The Alchemist - UAWD Time Attack Car

[Touge Tuning]

This is a resurrection of our shop time attack project that unfortunately was put on the back burner while we completed customer work and projects. The goal of this car is to be compete in Unlimited AWD Time Attack locally and abroad. We may also end up using the car for some sprint racing as well if time permits. The car started life as a WRB 2002 Subaru WRX Sedan which had the front end converted to a 2004 STi set-up after an unfortunate front end collision. The owner of the car had put a lot of time and effort into building the car and at one point it was making close to 500WHP with a GT35R. At some point the owner decided to part the car out and was left with the shell which was in great shape and suited our needs. We purchased the shell and had it brought over to the shop about 2 years ago with the hopes of quickly putting it together. This unfortunately wasn't possible but we're not really making some headway into getting the car ready for track use next year. As the car was a street car it had car audio wiring, sound deadening added and much more which was of no use to us so we had our work cut out for us to get started.

The project name comes from alchemy which was the process of turning ordinary metal into gold. Our goal is to turn this ordinary WRX into something special which....spoiler alert....will be wrapped Gold once complete.

Journal Updated April 6, 2016

--------------------------THE MOD LIST-------------------------

Suspension

• Mooresport N12 Front Lower Control Arms - Mooresport
• Mooresport Motorsports DSS Kit - Mooresport
• Whiteline KCA313 Roll-Center/Bump Steer Kit - Whiteline
• AST 4150 Series 1-Way Dampening Coilover - AST-USA
• Swift Coilover Springs - Swift Springs
• Swift Helper Springs - Swift Springs
• Mooresport Street Front Camber Plates - Mooresport
• Mooresport Motorsports Rear Camber Plates - Mooresport
• Mooresport Circuit Version Rear Subframe - Mooresport
• Mooresport Billet Rear Lateral Links with Bushings - Mooresport
• Mooresport Rear Lateral Links 2" Correction - Mooresport

Wheels & Tires

• ARP Extended Wheel Studs
• Powdercoated Front Knuckles - Stripping Technologies

Interior

• Removed Full Interior, Sound Deadening, HVAC System
• Custom Gold Painted Roll Cage with White Interior - Uni-Body Collision
• Engine Bay Painted Low Gloss Black - Uni-Body Collision

Safety

• Stitch/Seam Welded Chassis - Rally/Race Developments
• Full Roll Cage - Rally/Race Developments
• Welded in Seat Mounts - Rally/Race Developments

--------------------------Sponsors & Supporters-------------------------
Rally/Race Developments
Uni-Body Collision
Mooresport (MSI)
AST-USA
Swift Springs
Whiteline Performance
Stripping Technologies

[Touge Tuning]

First job was the start removing all of the stuff that was packed in the car for transport such as the bumpers and additional parts. Once we had that out we started by removing the carpet to get access to all the wiring and sound deadening underneath.







We then started to remove the excess wiring and unnecessary items like, plastic interior panels, seat belts, HVAC ducting and some of the bracing. We also removed some of the easier to access sound deadening from the back seats area. There was also a ton of extra sound deadening on areas like the front doors and rear parcel shelf that needed to be removed with the heat gun and a scraper tool.

[Touge Tuning]

The tear down continued by removing anything that would not be needed for the build such as the factory swaybars, mounts, bumper beams etc. It is a process to get down to a bare canvas to start building things back up.







The interior started to finally look clean with all of the HVAC system removed and only the dash bar and some wiring remaining. The tougher sound deadening would require some more effort to get off so we turned to the good old trick of using dry ice to aid in removing it. This trick saved hours and hours of time with a heat gun and scraper and dry ice is pretty easily purchased from vendors. We piled up alot of the removed interior stuff and you can see how much stuff really had to come out from the inside.

[Touge Tuning]

With the inside of the car torn down now is where the build up will begin. The first step for this was safety in the form of a full roll cage. While the rules for Time Attack can be pretty relaxed we chose to have the cage overbuilt as the added weight penalty is more then acceptable for the additional safety. Roll Cages are one thing where there's a lot of different ways people like to do them and finding someone you trust and has experience doing this is important. It's also something that is very hard to find someone reliable to do the cage for you. There's quite a few really good cage builders located far outside of the GTA but this was not convenient for us and also would not allow us to document the fabrication process. Luckily for us Ryan opened up Rally/Race Development about 2 blocks away from our shop and also happened to be good friends with Richard Nadeau who we helped out a few years ago when he won the UAWD title himself. Before taking the car over we took some time to pressure wash the wheel wells, engine bay and the rest of the exterior just to clean it up a little further.





