I told you yesterday that we are supporting the Possum Bourne Memorial Charity Drive. But I know that everyone can’t help with a cash donation so I have made it easy for you to lend a hand.
While I was down at the Targa Tasmania last week I got the chance to hold some great interviews and I am going to give you one to download free if you can help us out.
All you need to do is to tell 3 friends that we are supporting this charity drive and I will give you instant access to the MP3 to download immediately.
So what do you get you might be asking? Well I got the chance to speak to Dean Herridge who was driving a Subaru Spec C STi in the Targa. Its a great interview recorded in the middle of the action and Dean shares some great info about his preparation and setup of the Subaru for a tarmac rally.
To commemorate the date of Possum Bourne’s tragic accident, Club Sub in New Zealand are holding the Possum Bourne Memorial Charity Drive on the 26th April.
Club Sub have a goal to raise $2,000 over the weekend and Peggy Bourne has asked that all money raised go to the Elim Christian College who suffered a great tragedy themselves when six students and a teacher from the school died during a flash flood while canyoning the Mangatepopo Stream in the Tongariro National Park on April 15th 2008.
All the proceeds from the ClubSUB event be given to the families of the children that were taken from us in this tragic accident.
The Subaru Performance Handbook has content in it gained from many long chats with the late great Possum Bourne.
Please…. . If you feel as strongly I do about wanting to remember Possum nd help out the families of the Elim Christian College tragedy then click on the link below to see what you can do to help.
I just wanted to pass on some important information about the 2.5L Turbo Subaru’s.
Subaru Australia has suspended the sale of all cars fitted with its 2.5-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine, effecting the Forester XT, Impreza WRX and WRX STi and the Liberty GT sedan and wagon. Only cars with a build date pre 2008 are being sold, and manufacturing of the 2.5L turbo engine has been suspended as well.
A statement released last night by Subaru Australia said the problem had been identified as “abnormal wear on conrod big end bearings” and could affect up to 1233 vehicles in Australia built this year between Tuesday, 8 January and Saturday, 5 April. The problem would manifest as an engine knocking noise.
Whilst no car sold in Australia has demonstrated these problems, 171 potentially affected cars have been sold to customers, with another 1062 cars currently in dealerships or holding yards. However in overseas markets several reports of “Engine Knocking Noise” have been reported and initial investigation has confirmed an internal wear issue on the failed units. For the time being, the affected cars are not the subject of a recall but a “quality assurance action” which is “aimed at avoiding possible damage to the engines of potentially affected vehicles”.
“Therefore, in the interests of preventing any possibility of engine damage, we are isolating any potentially affected vehicles from sale until the cause and correction are identified,” Subaru said. “As far as Subaru Australia is aware, no customers have reported instances in Australia, but if any are forthcoming, they will be given a loan car until their vehicles can be checked and, where necessary, fixed. Subaru Australia will update its retail network and relevant customers as soon as possible, on receipt of further advice from FHI (parent Fuji Heavy Industries). This will also include advice regarding 171 potentially affected vehicles already with customers.”
Australian owners do not need to contact their dealer or Subaru’s customer service line (1800 22 66 43) unless they experience incidents of engine knocking noise.
Details regarding Subaru vehicles affected by the issue:
* Forester XT – chassis 002070 onwards
* Liberty GT sedan – chassis 038385 onwards
* Liberty GT wagon – chassis 068148 onwards
* Impreza WRX and WRX STi – chassis 015006 onwards
Only 2.5L turbo engines are affected, all other engines are unaffected.
Yahoo7 have reported that there was a crash near Nook in the Tasmanian North West around 1pm on Wednesday out of the record field of 300 competitors that are taking part in the Targa Tasmania in 2008.
There are no details as to which competitors were involved however the Mitsubishi Secrets Evo 9 RS is reported to be running well after the end of the first days racing.
MRT Performance announced that Brett Turner from Go Fast Bits will be appearing on the free Subaru Secrets teleseminar with Brett Middleton.
