S&J Automotive - NEWS

S&J Subaru’s take all 3 Podium Positions in the First Round of the SARC:

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The first round of the 2010 South Australian Rally Championship was the ASP Tarmac Rally. The event was held in the Picturesque Southern Fleurieo Peninsula with Rally headquarters and overnight service park located centrally at Penny’s Hill Winery.

New to this event were the prologue and first two stages being held on Friday evening at Mallala. This initiative proved popular with the competitors and provided a unique opportunity to try there hand at circuit sprinting in the dark.

On the Saturday the event kicked off with a new stage called “Myponga” which started off with a fast flowing section which progressively tightened up as the road wound its way down too and across the Myponga Reservoir dam wall. From there the rally moved onto another new stage called “Parawa” which was a short high speed stage that tested the crews cornering speed limits and also the top speed attainable from their cars. Also new for the 2010 event was the “Waitpinga” stage which was a very fast piece of road that kept most cars on the rev limiter for nearly 10 km. Obtaining a fast time on this stage was proportional to how willing the crews were to risk damage to their engines.

Remote servicing was carried on the foreshore at Victor Harbor. Throughout the Saturday the crews would return and service here three times. It provided an ideal location for the service crew to spend enjoyable afternoon.

The afternoon stages included the popular “Hindmarsh Tiers”, which starts off tight and twisty running down hill. Mid way through the stage is a creek crossing which has an abrupt concrete approach and exit. The more committed crews usually put on a good show for the eager media photographers who lie in wait. The stage then opens up into series of 3rd and 4th gear corners.

The event concluded back at the Penny’s Hill Winery where park ferme and the usual post event stories unfold.

As in previous years S&J were actively involved in supporting and preparing a number of Subaru’s. The attention to detail in vehicle preparation in the lead up to the event certainly paid off and the S&J team was rewarded with 1st, 2nd and 3rd outright in the SARC.

• 1st  Simon Orme / Tasman Orme (97 WRX STi RA)
•  2nd  Russell Marker / Karien Heimsohn  (01 WRX STi)
• 3rd   Michael Krichauff / David Krichauff (99 WRX Hatch)

Steve Glenney wins Rally Tasmania in S&J prepared and Tuned STI!

Steve entered his 2006 STI in this years 30th Anniversary Rally Tasmania with only one goal in mind, winning! Federal Race Tyres, Alan Stean was co-driving and had backed Steve with a Sponsorship and Tyre package, naturally looking for a good result in return. So the pressure was on us to prepare and tune the car to be as fast and reliable as possible.

Steve and I put many a late night in, to service and set-up the suspension, using a combination of Tein, Reiger and OEM STI components and even corner weighting of the car as a whole, just for every little bit of fine tuning. Class limitations held us back from using Whiteline Sway-bars and handling components, so we were working within boundaries, but achieved a very satisfying outcome just the same. We managed a test day on a set of the new Federal R-Spec Race Tyres, and made changes based on Steve's feedback, it was clear that Steve was certainly happy with the Federals right from the on-set.

As far as the engine goes, it remains a Spec-C 2.0L non-forged genuine STI that we stripped and blueprinted back in early 2008, still retaining the factory twin scroll turbo and intercooler and using a 2.5" OEM dump and catalytic converter, all as per the rules. The gearbox contains the ever reliable PPG 1-5 Dog gear set, coupled by an ACS Extreme Heavy Duty 6MT Clutch. Diffs are all factory STI, the rear just having had a freshen up as part of the pre-race maintenance this time round.

We have 2 ECU choices in this vehicle, the aftermarket elaborate unit that the car was originally fitted with when it was built for Cody Crocker, it has Anti-lag, rotating idle and all of the goodies. Or the EcuTek tuned factory ECU that uses the airflow sensor and knock correction as it was designed by Subaru, but with EcuTek's intervention has complete tune-ability, and incorporates water-spray, launch-control and map switching features. The choice was actually made by Steve 2 years ago when we completed a "Test and Tune" session on both ECUs after the engine freshen up. With APE's state of the art dyno cell and our experience, there are no limitations in tuning either product. So with it all out on the table, the extra 40nm torque and an average of 8kw right through the range, plus the promise of reliability, the EcuTek won hands down. Steve with co-driver Bernie Webb, went on to win the Adelaide Hills Tarmac Rally a few weeks later, and has relied upon EcuTek as an important team player ever since. This time round we were able to tune the car with ELF Turbo-EVO race fuel, which with careful re-mapping gave us an extra 20kw peak and a handful more torque, see the dyno graph!

Competition was certainly strong amongst the Rally Tasmania field, with 4 highly tuned Nissan R35-GTRs, a handful of EVOs, numerous other STIs, including Brendan Reeves in his 2007 Tarmac Spec-C STI, not to mention Jim Richards in his GT-2 Porsche. Steve and Alan completed Day 1, which comprised of 2 timed stages, comfortably in third place. There was an issue with the cars DCCD controller right from early on in the rally, it looked like a problem that the team was unlikely to rectify. It was up to Steve to drive around this, which he did all day Saturday making his way up to second place and just starting to reel-in Jim Richards. Jim retired by the second stage on the third day with steering issues, so it was now up to Steve to hold off the young gun Brendan till the end, which he managed, but as he said to me Sunday night after the rally "Brendo certainly kept me honest, he was always there, pushing so hard and so consistent on stage times, there was no opportunity to ease off".

From the S&J perspective on this event and result, I have to say that we are very proud to be part of such a high end race team and are glad to be using and testing a great deal of the products that we supply and fit to clients cars on a daily basis. Congratulations to Steve, Alan, Brendan, Rhianon and all other finishing competitors!

Thanks to S.A. Motorsport Tyres, Braid Race Wheels, EcuTek, MRT Performance, PPG (Pfitzner Performance Gearbox) and ACS (Australian Clutch Services).

 Sean Day, S&J Automotive.

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