On stage at Gorman Ridge Rally, 2011

FLI is excited to be apart of Up Two Mountains Rally Team and looks forward to the 2012 race season!  Good job Jon for finishing the season and more importantly winning your class!

The following was written by Jon Burke of  Up Two Mountains Rally Team.

2011 Year in Review: My Championship Season of DNFs

This year I competed in the 2011 California Rally Series (CRS) in the Open AWD Class.

I won it.

I entered five events….

I DNF’d in two and a half of them.

This is my story. (Cue dramatic CSI theme music)

Before you start saying, “Well, there probably wasn’t much competition then.” You can just stop right there…because you’re right. There wasn’t much. I pretty much was the only Open AWD competitor that entered in five CRS events this year.

But this isn’t about a close point’s battle, or making strategic tire choices, or grabbing that tricky extra dust minute in the time controls. This is about that famous, overused, trite (but true) expression: “To Finish First, First You Must Finish.” This isn’t about anything except me versus myself.

2011 was a year of emotional ups and downs…we started out on a high note with a brand new Modena Group-N dogbox transmission from Matt Monson at GT Gears. After some one-on-one instruction up at DirtFish rally school, Lars Wolfe (who also built my rollcage) helped me yank out my OEM gears (with a sheared 2^nd gear) and install the complete Modena straight cut kit.

Learning to shift the dogbox on the street was a little tricky, and I definitely zinged a few shifts in the process, but it ran like a dream with a new Carbonetic carbon twin disc clutch. And let me tell you, I felt pretty cool driving up and down my street with that straight cut gear whine….I was straight up legit, yo. Time to go win some rally events….should be easy, now….right?

Apparently I was feeling too good about it all because the Rally Gods knocked me down a few pegs pretty quick, and pretty hard. Our first race was in March at Desert Storm Rally, where I teamed up with Tom Morningstar from www.TheSmokingTire.com who co-drive with me once before in 2010.

Two stages in, with barely four miles on the rally computer odo, we spun a bearing–the worst I ever heard. Not that I’ve heard a lot of spun bearings in my time, but I’ve seen those fun video’s that people post with the tell-tale ‘knock knock knock.’ This sounded more like any angry squirrel was in my #4 cylinder with a 4lbs BFH.

Pulling out the engine at Outfront Motorsports’ driveway, Buena Vista, CA

We packed it up and headed out the very next day to Outfront Motorsports, where the shortblock came from. We pulled the engine right in their shop and left it with them for a tear down and rebuild. Jeremy had it fully assembled and ready to go again in just over two weeks. This one easily lasted the rest of the season, and I got to check out Global Rally Cross @ Irwindale the weekend I picked it up.

Lesson Learned: Shit happens, and that’s racing. Be nice to your sponsors, and they’ll be nice to you when it really matters.

Our next race was in June in Boise, Idaho where I teamed back up with my usual co-driver, Tucker Heiner. Idaho is a long 100+ miles event (and a long 700+ miles tow from NorCal!) with wide, smooth roads. We started out strong for the first few miles until something went through our exhaust and destroyed the turbo. WTF?

On stage at Idaho Rally, 2011

In service we figured out that other than blowing a bit of smoke we could keep going at ZERO psi and so we were able to finish day 1 despite blowing a lot of smoke out our exhaust, while simultaneously asphyxiating the course workers, the competitors directly behind us, and about 1.5M Idaho bugs and mosquitos. We borrowed a stock TD-04 turbo that we swapped out that night. On day 2 the car ran solid, (depending on your definition of ‘solid’) but on the TD-04’s 5psi of wastegate pressure, we we also running pretty slow. We were still in the top ten, and picked up 1st place CRS championship points as we were the only California competitors there.

The turbo issue turned out to be an old exhaust bung plug that worked its way loose and went INTO the exhaust headers…are you friggin’ kidding me? I had replaced the plug earlier thinking it popped OUT, and I even pulled the headers while replacing the plug, but somehow it was sitting inside the turbo when we pulled it out. Awesomeness.