The upcoming call on Tuesday 15th April 2008 at 9pm USA EST features Go Fast Bits (GFB) who provide a range of innovative and high-quality blow-off valves, boost controllers, pulley kits and short shifters … all meticulously designed and manufactured from the highest grade materials.
Subaru owners and enthusiasts get the chance to find out exactly what they can do improve the performance of their cars. SubaruSecrets.com gives people the opportunity to submit their own unique questions to be answered live on the call.
Announcing the upcoming call, Brett Middleton, Managing Director for MRT Performance said “This innovative teleseminar series gives everyone from the die hard Subaru performance enthusiast to Scooby newbie the chance to hear first hand from highly skilled Subaru performance experts”.
Customers not only get access to a VIP seat on the live teleseminar call line but also get access to all of the recordings from the previous calls in the series.
With over 22,000 vehicles passing through their doors since 1994, MRT Performance is recognized as one of the leading Subaru Performance workshops in the country.
Building on the success of the recent launch of the 3rd Edition of the Subaru Performance Handbook, Brett Middleton, owner of MRT Performance is running the fortnightly Subaru Secrets teleseminar series to speak to leading industry experts and uncover the insider secrets to getting the best possible performance from any model Subaru.
Depending on what model Subaru you own, it may not always be a good idea to change the air intake in a bid for chasing that elusive little bit of extra horsepower. That’s right, you may be surprised to find out that particularly some models such as the MY99 and MY00 STI and WRXs actually suffer quite badly when a poor quality cold-air intake or pod-style filter is fitted.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t direct cold air to the factory air box , but what you should seriously consider is avoiding the opportunity to replace that ugly, black plastic box with the flat panel in it for a [flash] pod-style filter or some other jazzy type of air intake. The particular model on that car suffers quite badly from poor air flow through the air flow meter sensor because the air flow meter sensor which measures the amount of air going into the engine is very, very sensitive and unique in that model year of ’99 to 2000.
And if you fit a cold air intake, the air is disturbed going through the air flow meter sensor assembly and sends a bad signal to the ECU, which results in either poor fuel mixture or a lean fuel mixture which then can also result in bad ignition timing and ultimately a risky environment for your engine to run.
Ninety-nine percent of the cases that we have tested and found cold air intakes fitted to clients’ cars have always been badly affecting the ECU signal, and by removing the incorrect air filter and fitting either a accurately machined, good quality pod-style filter with an adapter for the correct diameter of the air flow meter sensor, or in fact going back to the original factory air box, resulted in better fuel economy, more reliable power, and obviously and ultimately a more reliable engine.
Let me go into a little bit more detail. When the air passes through the air intake going into the air flow meter sensor, the air is measured through the sensor that sits in the center of the pipe, or the housing for the air flow meter sensor. Now, it is assumed by the ECU and the sensor that that sample of air that the sensor is measuring is similar for the whole volume of air going through that pipe.
The problem is that if the air is disturbed by poor quality design air filter or the wrong diameter adapter or something like that, it gets a wrong signal, so ultimately what happens is you end up with a badly running car. What you need to make sure is that the air is what they call laminar, meaning the air is traveling in a nice, constant, straight path directly down through the pipe so the sensor, when it gets that signal gets an accurate signal, which means your ECUs got an accurate information on what’s going on with your engine and ultimately you’ll end up with a happier running engine.
Some examples of what we have seen are people removing the air filter box and unbolting the air flow meter assembly because on the ’99, 2000 model, the actual air flow meter housing, which is a three to four-inch long plastic pipe, is actually bolted to the air box with four, 10-mil-headed bolts. They then connect an air-filter-style pod, whether it’s a big diameter filter or a small diameter filter, but obviously you need something to adapt the pod to the air flow meter sensor pipe, and typically that is used with a short piece of pipe connected to a flange that is then bolted on the end of the housing.
Now if that adapter itself is the wrong diameter, which in a lot of a cases it commonly is, you are effectively introducing a restriction to the air intake because the I.D. of the adapter is smaller than the I.D. of the air flow meter housing and straight away you’re behind the eight ball in getting good performance. Of course yourself or people you may know as the owner of these vehicles may think it looks impressive because you’ve replaced it and the car sounds a bit better, and in some cases ironically, the car actually may go better. But I’ll go in to that in a bit more detail later on in this section.
