Carbon-Fibre Test - Dash Panel

Custom Alloy Footwell Plates!

I got hold of a nice big sheet of checker-plate aluminium so I'm fabbing up a few nice little touches for the car. I've already made a few under-bonnet styling pieces, but with the lions share of the plate I've started making some rally-style alloy footplates for the driver and passenger.

Its a great racing-car look [no chrome-plastic imitations here] and really suits the Impreza interior. Its a lot harder wearing and easier to clean than the mats, but the downside is its a bit slippy when its wet, as I've discovered with the recent bout of gloomy weather. Checker-plate is pretty cheap to buy, but these footrests aren't cheap items - eBay has some budget pieces starting from about £20 per side, but if you want a brand, Demon Tweeks have a Sparco set @ £91 for the passenger footrest and £34 for the tiny driver's clutch-rest!

Making them was a doddle. The whole driver's side footwell had to be covered, but I didn't have enough plate for both so I decided to give the passenger a large footrest and just cover the bottom wall of the well. I took a few measurements of the footwells, cut the plate to fit and rounded the edges off with a file for a neat finish. For the driver's side I bent the thin end of the plate up about 45 to match the floorpan and cut a gap out to fit round the plastic-stopper under the go-pedal in case I stifle the throttle. [restrictor-plate? :)] Well my measurements we're a bit off, but without scrutinising the fit doesn't look too bad at all. A boss bit of rally-bling for the cockpit - not bad for a free off cut of alluminium!

Custom Cold-Air Duct + Some Engine Dressing

I've never felt that the standard cold-air feed has been good enough to feed the induction-kit. The OEM duct consists of 4" wide plastic pipe that feeds the airbox, which has two inlets that join in the O/S front-wing - one comes up from a vent somewhere in the front-bumper and another that just catches ambient air at the side of the grille.

The car isn't exactly gasping for air, but with the straight-through exhaust and induction I think its time to rethink the bumper inlet and fit a bigger, more direct duct. For the meantime, I've thrown in an extra temporary duct-hose to aid the air flow a little. I found a nice length of flexi-hose that fits nicely between the cone and a gap in the grille, but its not much more than 1" in diameter so I'm not expecting a great improvement in performance. It's some more air flow none the less.

*EDIT: Just found out that the flexi-pipe is the heater-duct from an LDV Maxus van so we're now rocking British Leyland parts on the Hamamatsu bad boy - how quaint!*

In an attempt to catch more air for the rear of the filter I have started to develop a custom cold-air box around the cone. The exposed filter also has the downside of sucking in hot air from the engine while the car is standing still and the box will also hopefully help to prevent this somewhat - only time will tell.

So far I've installed a back for the box made of plate-aluminium. I got hold of a nice big sheet of the checker-plate and I'm making a few nice bits with it for the front foot-wells and made the piece for the airbox from an off cut. It does look pretty sweet and I've seen alloy used for these before, but ultimately carbon-fibre insulates heat much better so I'll be moving to it, or kevlar, if the design works.

I just cut the plate about 18"x 8" and bent it at a 45° angle halfway down so it curves underneath the cone. I then cut a small metal 90° bracket down to fit and fixed it to the inner-wing using one of the existing wing bolts. I drilled a hole in the top left corner of the plate and attached it to the bracket with a nice yellow allen-head bolt.

Great looks and a nice bit of engine dressing at zero cost! Great, but whether it is functional is yet to be seen. To complete the job I'll add a angled side piece to the right of the plate and some rubber strips to the underside of the bonnet to create a complete air-box.

I've also plenty of checker-plate left over so look out for a host of nice little alloy touches for the interior!

STi Carbon/Titanium Strut Brace!!

Anyone who's into modding cars knows about strut braces... It's basically a stiff bar that bolts across your suspension-turrets to brace them against each other and stiffen the suspension up. I've always liked the idea of buying one, but it's never been high on my priority list. This all changed when I saw the STi one [in the photo] and I figured that seeing as we've gone to all the trouble of TEIN coilovers, I may as well go the whole hog and finish beefing up the chassis in style.

They haven't made any of the STi ones for a long time so it's hit and miss finding one. Demon Tweeks' cheapest alternative is £100, but it's a heavy steel number from Sparco. eBay has some cheap, but great looking ones from about £50, which are made of much lighter aluminium, but they're unbranded and untested. Subaru really had it licked though with their STi one, fitted to V4's onwards - it's made of carbon-fibre rods with titanium-billet joints and is way lighter than the others, as well as looking achingly good. These usually sell for a ton or more and are quite sought after, but a few are cropping up right now on eBay and there are bargains to be had. I spotted a cheap one and put in a hugely optimistic max bid of £60. My chances were low, but the rival bidders must have been napping because I got it for £55, despite another selling an hour later for £81. The seller went above and beyond as well, only charging me £4.50 for standard-parcel even though it arrived within 2 days! :)

I am very surprised at how much difference this brace makes. I've still only got the standard front shocks on, but the whole front-end of the car is stiffer, feeling much flatter, especially round hard bends, but also noticeably firmer over bumps too! Absolutely brilliant for only £60 - I can't wait to get the remaining TEIN coils fitted to the front, it'll be one seriously stiff chassis! The strut-brace really is light too, I would say it only weighs a few ounces, yet it evidently takes some force. It's clearly built to take it too - it has 'Aerospace Division' emblazoned next to the STi logo, which is awesome. It's eye-opening to see how much the body and suspension flexes - I'd recommend fitting a strut-brace to any car!

FITTING :

This couldn't be any easier - all you need is a 10mm wrench. This is for the STi Classic carbon strut-brace, but the fitting is identical for all other types, though the nuts may be different sizes.

1. Pop the bonnet and remove the 3x 10mm top-mount nuts from each of the suspension-turrets. The weight of the body is resting on the top-mounts so they won't move at all.

2. Loosen the 10mm bolts on either shoulder of the strut-brace so the end-rings can be adjusted easily.

3. Lower the strut-brace under the rear bulkhead and the end-ring holes over the top-mount studs so that there is a straight, snug fit and the end-rings can be pushed flat to the suspension-turret.

4. Replace the 3 nuts to each top-mount with a 10mm wrench and give it a good tighten, making sure the raised mounting-points are all flush against the suspension-turret.

5. Tighten the 10mm bolts on either side of the strut-brace so the entire unit is solid across the turrets.

There you go - fitted in 10 minutes and the difference it makes is astonishing!!