Mike Garret and the guys over at SPEEDHUNTERS did a great feature article on the Harman Motive STI. Check it out by clicking the image above.

Thanks to Breck Haggerty of Recursive Performance for making this fantastic video. Make sure to turn up your speakers, there are 4 mics mounted throughout the car!

After a host of small changes and refinements during the week, the Harman Motive STI was faster than ever. We were able to run full power for the first time this year resulting in speeds of 160mph on the straights. The real key to the weekend was great grip from the Toyo R888 tires and the mighty stopping power of our Stoptech Forged Race Calipers.

Thanks to expert data analysis from Mitch Pederson, we were able to brake the car later and deeper than ever resulting in great laptimes. We were hoping to break into the 25 second range, but I’m afraid we might need some more power first (we’ll get to work on that right away).

This Redline event was one of the biggest and best ever. Turn out was great with more cars and fans than I’ve seen at one of these events. The quality of the Timeattack cars is really amazing, kudos to FX Motorsports and Reese Tuning who really stepped up with incredible performances in the Unlimited Class and Street Class respectively.

We were lucky to have incredible support from the usual suspects. Without their hard work, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere! Adan Quezada, Frank Chen, Recursive Performance, Mitch Terry, and Ian Andewelt.

JC Meynet / Harman Motive STI at the SuperLap Battle Qualifier, Willow Springs, May 24th 2009 from recursive.tv on Vimeo.

JC managed an overall win in the Limited class with a best time of 1:27.119 – a new SLB Limited Class Record!

As per usual Willow Springs was hot, dry, windy and fast. The Harman Motive 2006 STI performed well through the day with faster times as we went. Our Toyo R888 tires provided great grip and feedback throughout the day. We finally retired our “scrubbers” after an amazing 20+ heatcycles. Whether you are Timeattack Racing or just enjoying an HPDE, these tires really perform!

In the third session of the day, JC managed a best time of 1:27.119 – a new SLB Limited Class Record! The car also finished second place overall in the NASA TTU class, not a bad showing for our humble Subaru.

We had great support this weekend from Recursive Performance (videos), Mitch Pederson (MPT), Frank Chen (JRZ), and Mitch Terry. These guys really kickass in the pits and look damn good doing it!

As per usual, more pics and videos coming soon. I hear Recursive Performance has some amazing stuff for us!

.

JC managed a blazing 1:04.297 during his first full session with the car. Along with the NASA win, this also qualifies us for the Super Lap Battle at Buttonwillow Raceway on November 3^rd. This was truly an awesome event that ran really smoothly (in spite of a little rain). Lots of great competition and a great group of racers in attendance.

Even with a damp track, we had excellent grip from the
Toyo R888 Tires, JRZ Coilovers, and Kaminari Components

The pressure was on for the race given our uncharacteristic issues at the season opener two weeks earlier. We worked around the clock to rebuild the motor (thanks Cosworth) and sort some other issues that popped up. To further the sense of urgency, we had yet to complete more than 1 hotlap the entire year. While we had great confidence in the new buildup, it’s certainly nerve racking to attack the track some 400 miles from home.

After a typical all-nighter, we arrived to a cold and rainy track – go figure we get stuck in a huge rainstorm in AZ. Since we arrived early, we treated ourselves to some goodness at the local Waffle House – C16 for the body!

Fortunately the rain let up by early afternoon and we took to the track. Our first practice session revealed a terrible high speed vibration that was traced to our flexing front splitter. We attacked the splitter in the pits, cutting it down and reinforcing it and sent the car back out for the first race group.

Since we were still unsure about the setup, we sent the car out at wastegate boost (400whp) with a set of well used Toyo R888 tires. Despite being total scrubbers, the Toyo tires worked beautifully and gave JC excellent grip and great feel. JC managed to make the most of the 400whp and set his fastest time (1.04.297) just 6 laps in. This was a huge improvement over last year’s performance even though we were trapping 10mph slower down the straight (low power).

Low boost kept top speed down

However, we hadn’t escaped the gremlins yet. Toward the end of the session, JC noticed the water temps were starting to climb. He pulled the car in to check on the problem. When we opened the hood, we were greeted by water spilling out of the radiator! To our amazement, our radiator fan had exploded, sending a fan blade right through the radiator!! Fortunately JC’s head’s up driving and our quick action kept the car from loosing too much coolant.

After Mitch reviewed the datalogs, we decided that the engine likely did not see any damage, so we broke out the JB weld and went to town on the radiator. As per usual Adan made a diamond out of coal and the radiator and car were ready to run again. We’d like to say thanks to the great guys at Goodspeed for getting us a spare radiator incase our ghetto repair didn’t hold up – thanks guys!

We sent the car out again hoping things would be alright. If everything held, we would have turned the boost up, thrown on some fresh tires, and set out for the track record (which at the time was a 1:03.8). But it wasn’t in the cards and JC pulled off after his first lap. It seems the coolant leak had caused another headgasket failure. Oh well, at least the JB weld held up!

Fortunately we had already set what would be the winning time for the TTU class and secured our spot for the Super Lap finals. We were disappointed as we clearly had a winning setup, but that’s racing. We packed the car up and settled in to watch some great competition unfold in the Modified Magazine Shootout and the NASA race featuring the likes of GST/Sheehan, Crawford/Tarzan, Dynocomp/Garcia, Sharif/Forged Performance, Tage Evanson, Tim Kuo, and many other talented teams/drivers. There were a ton of fast locals too in some amazing Corvettes and Porsches.

