Well it’s -7 Celcius here in Mississauga today, the exact opposite of the weather back in August of this year when it was 29 Celcius in Grand Bend for Round 4.  Some of you might be wondering what happened to Round 3 of the 2016 season.  Well for unknown reasons iCar in Mirabel Quebec decided to give up the pre-booked event date to a corporate client.  The majority of competitors already had accommodations booked and time off work so this was a really big annoyance for most.  This also meant the series was cut down from 5 rounds to 4 as an alternative date could not be found in the middle of the year.  TSK TSK iCar!

While I was looking forward to running at iCar again it was time to look forward and start planning for Round 4 at Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend,

… Continue reading Project Northstar – CSCS Time Attack Round 4 – Underdog to Upset? →

This is less of a journal entry and more of a cautionary tale for anybody looking to push the limits of their car or driving capabilities. What was supposed to be an exciting first time track experience quickly escalated into a spin fest in what David Pratte from Speed Academy called “The Worlds Scariest S2000”.

When I was purchasing my S2000 one of the things I noticed the set of Falken Azenus RT615K tires it was equipped with. The tires had good tread depth, no signs of uneven wear, and were 10mm wider than the stock tire width front and back. This was great news for me, as I knew I wanted to get this car on the track for some fun right away. As I began to daydream about the various parts I could get for my car now that I didn’t need tires, the cold hard hand of reality slapped me in the face at turn 1 of Toronto Motorsports Park as my car understeered into the corner and snapped to oversteer and spun me off the track at 80 km/h.

… Continue reading “The Worlds Scariest S2000” – Appearances can be deceiving →

Some of you may have seen posts on our social media channels about me hitting the track with Speed Academy for a test of our 2015 Subaru WRX aka Project Northstar.  Well the video was released recently and I thought it would be good to post up and give you some information that may not have made it into the video.  But first take a few minutes and watch me be awkward with my hands…

Hope that was entertaining for at least some of you.  Now I want to start by saying that Dave Pratte is not only a great driver but he’s also probably turned more laps then 99.9% of people who have driven at Toronto Motorsports Park.  He knows the track well and is very quick at getting up to speed, because of this I was pretty definitely worried he would demolish my personal best times.   … Continue reading Speed Academy Track Test of Project Northstar →

After a successful day at the Hanson school the second round of CSCS Time Attack quickly approached.  With the car working so well I made the decision not to change anything mechanically but with the tire contingency prize provided by Steelcase Tires I thought it would be a good chance to try out the new RE-71R from Bridgestone that everyone was raving about.  My previous best time at TMP was a 1:22.5 at the final round of CSCS in 2015 running very used Hankook RS-3’s.  All of the information I’ve heard and read has the RE-71R being over a second faster then the RS-3.

With the weather for the previous round being horrible everyone was crossing their fingers that Round 2 would be better.  The rounds at TMP also tend to have the biggest turn out as there’s also drag racing alongside the Time Attack, Drifting and Show and Shine.  

… Continue reading Project Northstar 2015 Subaru WRX – CSCS Time Attack Round 2 →

Hey everyone, it’s been a long time coming but I finally am going to start a journal of my 2009 WRX. My name is Laine and I have been a member of TSC since August 2009. I bought my 2009 WRX in June 2009 just before the WRX 265 came out. While slightly disappointed at the time I wasn’t completely bummed that I missed on the upgraded turbo/suspension on the 265, I finally had the car I wanted ever since I saw the Impreza 2.5 RS in 1998.

During the purchase my sales person talked to me about the Subaru community in Toronto and gave me a list of places I could pick-up parts if I ever wanted to get into modding once the “warranty” expired. When I got home I joined TSC and that is where my adventure began. I had no idea the community base behind Subaru’s and quickly became enticed by the endless possibilities.

