Being frustrated on slippery conditions isn’t helpful because it’s harder to push for lost time and stay on the road.

Day two we woke up at either 5:30 or 6. I don’t remember. Bill and I stayed in the same room this time, as planned so it was easier to coordinate our day. We left early and headed to the gas station for coffee and one of twenty or so granola bars that I ate that weekend. The gas station had a Chili dispenser which offered at the press of a button to fill your container with either chili or sour cream. Morning gross out. The coffee tasted like tea and I threw it out before getting to Parc Expose at 7:30.  When we left Parc Expose, Bill was following me in the truck as I drove out in the Malibu with the handbrake on for about a mile. The road was snow covered and it dragged the rear axle smoothly on the way to the first service. Saturday’s services weren’t as easy.  Many competitors suffered similar and worse fates into Saturday Service. Isle Of Man star David Higgins blew his motor on day one, several Subarus in our class were rolling into service with compressed front ends, bent suspension, missing bumpers and all from the ice.  Some of our own low-highlights included a broken in-car jack which happened mid-flat tire replacement (poor Lauchlin and Scott) and difficulty with a front control arm replacement after they had a brush with a hardened snowbank.  Our impact guns died again mid-service. They’re getting replaced for this next event. We got the car back on the ground, all  straightened out and ready again for the stages and ran over to the fuel station to put ten gallons in. The STI was awfully thirsty at this event. We consumed an entire 55 gallon drum of race fuel in two days.

Higgins IOM Flag

Bill and I got to watch some of the Super Special which took place after the first service on day two. We drove about 20 minutes to a large construction area, a pit where the spectators stood above the cars by about 20 feet, around it’s perimeter. It looked to be a sand pit with a twisty road around the piles. It was a cool stage, the road lined with deep snow. Lauchlin posted the fastest time overall there, one of his 3 stage wins of the weekend. That pumped us up.

We finished 4th in class and 11th overall. Perhaps nothing to write home about but we did earn points toward the championship. Bill got home last night after another marathon drive. Today we’ll unload all of our tools and begin work on the car for 100 Acre Wood Rally in Missouri. The car will be in the air by the end of the day getting torn down for inspection.

We have a great team with a fast driver we just need a little of  that missing luck and some organization for the next rally. We have a couple of weeks to make that happen. There are also some big updates and news coming our way via Rally Tire.  Check their site for product updates soon.

One more photo from Mike at World Rally Sport!

From WorldRallySport

Rally-Tire

Bill also reports that the Canada Creek Ranch has one of the best breakfasts he’s ever had.

Stay tuned.

This winter has been a little bit different for us because we’ve been very lucky to prepare a couple of top rally cars for the 2011 season for Team Rally-Tire. Rally-Tire is the sole US distributor for Turkish Lassa-brand tires. Lassa moulds top quality gravel and tarmac tires for rally competition. Rally-Tire also is a recommended US distributor for Sabelt Products. Sabelt clothing keeps our team warm when crewing and protected while racing our own cars with driving suits and seats.

We encourage our customers to support the people who support us. Check them out at

www.rally-tire.com

Back to the rally cars, the team runs two cars. One is an Open-Class Mitsubishi Evolution and the other is a Super Production class Subaru STI that the team ran with Ramana Lagemann winning 3 of 4 events entered in 2010. This year we’re really happy to be doing it again with both Ramana and ex-Mitsubishi factory pilot Lauchlin O’Sullivan. Lauchlin will be starting his season next week in the Subaru, shod with blocky and narrow rally snow tires to roll over frozen terrain in Michigan’s lower peninsula at Sno-Drift Rally.  The Evo isn’t quite ready for the team, or vice-versa so in the interest of being organized and professional the car will stay inside just a bit longer.

Some of the work we’ve been doing on the Evo has been a bit more secretive in the interest of being competitive but we are at liberty to say that it now has a 2.3 liter motor and a larger turbocharger thanks to our friends at Tomei for their developmental partnership and good deal on the test units.  The gearbox was also upgraded from the standard Group-N fare to a Drenth dog engagement set with close(r) ratios. The car will be running a fresh set of the latest Ohlins (TPX/TTX) 3-Way dampers and the Motec ECU will be tuned by Matt here at the shop (this coming week)

This year, the Subaru, lovingly named Smokey, has undergone a more thoughtful engine programme within the rules defined by Rally-Car.  This is perhaps the most exciting and relevant project for our Subaru customers because we are competing with the exact same equipment used by the majority of our customers. Our mechanical and tuning processes are constantly being tested, revised and reimplemented with a frequency and level beyond any of our shop’s competition. The car makes an incredible amount of torque with the stock turbocharger and engine.  This year we will be able to monitor the engine longevity in comparison to last year and pass these techniques onto our customers.  Smokey also got new under body protection, brake caliper rebuilds on the AP brakes, 6MT rebuild and full check over top to bottom.

We’ve been blogging more on Facebook (Dent Sport Garage) and picking up a couple-hundred more followers since the holidays. We like hearing from our customers and also seeing photos of their cars in action so keep them coming.  We are trying to make Facebook a source of timely updates in an amended format and doing our best to not detract from this, our main vein of communication.

Other Projects

We’ve been working away on a few other long term projects.  A Honda Civic K series swap that’s still underway with the most advanced and well planned NA (naturally aspirated) engine we’ve done. The cylinder head will be back soon from a famous West-Coast Honda cylinder head shop with custom cams and custom headers designed to match the head work and cam selection. We think that the car will be assembled later this month.

Tuning and installs on the new GR Chassis Subarus has increased lately with turbo upgrades and tunes; a lot more than last year. Last week we did a big install project with an ATP GT30 bolt-on turbo, TVG deletes, APS inlet and some other goodies. We’re also installing a roll cage in an Evolution VIII from PA that is a top hillclimber in the PA series. Photos to come soon.

Bill and Alex leave for Michigan this week. Nick Matt and Ben will be keeping normal shop hours.

Our Service truck for Michigan, enough power to pull a house.

Climb to the Clouds Meeting

We’d like to encourage everyone reading this to come to the shop on Saturday, Feb 5th at 2pm where Paul Giblin will make a presentation on the revival of Climb To The Clouds, aka Mt. Washington Hillclimb which will take place in 2011. Paul is looking for people who are interested in watching. volunteering and competing. There will be an informational sesson and an open-house afterward. Please RSVP SOON to sales@dentsport.com

Back by popular demand: DSG shift knobs!  We’ve been out of stock on these for months now and the long wait is finally over.   These knobs are specially designed to fit your human hand for perfectly executed shifts.  In addition to the ergonomics, the insulating properties of polyoxymethylene (Delrin is DuPont’s trade name for this material) keeps the knob feeling warm in the winter and cool in the summer making these babies the perfect accessory for your street or track vehicle.  These knobs are available in 2 thread pitches 12×1.25 (Subaru) and 10×1.25 (Honda and Mitsubishi).  They come in black or white.  Please contact us via phone, fax, or email regarding procurement of these shift knobs.  Act fast or these things will be history, ya knob!

The price for either color is $50.

We can accept paypal or a credit card over the phone. Our paypal is sales@dentsport.com. Please include color and car, transmission type.

This includes shipping within the USA. Overseas shipping will be location dependent.

(lead photo by Ozgur Simsek)

Test day at Kearny's Rally Village

This weekend we traveled to New York to several towns that have more letters in them than I can remember. The event was Rally New York and the preparation started about three weeks ago when we got word from our good friend Burak of Rally-Tire that we would have a visiting team from Turkey joining us for this small rally. It was said to be a feeler for them to gauge the benefits of future participation in US rally. We dusted off the old STI and prepped her with a new motor, rebuilt the suspension and gave her a solid once-over in hopes that she could once again lead us onto the podium as she had all year under the care of Ramana Lagemann.

The car looked good after all the work, possibly better than it ever had (sorry Ramana) and it was definitely ready to race. The car was wrapped again with Lassa’s logo. The wrapping process cut into our preparation time a little bit throughout the week as the vinyl printer first made it pink, then a shade of grapefruit after we had specifically asked simply for “red” both times. We were trying to get everything to be as perfect as possible given the conditions and time constraints.

Lassa was to send their pilot Volkan Isik and copilot Vedat Bostanci do represent the Turkish tire manufacturer along with several team representatives and tire experts. A set of 20 tires were sent to MD from Turkey for testing a few weeks before and heroically driven up by team owner Burak Tuglu as there was a shipping malfunction that prohibited us from getting them on time.

The motor was finished and installed only two days before the rally, not on purpose but because of the delays caused by the vinyl company. Things were busy and rushed as usual but they had gone well.

The crew left DSG on Wednesday morning to meet the rest of the team at Kearny’s rally village in upstate NY for testing. Scot and Volkan hit it off well and Volkan made many adjustments to the suspension settings, graphing the changes with Scot as they worked toward the best possible setup given the limited parts we had on hand. The car ran well and had completed about 3 hours of testing when the loss of a motor mount nut caused the engine to shift and smash into the frame rail, breaking the cam cover and damaging the gear. The tail light also broke out of it’s housing at some point in the test session. Fellow RNY entrants looked on, seemingly in shock as they were in for a big challenge. Volkan was fast. We had to get the car back in shape fast and we were hundreds of miles from home.

Ben drove out Wednesday night from DSG after he, Matt and Bill organized Subaru’s resources from Norwood’s warehouse and the always reliable Clay Subaru (after hours, thanks MIKE!!)  to get a new timing belt, cam gear, cover, tail light, special tool for removing the gear as well as some other parts. We changed the timing belt in the hotel parking lot on Thursday morning as well as a wheel bearing, turbocharger and some other small parts. The car was back in action.