So the air is coming in through the nice, snazzy air filter assembly, through the adapter, and into the air flow meter housing, through the air flow meter sensor, and into the turbines of the engine. Of course as the air goes through the adapter and then changes diameter back out again to the inner diameter of the air flow meter sensor, of course it’s all disturbed and turbulent and not flowing nicely, so the sample of air that the actual sensor is reading is not accurate.
The reason why you can end up having a car that feels like it’s running better is because the signal going to the ECU is not accurate or indicative of the actual correct amount of air going into the engine, the ECU in some cases can actually run less fuel, more ignition timing and things like that, resulting in a leaner mixture and a higher ignition map, which obviously gives the feeling of more power. The down side is, you are actually taking a risk with the reliability of the engine.
Because the ECU is not getting the correct sample, you end up with a car that’s running too lean, or too much ignition timing, or a whole cocktail of horrible settings out of the ECU that ultimately can result in catastrophic engine failure or long-term detonation damage to the crown of the pistons, or cracking of the piston ring lands through other types of detonation, lean fuel mixtures, and so on.
You might ask, “What’s the solution?” Unfortunately, I’m going to tell you something you probably don’t want to know. The best solution is to stick with the factory air box with a nice, neat, cold-air intake coming through from the inner guard down behind the fog light and up into the air box, while the big diameter, which will flow a hell of a lot of air and a nice, neat, good-quality, flat-panel filter in the factory air box.
The factory air box will actually flow a hell of a lot of air and as an example, our Group A rally car actually runs the factory air box to ensure that we run the accurate signal through the air flow meter housing, of course because we run the factory ECU using the EcuTeK tuning software to adjust it to suit our Group A engine. So if our Group A car can run with a factory air box, so can yours.
You might say to yourself, “But I want something to look good on the engine bay or I want a bit of extra power and I really don’t like that air box.” The only solution, which is still a bit of a compromise and not the best solution, but if you ultimately must go to an after-market style replacement for your factory air box, MRT Performance supply an accurately machined adapter for the air flow meter housing so there’s no disturbance or restriction of the air going into the sensor and on the end of that, you can fit a pod-style filter and such.
It’s not the best preferred option in 100% of the times, but if it’s combined with a tune of the ECU using EcuTeK software, you certainly will get a good result. So there you have it, an air filter replacement with a pod or a ram pod or after-market pod-style filter is not always the best. Don’t believe everything that you see! Just because it looks good doesn’t mean it’s going to go better.
If you have a website or blog, participate in forums or even just have a basic list of email addresses for your friends or customers then this is a ‘can’t miss’ opportunity for you.
For the next 6 weeks we are running a competition for all the resellers and affiliates who help to promote the Subaru Performance Handbook.
It’s all pretty simple really, we have actually done most of the work for you.
All you need to do is to sign up and register as a reseller of the book through the special affiliate link and each time someone buys the book through the unique link we provide….you earn 50% of each sale.
Plus, we have also put together some great tools to help you promote your link. These include email signatures, text adds and banners that you can upload straight to your website and start earning immediately.
Just think how much credibility you can earn with your customers or friends by showing them how they can get access to this goldmine of information.
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If you have any questions or need help with exactly how to promote the link just send us an email to info@subaruperformancehandbook.com and we will be more than happy to help.
Just a quick reminder that we are still accepting questions for our teleseminar this week with Ben Dagenais from EcuTek. Ben is responsible for training all of the EcuTek techs in the UK, Canada and the USA and will provide some great insights into tuning and the ECU.
You can submit your questions even if you can’t make it to the call and hear Ben’s response on the audio file we will make available or you to download after the call is finished.
By registering you will get access to all the call recordings for this series as well as the dial in details to join us live on the call and the chance to question Ben yourself on all the latest information on EcuTek, tuning and the ECU.
Register now to join us on the call and don’t miss out on this great opportunity.