I discussed with Ryan in length what my goals were for the car, what kind of cage I wanted and also asked for his advice based on his expertise. Ryan suggested for the most part following the FIA rules for the cage as it would not only provide me the safety I wanted but also allow the car to be used in other disciplines should I need to sell the car or change it up. Although using Chromoly would be nice for the weight benefits it is not very common for cages as it is cost prohibitive and there's a lot of care needed when doing the welding and fabrication. We chose to stick with DOM tubing for it's lower cost while providing great strength. We also had Ryan do a ton of stitch welding on the seams to provide added strength and rigidity to the chassis before the cage started to be installed. Before this got started the fuel lines, brake lines and front glass needed to be removed so that was accomplished and the car was put on jack stands so Ryan could begin to get to work on it. With the stitch welding complete Ryan went to work on mocking up the cage starting with the main structure and working outwards. It was great to see the progress of the cage during different visits over the time and it was great to work with Ryan and discuss any changes or modifications needed as the cage was built. Having the ability to go see the car any time was a huge plus. A good cage design allows the force of an accident to be transfered through the cage around you without the cage having points it can buckle. It would be a bad idea for example to have a tube going into the center of the main hoop leg with no support on the other side. In an accident the load would transfer into that leg with no support on the other side and it would likely buckle. You'll also notice a lot of triangles in the cage as this tends to provide strength by design.

[Touge Tuning]

Second trip over to Rally/Race Developments and more progress with the mock-up complete. Ryan started the process of doing the final welding for the main hoop, down tubes, roof bars and also designed and welded the door rails. Ryan prefers to use 2 continuous pieces of tubing instead of how some cages are down with an "X" for the door bars which has one continuous bar and the second bar is cut in half and welded to the other tube. Doing this design he feels it is a stronger design with less points of failure. In our case he lowered the bars slightly over where he has done them in Rally cars for better entry/exit of the car since there's much less space in a 4DR then the typical 2DR car. Ryan was also able to get the bars very tight to the b-pillar which helps for space inside the car for the driver and passenger. You can also see how tightly everything fits up to the A-Pillar which is a sign of a well designed cage. We decided to maintain the factory dash bar so this did change how the cage was done at the front end as the legs had to be placed before the dash bar. We did however tie the cage into the dash bar so it still offers the strength but allows us to maintain the factory dash without much issue. From this point what's left is to tie the cage into the front strut towers, add some bars between the A-Pillar down through the door bars and then a bar from the main hoop to the back wheel well plate. Then add the harness bar portion and gusset anywhere that needs added strength and she's done. In the next entry we'll show you the finished product so stay tuned!

[Père Foura]

Amazing! Next time i'm passing by toronto i'm going to take a look at that project with my real eyes!

[Touge Tuning]

So I cannot seem to find the pictures from when we picked up the car from Rally/Race Developments so we don't have any of the before pictures of that. After picking up the car we brought the car back to the shop and arranged with our good friend Rich and body shop of choice Uni-Body Collision to bring the car over to them to have the cage painted. While we could have prepared and painted the inside ourselves the finished products would not be nearly as nice and we'd likely keep it simple with a white or black paint job. After talking with Rich we decided to do a little more and make the beautiful cage really stand out. So after dropping the car off Rich's team got to work cleaning every inch of the cage and taping off the interior expertly so they could prime the cage.



Another thing we decided to do was to paint the engine bay in a high temp low gloss black. The engine bay had been painted white but I thought it would be much more work to keep it looking nice...as we all know white cars are the hardest to keep clean. So the guys taped it all up and painted it and I think it came out looking great and exactly as we hoped.





We went through a bunch of colour samples at Uni-Body to compare to our vinyl wrap sample to find something that as closely matched it as possible. Rich found a very close match and they put it in the paint booth and laid down some paint. Because the cage was built so tightly to the body, as you'd want with a good cage, we weren't sure how much coverage could be had on the upper parts of the cage. Even though no one will really ever see this the guys at Uni-Body did an amazing job to get almost complete coverage of the cage. I think it came out awesome and really makes the cage stand out in the car. Hats off to Ryan for building a beautiful and strong cage.




Well that wasn't it for the guys at Uni-Body. In our talks I had asked Rich what he thought of doing a 2-tone interior while the car was with them. He was all for it and even though it's a royal PITA the guys got it done and it came out exactly as planned. When the previous owner had the car painted they only did up to the door jambs so when we stripped the car down it was still blue and it really threw the car off. We decided to paint the interior white which would even more highlight the beautiful gold cage. This is one of those jobs you definitely do not want to do yourself and it is quite costly to pay someone else to do since every part of the cage has to be taped off precisely. I can't stress enough at how good of a job Uni-Body did and they've also done repair and paint work for my family and friends for a number of years. If you want paint/bodywork done right this is the place to go. No corner cutting and everything is done using the finest materials and processes.