Our lap times remained at the top of the pack until late in the day when GST and Crawford stepped it up, breaking into the 1:02s! That’s a blazing fast time and these guys really deserve some credit. We’ll take a moment to remind everybody that these are unlimited class cars running full slicks, but still, 1:02 is f’n moving!

In spite of our issues, we had a great time at this well run event. Congrats to GST for pulling out the overall win in the Modified Shootout, great guys to hang out with too. Also, thanks again to everyone involved running the show, it was a very friendly and fun atmosphere. You can find the times and  results here – http://mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=401956

We are thrilled to know that we have truly competitive speed and we will work hard to get back to the 100% reliability that we enjoyed last year. We have shown that we can be competitive with many of the fastest unlimited class cars and can’t wait to see what we have with full race settings. The next race takes us to Big Willow on May 31^st. JC knows this track quite well from his motorcycle days and it’s Dan’s favorite track – hopefully that’ll be enough to get past our cooling problems!

Unfortunately the gremlins attacked our video system too, so we don’t have any movies to share with you for this race. Sorry guys L

Special thanks to Adan Quesada (AQ Motorsports) and son, Mitch Pederson (MP Tuning), Ian Andewelt, Frank Chen (JRZ), Rob and Chase, and all of our great sponsors and supporters. Thanks to SP Engineering for letting us use their great dyno and facility at short notice too – these guys are great! While we were there, we picked up a Titek unequal length header – check back for a full writeup.

Harman Motive Racing is Sponsored By:

Advanced Clutch – The 6-puck clutch and flywheel are working great!

AEM – The best standalone engine management hands down.

AQ Motorsports – Adan is the man for installs and fab in So Cal.

Cosworth USA – Great motors and fantastic customer service! Thanks for getting it done guys!

Deatschwerks – Even with 1600cc injectors we still have great idle and response.

Driveshaft Shop – Driveshaft and axles that’ll take the abuse (if we ever turn the boost up!)

EDO Performance – The Zerosports bodykit really cuts through the wind.

Enkei Wheels – Stong, light, and beautiful NT03s.

Harman Motive – Turbokit, fabrication, and so much more.

Hose Techniques – The finest silicone hoses available.

JRZ Suspension – The 3-way competition coilovers are amazing.

Kaminari – Competition ready bump steer kit, tie-rods, and lateral links.

Kognition – Carbon fiber wing

Kartboy – The finest shift available.

Motul – Fluids

MP Tuning – Mitch’s tuning and analysis have been spot on.

Stoptech – The new brakes are working great, so much stopping power JC is still getting used to it.

Toyo Tires – The R888 has proven to offer amazing grip and excellent life. We set our fast time on a set with 15 heatcycles! Incredible!

Video By Recursive.tv – Check out their site for more vids!

Anyway, where to start. On Thursday we were back at SP Engineering to finish the tuning on the STI. Things went pretty well and we were able to make a lot of power. We slowly increased the boost from 15psi to 25psi. However, while we were on the dyno I noticed a little bit of coolant bubbling out of the overflow. This was odd because our new cooling system was working fantastically – we never saw temps over 185F even after consecutive pulls. During our test session two days earlier, we never saw over 180F.

We packed the car and headed to Buttonwillow to get our race on. Friday was the first test day and we were excited to see how the car would perform at our favorite track. But on the very first lap our small bubbling problem turned into a big one and coolant started pumping out of coolant reservoir = headgasket!

We packed it up and drove back to Torrance arriving around 8PM. At 2AM, we fired the car back up after removing the motor and replacing the headgaskets. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty impressed Adan could replace two headgaskets in 6 hours!

We finished cleaning the shop and packing everything up at 2AM and took a 3 hour nap before heading back to Buttonwillow. We arrived at the track at 8AM and got the car ready. Unfortunately on the first session we had the EXACT same problem! We decided to wrap it up for the day and save whatever was left for Sunday.

Sunday finally arrived and we were all really nervous about the car. We crossed our finger and lowered the boost to wastegate pressure (15psi) hoping for the best. We sent the car out for the first qualifier, but we were able to get only 1 lap before the car started blowing coolant again. Amazingly, JC managed a 1:54 – the only hot lap we had all weekend. This secured the pole, but unfortunately was all our motor had left.

When the car came back into the pit, we could see the problem had gotten really bad. However, we decided we worked to hard and too long not to at least try, so we sent the car out on the 1st Timeattack session to record a time. We told JC to keep the car out of boost and under 50mph. With some luck, JC was able to get his lap in, a blazing 2:33, but a lap none-the-less. This now brings us to 3 years without a DNF – and while that’s not as good as a podium – at least it’s something.

In the end this was a very challenging event for us, but we are happy we got the car done on time and we’ve confirmed that we have a very fast car on our hands. The winning car had a time of 1:55, so we were certainly in the ball-park.

The motor is already out of the car and being fully torn down and inspected. Hopefully we’ll have everything back together and bulletproof by next week. Well anyway, that’s racing!

For times and more information about the time-attack, check out http://www.redlinetimeattack.com.