Lesson Learned: Press on Regardless…thinking we were out after day 1, I was ready to pack it up. But Dick Rockrhor (Idaho Rally’s organizer, and my #1 competitor) was the one who offered up the spare turbo and extra garage space to swap it out. We were at his place until 1am, Thanks Dick!

With the TD-04 turbo still locked and loaded, we entered North Nevada Rally in July just outside of Reno. Down on power, I used this as a good practice session for late braking and carrying momentum through every turn. Despite the obvious power disadvantage, we were able to stay within a few seconds of the stage leaders and took 2nd place on Day 1. Day 2 ended abruptly with a DNF on a deceptive blind right corner that put us into a berm and taco’d our control arm and punched through the left rear strut tower.

Lets watch it together:

Lesson Learned: When the organizer supplied stages notes say ‘Deceptive’….take better notes.

NNR Damage: Before

NNR Damage: After

After a few weeks of some fun custom @home fab work, the rear strut tower fixed and reinforced, we headed to Gorman Ridge Rally in Lebec, CA.

Zach Dickenson is my crew chief, and he’s been with me for a while. He’s seen all the car damage I’ve done and torture to my co-drivers that I’ve inflicted, but for some weird reason, he still wanted to get in my co-driver’s seat and try it out. So he jumped in and did pretty well on the first couple stages, but the Rally Gods were still fighting us, as we punched a hole in the transmission sometime on the fourth stage. It turns out that a piece of the front pinion gear broke off, got caught in between the ring gear and the case, and punched a nice hole in the bottom of the case….STILL can’t catch a break. To top it off, were still on the TD-04 turbo and were holding our own in 3^rd place when this happened.

Lesson Learned: OK, what the hell is going on here? Seriously? Who breaks pinion teeth, anyways?

We did get lucky with finding a busted donor transmission for a new case and ring/pinion for free (thanks to Alex Rademacher!)…and by the very next weekend, we were ready to race again.

Last stop, Prescott Rally in Prescott, AZ; one of my favorite events both for the great roads, beautiful Arizona landscape, and the Prescott Brewery. With all of our previous mechanical failures and general ‘bad luck’, my only strategy was to take it easy on the car and just finish the god-damned race. I had the turbo finally replaced (Thanks to BLOUCH Turbo) and we were back up approx 300wtq at only 15psi, but I didn’t plan on using all that power. Our main competition (Dick Rockrhor) wasn’t able to make this event, so from a championship points standpoint, all I had to do was put in a top 5 finish and that would give me the lead.

On stage at Prescott Rally, 2011

Tom Morningstar co-drove again and he brought the Smoking Tire crew along; they put together a pretty good episode covering our adventure together for the weekend:

Even with a few hiccups (a worn shifter cup bushing allowed the shifter to pop out twice on stage) we ran a nearly flawless race and ended up fourth place overall for the weekend. This put us at the top of the CRS series for the year, and it was REALLY nice to not have anything major to fix on the car!

Success!

Profit! (wait…what?)

Lesson Learned: So THAT’s what they mean by, ‘To finish first, first you must finish!’

It took an entire season, but I think we finally ironed out all the gremlins, personal demons and ‘bad luck’ for hopefully quite a while. Since October, I’ve been on a rally hiatus, taking a little time off for the sake of my sanity. It was a rough year, and ‘winning’ the CRS championship certainly made it all worthwhile, but I was mentally on the edge there for a bit. Towing to Prescott, all I could think about was ‘what if…what if…what if.’ It took quite a bit of mental work to keep it together on stage. Rally definitely tests you, it will mess with your head and it doesn’t take much to pack it up and head home (if it were easy, everyone would do it, right?). And it takes a LOT of energy to come home from a 700 mile tow, unpack, and then start fixing everything all over again knowing full well that you might wreck again at your next race in just a few weeks.

This year was all about me versus myself, and I crushed myself pretty good.

BUT with the new year starting, I’m getting excited to start the next season….upgrading to E85, a Global Rally Cross event (Vegas, baby, Vegas!), and another year of CRS rally events….time to do it all over again!

