piknockout's STU Autocross Build - 2006 STi sponsored by Agile Auto

[piknockout]

Sponsored by Agile Automotive Performance in Fallston, MD

For those that don't know me, my name is Josh and I'm planning on using this thread to document my STU autocross build as well as my progress throughout the season including setups and changes. To start things off, I would like to give a BIG THANKS to Hill McCarty at Agile Auto for his support and help in this build, along with all the help in the past!

Now for a little background. I've been autocrossing now going on 5 years, with all of my previous experience coming from building my 2003 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V that I built for STX. Although the car wasn't the prime choice for the class, I was able to win STX for Philly Region in 2006, WDCR Region in 2007/2008, and Autocrosser's Inc. in 2007/2008.

After driving the car for 5 years, I knew it was time to get into a car better suited for it's class. I sold the car in August 2008 and spent the next few months doing some co-drives to figure out what best fit my wants/needs. A special thanks to John W. (ButtDyno) for letting me co-drive the WRX to finish out the WDCR STX season! But after driving Iman's (bdi) STU prepped STi, I knew exactly what car I wanted to buy and what class I wanted to run in. I've enjoyed the ST* class and knew that it was the right fit for me.

Through research gained here and conversations with several great STU drivers (Thanks Colin, James, Iman, JR, John W, and anyone else I left out!) I decided that a 2006 STi was going to be tool of choice. I searched through the classifieds on here, IWSTI, autotrader.com, eBay, etc. for about a month before I found what seemed to be the right car. It was a 2006 Aspen White STi with only 17,300 miles, a 3.5" APS exhaust, COBB short ram intake, and Accessport with Stage 2 tune. And to make it even better, the guy only lived 25 minutes away. A couple of weeks of pricing negotiations and the car was mine on November 21st!


The car shortly after purchase



The old autocross ride





Needless to say, the next 4 months were hell. Having this beauty sitting in the garage, doing research, dealing with snow and cold...just painful. Fortunately all that ended last Sunday when I began the autocross modification process.




Through yesterday I had installed the following modifications (it's been a busy week!):

- APS 3.5" turbo back exhaust with MIL.SPEC 100 cell race cat welded into downpipe by Agile Auto

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[piknockout]

- Hawk HP+ brake pads




- Braille 6lbs race battery



- Re-installed stock intake to replace COBB short ram to reduce intake air temp during summer events



- Corbeau 3 pt. Harness (autocross use only)




- Rolled front part of rear fenders



- Whiteline 24mm adjustable front sway bar with Whiteline spherical endlinks




Midway through the work

[piknockout]

- Whiteline 22mm adjustable rear sway bar with Whiteline spherical endlinks




- Racecomp Engineering Tarmac 2 coilovers with 600lbs front springs and 500lbs rear springs topped with Vorshlag camber plates set at Racecomp suggested Track settings (Thanks Myles for the discussion and help!)





After the installs (before alignment and fixing front ride height...at 2am)



Test fitting some borrowed 17x9 et35 RE30's (before alignment and fixing front ride height at 1:30am)



- Ported stock headers by Agile Auto (no pics...forgot the camera)

- STU Protune by Hill at Agile Auto...318whp/318wtq (I know, kind of high...dyno chart to follow) along with a street tune 325whp/350wtq

[piknockout]

STU tune on top, Street tune below.





And a few other things

- Alignment set at -3.2 front camber and -1.9 rear camber with zero toe for both
- Ordered 5Zigen FN01RC's 17x9 et43 in flat black



- Deciding between 245/40/17 Bridestone RE-11's or Kumho XS's

Where the car currently sits as of 3/14/09




First test day is this coming weekend on March 22nd with the Philly Region, followed by the WDCR practice event on March 29th. I'll either be running the borrowed RE30's with Dunlops, or if I make a tire decision tomorrow I should have that setup by the weekend. We'll see what happens. I don't know how everything will work first time out, but it should be interesting. Iman (bdi) will be co-driving with me this coming weekend to help work on the setup a little bit.

My plans for the season are to run a full WDCR schedule, Fed Ex Field events with Autocrosser's Inc, Citzen's Bank Park events with the Philly Region, the DC Pro (and hopefully Toledo, but doubtful), either the Seneca Tour or NE Divisional, and Nationals in Lincoln, NE.

[nhat]

you're slow! i figure you'll be doing scca and ainc, but what about cdc?