… Continue reading Project Bedrock 2009 Subaru WRX – Introduction →

If you’ve been following the progress I’ve had with the 2015 WRX you’ll know that the stock 2-Piston Front and 1-Piston Rear Sliding Calipers were one of the areas I felt were the weakest when using the car on track.  Because of this I upgraded the fronts to a StopTech ST-40 4-piston solid forged caliper last year which made a huge difference not only in lap times but the ability to be on track longer.  The one downside to this was that without balancing the rear with more aggressive pads the fronts would cause very extreme weight transfer to the front of the car making the car want to rotate the rear end on very heavy braking.  This would not be an issue for most people upgrading just the fronts but with how hard the car is pushed on track it made for some “fun” braking at tracks with high speed heavy braking zones.

… Continue reading 2015 WRX Project Northstar – StopTech Rear BBK →

So it’s been a long winter and there hasn’t really been any updates to the car over the winter. It ran great through the winter and the few days of snow we had I took it out for some fun in the snow. So with spring upon us it was time to make some upgrades to the car for the upcoming track season. But before we jump into that I wanted to get around to posting the dyno graph from last year of the final stage 2 set-up that I’ve been running. As previously mentioned going from catless with stock cat-back to catted with aftermarket cat-back gained a little power but a huge amount. This is probably balanced out by the cat being a restriction but the cat-back being less of a restriction compared to the stock cat-back. So below is the dyno graph which shows the WRX made 285WHP and just under 330WTQ.

… Continue reading 2015 WRX Project Northstar – Stage 2+ Dyno Graph →

Motor Build Time!

So we got the motor back from the machine shop and it’s now ready for reassembly. I’ll post some pictures of the process below because who doesn’t love looking at engine rebuilds?! To keep it pretty simple for my car we did Mahle forged pistons, upgraded King main & rod bearings, ARP head studs, and new JE head gaskets. In addition to that we added the Killer B Oil Pick-up, a new timing belt kit, KS Tech Air Pump Delete Kit, and then finished it off with the GNP crank pulley that we won at the 2015 Hypermeet raffle. Everything went back together smoothly and it was a fun experience getting to put my own motor back together that I would be driving every day. With the re-assembly complete I prepped the car to drop the engine back into the bay. I definitely have to give a huge shout out to Chris for guiding me through the process and giving me the chance to get my hands dirty.

… Continue reading 2007 Subaru STi – The Gray Goose – Motor Rebuild →

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.  

… Continue reading The Alchemist – UAWD Time Attack Car – Rear Suspension Installed →

Hey everyone,

For those of you that don’t know me, I’ve been in charge of the sales & customer service at Touge Tuning for a couple years and through this I’ve developed the love for Subarus that I’m sure most of you already have. So far it has been a great experience being able to get to know a lot of great people in this community and following your builds. I look forward to getting to know you guys even better as I take this journey building my own car. I’d like to invite all of you to join me as I look transform this car into my ideal daily driven STi. I want to have an ultra reliable car that has a decent amount of power and torque that I can drive to the track, have some fun and drive home without worry. I’ll also be showcasing some of the brands and products available here at Touge Tuning that you may or may not be aware of.

… Continue reading 2007 Subaru STi – The Gray Goose – Introduction →

Well it’s been a few months since the last update and I haven’t had a lot of time to get stuff done on the car. The shop has been running on all cylinders but we found a little time to get some smaller things done. Previously I had installed the TiC shifter bearing and didn’t notice a huge change in the shifter feel, likely due to the fact the bushing it replaces is very small and was almost new. I was actually waiting for Kartboy to finish and release their short shifter arm which was released last year and so we took some time to install it. The factory shifter feel is actually not too bad, however the throw is pretty long and I’ve always liked having a shorter throw. The installation of the arm is pretty straight forward replacing the original arm assembly underneath the car. We recently made a before and after video showing the throw of the shifter on a 2016 WRX which is below.

… Continue reading 2015 WRX Project Northstar – Kartboy Shifter Arm & IAG AOS →

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.  

… Continue reading The Alchemist – UAWD Time Attack Car – Front Suspension Installed →