Squizz

Just been through the same pain on our 1995 WRX race car. I've done an illustrated description of the swap here: http://nipponchallenge.14.forumer.com/view...p?p=10025#10025 Basically, you take your old one off. Remove an adaptor fitting off the side of the pump and swap that bit with the one on the later model pump. Then the new pump assembly will fit together nicely on the motor.

Introduction & Qualifying Pre-Race Driver Interviews Race 1 (part 1) Race 1 (part 2) Driver Interviews - Post Race 1 Race 2 (part 1) Race 2 (part 2)

You never know...

Originally, the Subaru Cup was a race series for 1993-1996 Impreza WRX models with 4 pot front calipers and 17" wheels. Power was capped at a max of 300bhp. It was essentially a production specification series that ran within the Nippon Challenge in 2009. Take up wasn't exactly dramatic though. It seemed Scoob owners either wanted to polish their pride and joys or spend eleventy-million pounds and make them into fire breathing monsters... Well for 2010, the Subaru Cup is changing - There is still the production class as before (racing a true scoob for less than £6K!), but now there is a modified class for any age/model Impreza with the addition of an air-restrictor and some ballast to try and even things out. Why waste all that money on going roundy roundy in Timid Attack, when you can race for real against someone else on track at the same time??!?? The Subaru Cup 2010 is being supported by the SIDC and Banzai magazine. Check out the following videos for an idea of the action: The Nippon Challenge and Subaru Cup dedicated video channel has loads more stuff here: Nippon Challenge on Vimeo With a suitable Subaru Cup race car, you could also enter the Nippon Challenge for a heavilly subsidised fee and thus enjoy 2 x qualification sessions and 4 x races over one weekend for less than £400! Go to Subaru Cup - Red Dragon Race & Track Club for details Visit the Nippon Challenge forum to find all the driver chat, pictures, videos, technical details, build diaries, etc: Nippon Challenge :: Index My wife Karen raced in the Subaru Cup in 2009 and will do so again next year in her production class car. The build thread for Karen's car can be found here: Nippon Challenge :: View topic - Classic Subaru Impreza WRX and Karen's website is here: www.karenphillips.co.uk Come and have a blast in one of the most exciting race series for years...

My missus in her Impreza race car: and how it looks currently... She also owns and commutes in a Subaru Forester Turbo (Great for Q-car fun!), and gets to use my '99 Impreza Turbo whenever she so desires. Rich.

Parlez vouz Anglais?

Hi David, Congratulations on the hard work you guys put into everything you do. It's really appreciated. Karen's always mindful to acknowledge flags where appropriate. In fact Tim (Silver Evo), seemed content to follow her for a while. Obviously, it was near the end of the race and he was just seeing himself to the chequered flag. Fizz visited the gravel twice on Saturday. Once in qualifying and then in race 2. He had a really rubbish day. The car just wouldn't turn in and he had terrible problems with his windscreen misting up. When Karen was following him around Copse, he tightened his line ever so slightly and Karen thought it best in the conditions just to ease off and ensure she didn't go wide and hit him. Unfortunately, she was on the kerbs too at the time and the combination caused lift-off oversteer resulting in the spin. That's the biggest Nippon grid so far, but things are coming together now with a great mix of marques and entries for each GT power class. Not too sure there are anyt other SIDC folk racing, but I'm sure I can persuade then to join! Pics... Photos copyright Lance Wittenberg, lancewittenberg.com Cheers, Rich.

Thanks for the offer, but we're sorted for lights, I think. Had a quick thrunge on eBay and got pairs of stuff and another front indicator for less than £22. Obviously she'd have had less problems with the O/S front wheel getting caught now and again - You'll see from the picture to follow.

