duncan, good luck this year mate.....
I will enjoy the challenge and competition of going up against you in my old banger

 

I am hoping that I am closer to you than last year

 

Good luck mate! Enjoy.

 

looking good Duncan

Mine is having a fair old revamp too - but I'll wait till I get it back before starting my project thread - or rather upgrading from my last project thread

Will you be taking it to the Nurburgring this year too? i plan at least 3 trips

Cheers

Terry

 

thanks Terry - i did hear that yours was stepping up a few notches too

I was planning to go out 2nd -6ht april for the first trip but that is shelved now but, yes, i will be taking it over. thinking of taking a little road trip via the ring to watch the EDC boys in Poland in sept at the least to support Bladey and the boys.

 

Almost every 'track/race' car has an extending front splitter to counteract the inherant lift properties generated by the shape of the vehicle. Those that dont feature a venturi effect front to speed the airflow underneath. There is a reason for this

In real life testing, admittedly not by me, but on my exact model of car, the following was recorded:

Red arrows represent lift/downforce at air flow of 144km/h
Blue arrows represent lift/downforce at air flow of 200km/h


This shows the downforce on the car at speed compared to an evo. It demonstrates that the car is engineered to go light at the front with speed and thus create more understeer as this is acknowledged as being the safest for normal use. It also shows that the rear spoiler/roof spoiler/improved under floor panelling and diffuser on the 2006 STi are actually functional items.

The front splitter design will utilise well known (apparently ) Bernoulli equation:



To create a positive pressure at the front and, through the fitting of a protruding lip splitter, downwards on the lip. The ideal from research seems to be a protrusion of 3 inches to create a sizeable amount of downforce. I will be creating a degree of adjustability within the mounting points so that I can vary the amount of lip and therefore the amount of downforce so as not to upset the balance of the car. Hopefully this can be tuned at each circuit to suit the characteristics on the tracks.

Coupling this with a lower front of the car (it will be dropped by about 12mm) and a flat(er) undertray to speed the air under the engine bay (pressure drops with velocity), this will create additional suction onto the road.

The ideal will be to take Craners flat

The material/construction is currently open for debate but favourites at the moment are marine grade plywood or a composite ally/abs plate

 

Good luck Dunc...

The Bibos will be along to support you Mike and Zak

 

cheers bibo - from looking around at the other specs of cars we will need the support

 

Now that the carbon sheeting has arrived, time to make a bulkhead behind the rear seats.

Although this wont be fully fire tight as there are numerous other holes fittings that would need to be removed such as the rear selt mechanisms (what are staying for the moment) it will help reduce some of the noise of having an open boot at events and besides which it will looked darned sexy ... well if I do it right it will

First off:

Take some big sheeting. For this I got a 2 sqm sheet from our boys at CarbonMods.co.uk - great service and pricing again !



Then, remove the rear seats and make a template for the offending area from the cardboard box that the sheets came in:





Template made, now for cutting.... gulp

First little tricky bit done

No incidents so far ....



Full outline done and first test fit...



A bit more faffing around and trying to figure out a way to mark the holes for existing threaded holes to save drilling the car and here is the finished result:

Well chuffed

 

Good luck with all your plans.
Have to try and get the Cambridge crew down to support you on a few rounds.
You`ll have to bring it down to one of the meets to show it off.

 

Thanks Ian - I will try and make the March meet with it

 

btw - two more holes to drill in it and put in some panel nuts for them.

 

Hi Duncan,

Not sure how I missed this one. Really nice spec you've got going there. Can't wait to see it all assembled and running.
Best of luck with the season

 

Thank you - it is going to be a big learning curve

 

forgive me if i'm being rude but how much was a carbon sheet????

great build btw!!

 

Carbon fibre perfomance components, car body kits and body styling in genuine carbon fiber from Carbon Mods

 

Gotta love the carbon firewall

 

Clutch decision has been made now and going with Exedy twin plate as it is a proven entitity.

 

Whiteline Camber Bolts fitted this morning. Pretty easy job but left geometry undisturbed for the mo (as best I could)

While I was doing this I dropped the front of the car by 8mm to level it off with the rear.

Templates for canards created - not sure whether I am actually going to fit them but we will see I will cut them out this afternoon and see what they look like

I have also made the measurements for gurney flap to fit to the rear spoiler and calculations for the drawings made That should be interesting

here are the canards cut out of the carbon sheet:

 

looks great so far, I love the DIY approach

 

it makes the money go further on bits that really count like the engine work by area52autosport and turbo etc.

plus it is exciting experimenting

 

will be watching your power plant experience with interest...is Zack going to be mapping it once its been built?

lol, sometimes that excitement can turn very quickly to frustration

 

The initial plan is to map it myself.

 

- Nomex Balaclava
- Nomex Socks
- FIA Roll Cage padding
- Aerocatches
- looooooads of 80mm ID brake ducting
- some misc aerotek nuts and bolts that are always handy to have in the tool kit.
- some yellow electrical tape for the negative terminal on the battery

on their way to me....

- Corbeau Sprint seat from Mr APT
- Bride rails from Japan
- Roll Cage from Japan

Car goes in for the open heart transplant on Tuesday - I cant wait !!!!

Thanks to all suppliers for getting everything to me in time and for putting up with endless changes of mind (especially Mike Tuckwood & Jase)

 

Off with the old ....



looks kind of naked



the two side by side (3.5kg vs 8.9kg):



the finished thing (albeit on a filthy car):

 

Looking good and sounds like all your plans are going well.
I`ll spread the word at the meet on tuesday night in case any of the Cambridge crew have not seen this thread.

 

the carbon wing makes it look much more track focused...but imagine what it would look like with no wing and the chequered decals going over the boot...

 

The decals will be going shortly in favour of this year's colours

The idea behind the wing is not for looks though - i wanted more downforce and an adjustable wing at a superb price couldnt be turned away

 

and with the white wheels...

 

White wheels work nicely on a blue car!