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Why I built a track wagon...


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Over the past few years I have modified my 2005 LGT wagon from bone stock to a fully caged track car. I am the sole owner of the car and it spent the majority of time stock. I bought it new in Illinois at a huge discount b/c they could not seem to find a buyer for a manual wagon...different market than the PNW where I now live.

I got the track bug after my wife bought me a 'Ferrari Experience" day and at the end they let us drive our personal cars on the cone track. I thought it was a hoot to hoon the wagon and next thing I did was sign up for an autocross day in Bremerton WA. I was awful at my first autocross and destroyed a more than a few cones but I still had a blast. I then found out about the Proformance school at Pacific Raceways that did HPDE. I signed up for my first school day in January of 2016. My wagon had a roof rack and Blizzak's (which are actually pretty great on a cold, wet track). My first instructor was Igor and he taught me the racing line. I got my 'sport license' and was allowed to go solo.

I noticed my brakes were not great, so I upgraded to stainless steel brake lines, Hawk HPS 5.0 pads and Motul RBF 600 fluid. That was much better, but I wanted a bit more. So next I did a Brembo swap off a '04 STI and added a GS Master Cylinder brace with Hawk HP Plus pads. Wow! Much better.

On to tires. For a 'rest of the year tire' I was running the continental DWS all seasons. I ditched those for a set of Yokohama Advan Neova AD08R. I liked those and went through several sets.

By this time the car was no longer my daily.

Now I needed moh' powa', not a ton more, but more. I decided to do a mild bolt on build. I got many of my parts from the marketplace :)

The timeline here was first track day in Jan, started buying for build in Feb.

Tial EWG from xero287.

Grimmspeed Up pipe from aces112101

Cobb Accessport from DMertine

Fuel lines and Aluminati top feed rails from chhrisd

Zero lift TGV delete

Phenolic spacers

FIC 900cc injectors from Brandon spec.B

BBS STI rims from savethewagons

Grimmspeed cross pipe from Jingo Dingo

Kiler Bee oil pan from Cincy05LGT

Process West TMIC from Timcurry

BC DR (not BR) coilovers from weSellCarParts

VF52 turbo, cobb down pipe, turbo inlet, SPT cat back and spec b front arms from craigslist, he is a member but cannot recall his name...

spec b rear arms from Boxkita

Cusco anti-roll bars front and back

AVO rear anti-roll bar mount brace

2017 STI steering rack

Koyorad radiator

Whiteline front strut tower brace

cusco rear tower brace (sold when added cage)

AVO Caster bushing

Whiteline KTA124 adjustable rear arms

DW65 fuel pump

I had it tuned at PIA in Tacoma and it netted 300 WHP/330 WTQ on a Mustang dyno.

To save weight I had a custom carbon fiber insert made for the moonroof from Lee Skidmore in Idaho.

I did a dozen or so track days and one day a tire went down coming out of turn 2 at Pacific (screw in tire) and I spun at around 70 MPH and ended up backwards in the berm. I was fine, but the bumper and mufflers were banged up. It scared me and then I decided to go all in and strip the interior and get a cage installed.

The cage was done at 425 Motorsports in Bellevue. I added a Sparco EVO seat and Sparco 6 point harness and a NecksGen restraint.

I have had a few more lessons at Pacific from Manfred and Mirko at Proformance and lot's of help from Boxkita to get around the Ridge, how to do a slalom course and how to drive faster in general.

I am now on PF01s with Toyo Proxy RR's for wheels and tires on the track.

I have had a few issues on track. Last time out at the Ridge my master cylinder went out and had to pump the brakes to get it to slow down. But I eneded up putting down my fastest lap time at the Ridge that day...

Then last week at Pacific, the breather hose popped off and my oil was spewed forth like a fountain into the engine bay. The oil hit the up pipe and ignited.

Damage could have been way worse. For sure it melted the boot on the steering rack, the sway bar bushing, the O2 sensor wire, wires to the coil packs on the passenger side and the inner fender.

Yet to determine if there is serious damage to the internals. I am hoping that the LiquiMoly MOS2 and ZDDP I added to my oil (Shell 'brotella' T6 5w40) was able to protect the internals once the oil found its way out.