Special Thanks To:

• Krista Canfield
• Tucker Heiner
• Zach Dickenson
• Lars Wolfe
• Jason Powers
• Gleb Serbin
• Matt, Tom and Thad at TheSmokingTire.com

Special Thanks to Sponsors:

• Miles, Ryan and Jerob at Fine Line Imports
• Jeremy at Outfront Motorsports
• Kiyo at Carbonetic
• Matt at GT Gears

To view Up Two Mountains Rally Teams official blog, visit here.

Here are some pictures last time the rally car was here at FLI.

This Jeep SRT8 has a long list of shops that originally built it, before it arrived at Sinister Performance who solved all the issues.  Sinister Performance is a Dodge speciality shop located two doors down from FLI.  We have established a great relationship over the years and Sinister is the premier Dodge performance and OEM shop in California.  Ian Moore, the owner of Sinister Performance is one of the best Dodge mechanics that we know.  I have seen some wild projects over there which all have left running well with customers happy.

This is Scott’s Sinister Edition SRT8 Grand Cherokee. This has a Custom Built Precision Turbo, ERL 426 Stroker Short Block, Tial MV-R Wastegate, custom 3.5″ Full exhaust and a  Paramount Transfer Case. It is putting out 501HP and 649 ft/lbs of torque to the flywheel!

This project has been a 2 and a half year nightmare for Sinister Performance’s customer.  Spanning about 3 states and many, many hands in the mix with the vehicle, all with different reasons as to why it was having issues. Sinister Performance received the Jeep after having five different shops work on it prior. It had been mixed and matched together so many times it was hard to make any sense of any of the setup. so after hearing about Sinister Performance through the grapevine, Scott shipped it to them.  Scott, Sinister Performance and myself are very happy that he did.

For the complete article, visit Sinister Performance.

FLI will be closed December 26th-30th.  FLI wishes all of our customers, contacts a wonderful holiday season and a successful 2012 year.

This year FLI was in attendance at the 2011 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Association) show in Las Vegas Nevada. The SEMA show is one of the largest specialty automotive product trade shows in the world. To put it simply if you are into cars or anything automotive related this is the place to be. For the second straight year Miles Hechtman lead tuner at FLI was asked to work the LINK engine management booth. On October 1^st, Miles and I boarded a plane for the city that never sleeps.

The SEMA show itself spans the entire Las Vegas convention center. Even with being there almost a week and walking several miles each day I do not think I saw everything there was to see. It truly is an endless parade of the most meticulously well-built and designed cars you will ever see in one place. From American muscle cars to wild Japanese imports and everything in between. If it has wheels and is customizable it can be found here.

Check out Miles’ favorite two cars at SEMA 2011, the 69 bagged black Cadalliac with red interior and the 69 fully custom Dodge Roadrunner.

On August 11^th of this year 350 plus Subarus descended upon the Rock Wall Winery at the Alameda Naval Air Base for the 11^th annual Bay Area Meet (BAM). This years meet featured a rally roll over simulator (provided by Primitive Racing), car show, wine tasting, vender area (showing off there latest cars on display), lunch and a raffle. All the money raised from this event was donated to charity. This years recipient is the Red Cross Japan relief fund.

Fine Line Imports sponsored and attended the event for the 7^th year. In the FLI booth was our shop 2002 WRX and a customers very clean heavily modified 2006 STI. The vender area of the show was filled with heavily modified Subaru’s from all the local Subaru shops. Everything from fully prepped race cars to award wining show cars was on display.

This years BAM brought us to the Rock Wall Winery located on the Alameda Naval Air Base which is a stones throw across the bay from San Francisco. The venue aside from having more then enough room for all of the cars provided a great view of the San Francisco skyline. Wine tasting was available for the 21 and up crowd with half of all wine tasting sales being donated to the Japan relief fund courtesy of the good people from the Rock Wall Winery.

This years car show was the biggest yet with many top quality cars in attendance. From custom painted wide body show cars to every day street cars, there was something in the show for everyone. The car show categories were broken down by year and body style which included winners in each category. FLI’s very own Miles Hechtman won best vendor car with his absolutely stunning 2002 Subaru WRX. Features include a one off Fine Line Imports V-mount intercooler set up, FLI custom welded in brake ducts, JDM Version 7 Type RA engine and transmission, many suspension upgrades and a long list of other parts.

