Justin Moore's STI: Freed From Autocrossing's Shackles
Justin Moore’s Gran Turismo background revealed his affinity for Subarus. His transition from the virtual world to the real thing in an ‘06 STI went smoothly enough—at least until he had a little too much fun on the backroads of San Jose and put the car in a wall. He quickly got back on the horse with an ‘05—this one to be used almost exclusively for track usage. “I wanted to play Gran Turismo in real life, and I realized that meant staying away from the silly street stuff.”
Immediately after purchasing this black peanut-eye Impreza, he stripped it of all things plush and started sorting it out for real competition. The series in his sights was SCCA F-Prepared autocross, so he was quite limited in the amount of aerodynamic elements he could add; a small ducktail and an airdam only. Truly, this sort of competition was about doing more with less.
Grip would have to come from a modest suspension setup—a set of Konis from Ground Control in his case. "I did everything as cheaply as possible at first, and I tried cutting and removing everything I wasn't using would be better for the cars overall performance." He snipped the excess from the doors, replaced all the glass with lexan, and scrapped the lights, front and rear. After all this, he’d trimmed the STI down to a respectable 2,800 pounds—not too shabby for a turbocharged, four-wheel drive sedan..
After a couple years with this setup, he added OS Giken differentials to help put power down predictably.
F-Prepared’s engine restrictions required him to have a restrictor in the turbo and he had Blouch build him a custom turbocharger to suit the SCCA’s ever-changing regulations. This mildly tweaked 18G turbo came with the right sort of inlet restrictor that conformed to the regulations, and also helped him trade some top-end power for a lot more mid-range torque, but that exchange only helped his times around cone courses.
A relocated fuel tank helps with low-speed rotation.
When COVID hit, he found that autocrosses were no longer as prevalent as they once were, but the track days were still happening with some regularity. Desperate to drive the car again, he had Tony Colicchio stick a cage in it. He also installed a smaller fuel tank setup from Aeromotive to help with fuel slosh, as well as bigger brakes, complete with ducting, from AP racing. With all those in place, he signed up with Speed SF and sampled this mean Impreza on a full-sized track.
No longer restricted by the rules, he decided that it was time to go all out. Subframe replacements from TSS engineering, a set of Penskes from Shaftworks USA, an APR rear wing, a Lowes-spec front splitter made from birch plywood, and a set of 315-section Hoosier R7s gave him more stick than most everything outside of a slick-shod single-seater.
The problem with that much grip is that the EJ25 isn’t really suited to much g-force. While shaking down the chassis he quickly found that the car is being pushed beyond what the wet sump can handle, even with full IAG competition oil pan, baffles, and AOS system. It illustrated just how much work the Subaru would need—even if he wasn’t going for big power.
Pushed along by a moderate amount of power—about 430 horsepower on a COBB E85 tune from Equilibrium Tuning—the STI lapped Thunderhill West on its second time out in the 1:19s. “I turned those laps while looking at the gauges, so it’s safe to say there’s a lot left in the current setup.”
It took a mere dozen laps to achieve that time. Of course, there’s plenty left for this build: a standalone, bigger turbo, and a dry sump setup are in the works; as is a full aero kit; a strict diet plan; and a Samsonas sequential.
“If it’s fast and reliable enough, I’ll take it to GTA, but I don’t really care about bigtime competition at the moment. I’m kinda tired of rules. At this stage, I’ve gone off the deep end and I’m enjoying every minute of it,” he laughs. "Experiencing a car like this is at the top of my bucket list."
We should all be as reckless as Justin.
