External Combustion Rocket Zero-lag Teaser
by Eric Hsu
On the other side of the world is a lush green island with some of the brightest minds and most creative people in the world. They gave the world the Beatles, the universal joint, the Rolling Stones, Cosworth, the Smiths, Aston Martin, the wind tunnel, James Bond, bangers and mash, stainless steel, Depeche Mode, black pudding and of course, fish and chips. England is the little island that's given the world quite a bit. Now (or actualy several years ago in WRC), they give us external combustion anti-lag technology. Well they haven't quite given it to the world yet, but here it is in the first working street driven Subaru STi that belongs to my buddy Ben who's the best engine calibration engineer that I know.
Ben promises more will come soon. I was supposed to make it over to the UK late last year and then once again in May, but life got in the way last year and the Team America GT-R got in the way in May. If you want more in depth coverage on MotoIQ, be sure to let us know in the comments section below so MotoIQ can pay for my trip to the UK. Ben says he'll take me to Nurburgring in the Spec-C (I'm bringing ear plugs) for a super bad ass series of stories. But to answer some questions I'm sure there will be:
- The car is a 2007 Impreza STI Spec C.
- The knob over to the right of the steering wheel is his “cal pot” or calibration potentiometer. Pectel ECUs provide up to 4 switchable maps.
- That's custom display in Caltool, Pectel's calibration software, on an Acer tablet PC.
- When the “zero lag” is activated, the Pectel SQ6M ECU cracks open the throttle to start the zero lag process. That's why the revs go up.
- That's the turbo speed at 130,000+ RPM. The reason why it shows 0.0 at the beginning is because most turbo speed sensors do not read below 10,000 RPM.
- The turbo is an IHI RX-6 from one of the later generation of Prodrive WRC rally Imprezas.
- How does Ben know how to do this stuff? He's a genius that's why! Not only did he develop the latter years of the Prodrive WRC engines (and the Rocket itself), but he was the ex-senior calibration engineer of Cosworth F1. Now he's at another large F1 engine builder. I don't think I'm supposed to really say, but it has a silver star in the logo.
Enjoy, and don't forget to comment! Ben wants to know what you, the intellegent readers of MotoIQ, have to say. Also, let him know that you want to see the Rocket on the Team America GT-R!!!
EDIT: Ben sent me a picture to put up. Elmo gets props for one of the cleanest Subaru engine bays ever. Click to enlarge:
