Following on from my AutoBahn Z30 Toyota Soarer spotlight earlier in the week, another entrant in the highly competitive Open Class at the recent Rev Speed Super Battle was this rather special GRB Subaru Impreza.
Even though I want to take my time and dedicate a full feature to this car, I just have to share a few details with you, as it was one of the quickest and most interesting machines at this year’s event.
Rather than base their build on a regular Impreza STI, the DLanguage guys chose one of only 400 STI R205s ever made. It’s a curious choice to say the least, because most of the parts that made this car so special have been scrapped in its time attack spec rebuild. But hell, if you can, why not, right?
It certainly gives it a hell of a lot more appeal, as the Impreza’s special breed is one of the first things that people comment on when they come across it in the paddock. The other thing is the rather in-your-face aero that has been added to the hatchback, starting off with that massive rear spoiler perched high over the roofline by the mother of all wing stays.
Those stays extend all the way down under the car to meet with the massive extractors that are a new addition to the existing diffuser. These guys certainly don’t mess around!
The interior is largely stripped down to the metal; the main dash piece having been retained, but with the stock instrumentation and panels replaced by custom switchgear and modules.
Since I’ll eventually be featuring this car and therefore going into proper detail about the motor, I’ll just say that it’s built around a stroked block running Tomei internals.
Nestled behind the big capacity intake manifold is a GCG/Garrett turbo that has been sized to the engine’s characteristics to supply the right amount of boost at the right time.
Massive AP Racing 6-pot calipers join custom 2-piece slotted rotors, and right behind hides a host of custom suspension links which we can check out in detail when the guys at DLanguage put the car on the lift for me.
And just as confirmation of this car’s special model status, here’s the STI plaque that guarantees the authenticity of the R205 – number 267 of 400 made.
And its time? 54.827 seconds was the fastest lap the hired gun could extract from the Subaru on the day – only the ATTKD BNR32 GT-R was quicker. It seems like all-wheel drive monsters are back to show who’s the king of time attack in Japan.
Dino Dalle Carbonare
Instagram: speedhunters_dino
dino@speedhunters.com
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I could've done without the engine pics, but damn... That chassis/suspension/brake mods... Gotta love a purpose build like this.
The ignorant in me always wonder how this builders add so many aero parts without having a wind tunnel. Is it all simulated via PC or (I don't think so) by trial and error?
Wow that rear-end is down right menacing! haha
Is that brace on the windshield (in the interior photo) to stop it from caving in? I'm guessing it's got a plexi-glass or something of sorts windshield instead.
DriftingMindz_JP In the world of aerodynamics modifications, the method hierarchy would be,
tried & tested < trial & error < educated guess < very educated guess < CFD simulations < small scale wind tunnel < full scale wind tunnel. With a bit of mix and match between methods of course.
But I'm fully sure someone else will correct me if I'm wrong here.
DriftingMindz_JP Aero simulation is only as good as the solid model input, and creating a detailed solid model is very time consuming, and the CFD time is then very expensive - something typically done only by big time teams with big $. Small teams try what they think works and then attempt to quantify the lift and drag as well as do some simple tests like oil drop tests and wool tuft tests that indicate flow separation and flow direction. Manometers can be fitted to get local pressure. Our team does oil drop tests on the bottoms of the wings, diffuser and floor. We mount cameras and watch the suspension compression at places on the track that are pretty straight and level and use that to estimate total downforce and downforce balance.
DriftingMindz_JP Just a guess here but i would assume it follows; knowledge and theory, research, testing, refining and fine tuning, repeating testing and tuning until times are minimized.
DavidSymons DriftingMindz_JP Yep - Lap times are the best indicator!
hey dino, can u tell me why so many Japanese cars are covered with English graphics? always seemed odd to me. do they even know what they are putting on their cars?
i23sonny since its flexible it probably rattles/flexes a lot at high speed. I would think it just stabilizes it.
They think it's cool to have English words on there shit. Like in j pop the whole song is in Japanese and at the end of the chorus they say a amazingly badly pronounced English word.
Dtoxin Aren't those the sponsors though?
Gee! Thanx for the answer!!!!!!!
DriftingMindz_JP I had a friend who studied car design at Coventry Uni, he told me he wanted to make a custom diffuser and flat under tray for his car. I asked him how he could possibly design such a thing without a wind tunnel or any specialism in aerodynamics and expect it to work, his response in a nutshell was "If it looks like it'll work, it'll work". Maybe it won't work as well as it could with CFD simulations and wind tunnels - you may have more drag for the downforce you gain than you would if you did it properly - but it'd be better than nothing.