At this point our next steps are to begin putting in the suspension components, brake system and then drivetrain. Keep an eye out for our next updates on the project.

[jimmypop]

ho yes subscribed

[Touge Tuning]

So now that the cage is finished and the inside is all pretty what's next? Well I decided at this point it was finally time to start getting some of the beautiful suspension components on the car that have been hiding away for far too long. Much like safety, suspension components are often overlooked in favour of more power as it's easier to justify $XXXX to get 100HP more vs. adding a setting of $3000 coilovers and not having empirical data like a dyno sheet to back up the change. While I may accelerate the plan for the cars power, my first focus will always be to get the chassis, suspension and brakes all sorted out before worrying about adding huge amounts of power. Sure you can go quick at a track with gobs of power and crappy suspension but with a well sorted suspension and less power you can usually go just as fast. So we'll start off at the front of the car as that's where we first went to work. The first task was to pull off the old stock components that were place holders while the car was getting caged and painted. I didn't want to risk the pretty stuff getting damaged while it was out getting caged and painted so the OEM STi components I had purchased were installed and now it was time for them to vacate!






In the last picture you might notice that I had Ryan do some stitch welding in the area where the commonly referred to Anti-Lift Kit mount is bolted in. As you'll see shortly this is necessary when installing the specific components we're installing due to the stresses transferred to this area by the new components. The first item we'll look at is these beautiful front lower control arms from Mooresport (MSI). These are motorsports level control arms that are used around the globe by some of the top teams in tarmac and gravel applications. MSI is so confident in these arms that if you managed to break them they will replace them for free! These are significantly stronger then the factory WRX steel control arms and the STi aluminum control arms which translates to less flex in the suspension. The front inner joint is a full spherical bearing to eliminate geometry changes caused by movement of rubber or even polyurethane bushings. The outer point on these specific arms comes with adapters allowing you to use a factory style balljoint. I may change to the spherical bearing outer version down the road but these will work great for now. The design has 12mm of caster built into it which should help on track after we dial in the alignment for the car.





The next component for the front suspension is the MSI Motorsport DSS Kit which is a one piece Billet T6-6061 aluminum mount with a spherical bearing instead of the typical bushing. The Motorsport DSS also has built in caster and anti-lift/squat geometry and with the spherical bearing this will be consistent for as long as the bearing is in good shape. This piece is not meant for the road car and is the reason we had the mounting area stitch welded as per MSI's instructions. Without the reinforcement the load transferred through these solid pieces can tear out the mounting locations. With these 2 pieces we could assemble them together and then proceeded to mount up the arms to the chassis. I can never get tired of the beauty in these pieces. The simple clear anodizing on the CNC alumium parts and the 2-part grey epoxy powder coat on the welded components is flawless!









Next up we have the front knuckles which I had JP over at Stripping Technologies blast and coat in a strong black powder coat to clean them up a little. No real performance gain here but they look much nicer then the factory cast iron look...especially after they start to get surface corrosion. In the Knuckles we installed the balljoints from the Whiteline Bump Steer/Roll-Center Correction kit. These balljoints are longer then the factory pieces to correct the suspension geometry when lowering the car to correct against Bump Steer and improve roll resistance. The other half of this kit are extended tie rod ends which are necessary just like the balljoints. We also installed some ARP Extended wheel studs into the hubs as they are stronger then the factory pieces, easier to get wheels on/off and will allow us to run spacers if needed.






The last piece to wrap up the front end, and arguably the most important, is the dampers/springs. For this I turned to our friends over at AST Suspension to get a set of their "entry level" 4150 series coilovers. I use the term entry level lightly, as while these are the lowest model they offer these are better dampers then the "top of the line" offerings from many of the typical coilover brands around today. The 4150's (now named the 4100's again) are a 1-way dampening adjustable coilover that only adjusts rebound. Well you might be saying "Chris, why would you get a one-way adjustable coilover when XX brand has 3-way adjustable coilovers with 5000 clicks". Well the first reason is I wanted to use components in the major areas that are obtainable for the average enthusiast. Secondly I want to show that having a 1-way adjustable damper with proper valving and adjustments that actually make a difference is better then having too many adjustments that don't actually do anything. The 4150's have many features that have trickled down from their motorsports line of dampers which gives you a really high end package in a lower budget coilover. I had AST revalve the dampers based on the spring rates I planned to run as it was quite a bit higher then the off the shelf rates. To go with the AST coilovers I contacted Swift Springs to get the coilover springs and helper springs to install on the AST's. We have been a long time Swift Springs dealer and believe they make the best springs for the consumer market today. The lightweight design and quality of the springs is unmatched and you will find many coilover companies that offer Swift Springs as an upgrade over their standard springs. And to cap them off we used a set of Mooresport street front camber plates. This is another place where I want to show how much value you get with a product like this. The MSI street front top mounts are by far the most affordable top quality camber plate on the market. While the adjustability of the motorsport versions would be nice we feel showing how strong and capable the street plates are is worth the small sacrifice. They use top quality pillow-ball bearings, CNC machined from certified aircraft grade aluminum. Unlike many other plates on the market they also have fixed adjustment positions giving you consistent adjustments in fixed increments so you can make quick and easy changes at the track with no worry of the bolts slipping like other designs.