This years meet was the biggest and most enjoyable BAM meet of recent memory. Not only was there plenty of food, music and nice cars, but the camaraderie of all the people in attendance made it a great way to spend a Sunday. FLI would like to thank the event organizers (Greg & Silke Smith) and all the volunteers that gave up there free time in order to make this event happen. We would also like to thank our customers who joined us at the meet. Without there continued support, Fine Line Imports would not be here. We look forward to many more years of the Bay Area Meet.

* All the photos were taken by Wilson Tai.   FLI would like to thank Wilson for capturing this great show.  These pictures are really amazing!  For more info about the pictures visit here.

Jorge, his best friend is the co driver. This was the first time I have been to Ecuador, it is a different world down there. I flew into Guayaquil, a city of 10,000,000 people, this is where my hotel was. The hotel is meant for travelers so 24 hour armed guards were present. Surprisingly it is very clean there for being such a large city. During the last 10 years Guayaquil’s local government has focused on building and establishing a solid infrastructure. I would say they have done a great job so far. The people there is self respecting, caring and overall positive. I only saw 2 Subaru’s when I was there, the two that our customer owns! However, I did see a couple EVO’s and one Nissan Pulsar GTIR which was cool. The beaches are amazing, the food was good and I cannot say enough great things about the customer and his friends.

On to the cars. The first car is a 2008 Subaru STI. The second car is a 2006 US Spec drag only STI car. The 2006 STI has some mechanical issues so it will be tuned on the next trip. The 2008 STI is considered a daily driven street car ran with 97 / 98 RON fuel (close to 94 Octane, it differs per station in Ecuador much like the US). However, if you install a roll cage, brakes and some suspension, this car would be a full-out race car. This car was very clean and well-built. The owner is a fantastic driver which made me feel very safe while tuning with him on the street. Yes, there are no dyno’s in Ecuador so all tuning was done on the street. This is not that big of a deal because there were lots of open roads with nobody on them. It felt like we were driving for 3 days straight dialing in this car! At then end, the customer and I agree that this 2008 STI is 100% fine tuned. It felt very fast on the street and showed no signs of any problems.

The ECU used to control this street monster is a Cosworth ECPro. The Cosworth ECPro is a fantastic well-built ECU with advance datalogging (and playback analysis) that has impressive repeatable idle, E Throttle, fuel, timing and boost control. The ECPro also works with the CAN bus system and utilizes the factory SI Drive switch to allow 3 different maps.

2008 STI Mod list:

             ECU

             Cosworth ECPro stand alone ECU, mapped by FLI

Engine

Darton sleeved block with Cosworth Pistons, rod / main bearings & crankshaft, Manly I beam rods, ARP 11mm head studs, Cosworth 12mm high volume oil pump, Cosworth High Volume intank manifold and Cosworth Big Valve CNC Heads with 278 / 274 degree Camshafts.

Fuel System

Injector Dynamic 1000cc High Impedance injectors, Perrin Subaru Top feed fuel rail kit, Aeromotive adjustable fuel pressure regulator and a Full Blown Dual Fuel Pump Hanger with two Walbro 255 ml/ph fuel pumps.

Turbo and Exhaust System

Precision PT6265 rotated Billet Ball Bearing turbo, Perrin Performance Rotated mount up & down pipe, Perrin rotated mount intake, Perrin front mount intercooler kit, Perrin quad tip catback exhaust and a GT Spec Equal length header.

Other

Mishimoto Radiator, AEM 5 Gallon Methanol injection kit, Carbonetics Triple Disc Carbon Clutch kit, AEM Wideband UEGO Air Fuel Ratio Gauge, Defi BF 60mm Boost, EGT, Oil pressure, Oil temperature gauges, Crawford Air / Oil separator, Perrin front & rear sway bars and KW coilover suspension.

Overall, the customer and FLI are very happy with the outcome of the 2008 STI. I personally want to thank the customer, his friends and family for showing me what Ecuador is all about. For those who have not been there, it is a special place and worth visiting. I enjoyed our time together and look forward to the next trip down to fine tune the 2006 Subaru STI drag only race car.