Karen's classic WRX race car now needs some new parts after an eventful days racing at Silverstone in terrible wet conditions. Need a new front headlight, sidelight, indicator, repeater indicator, wing, and certainly driver's side doors and possibly also passenger side doors (Depending if I can press them out successfully). Then some more panel beating and paint and a few stickers. All this occurred in Race 2, where despite the initial shunt and resultant handling problems she managed to battle through all the other incidents to finish 15th overall having started in 17th. http://vimeo.com/5044131

Cheers gav. I'm bemused as to why the official just didn't get her to pull up her sleeve on the spot. Mind you, every time we've been to Pembrey the scrutineers and officials have frankly been a pain in the a***. What is it about the place? The scrutineers had a problem with most of the Scoob rollcages as they didn't have door bars. Took the CofC to overrule them. Apparently they don't know what the word. "Optional" means. That's the only biff the car's had this year. Actually, she'd probably have been out of his way but for being held up by the MK2 MR2 in front. The guy is a canny driver and manages to be as wide as possible. (Polite way of saying he weaves!!). Yup, running on Silverstone FTZ type RR road legal race rubber. (Like A048's or R888's). They work brilliantly on the scoob. Karen's smooth driving style and decent geometry by Powerstation ensure wear is good too. Very happy with them. Due to circumstances beyond our control, Silverstone in the first week of June may be our final round this year...

Quite a torrid weekend racing at Pembrey on 16th and 17th May! Karen was doing really well in Race 1 and was 2nd in the Subaru Cup behind Sam Maher-Loughnan and ahead of Martin White when she was black flagged! Turns out a grid marshal spotted one sleeve on her suit was part way down her right forearm. Instead of telling her to pull it up, he informed the CofC WHO WAITED UNTIL THE RACE WAS NEARLY OVER BEFORE CALLING HER IN!!! This meant she started Race 2 near the back of the grid and some numpty novice drove into the side of her, locked up her rear wheel and spun them both out of the race. Damage was limited to chewed up spokes on the wheel and a partly mangled front bumper. (Pictures courtesy of Daniel Gatt.) This chap was a menace all weekend. He'd already spun out a Suzuki Swift in the same race before tagging Karen. Myself and a friend fixed the front bumper damage and the car was ready for the final race on the following day. Race 3 saw Karen start near the back again (due to the previous DNF) but have a clean race to go from 16th to 8th overall and 3rd in class behind Sam and Martin. It's such a shame the official didn't rectify the problem(?) straight away and then she'd have rightly been fighting for class wins in each race instead of being stuck at the back of the grid for two races. (and within the clutches of that pillock!) A video compilation of the racing can be found here: Nippon Challenge Pembrey 16th & 17th May 2009 on Vimeo Cheers, Rich.

Intercooler splitter? Cost us £25 a few years ago and you can definitely feel the difference. It fits inside the scoop and splits the air between the front and back halves of the TMIC. Previously only the back half used to get any of the airflow. Although if you've got some aluminium, tin snips and half a brain you could do it for a couple of quid!

That's a bit of a bum date for us too... I would have borrowed Karen's race car and had a drive myself for a change, but unfortunately we'll be driving to Pembrey so she can drive in some Subaru Cup races. Please keep informing us of these events, as I'd love to try one in the future. Cheers, Rich.

Cheers! Karen's full site - http://www.karenphillips.co.uk Further Subaru Cup blogs: Martin White - http://tengudoms.blogspot.com/ Darren Hughes - http://www.scoobyfizz.co.uk/blog/blogger.html

