New Rally Car Revealed!
New Rally Car Revealed!
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Over the 2012/2013 winter, typically a slow time in the rally calendar, Kieran and Simon embarked on an ambitious plan to build a new rally car. With significant contributions from Crew Chief Mike Miller, they took a 1995 Subaru Impreza LX, caged it and swapped in the engine, drivetrain, wiring harness and dashboard from a 2005 Subaru 2.5RS. Here are the two cars that came together to make the new USUK Racing rally car.
The 2.5RS had been totalled by a previous owner but the engine etc. seemed in great shape. The body of 1995 Impreza, even though nearly 18 years old was in excellent condition with no rust. We had to make some fairly serious changes, especially to the firewall, to get the two cars’ parts to come together. With our design, the cage was built and installed by Chris Schimmel of Competition Cages. Chris also did the cage in the USUK Racing Ford Focus and is relatively nearby so was an obvious choice. While the Impreza was away getting it’s cage, the parts from the 2.5RS were collected and updates and improvements were made to the engine too. Finally what remained of the 05 car was scrapped and the caged Impreza came home to begin its transformation.
We managed to get the car completed just in time for Sandblast Rally 2013 although our competition suspension hadn’t made it. We ran on borrowed STi struts instead. This year we are also sponsored by Axcel Sportswear (providing our new suits) and Rally Core (developers of a combination rally computer and intercom system).