Porsche & Aston Martin GT3/GT4 Cars at Thermal Club (Thermal, CA)

March 1, 2014 – I was invited out Thermal Club by a fellow subie-pal, Shane R.  The very recent inclement weather kept some of the other teams from showing up, but The Racer’s Group/Aston Martin Racing and TruSpeed were out getting some test laps in.  From what I gather, more teams showed up in the afternoon but I had other responsibilities waiting at home that required my attention so I head to head out. Read More

Industrial Photoshoot – Twin 08 STis

Photos by: Edward Chang

So Ed and I have 2008 STis, they look pretty damn similar to folks who don’t know much about them.  We’ve been talking about taking them out for a shoot for a while and finally had a day where both of our cars had just been cleaned up.  We were hanging out at a meet and agreed to head out at dusk for some shots. Later that evening we went to Palm Springs to what I assume was some sort of power diversion plant since it was surrounded by the infamous So Cal windmill forest. The creeper security guard, that appeared to be meth’ed nearly out of his mind, drove by several times and even jotted down our plates. He did explain some people were stealing copper but we believe there’s a good chance he’s the crook and is just looking for alibi.  We told him we were there taking pictures for a magazine (clearly not the case).  My car has the black roof and front mount intercooler, Edward’s has a band-aid on the fender… injury by shopping cart. 😉

I will re-upload the photos once I get the original edits from Ed, these were downloaded from his facebook album and quality is a little lackluster.

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HELLASICK of HELLAFLUSH, bring on the function…

HellaFail

DISCLAIMER: There are functional hella-flush setups out there.  I’m even borderline hella-flush, albeit with big, fat, meaty tires.  My frustration lies with the terms “poke” and “stretch”.  I’m not going to describe this nonsense to you, there is already plenty of attainable information with a little google-fu; I’ve linked a couple sources of information here.

I frequent a few automotive forums in the Subaru community.  Over the past couple years the HELLA-FLUSH scene has really, uh…. blossomed… and getting a little out of hand, in my humble opinion anyways.  So here is my very futile attempt at ‘dysfunctional car’ prevention. Read More

2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STi Hatch – “theNoise” (Broken welds[?] = Squeak) *RESOLVED*

Update 2011.09.16: At this point I’m quite comfortable with saying that this issue was definitely related to the passenger side hatch damper.  The issue persisted after spot welds were reinforced, and ceased after the dampers were replaced.

This began as a thread entitled 2008 STi – Broken welds on rear roof support (metal on metal squeak)…” on a Subaru WRX STI enthusiast site, IWSTI.com.  I had some free time so I decided to port it over here for safe keeping as well.  I’ll continue to keep both the thread and this post updated as things progress.  Any post by an IWSTI.com member that I reply to I will include here.  There are other replies from interested members in the thread that I didn’t reply to, and aren’t listed here.  Please follow the link if you’d like those details as well.

Car: 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STi (Hatch)

Problem: Broken welds on roof support near hatch opening causing metal on metal squeaking over bumps or in turns.
Update 2011.08.27; Could this have been misdiagnosed??? <- Click for more information. Read More

RaceComp Engineering “Yellows” for GR STi (RCE Yellows)… My story.

Manufacturer: RaceComp Engineering
Product Page: http://racecompengineering.com/osc/product_info.php?&products_id=125
Cost: $359 US
Install Difficulty: 2/5  [Installation Manual]

The presence of RaceComp Engineering (RCE) on IWSTI and other enthusiast forums is quite well known.  Sure, they’ve established a solid reputation for providing great products using their expertise and knowledge only attainable by real world experience.  For me though, what sets RCE apart, is their ability to do this and still maintain efficient communication practices with their customer base, both on a one-on-one basis and in the masses via web forums.  For example, neglecting the three hour time difference, I called Myles at roughly 10pm PT when I was struggling with the removal of the bottom nuts on the front struts.  Mind you, he’s located in Maryland, he answered and was surprisingly pleasant with me and discussed the options I had based on what tools I had available to me.  He didn’t seem rushed or disrupted at any point during our nearly ten minute conversation… Read More