AVO Legacy GT at the 2007 Hypermeet

The Evo vs. Subaru Hypermeet was held on April 1st this year, but the tale of tragedy started the Thursday before. That is when we had finished all the suspension tuning, had the S tyres and wheels prepared, and were sitting down on the dyno for the final tune. With the new AVO silicone intake pipe fitted, larger injectors, and the new AVO FMIC, we were prepared for some record numbers out of the car. We are all more than a little tired though, as we had also just finished up with the AVO widebody STI race car - it has been many a sleepless night the last week...

 

Our initial run established a baseline of 260whp, which was to be expected after adding in all the new parts with no tuning. After some work on the maps, Ross quickly got the car up to 286whp, about 6whp higher than our previous best on that dyno. Injectors were at about 80% duty cycle compared to the 100% DC of the stock injectors at 270ish whp. The power curve wasn't too smooth yet, so Ross started on getting the last bits out of the engine. While setting up the maps, though, he put a decimal point wrong on the timing advance, and hit 50 degrees timing advance around 4200rpm.

 

Well, it was making great power at that point! Right up till bits of the block pinged off the windshield! It was quite an impressive blow, to be honest. A nice fountain of oil and coolant came straight up in slow motion after the initial bang. It was surprising mild, when I first heard the bang I thought the turbo had simply let go. The fountain of oil dispelled such thoughts, though.

 

RIP standard Legacy GT 2.0 liter after 3 years of racing and other general abuse. I would have felt a bit worse about it, but we certainly got our mileage out of that motor! I had expected it to go a couple of years ago, but Ross is fairly good at keeping motors together. Ok, ok, to be honest, I had been hoping it would go earlier than this so I had an excuse for a 2.5-liter short block, but despite my best efforts to abuse it to death, it hung on till this final dyno run. A conrod and piston had gotten into a bit of an argument, which got a bit out of hand. I cannot even make an ashtray out of that piston, as it is broke clean in two! Not that I smoke anyways. Kind of felt like starting at that point.

 

This was the Thursday night before the Sunday event, so we were in a bit of a bind. There was no way we were going to get a 2.5 STI short block in the next 12 hours. We did have another option immediately available however. Because AVO is the official Cosworth dealer in Japan... Well, it didn't mean we had a Cosworth engine in stock. What we do have is several used STI 2.0-liter motors that were left after we installed the Cosworth 2.5-liter motors. So Ross made an inspection of the blocks available, chose the one in best shape, and away we went. Well, Terry went. It was a little more complicated than just shoe-horning an STI motor in, as the STI heads do not have dual AVCS. This necessitated using the Legacy heads on the STI short block.

 

Sounds simpler than it was, because of how the motor blew. Usually one or more heads are taken out with the rest of the engine when it goes like this. So after pulling the remains of the motor out of the car, off came the heads. The good news came much later - one of the heads was in perfect condition. The other had some damage, how much was the question now. Well, all 8 valves were damaged - when you have to blow something, might as well do it right! The problem was that there were no dealerships open for some reason, something about 3am in the morning, blah blah blah. So we did some research and found out that the STI and the Legacy heads use the same lightweight valves, so the next task was to pull the head apart, inspect the valve seats for damage, pull apart the STI head for the valves, and then overhaul both heads, repair one valve seat, and reassemble everything. Piece of cake.

 

Some time around 3am Saturday morning the engine was in, the car started up, and everybody was looking just a bit dodgy. Smelling a lot worse than dodgy at that point as well. But we had to do the testing before the race, so everybody crashed for, well, 15 or so minutes, then got everything ready for practice day at Tsukuba Circuit. We had to tune the Legacy on the expressway to the circuit, which gave the truck driver with the race car behind us fits as he tried to keep up.

 

After a couple of runs up to 130mph, we felt that it was going pretty good. Terry had ported the hell out of the wastegate when the engine was apart, and that had settled the problem with boost creep on the standard twinscroll turbocharger. It was holding steady at 1.2 bar of boost now, about 19-20psi, and going like a bat out of hell - a lot further past 286whp now!

 

Saturday went ok, at least for a group of people operating on about an hour of sleep over the last three days. It took about 3 sessions to get all the last bits of engine and suspension tuning out of the way for the Legacy. We were also running the STI widebody racecar at the same time, so it was quite busy for everybody through the day. Then it was time to pack everything up and head home for a few hours of sleep before the big Sunday event.

 

A few hours of sleep doesn't go that far, and when we picked up our shop foreman, Esumi, in the morning he was hallucinating badly and talking to little pink fairies. About 8 viente lattes brought him halfway back into reality, and we were off to the event! It was a little easier for the Legacy than the STI, as my Legacy was only competing in the time trial in the afternoon. The STI was needed for a 5:30am photoshoot by Rays wheels, then as soon as that finished (around 8am) it needed to be prepped for the 10 lap battle qualifying session.

 

Finally it was time for the time attack! We were put in the fast class this year, so did not have to worry about getting through traffic as much. I was not driving this year either. Maejima Shuji, a professional super touring car series driver, had volunteered to do the time attack and 10 lap battle for us. After watching him drive on Saturday, I was incredibly glad to have him on board. He is amazingly consistant, and even better, knows how to bring a car home without damage even when people are going off around him. This proved to be incredibly useful as the Evo's were either blowing up or taking each other out around us. At one point two Evo's augured in to each other immediately in front of him, yet me managed to extract himself from that without a scratch! He was helped by the brakes, especially the DBA rotors! Those rotors are incredible, having lasted now through two sets of pads over the last year of hard use, and still have a lot of life in them!

 

At the end of the day, he brought it home with a 1.06.7 lap, roughly 5 seconds faster than last year, and good for 2nd place in the 2004+ Legacy category, a second behind the Super Autobacs Legacy, which had roughly 20 grand more invested in it. Talking to our driver, if we get a much more race-oriented suspension in than the HKS Performas, he figures we can beat them, and everybody else, next year. We certainly will be back to see!

 

http://www.avoturboworld.com/images/stories/07_news_images/07_leg_hm_01/_L2Y4547.jpg

 

http://www.avoturboworld.com/images/stories/07_news_images/07_leg_hm_01/_L2Y3482.jpg

 

http://www.avoturboworld.com/images/stories/07_news_images/07_leg_hm_01/_L2Y3812.jpg

 

http://www.avoturboworld.com/images/stories/07_news_images/07_leg_hm_01/_L2Y3459.jpg

 

More images at the http://www.avoturboworld.com website!

 

Cheers,

 

Paul Hansen

http://www.avoturboworld.com

WOW! awesome read! glad to hear you guys pulled it together at the last minute.

 

the pics are beautiful as always. thanks for being a contributing part of this forum

 

oh, and the chick posing on the legacy is really pretty.(i asian girls)

damn nice hustle to get up and running again! grats on 2nd!!!!

http://www.sevenphotos.com/dev/blown_engine.jpg

 

:o

Holy Smokes thats one shot motor!!!

That was a headache

 

That was the end off sleep for me

wow, sucks about the motor, but glad you were able to get the car back together and do well in the time attack

Good job on the rebuild and congrats on the placement.

http://www.sevenphotos.com/dev/blown_engine.jpg

 

:o

 

 

^^the definition of "ouch"

Great pictures Paul. The car is looking real mean.

Good job on the AVO Legacy and it's good to know the background story.I like the pics too.

Nicely done Paul, Ross!

 

Congrats on the Time Attack!

Awesome pics, love the car, love the front bumper!

This makes for great reading! Congrats on a good show and here's to better luck on your next go of it!