Project WRX V08 - Part 1

Our conservatively styled sedan (on stock wheels, at full ride height and with a giant wing) now turned lots of heads, but not in a good way. It was also difficult to see out the back. Perhaps one could adapt to the mirrors eventually, but we had a hard time judging closing speeds out of them. Before going to paint, we pulled off the mirrors and wing-though we'll keep them to test on the track later down the line.

In keeping with SCC's heritage, we decided to paint our new WRX flat black. But this car was going to be displayed in the Subaru booth at SEMA. We really couldn't get away with another rattle-can Krylon job like on our old Project STi.

Our good friend Marc Maksimow has a reputation for knocking out SEMA-quality paint jobs on tight SEMA-car timelines. He welded up the holes in the trunk (from both our stock and APR wings), then sanded and masked the body. During the prep phase, we decided to dump some of the hideous side body molding and added the must-have, Subaru dealer-option mesh grille. For paint, we went with a real spray gun and paint booth, and shot Project WRX V.08 with the R-M Carizzma Flat Black satin finish from BASF. The results came out better than anyone expected (other than the BASF guys). Maintenance is extremely low as well; the paint doesn't require any color sanding after being shot (just let it dry and it's ready to go), and cleaning the car doesn't require any waxing. Even Coleman is now considering having Project Silvia shot with the stuff.

The BASF paint made all the difference. Project WRX V.08 finally felt like a real SCC car. Something had to be done with the suspension, though. Despite the updated design (see Nov 2007, p104) the stock suspension still allows a lot of roll, squat and dive when the car is driven hard.

But, with an all-new suspension design and a tight time frame, we knew we'd have to go with a Japanese set-up, taking advantage of their earlier Impreza release date and resultant aftermarket R&D lead time. TEIN Japan had just finished developing one of its (unfortunately named) Super Street coilover systems and Katsuma Nakai, R&D manager at TEIN USA, was eager to test it out. He installed and adjusted the new springs and dampers. Our initial impressions are that it's a good compromise between comfort and performance on the street, but we'll save final judgment until after we test it at the track. The beauty about working with TEIN USA is that the company can re-valve the dampers in-house. It also has a wide assortment of spring rates in stock, so we can stiffen things up as we increase power and tire sizes later.

The final upgrades for this installment are the wheels and tires. For wheels, we chose Prodrive's forged GC-06H and selected the widest 5x100 bolt pattern size that was confirmed to fit-18x7.5 with a +48mm offset. Prodrive has a long history with Subaru through rally competition and we really wanted to bolt some of that mojo onto our car. Besides, the wheels just look good. They are readily available in gold and gunmetal, but white can be ordered specially. We wanted our set in white, but Prodrive was out of stock. Believe it or not, the wheels on our car were originally British Gold. We dropped them off with Sander Huang at The Wheel Supply in Walnut, California, to have them acid-dipped and powder-coated in white.

We really weren't sure how much tire could fit under the stock fenders. We eyeballed it and measured the wheel wells, but with only a stock 205-width tire, we went with a conservative 225/35/18 Advan Neova from Yokohama. Editor-in-chief Leh has us under strict orders not to crash the car before SEMA, so, like so much else, you'll have to wait for the next update to see how well the tires perform.

In the next installment of Project WRX V.08, we'll let you know just how much we got done before SEMA. You can look forward to rear spoiler number three, a little more pep under the hood and some fine touches to the interior. Shortly after that, engineering editor Chen and I will get this puppy out to the track and find out how well everything works together.

Here are our Prodrive GC-06H wheels after the gold finish was removed in an acid bath.	Nakai-san at TEIN test-fits and sets up our Super Street coilovers.	After the acid dip, The Wheel Supply powder-coated the wheels white and mounted a fresh set of Yokohama Neova tires.
Designed for use with street tires, the TEIN SS coilovers feature upper front pillowball camber plates and adjustable damping.		Here is a teaser of our new satin black finish. In the next update, we'll show how the car came out for the SEMA show.