Time Bandit: JC Meynet's All Conquering 2006 Subaru STI
By Mike Kojima, photos by Jeff Naeyaert
Would you be interested in a low mileage Subaru only driven on a few weekends a year by a Grandfather? Probably not unless it was this one. JC Meynet First bought the STI in 2006 because he wanted a practical 4-Door sporty car to drive his grandkids around in. The STI stayed stock for 30,000 miles and a year until, JC a former motocross racer tried his hand at autocross and Redline Time Attack in Street class. It was then the bug of speed bit and the car began its transformation into the Redline Time Attack Modified/ Super Lap Battle AWD Limited and NASA TTU class monster you see here.
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| The EJ25 is stroked to 2.6 liters with a Crower crank and rods. JE or CP 100mm pistons in different compression ratios are used depending on the situation. Portflow Engineering modified the cylinder heads with 1mm oversize valves. |
The car is the brainchild of JC Meynet, AQ Motorsports and HarmonMotive. JC chose the Modified and limited classes so the car could retain its street car roots. Take out the cage and add a few of the interior bits and this monster could be street driven. The engine is fortified using a BC 2.6 liter stroker kit with Crower crank and rods. 100mm JE 8.5:1 compression or 9.2:1 CP pistons are used depending on the conditions. The heads are ported and fitted with 1mm oversize valves, stainless on the intake and inconel on the exhaust using a radius valve job. The intake manifolds are ported with the TGV valves deleted by Portflow Engineering. The normally open deck Subaru case halves are modified to be closed deck for better integrity and head sealing and the block is clearanced by Outfront Motosports.
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| Since a Subaru comes with a swirl pot/surge tank stock, this can is the overflow tank. The intake manifolds are ported and the TGV swirl valves are removed. The big fuel rails and lines feed huge 1600cc injectors, needed for E85 operation. E85 requires at least 30% more fuel delivery than gasoline. E85 has about a 50% higher latent heat of vaporization than gasoline so it contributes a lot to charge cooling. This makes it a good turbo fuel. |
The lubrication system is critical for a time attack car if the engine is to live. The Subaru is no exception with a high volume oil pump with 12mm gears, a Moroso accumulator (basically the same thing as an accusump), a Moroso baffled high capacity oil pan and a Griffin cooler. A Griffin Radiator is also used. An AQMS recirculating oil separator/breather tank solves a common Subaru problem of creating a lot of oil mist in the blowby. Motul handles the lubrication.
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| Fuel pressure regulator and pressure sender unit for the data logger. The aluminum can is a self draining oil mist separator. Subaru's are known for puking a lot of oil out the breather and this can recovers the oil and puts it back into the crankcase. This is an essential thing for any track driven Subie because it is possible to puke a big part of the sump capacity out the breather in a single session! |
