Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast

For episode #160 of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast, Jon, Tasso, and Jeremy sit down to try to figure out why cars are so expensive.

I'd make the argument that cars that cost more than $60,000 are irrelevant to most of us, but most of the fun cars are sitting just above or well above that mark now.

So what happened?

And how do cup holders fit in?

Thanks for watching and make sure you are following OTC Racing and Money Shift Rally to stay up on what Tasso and Jeremy are up to as well.

Stay Tuned!

A few years ago, Subaru and Vermont Sports Car decided to build a car to push the boundaries of what was possible with a Subaru, and they called it The Airslayer. That car was used to create a Gymkhana video and also went on to set the overall record in the Mt. Washington Hill Climb.

And since then Subaru and Vermont Sports Car have gone on to build The Family Huckster, and their latest build, Project Midnight.

All of these cars are very fast and very cool, but they are almost entirely bespoke. The only actual Subaru parts on these cars maybe the odd badge, and maybe a grill...

So are they actually Subarus?

For this episode of the Podcast, Jon, Tasso, and Jeremy talk about these new cars, and what Subaru may be trying to accomplish by building them.

Thanks for listening and Stay Tuned!

For Episode #158 of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast, Tasso and Jeremy are both in the shop this week.

It was September 2022 when Tasso rolled his Rally car at the Alpine Horizon Rally Sprint, and the rebuild that was initially supposed to take 6 months has now been going on for 2 years.

Jeremy and Cameron ended up rolling their WRX Rally car at the 2024 Rally Colorado, and so they are in the middle of a rebuild as well.

With anything as involved as building up a Race Car or Rally Car from scratch, scope-creep can be a real problem.

We talk through Tasso's build, Jeremy's build, and some of the issues that we have been having with the Flatirons Rally car of late and do our best to give you some pointers of what to do when a build or problems starts snowballing out of control.

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

If you have been following with our Podcast, you know that a lot has been changing in the Automotive Aftermarket in the last couple of years.

In the wake of the Cobb Tuning EPA settlement, one question that was on the top of our minds lately is how building a car has changed in the last 5 years.

Is it better or easier to build a car now compared to 5 years ago?

In this episode, Jon, Tasso of OTC Racing and Jeremy of Money Shift Rally sit down to try and answer this question.

Can we still build a Project Car in 2024?

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

On September 16th, news broke that Cobb Tuning had settled with the EPA and was fined $2.9 million for violating the Clean Air Act.

With Cobb Tuning being so involved with the Subaru community, this definitely caught a lot of our attention. Jon and Harvey from The Boostcreep talk about the implications of Cobb's EPA settlement, and what it could mean for the Tuning industry going forward.

If you would like to take a look at the the Cobb Tuning EPA Settlement, or the other cases mentioned in the podcast, here are links to them:

Cobb Tuning

https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/cobb-tuning-products-llc-clean-air-act-settlement

https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-09/cobbtuningproductsllc-cp.pdf

Cummins Diesel

https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/2024-cummins-inc-vehicle-emission-control-violations-settlement

Rudy's Performance Parts

https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/rudys-performance-parts-inc-and-aaron-rudolf-clean-air-act-settlement-information-sheet

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

It seems like every year EV's are getting a bit better, and this year, a couple of them have made a big jump forward.

As I have hinted at in a few earlier videos, I am now driving a 2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance, and when Mike Pettiford of Go 4 it Services heard this, he was initially couldn't believe it.

Mike brought down his 2023 Golf R and we both took a drive in the others car to get a sense of how they were to drive, then we sat down to discuss how close EV's were starting to get to something like a classic Sport Compact car to drive.

Was the Tesla fun to drive? Could it handle anything like the Golf R?

We talk about it all on this episode of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast.

If you would like to stay up on what Mike is up to at Go 4 it Racing, make sure to follow him here:

https://www.instagram.com/go4itracingteam/

https://www.facebook.com/go4itservices

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

You all had a lot of good questions about Rally Suspension, and for Episode #154 of the Flatirons Syndicate podcast, we are going to answer them.

Subaru has a long history of competing in Rally with the Impreza, WRX, and STI. If you want to take your Subaru out to run a Rally-X event, Hill Climb, or Stage Rally on dirt, suspension is going to be a key component for success.

There are a lot of options out there, and we go through your questions in this episode to hopefully give you a better idea of what to look for as your are building up your Rally Car suspension, and some other key details as well.

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

If you have been following our Podcast, or the oiling issues that have come to light with the FA24 BRZ/GT86, then you may be familiar with the testing that Brian aka. 900BRZ has been doing with his BRZ and the work that Verus Engineering has been doing to develop an oil pan to solve the issue.

Both 900BRZ and Verus have put out a couple of videos recently detailing their results with their higher volume pan for the BRZ, so I reached out to them to have a discussion about how the testing is going, and how close we are to a solution.

We talk about the testing that they have been doing, the current results, and how close they think the pan is to a final solution.

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

Here is a link to 900BRZ's video talking about testing the Verus Pan:

https://youtu.be/Pvgg7dl-I5I?si=_uAi4uyZ4PY6zSPH

And here are links to the recent videos that Verus Engineering has put out about their pan:

https://youtu.be/DIMl-jgNzZM?si=1SgZlaiKYwzD_uBF

https://youtu.be/kVEpMu6YHeo?si=_ZxprMwecS6SLG-d

https://youtu.be/eBHT5b3sf9o?si=0O7uc7Eq4JrOstAp

On this episode of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast, we go through your questions about our Pikes Peak WRX STI!

We collected your questions from a post on our Youtube channel last week about our car, the issues that we have had, and some of the details about running up Pikes Peak.

The topics covered in this episode include talking about our current and past engine failures, chassis stiffening, running a turbo at high elevation, oil pressure and oil starvation, and the over all results that we have seen running the STI Type RA block.

Thanks for your questions and thanks for watching!

Stay Tuned!

In this Episode:

00:00 - Introduction

00:23 - Your Youtube questions about our Pikes Peak WRX STI

01:08 - Thoughts on chassis stiffening, and difference in approach between a caged and non-caged car

08:52 - How does the suspension and tires react to the change in elevation as we run up Pikes Peak?

12:21 - What caused the original failure of our STI Type-RA engine?

15:08 - What caused our current engine failure? What did we do to address the risk of another failure? What head studs did we use and are we still using the same turbo?

17:23 - How do you deal with the turbo getting less air at the top of Pikes Peak?

22:43 - The car set a record time with a stock EJ block; are there any plans to upgrade the internals, etc.?

23:57 - How do we deal with the issues of oil sloshing and moving through the PCV system with the high incline and g-loads?

27:35 - What caused the decrease in oil pressure on our race run up Pikes Peak?

32:20 - Final thoughts

If you have been following along with our 2024 run up Pikes Peak, you know that we had an engine failure during qualifying. You might also have heard us mention that we most likely hurt the new engine in our Pikes Peak WRX STI on race day.

Now that we have a Haltech Nexcess standalone ECU installed in our race car, we finally have the ability to go through the data to see what happened to our car.

In this episode of the podcast, we sit down with Harvey Epstein of The Boostcreep to go through all the date, and diagnose what happened to both engines running on Pikes Peak.

We have to give Harvey a big Thank You for all his help with tuning the car, and supporting us through race week, as well as helping us to go through all of the data!

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

If you want to follow Harvey and see what he is up to, you can find his Youtube page here:

https://www.youtube.com/@UC5-7rQ5hNTmiR9RAZnmsjsQ

And his Instagram here:

https://www.instagram.com/the_boost_creep/