I will post some pictures later.

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It’s a great track that opened a few years ago called The Ridge Raceway in Shelton WA. The trees in the background are very far away from the track and they have great insurance. It’s a pretty big wide safe track with big runoff areas.
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There is way more room for error at the Ridge than at Pacific. Pretty much if you go off track at Pacific you are breaking something. Most of the spots around the Ridge's turns are open grassy areas.
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I put in brake ducts using some NACA ducts trimmed to fit in the foglight openings, some high heat ducting and some Ebay 'universal' brake ducts.

I had to trim these to fit as well with a dremel. I used the stock dust shields and cut out an opening for the ducts with the dremel and attached with pop rivets. I also had to trim some of the inner fender to get them to fit and used some zip ties to hold them in place. They are effective. I recorded lower rotor temps before and after.

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Anyway, trees are excellent barriers. Stop the car every time.

 

Jimmy Clark agrees! Two time F1 champion. Didn't quite earn the third WDC in 1968. Damn tree. But it did stop his car. Those bushes behind the tree were so thankful.

Edited by KartRacerBoy
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Thanks for the cage pics :) So it looks like their is no cage forward into the driver door area / dash / firewall if I'm seeing it correctly? Can you share how much is cost to do? (just thinking of the future!). Always good to see how guys are doing their brake ducts as there isn't anything pre-made for the Legacy platform. I was looking at the area around my fog lights one day trying to figure out an option and after looking at the back of the enclosure and seeing that it was pretty much a rectangle, I wondered if a trip to Home Depot might provide some parts. Sure enough, the plastic downspout adapters were nearly a perfect fit with just some notching to allow it to slide on. Fits the brake duct hose perfectly and since its so deep into the fender it pretty much disappears.

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Ah, I guess those pics were not the complete cage...It is a full cage. I will update pics when I get car back to house (It is currently sitting in Boxkita's garage dripping oil everywhere). I will have to look up the bill, I kinda just blacked out and swiped the card :)

It was in the neighborhood of $6k.

For the brake duct, I used the Allstar Performance ALL42117 lightweight spindle duct and the Allstar ALL42141 5"x9 3/4" single hole offset brake cooling duct with Thermoid High Temp Silicone hose.

I took out the dremel and cut away till they fit.

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Edited by pik1111
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Thoughts on the steering rack vs stock?

 

I found it was way better. The STI yoke is a solid u-joint vs. the rubber 'doughnut' on the stock legacy yoke which gives much more feedback to the wheel. Also the quicker ratio (2.5 turns to lock) is noticeable when on the track.

I found it was a royal PITA to install however...

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I ended up selling the BRZ. It was a really fun car and great to drive, but alas I wasn't able to pull off having 2 track cars and I wanted to get a truck so one had to go. Another reason I built a track wagon is that after tracking both the BRZ and wagon, the wagon is a much better conversation starter:lol:

When a boxter owner gets dusted by a wagon, they tend to come by in the paddock to see what's up.

 

When Boxkita was coming to hand out at my last track day, he said, "I was wondering where you parked but then I saw the car with all the people standing around it and was AH! there he is".

 

The BRZ just didn't get as attention at the track (I might be starved for attention). Plus I am an admitted weirdo with an unhealthy affinity to long roofed cars.

 

The BRZ was a fun car though, but in the end there could be only one...

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I worked with Lee Skidmore in Idaho for a CF insert. He was great to work with. I took my roof over to him and he used that as the form and brought me back the insert and even helped me install it. He has the template now if there are any others that want to remove the wagon moon roof for weight reduction and lower center of gravity. There are a ton of fasteners holding the thing up and if i remember correctly the nuts and bolts holding the thing in weighed more than the insert.

Here is a link to Lee's site about my car

http://northwindcomposites.com/2017/02/03%e2%80%b2-09%e2%80%b2-subaru-legacy-bp-sunroof-delete-officially-for-sale/

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Edited by pik1111
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It is not all smiles and puppy dogs tracking a LGT wagon.