Here at Fine Line Imports we regularly build 400-500 WHP cars for customers who use them for both road racing (all out track car) or a very fast street car. What tends to get over looked once these cars leave Fine Line Imports is the need for proper maintenance and up keep in order to make sure your high horse power Subaru stays in tip top shape. The following article will hopefully shed some light on the responsibility that comes with owning and driving one of these amazing cars.

What is the difference between a 500whp engine we build for a track car and one we build for a street car? The answer is not a whole lot. Both engines are heavily modified in order to not only make that power but make it reliably. The next question is what’s the difference in maintaining a 500whp track car engine vs a 500whp street car engine? The best answer to that question is there is NO difference. If you are driving a high horse power Subaru on the street, then to put it simply you need to think of it has a race car minus the roll cage.

Below are some simple guide lines and tips that will aid you in keeping your high horse power Subaru running in good shape.

1. Oil- This is the life blood of your engine. It does not matter what high quality parts your engine is built with if you consistently run low on oil, your engines life span WILL be significantly reduced. Your average Subaru engine contains roughly 4.8 quarts of oil. Running even 1 qt low is a BIG deal. At least 50% of the cars we work on come in at least half a quart to a full quart low on oil. Every time you get gas or before and after hard driving check your oil.
2. Coolant- This is just as important as oil. Without the proper level of coolant your engine will overheat and could cause severe damage. If you overheat your car at the minimum the engine comes out and new head gaskets need to be installed. Like your engine oil, I recommend to check it every time you get gas.
3. Warm up- I cannot stress this enough, if you have a built motor or even a high horse power Subaru running on the stock engine, warming up your car to operating temperature before driving is a must. Forged pistons like the ones found in the engines we build here grow once they start to warm up. If you drive the car hard before they have expanded to full size, you can and will see more oil consumption. Warming up your car not only applies to the engine but the transmission as well. Before you start to drive the car hard and the car is up to operation temperature, run through the gears normally a few times to bring the transmission and rear end fluid up to operation temperature as well.
4. Driving the car in extreme temperatures- If you plan on driving your car hard in hotter weather or on the race track with any consistency, an upgraded cooling system is a MUST. When driving or racing you car on a hot day (90+ degrees) your cars oil and coolant temps can reach dangerous levels a lot faster then you think. This is where a upgraded radiator and oil cooler come into play. If you car does not have these upgrades, I strongly recommend not driving the car hard in these circumstances. Catastrophic engine damage can occur if severe overheating happens.
5. Engine RPM- Always be mind full of your engines RPM. Cruising around town or on the freeway at a high engine RPM not only wastes gas but puts more wear and tear on your engine and its components. If your cars peak horse power and torque are made below red line consider shifter at that point instead of red line in order to put less stress on your engine.
6. Fuel Quality- Gas quality is a VERY important factor. Not all brands of 91 are equal with some being lower quality then others. In our area I have found that Union 76 and Chevron to have more consistent levels of good 91 octane from station to station. If you have been tuned by FLI, then there is a way to tell how good your fuel quality in the car. During the tune, Miles Hechtman (lead tuner of FLI) will tell you if the fuel quality is good or bad and give you the base line of where the Dynamic Advance Multiplier is. The Dynamic Advance Multiplier is the overall umbrella of how much timing the ECU is adding on top of the main ignition map and AVCS map. Miles creates the timing maps to how good the fuel quality is in the car during the tune. After the tune, you can view the Dynamic Advance Multiplier under your Live Data Option on your Version 2 AccessPort and compare it to the day of the tune. Keep in mind that there are many other factors like intake air temperature, intake manifold temperature (heat soak), humidity and altitude. Using good consistent gas will lead to better gas mileage, overall better performance and engine safety.

While owning high horse power Subaru requires more maintenance and attention to detail then the average Subaru, this should not dissuade you from modifying your car. Following the simple tips above will greatly reduce wear and tear on your engine and help keep you Subaru running trouble free for many miles.