[S1MPSONS]

Rock and roll Josh! See you next Sunday. Whats the time frame for coilovers?

[piknockout]

Time frame for coilovers...they're installed! I probably hadn't updated the reserved sections when you posted.

Probably no CDC, too much of a drive. I may hit up some Susquehannah events though, we'll see how things work out.

[nhat]

how much is that wdcr practice event? is it open to guests? i'd like to expand on my autox events. if it is, you could borrow my wheel/tire setup

[ButtDyno]

Don't forget the anti jersey barrier forcefield.

Hopefully I'll be able to go to CBP on the 22nd

[SpeedTheory]

The debate should really be between RE-11s and R1Rs....I'm surprised the XSs are considered a player anymore.

[alltracin]

XSs were running competitive times in Dixie this weekend. John ran times both days on them that were right with the top of the class.

I drove a car with the exact same coilover/plate setup this weekend...once we tuned out pressures etc a little bit, they were pretty fantastic. They rode REALLY well on the 9+ hour drive, too!

Beware the whiteline endlinks...that's what Karen broke on my car at the DC pro two years ago Luckily they were warrantied.

[mla163]

looks good josh, see you out there

[mla163]

Originally Posted by nhat

how much is that wdcr practice event? is it open to guests? i'd like to expand on my autox events. if it is, you could borrow my wheel/tire setup

The practice is members only. It's not too late to get a membership though.

[bdi]

Originally Posted by SpeedTheory

The debate should really be between RE-11s and R1Rs....I'm surprised the XSs are considered a player anymore.

Are you for real?

Looks good Josh but it needs more stickers...

[piknockout]

I should have some pics in full livery this weekend with stickers and all, thanks guys!


And also a on the R1R. While they may work well for light ST Civics in cool weather, not sure I want to go that route mid-summer on a heavy AWD car...although Jake is trying to prove us all wrong!

As alltracin said, they were running competitive times on the XS this past weekend.

And I'll keep an eye on those endlinks, thanks for the head's up.

Originally Posted by ButtDyno

Don't forget the anti jersey barrier forcefield.

I installed that permanently after the last "incident".

[wrx wagone]

Originally Posted by bdi

Looks good Josh but it needs more stickers...

+1

I'll see you out at CBP in a week.

[Crashmaxx]

Sweet setup, man. I'll keep an eye out for you this weekend at CBP.

[Chiketkd]

'bout time you started this thread. Nice build thus far!!!

[piknockout]

Thanks Chike...just call me lazy. Not to mention I wanted to get all the pictures taken before I posted anything up. Didn't want to post it up and have it sit for a couple of months where it's just a stock car.

I think I'm going to be on Dunlops this Sunday (thanks Iman!) and see what the car does on a known tire...as well as buy a little bit more time to figure out what I want to do. I think the RE-11 is the safe choice, but an expensive one. I'm hoping the Kumho is up to par though to save a bit of money. Then again against all the competition in DC/Philly, I'm going to need every tenth I can get.

[ButtDyno]

I think I have to move my thread from Project Cars to here...

[Mind]

^I'll be interested to see you guys' time on the Dunlops. I'm surprised they weren't mentioned earlier in the thread. Looks like a nice build - see you Sunday.

Weather is looking pretty good!

[piknockout]

Looks like 60 degrees and partly cloudy...another 10 degrees or so and it would be perfect! I haven't completely ruled out the Dunlop, but some preliminary testing over on sccaforums.com along with feedback from Wiggy seems to indicate that the Kumho should be a little better than the Dunlop and they're the same price.

Don't expect much on Sunday though. When you toss a whole bunch of suspension parts on the car at one time, you never know what they're going to do. But it "should" be in the ballpark at least...I hope.

[Stizmm]

coilovers corner-weighted?

[piknockout]

They will be in a couple of weeks. Going to take it by Agile Auto after the next couple of events to give the setup time to settle a little bit.

[Stizmm]

Originally Posted by piknockout

They will be in a couple of weeks. Going to take it by Agile Auto after the next couple of events to give the setup time to settle a little bit.

If the springs are going to sag, then you may as well throw them away. Get yourself a set of proper HyperCo Springs.

The Corner-weighting will throw the alignment off, and the alignment will throw the corner-weighting off a bit as well. The best route is to find a place to corner-weight and align all at the same time.