Peoples,

For those of you who dont know me my name is Brendon Winterbourn.

I bought a brand new MY00 when I was 19 and did a few club motorsport events in that as a road car. Was an awesome car but sold it to go travelling overseas.

Anyways then I decided to get a bit more serious and built this http://www.perth-wrx.com/vb/general-...s-project.html

I have had some great results with the car including winning Dutton driver outright in 07 and 8th outright at Targa West in 09. Then I decided to get properly serious about doing Targa Tas.

So I looked at my options. The obvious one was keep my Subaru and put a new motor in it (it still has the original one but EVERYTHING else has been replaced), bigger brakes that are allowed given you can run anything up to 18" wheels on a GC8 and run it on E85. I basically wanted to run a MY11 Spec C engine and twin scroll but after much constenation they said no. So when I did the sums one way or another it was going to have to spend $25k + on a car that was only worth $25k and it would still be a 11 year old GC8 running in early modern. I still think it would not be a bad way to go but I decided to step it up to the next level again and build a brand new Evo X RS.

Why the Evo? Well clearly the fastest car out there is the Gallardo. However at my age I cant afford to splash $1m for something that sits in the garage and you only use 3 times a year. Remember there is no prize money or paid drives in this game.

Next car on the radar was a R35 GTR. The difference in cost between one of these and building a proper Evo / Sti is actually quite small. The reason I did not go down this road was because in my opinion they are too heavy and too complicated for what we are trying to do with them. Also you are looking at $70 - $80k + for an engine and gearbox and guys are going through at least one a season. We put some serious consideration into buying a brand new my11 gtr and not even tuning it but you would get wiped off the floor. One way or another to campaign one of these properly at the front of the field for 2 years would be a $500k proposition. As pathetic as it sounds I would rather buy another house.

So the next step was the age old Evo / STI debate. I debated this one for a while and ended up going with the Evo. Basically because there is more of them out there and as pathetic as it sounds the (my understanding is now ex) motorsport manager for Subaru does everything in his power to discourage you from running a STI. I did not want any money or parts etc fom him, simply a few questions answered like when are the next lot of spec C's coming in. TMR's Heaphy on the other hand seems to be far more involved and willing to help. Dont get me wrong, I have still had a few issues like it taking 8 months to get a car but it is light years ahead of where Subaru are.

Anyways the car arrived last week and whilst Race Torque have not even started pulling it apart I grabbed a few photos. Nothing anyone has not already seen but I will update it with a heap more pictures as we go along this journey of building a new car. I would have loved to pull it all apart (like I did with my Subaru) but I simply dont have the time anymore.

Between Race Torque and I we have ordered a mountain of bits for it many of which are here. I have paid the entry fee for Targa High Country which is the first weekend in November in Victoria and I will need to do some sort of shakedown before then. Race Torque have said they can do it in two months but whatever happens it needs to be ready by mid October at the absolute latest.






Hope you enjoy.

Brendon

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