Snetterton saw the 1st race meeting of the Nippon Challenge in 2009, now also containing the Subaru Cup in which Karen was competing. The Subaru Cup had four entries which would be driving against themselves and the various other Nippon cars for overall honours. Karen came back in from qualifying complaining of power problems when exiting the Russell Chicane and trying to power up the main straight. After discussing the problem with her it became apparent that she may have been hanging on to the revs too long and the rev-limiter was cutting in. Changing up at about 6000rpm seemed to solve this problem for the rest of the day. Image copyright Lance Wittenberg, used with kind permission When the timesheets were published, we discovered that Karen had qualified in 14th place from a field of 23 cars. Quite prophetic, given her racing number is 14! That put her as the last of the Subaru Cup cars but ahead of the poorly GT500 Subaru of Stuart Ward. Karen got a brilliant start in Race 1 and got the drop on Martin White and Darren Hughes, but as she pulled alongside Darren she had a little trouble finding 3rd gear. Darren got ahead and Karen had to follow him closely until Sear corner where she got a chance to accelerate past him up the straight and ahead into the Esses. That's how things stayed until Karen suffered another gear problem into Sear corner for the second time. She went for 3rd and got 5th instead, allowing Darren and Miles to shoot past. That's pretty much how things remained for the rest of the race, but later on Karen was driving around Coram corner when she spotted Darren facing the wrong way on the in-field. Thus she finished 3rd in the Subaru Cup, behind Miles Hulford and Martin White. Martin and Miles had a brilliant battle, with Martin taking the win. Karen was 11th Overall in the Nippon Challenge. Race 1: Again in Race 2, Karen got a great start and would have definitely overhauled Darren, but her start was totally ruined by an inability to find 3rd gear and then any gear for a while! She was overtaken by just about every other car in the field and had to begin an exciting recovery drive... First to be passed was Jason Jesse in his MR2 mk1, then the MR2 mk1 of Nick Reed. Half a lap later it was the MR2 mk1 of Gareth Newton and the Subaru Impreza of David Williams. Next up were the squabbling MR2 mk2's of Nick Jones and Dallas Jackson. Later on she passed the ailing Honda Civic of Richard Johnson. She was determined to catch up with the Subaru Cup cars, and was hunting down Darren who's car was fighting him around each corner due to damage from his off in Race 1. She didn't have enough laps though, and finished up just a few tenths of a second behind him. That put her in 4th place for the Subaru Cup and 9th overall in the Nippon Challenge. Congratulations to Martin for another Subaru Cup win, and to Darren for a well deserved 3rd place! Race 2: Karen had a really enjoyable day's racing. She had fun chatting with all the racers in the paddock and the Silverstone Tyres crew, and was thrilled to get her podium place in Race 1 for which she received a lovely trophy! Image copyright Lance Wittenberg, used with kind permission Karen would like to thank Silverstone Tyres for their sponsorship of the Subaru Cup, and XSpec Motorsport for their hard work in preparing her car for the racing. She's really looking forward to the next event at Pembrey in May, and hopefully by then Richard will have improved the gear shift so she can give the other 'Cup racers a proper run for their money.

It's been a good few days on Rexy. On Thursday, I went along with Darren to Castle Combe where he was taking his ARDS test. Whilst he was busy with that I went shopping in Merlin Motorsport for a few items. Bought some more rollcage tubing, door bar brackets, battery cables, eyelets, p-clips and rollcage padding. Darren passed his test with no problems. Yay! Upon our return home, Darren continued wiring the cut-out switch into the ignition, being careful of the alarm system. Many thanks to Graham at XSpec for advice on the wiring. We checked out the door bar brackets and discovered they were designed for 38mm tubing rather than the 40mm stuff Rexy's cage is made of. My Step-dad collected the brackets in an effort to solve the problem... On Saturday, I spent most of the morning organising the extinguisher tubing and nozzles. I also fitted the console panel having painted it black. Darren made a surprise appearance in the afternoon and we finalised the cut-out wiring and checked it's operation. We also sorted out the cable pulls in the scuttle panel and routed the cables into the car. Darren had a well deserved day off on Sunday, and I only got to start working on Rexy in the afternoon. I tidied the battery cable wiring and secured the pull cables and trimmed them to fit the extinguisher and electrical cut-out. Whacked on the exterior decals and then painted the towing eyes wih yellow Hammerite! My step-dad turned up later having fettled the brackets and now they fit the 'cage perfectly. We'll sort out the welding of the door bar tubing ready for the first races at Snetterton. Dash and extinguisher: Exterior pulls: Towing eyes: We're now all set for the test day at Silverstone on Friday 27th February. Yeeeh and indeed Haaah!!

Hiya, Got a classic WRX, and I'm trying to remove the plastic trim from the scuttle panel. Obviously, I'll have to remove the wiper arms, but the things that have me stumped are the little plastic tab fixings that keep it in place. How should I remove these, twist them and pull them out. Just pull them straight out? Pinch the undersides with pliers and pull them out? Also, do I re-use them or replace them with decent self-tappers? Cheers! Rich.