Lastly we mounted everything in place and torque everything down for the time being until we get to installing the brakes and drivetrain components. Next time we'll cover the rear suspension which is just as nice as the front...maybe more!

[Père Foura]

Outch! But there is still some little rust on the front subframe!

Which spring rate are you using for the coilovers?

[Touge Tuning]

Outch! But there is still some little rust on the front subframe!

Which spring rate are you using for the coilovers?

The Front subframe will be replaced at some point with the new MSI piece most likely so I wasn't too concerned with the minor rust on it.

Spring rates will be published down the road.

[Père Foura]

Good!

[Touge Tuning]

So yes I know it's been far too without an update, things have been so busy around the shop and I haven't been able to dedicate myself to updating this. When we left off last we finished installing the front suspension and now we'll go over the rear suspension which features even more sweet parts. Obviously the coilovers on the rear are going to be the same AST 4150's that are on the front, the rears are paired up with Swift Coilover springs and helper springs. For top mounts we again turned to MooreSport for a set of their motorsports adjustable top mounts which will give us camber adjustment at the top of the suspension system. These plates are built with the same materials and attention to detail as the rest of their products and feature the same adjustment system for consistent settings without slippage...no one likes slippage right?




The next step was to remove the stock rear subframe on the car in preparation for the beautifully made MooreSport Competition rear subframe. The stock subframe is made of stamped steel that is welded together in areas and leaves a lot to be desired in terms of weight and rigidity. With the stock subframe removed we test fit the competition frame and I had completely forgotten that the stock fuel tank has to be clearanced on some applications with the competition version. Not wanting to simply bang a couple dents in the tank I opted to remove the OEM tank. As a typical gearhead any excuse to purchase more parts is the answer so at this moment I decided a fuel cell was to be ordered for the car. As you can see the new subframe is a work of art but it also has a ton of features built-in. For starters this is the 2" correction version which has corrected the mounting locations of the lateral links for vehicles that are lowered up to 2 inches over stock. This is very important in maintaining the proper geometry when the car is lowered significantly. The design has been optimized for rigidity while still dropping almost 50% of the weight when compared to the OEM subframe. You'll also see the beautifully CNC machined aluminum rear diff mount which allows you to easily drop the rear diff straight down instead of having to manipulate it into place with the factory mounting. The competition version eliminates the factory toe adjustment which is unreliable. With the tank removed we proceeded to mount the subframe up to the car which fit perfectly without any adjustment needed due to the precision in the assembly process that MooreSport takes.





With the subframe in place the next parts needed were the lateral links. Because we eliminated the factory toe adjustment with the subframe the lateral links provide us with this adjustment with a much greater range as well as in a more consistent and secure manner. The billet aluminum lateral link kit not only provides us a huge amount of toe adjustment but also even more camber adjustment. Combined with the adjustable top mounts we can achieve some pretty crazy negative camber if we need it. Both adjustments are done with threaded adjusters that push or pull the ends depending on the direction turned and then use a locking nut to secure them in place so they don't move once adjusted. While in most cases I'd go with bearings over bushings, I decided to stick with the bushings for the lateral links for the time being. These will still greatly reduce any slop in the suspension and are the same bushings that we offer from Turn In Concepts that can be installed on your stock lateral links.



Finally the last parts for the rear suspension were the knuckles and the trailing arms. We disassembled one of the pairs of knuckles we had and removed all the e-brake components, cleaned them up and painted them black so they will look a little nicer. We also replaced the bearings as well so we know everything is fresh for when the car drives for the first time. After installing the rebuilt knuckles we proceeded to install the trailing arms. These again are from MooreSport and are also designed for a lowering correction of 2 inches which combined with the subframe should give us a pretty good basis to start playing with alignment settings. The MSI trailing arms are lighter and stronger then the OEM pieces as well which is always nice. In this instance we used the Turn In concepts forward and rear trailing arm bushings which are a great upgrade and will suit the cars needs for the near future. I may switch out for a spherical bearing in both locations down the road but I wanted to stick with the bushings on the rear end.


With everything installed we were able to put the car back on the ground and prepare for the next step which is the upgraded brakes.

[Père Foura]

Wow!

[04_STi]

MSI makes such nice parts... machined aluminum always makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside... haha
keep up the good work!