Shortly after I had that chat with him I saw this: http://www.speedhunters.com/2012/11/ground-control-cleared-for-take-off/
"It was quite understandably the first thing I saw at TRAX back in September, some people might think the aero is outrageous but that wing was almost parting the crowds. So I asked Rob about it and as he’s a qualified car designer, graduating with a degree from the prestigious Coventry course, his reply of ‘as a rule if it looks like it should work, it will,'"
That guy isn't the friend I was talking about, but they appear to have had the same lecturers!
@Chris B I'd assume it is the same as the reason behind the badges always being in English/Rōmaji rather than Japanese.
http://jalopnik.com/why-japanese-cars-only-use-english-badges-1170502981
James1010 great article!
@Chris B Most if not all Japanese brands have their names or logos written in roman letters, and it's these companies that sponsor these cars so....
Lol! I think I might go ahead and steal that line for me line of work. Thanx for the reply!
looking forward to the full article of this beast!
Man... why did they have to use that poor S205
the price of these things, if kept stock, will skyrock in 15-20 years and mostly for collection purposes. Just look at the S202, these things are being hunted.
Great built and all, but a simple STI would've made the trick in my opinion.
Less is more. When the heavily modified ones are gone, the value of the stock ones will go up. Win : win for all the current owners.
It's the same reason that people from otber countries put Kanji on the sides of their cars, because it's cool.
This was explained in Driftworks short film "Outsiders" on their youtube channel, which coincidentally i rewatched last night.
I'm an aerospace engineering student and wondering how you were able to get to that point in your life where you could build a unit like that. My buddies and I have dreams similar to your ride but have no clue how much it would accurately cost in money or time.
Cheers.
Gobstopper 2 rival..?
AmirIzham DriftingMindz_JP everything you mentioned < mile long climate controlled tunnel
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/nascar/the-secrets-of-laurel-hill/
Sandbagged and Tag My company is Carma Cars. www.CarmaCars.com This car is a production prototype meant to be sold as a kit. My old company was Evans Automobiles ( I sold that company, but someone is starting to produce the cars again). I don't consider the car to be my car, but a car that is used as a demonstrator to get orders. I drive the car in testing to get it behaving well and then turn it over to our driver for races because it is more important to have me focused on getting the car dialed in.
I started out working for others after college until I could buy a small house, then I built 3 garages onto it and used them as workshops. Then I bought a piece of land and had a commercial building built for manufacturing. Having produced about 20 cars over the years has not been enough to make ends meet and required that I do additional jobs to bring in money. A smarter person might have been able to make it more profitable, but then a smarter person would have predicted the years of work and sacrifice and not done it.
I think we have a good product now, and it will be ready for potential customers to drive early n the 2016 season, so hopefully orders will come. The car is designed to take a Subaru drivetrain and will fit others including LS sized V8s and Porsche. It is available complete or in kit form.
You and your buddies could pool your resources, get some place to use as a shop and start a business. The DLanguage guys probably did their Subaru car to promote their business (and to have fun of course). You could also work for someone else and save your money to buy something for your personal use. That is the more rational approach, and that is how most people buy or build their $100k plus track cars. Complete your studies and work a couple of years. During that time you can be planning the cars you want to build and how it will happen. If you really want it, you will make it happen.
Whilst i completely agree with this, the thing is you need to have a good baseline knowledge, otherwise "if it looks like it'll work..."doesn't work!
I've seen many clubman race/track/time attack cars where they have a huge diffuser either at too steep an angle, or without a flat floor, or with the floor far too high, rear wings mounted in a clearly stalled angle, etc.
At an airfield local to me it's cheap to run straight line testing for a day, so I fancy building an aero smoke/camera boom that mounts off the car and use that to verify the underfloor aero that will shortly be going on my track car.. But then again I have lots of plans!!
JonathanW
"I've seen many clubman race/track/time attack cars where they have a huge diffuser either at too steep an angle, or without a flat floor, or with the floor far too high, rear wings mounted in a clearly stalled angle, etc."
That's why you got power to overcome all that drag, haha.
This car has somewhat of what you described; judging by the pictures, that rear diffsuer doesn't look like it has a floor. I could be wrong; there can be a flat floor set higher, and they're trying to utilize something like a double diffuser.
It's difficult to see - we'll have to wait for the full article from Dino!
It clearly is a very well sorted car from the time, and if it doesn't have a full flat floor yet (maybe is on a to-do-list?) then that says it's got even more room for improvement as they develop the car further!
Can't wait for the full feature! More Subaru content please
"But hell, if you can, why not, right?"
It's just spiteful.
@Deltaklop Could it be more seamwelded and so on? so they bought that model for that reason?
@Deltaklop Exactly what I thought
JonathanW By the look, the diffuser on this car wouldn't work that good ! too steep, too high, and no flat floor, I'm pretty sure it hurts more than anything !
When is the Full Feature coming!! speedhunters_dino