Lassa Rally team for Rally New York

The rally was small and perhaps not a good representation of what we hoped to show our guests, who compete all over Europe at much larger events. They felt at home and enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere before the rally started. There were some operational inconsistencies that gave the flavor of a real down-home event that surprised our team but everyone took it in stride. Volkan had a local fan club of Turkish rally fans who came out to support him.

Photographers came to us all day commenting on the team and how they were excited to see a new face in the competition. One person commented that “Volkan was the only Pilot at the rally, the rest were all customers” We would soon see that this was not only true but that this Pilot should have landed at another rally. Volkan’s driving was inspired, even in a production car, far more committed to every turn we watched, no brakes, earliest turn in and smoothest without question. Other drivers had better cars, more power and more familiarity with the local conditions however they couldn’t match Volkan.

We suffered two flat tires that morning; one was changed on a transit and the other on stage. The roads were strewn with sharp shale rocks and big round boulders that tore the rocker panels and Kevlar underbody right off the car. The muffler case cracked, the cast iron spindles weren’t even round where they should have been, cut and smashed flat by rocks. Several cars dropped out that morning. Missing from the start list was an Evo X with a broken tie rod, another with a misfire and an exhaust leak that grew worse with more stage miles and a Subaru with what looked to be a steering problem.  Our old STI just soldiered on for us, taking direct hits to the gas tank as the Kevlar protection kept shredding away.

Mid morning the drivers were called to a meeting in the middle of the parking lot led by one or two outspoken local teams. Under FIA rules Volkan was seeded first and had first road position as a result. The organizers originally decided on a two-minute start interval. Through a miscommunication or lack of, the interval was shortened to one, which others complained (correctly) gave our team an unfair advantage due to dust and low visibility for those not first on the road. The drivers swore and yelled at the organizer who folded and gave them a three minute interval and cancelled stage 4, a stage where we made up time and had no problems.. Volkan agreed to this like a gentleman.  He was very surprised that the organizer permitted such unrest and also that a meeting could be called without an official inquiry process.

Volkan continued to win every stage and maintain about a one-minute lead with the DSG prepped production car all the way to the finish.

Friday night, after one day of rallying we heard that there was an inquiry filed against our team about an illegal roadside service on transit. We literally thought it was a joke and that teams were just getting nervous. We knew that the Turkish team was too experienced to make such an error. We were later surprised to find out that the inquiry would be what undid our eventual win, despite inconclusive statements and video that proved nothing by the admission of even the rally officials. We were given a 45-minute penalty for a rule that had to be dug from the bowels of the Internet over a three-hour search period. Members of the team broke that rule, but doing so in no way helped our driver. It was simply that our team was too close to him on a transit. The winner by default had left, there was no awards ceremony, no champagne spray and our celebration had fallen on deaf ears as the few spectators had left, unable to wait for this unbelievably long and absurd protest period, which lasted into the night.

That was NY. …a huge success for our team but no record to show for it.

We won every rally we entered (serviced) this year but the two during which we were given penalties. We would have won those were it not for the penalties. We’re so lucky to be crewing for some seriously amazing drivers. A big thanks goes out to Ramana Lagemann for putting us on the map and finishing on the podium every time with such professionalism and ease, Burak for entrusting us with his great efforts and Volkan Isik and crew for a tremendous finish last weekend.

IN OTHER NEWS

VT Sportscar announced that they would be hosting the Mt Washington Hillclimb this weekend.

http://www.climbtotheclouds.com/

We all knew it was coming. The official word is that there will be a 70 car field. All cars will have to be compliant to Rally America safety rules with the exception (maybe?) of a few vintage cars that will be invite-only. We hope to compete there. I personally want to take the EVO on a bonsai run either ending it’s 15 year walk on this earth or making some kind of bigger, perhaps more positive impression on the books.

Nick, K-Rhodes and possibly Pierre will be going to Ascutney hillclimb this weekend. Nick will be debuting the M3…

and working it’s two(?!) driven tires to the max over the bumpy, narrow road. K-Rhodes had his launch control tuned by Matt today and it makes 8psi off the line. We’re still waiting for the Rally-Tire Evo to come out of the fenced area and join us for some fun. Perhaps that will be at Philo in October when Rally-Tire owner and team manager Burak Tuglu of www.btmsport.com will do a shakedown at Philo.

Final bits of information-

• We’re hoping to be at the Nov. Rallycross in NJ. Fingers crossed.
• My Evo is still at the body shop. I crashed it racing. It’s not done. Thanks for asking.
• Bill is planning on going to NJMP for the final COM event of the year.
• We’ve been working on a whole ton of Z and G cars VQ35s may become the new Subaru for DSG. Lots of UPRev tuning going on. Call Matt for more info.