By Ryan Smith

FLI has a good customer who recently purchased a 2012 Red Nissan GTR.  He brought it up to the shop for some dyno runs, and for us to check it out.  I think we can all agree that it is a beautiful, very powerful, comfortable, great handling, well-balanced Japanese Sports car.   All the dry carbon work is amazing and you really do not realize how big the GTR is until you see one up close in person.  Not only that but the GTR Solid Red really pops!  This 2012 GTR was 100% stock and made around 50 WTQ and 30 WHP ( 29 peak WTQ, 26 peak WHP) more then a 2010 100% stock GTR we had on the dyno a few years ago.  This is done from the boost level rising about 3 psi.   In stock trim, the 2012 GTR made 460 WHP and 436 WTQ!

Here are the dyno graphs to compare the 2012 GTR (temperature was 74 degree’s Fahrenheit with 25% humidity in the dyno room) and max boost of 14 psi vs. the 2010 GTR (temperature was 65 degree’s Fahrenheit with 55% humidity in the dyno room) and max boost of 11 psi both are in stock trims:

Congrats to our customer and Nissan for improving on a fantastic R35 platform.

All photos were taken by Bad Boy Troy.

This customer’s car is a unique one, 1972 Datsun 240Z with a built Toyota 2JZ engine running a large single turbo.  The brain of the operation is an AEM Series 2 stand alone ECU which FLI provided a custom tune for.  On 91 Octane and 17 PSI max, this very light car put down 399 WHP with a broad power range.  FLI was able to get the turbo to spool up with minimal lag, given the size.   FLI and the customer wanted the most amount of torque at the lowest RPM and the highest amount of horsepower at the highest RPM (FLI’s tuning rule of thumb) while attaining a safe street-able, lasting engine.  We believe we achieved it with this tune / power upgrades.

Current Spec List -

Engine
JDM 2JZ-GTE
CP pistons
Eagle rods
Clevite 77 bearings
Greddy 2mm head gasket
ARP head studs
ARP mains
ARP rod bolts
WOTM exhaust manifold (modified)
Turbonetics 76mm GTK ceramic ball bearing turbo- 3 inch down pipe
RC 1000CC injectors
HKS timing gears
HKS Kevlar timing belt
Sard fuel rail
HKS wastegate
KU engineering intake manifold (modified)
100mm throttle body
AEM EMS series two- with USDM wiring harness.
Custom Front mount inter cooler

Drivetrain
Custom engine cross member
JDM R-154 tranny
HKS Twin disk GD PRO Kevlar clutch
Custom made drive shaft
Custom made tranny mount
Quaife rear LSD

Here are some You Tube videos.

Next step is either going to be a race fuel map or E85 conversion, stay tuned!

Power update: Bill the owner of this 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT/8 decided 448 WHP was not enough power for him, so he decided to go with force induction. A Magnacharger supercharger system was ordered and installed along with a Snow Performance methanol injection kit. Given the previous modifications FLI stepped down the pulley size on the super charger in order to reach the target boost of 6-7 psi. The standard Magancharger kit was not intended to be installed on a car with head work and long tube headers so on the supplied pulley only 3-4 psi of boost was able to be reached. Once the super charger and methanol injection kit were installed, the car headed back to the dyno for another FLI custom CMR tune. After the tune, this Challenger put down a very impressive 510 WHP and 515 WTQ on 91oct with methanol injection.

With the added power, Hotchkis front & rear sway bars, front & rear lowering springs and a Razor’s Edge front subframe brace were installed.

New Dyno Record:  Bill’s supercharged Dodge Challenger tuned by FLI, equipped with new headers and a supercharged Hemi 6.1L, measured the most torque and horsepower at lowest RPM on 91 Octane fuel: 410 lbs/torque @ 2,000 RPM, for a new FLI dyno record!  Supercharged 515 WHP 7 PSI, 91 Octane, Sae is off, temp in room is 59 degrees with 40 percent humidity and max boost of 7 psi.

Overall FLI is happy along with the customer with the over 100 WTQ and 70 WHP  from 2000 rpm – 6100 rpm.  Combined with the new suspension, this Challenger is a very fast, great looking street car.

All Machine work, Labor was done by J.N.W Engine & Machine, Santa Rosa CA.

Labor was done by Sinister Performance, Santa Rosa CA.

All Tuning was done by Fine Line Imports, Santa Rosa CA.