 

Issues I have had so far include:

 

* a weird cooling system issue where the over flow bottle would fill and coolant would be pushed out of the system on the track. I thought it was the HG at first but it wasn't. I had the cooling system pressure tested and a compression test (all 4 cylinders test at 150 +- 2) and leak down test was all good. I ended up replacing the radiator with a koyorad and going to water and redline water wetter. Still happened. I then heard that sometimes the heater cores go bad and let air into the system. I bypassed the heater core by just disconnecting and looping the hose back to the block and PRESTO! the issue went away.

 

* Wheel bearings were shot after a day at the Ridge (these where the original and had lasted for a dozen or more track days at Pacific no problem) I replaced them with Timken units)

* Brake master cylinder went out at the Ridge and had to be replaced

* Vaccum hose popped off manifold and spewed oil into engine bay and ignited on the up pipe at Pacific.

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I did few days of HPDE several years ago and the wagon was indeed attention getter.

 

Re the moonroof - you started with a wrong specimen. Should have gotten an unlimited one :)

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Had to chuckle reading about your experiences at the track with the wagon PIK. I'd say that its a big part of why I chose this particular platform to modify for the track. I don't think I've had a day yet where I haven't had someone come up just scratching their head and asking about the car. Its such a rarity out there and properly set up, its a highly competitive car amongst the HPDE crowd. Over the last 10 years of tracking the car I've had more than a few experiences with the macho man brush off at the start of the day, (usually by a european car owner of the BMW, Audi, Porsche variety). By noon they've been passed each session by a wagon (gasp!) and I end up getting the begrudging "nice driving out there today" from them as I'm packing up to leave at the end of the day. Those moments are the sweetest of all :)

 

Love to hear how your Timken units stand up, I've had to deal with the typical failure rate with track use over the years. I'm on my third set since purchasing the car in '06 so about a set every 4 years. Think I'm on OEM ones right now, not sure who makes them for Subaru. I think heat is playing a factor along with the lack of beefiness in general with these 5x100 hubs. Tons of heat being generated on track, certainly much more then they were spec'd out for. Hoping my ducts and having the aluminum hat, two piece rotors on these StopTechs will help with that as well.

 

Love to see some drivers area shots of the cage if you dig any up :)

Edited by shralp
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I did few days of HPDE several years ago and the wagon was indeed attention getter.

 

Re the moonroof - you started with a wrong specimen. Should have gotten an unlimited one :)

 

 

Yes your wagon was sure an attraction at AutoX, and with your mods it felt much more lightweight than mine.

 

 

 

Since my moonroof got broken (accidently at autox ;) I might as well jut go for a delete :lol:

2005 LGT Wagon Limited 6 MT RBP Stage 2 - 248K

2007 B9 Tribeca Limited DGM - 258K

SOLD - 2005 OB Limited 5 MT Silver - 245K

SOLD - 2010 OB 6 MT Silver - 205K

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Had to chuckle reading about your experiences at the track with the wagon PIK. I'd say that its a big part of why I chose this particular platform to modify for the track. I don't think I've had a day yet where I haven't had someone come up just scratching their head and asking about the car. Its such a rarity out there and properly set up, its a highly competitive car amongst the HPDE crowd. Over the last 10 years of tracking the car I've had more than a few experiences with the macho man brush off at the start of the day, (usually by a european car owner of the BMW, Audi, Porsche variety). By noon they've been passed each session by a wagon (gasp!) and I end up getting the begrudging "nice driving out there today" from them as I'm packing up to leave at the end of the day. Those moments are the sweetest of all :)

 

 

 

I fondly remember a BMW 3 wagon, (same dark blue as mine) owner running back and forth between runs to check on my wagon's setup. He was getting pissed that my wagon was bringing better times than his ;) He lasted half a season....

2005 LGT Wagon Limited 6 MT RBP Stage 2 - 248K

2007 B9 Tribeca Limited DGM - 258K

SOLD - 2005 OB Limited 5 MT Silver - 245K

SOLD - 2010 OB 6 MT Silver - 205K

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Yes your wagon was sure an attraction at AutoX, and with your mods it felt much more lightweight than mine.

 

 

 

Since my moonroof got broken (accidently at autox ;) I might as well jut go for a delete :lol:

 

Yeah, that was ages ago, good times. I need to go back to do some autox. Next year. But will be bring my Elise...

Edited by unclemat
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