This has already been announced all over the place, but now that we got the actual time slips and videos up, we figured it was time to make it official.

*** Long read. Scroll down for time slips and video if you're in a hurry. ***

For those who have not been following our plight for getting the most out of the little VF39, here's a recap. Sean (Downsti) has been into drag racing for a long time and when he got his 06 STI he asked me to help him find the real limits of the stock turbo. This seemed like a fun challenge, and knowing Sean's abilities as a driver, I knew great things could happen.

We decided to start with the basics and carefully pick each part. We really wanted to keep the setup as simple as possible and not waste money and effort on unnecessary parts. So we started with some basics that I've consistently seen great results from...

- Crucial Downpipe and Racepipe
- Crucial P&P&C OEM Headers
- HKS Catback
- Hallman MBC

Nothing more, nothing less. Stock TMIC, stock intake, stock spark plugs, even the stock paper panel filter . Remember the idea was to take in stages and keep things as simple as possible. We spend a lot of time tuning this setup on the road on both 91 and 100 octane and were both very impressed with how much can be had from such a simple setup.

Here is the 91 road dyno plot:


And here is the 100 octane road dyno plot:


Remember that my road dyno software reads similarly to the lower reading Mustang chassis dyno's, so while the numbers aren't out of this world, the actual performance was very impressive considering the minimal mods. Later that week, Sean headed to the track with these maps. He ran 12.6 @ 107mph on the 91 Octane map and managed a 12.2 @ 112.5mph on the 100 octane map. While the 91 times were great in their own respect, the 12.2 was what was really impressive. At that time the 12.2 run set the stock turbo STI record and held is for a while until it was inched out by a 12.19. The really amazing part about all this was how basic the setup was... just four power mods (not counting tuning). After these runs, Sean played with the car for about 6 months, racing his buddies and many local cars (on closed tracks of course ) and continuing to enjoy the great power this simple setup offered.

Once someone else got the 12.19, we decided it was time to step it up and shoot for finally getting a VF39 into the 11's. I did some research and testing on various parts and came to a couple conclusions. First, the stock TMIC was taking these power levels quite well so I didn't see a need to upgrade it at this time. I knew the intake was starting to become a restriction on the high octane map, so we picked the APS inlet and APS 65mm CAI for the job. I know Sean struggled a bit with the inlet install, but its a quality piece and its really nice knowing that it will never collapse under high flow. We also didn't want to go with a short ram intake due to the already horrible heat soak you get at the strip, so the APS CAI was a natural choice.

With these parts installed, I started tuning the car again and noticed right away that we had really exceeded the fuel system. Now it was time for a Walbro a set of flow matched Deatschwerks 650cc injectors. At this point Sean also found a good deal on an EWG setup, so we figured we'll throw that in as well. Sean likes his car to be loud, and the EWG certainly did that. Now I know it seems like at this point we sort of abandoned the whole simplicity concept, but it was really time to take it up a notch and take a couple risks with the setup. These were not parts I had worked with much, so it was pretty much new territory.

So here is the final setup as it is today and as it was at the time of the 11.7 pass...
- Crucial downpipe and racepipe
- Crucial P&P&C OEM headers
- HKS Catback
- UR EWG UP with Tial 38mm
- APS turbo inlet
- APS 65mm CAI
- Hallman MBC
- Walbro fuel pump
- Deatchswerks 650cc injectors
- 1 Step colder plugs

And here is the road dyno plot of the 100 octane tune on this setup:


Now this thing was getting REALLY impressive. The 400ft-lbs of torque catapults the car at just about any RPM and 337whp is just unheard of on the VF39 on the lower reading dynos. The really amazing part was how easily this setup tuned. I'd say it took about half the time to nail down this tune than it did with the first setup. We were both extremely excited about the numbers and the overall feel of the car... 11's were really in sight now.

Fast forward to this Wednesday when Sean finally made it to the strip for the first time with this setup and tune. The very first run Sean hit his fastest ET of 11.7 @ 113mph. Note here that the TMIC wasn't iced down prior to this run, so there was some heat soak involved. This explains the lower than expected trap speed considering the power levels. Once the TMIC was iced between runs, the traps came up to a high of 115.5mph. This trap really matches up with the 337whp figure, so I was very happy to see this. Sadly, however, the track conditions had gotten significantly worse and Sean had a hard time launching and couldn't get a clean run in with the higher traps.

Either way, we were all completely ecstatic with the 11.7 pass. To be honest, I would have been thrilled with an 11.9X... the 11.7 just totally blew us all away. Here are the slips with the 11.7 pass as well as the 115mph trap with the botched launch:



And here's the video of the record setting pass:
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/d...f900652765.htm

So what's next? We have a couple ideas to improve the car's traction off the line and of course we'll keep that tmic nice and cool between runs. I think the car is good for a around 11.5-11.6 @ 115mph with its current setup. We'll just have to settle for the 11.7 for now .

Finally, I'd like to thank a couple people who helped Sean out with his setup:
- Jeremy @ Crucial for supporting our efforts and for the great exhaust hardware.
- LIC Motorsports for helping us out with some mechanical work here and there.
- Speed Element for also helping out with some mechanical work.
- Some friends who came out to the track to help and support Sean
- And of course the man himself, Sean for bringing me on this project and doing an amazing job behind the wheel!

I know this is quite a read and I probably went way overboard, but this is very exciting and I hope many of you can share this with us!

Thanks for reading and for all the support