For those lazy types, a couple of pics from Rockingham: Despite the rather frigid weather on Saturday, I decided to drain the coolant and re-fill the system. I swapped the old hoses for the new SFS silicon items I'd bought at discount via the Autosport show. Spent a while playing around and waiting for the fans to kick in, etc. I was using the reservoir cap from my road car which looked in much better condition. Once happy, and the roads had dried out, I took it for a good hard drive. Made sure of plenty of full boost runs - On a private test track, occifer! Then with the car nice and warm I parked it straight up on our drive and watched for tell-tale signs. It didn't blow the coolant out and in fact I spotted only a few small bubbles appear in the small header tank. There was no foaming like previously. I assumed the bubbles may have been naturally occuring thanks to the recent re-fill. I'm going to organise a sniff test just to make sure... Sunday was a late start. I made a small steel plate as a spreader which went under the floor of the car and drilled through the floor to fit an eye-bolt for the 5th harness point on the driver's side. That involved removing the seat, which wasn't too bad. However, getting the seat fixings to match up again was a real pain and took me longer than the rest of the job put together! I then set about marking up, drilling and fettling the safety control plate for the centre console. This now needs painting, wiring up, fitting and the addition of some stickers. Kept me occupied that afternoon. :roll: Contains electrical cut-out and bracket for exterior pull-cable, pull for extinguisher, and the illuminated rain light switch.

I'm going to bleed and re-fill the coolant and replace the hoses with my new SFS ones. Hopefully this will then ensure it's not an air-lock problem. We'll see if that combined with the new reservoir cap fixes the problem. If not then I'll get a Sniff test done to prove whether there's any exhaust gas in the system.

It was our first chance to get on track at Rockingham on Saturday, and Rexy was brilliant... ...At spitting it's coolant out at every opportunity! :shock: On top of that, the video camera we bought for the express purpose of capturing in-car action kept switching itself off within a few seconds of getting on track! I'm wondering if vibration is causing it to shut down. Anyway, we soldiered on by topping up the coolant and only doing a handful of laps at a time. At least Karen got some seat time. The suspension was working really well, although there was some occasional rubbing of tyre versus plastic inner-wing at the front and rear arch at the back. I'm going to look at getting the rear arches rolled to help reduce that. However, rockingham is slightly unusual in some of the cambers and dips involved in moving between certain sections so we're not too worried. The brakes seemed to work ok for standard pads and hardly worn in discs. Oh yeah, and there's a weeping cam-cover too, but at least the small amounts of oil lost are burning off on the exhaust manifold heat shield. As for the coolant problem, well fingers crossed it's something simple like a dodgy reservoir cap. The current one has some perishing on the rubber seal and I've replaced it with the one from my road car for now and will try and see if we get the same thing happening... When we geat a break in the weather, anyway. I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting la-la-la rather than entertain the notion of head gasket problems for the moment. Piccies here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardsenter...261489828/show/ http://bookatrack.com/-pX?10340

Full on-line shope, etc.

Yeah, I thought '93-'96 was all the same. Ta!

SFS Hoses now do hose kits for a 1996 WRX/STi Vers. 1&2. Will these be the same fitment as our '95 car? Trying to get Turbo and Coolant hoses. Cheers, Rich.

Sorry, maybe this weekend. Work and life in general are getting in the way, not too mention dark evenings and pissy weather!

While the rest of the Nippon Challenge were splashing about at Brands Hatch on Saturday, I used the break in the rain back here to work on my friends car and Rexy! I changed the oil and oil filter on his Forester, as well as the air filter. Once that was done, I turned my attention to Rexy... Swapped the "ghey" 16" rims and worn tyres for the wheels lent to us by Darren. 17" WRX Sti alloys, fixed in place by some very light longer wheelnuts: Fitted the new bucket seats and the spare harness for the passenger side. Driver's side is still using the inertia-reel belt until we get a proper new 5-point Sabelt harness from Peter Lloyd Rallying: Karen's really happy with her car now. She took it for a blast and loved every second! PS - Apologies for the quality of the photos. They were from my camera phone which is usually very good, but I didn't realise the lens was covered in crap! :roll: Sunday saw more prep through changeable weather conditions. Darren and David were on hand and between us we fitted the new XSpec front 295mm discs and the 4-pot calipers and new braided brake lines. Using some worn standard pads at the moment, but will probably end up using Carbotech items. The driver's side proved really troublesome, with the nut that attaches the fixed brake pipe to the flexible section refusing to budge and making itself prone to rounding off. Tried a spanner that worked on the flats, mole grips, heat, all to no avail. Ended up with a trip to Halfords for a proper brake pipe nut spanner and that did the magic. Right tool for the right job! Car's still on axle stands for now, as we'll do the rear brake lines and then bleed the whole system and check everything. Here's hoping for a break in the weather next weekend.