Stehly Racer
Young SCCA racer, Aaron Stehly is kicking things up a notch. After winning the IT Triple Crown Championship for the ITB Car National class in his '94 VW GTI 2.0, Aaron picked up a '06 GTI 2.0T last winter. Having driven in SCCA for eight years, he enjoys racing in restricted classes where skill is more important than power. The Minnesota native is building his next racecar for SCCA's Touring 3 class.
Aaron's Mk5 GTI is allowed minimal mods. He's working with APR Motorsport and the local dealership Westside VW to bring the car to race-spec without jumping outside the boundaries of class restrictions. What he's allowed to do is tune the ECU, run DOT-approved racing slicks, install a cat-back exhaust, stainless brake lines and different pads, limited-slip diff, plus strip the interior. Suspension tuning is also limited and he can't adjust the height of the car. The strut and sway bar package are awaiting approval from SCCA, which have been developed by APR Motorsport and Koni.
Seen here is the extensive rollcage constructed by D&E Specialty Cars. It uses over 110ft of 1.75" DOM tubing and is similar to the Koni Challenge racecars campaigned by APR. Once the car is complete, the decals will go on and he'll be ready for the first race in May at Blackhawk Farms, IL.
Briere Rado
We've been following Allen Briere's Corrado build for over a year but hadn't heard from him recently. However, he decided to promote his new company, 53 Motorsports, by trying to get into the mid-13s with a naturally-aspirated high-compression 8v engine.
He plans to use a 2.0 16v 9A block, pistons, crank and rods matched with a 2.0 ABA Crossflow head. To lower the compression he's installing a C2 ABA head spacer, while the head will be ported and polished and get a Techtonics 288? cam. It will use Digi 1 tuned in-house but may get individual throttle bodies or just an SRI. There will also be a Bosal header and a side-exit exhaust.
As for the chassis, he's removed plenty of weight and is making fiberglass fenders while hunting for a cheap CF hood. Most of the wiring has been removed, except for the tail lights and ECU. The fuse box remains but was relocated 3" higher. The ABS, PAS and A/C was deleted and the brakes will be down-sized to 9.4" from a Rabbit. The hatch was been stripped and plexiglass will be used throughout. However, the rear spoiler remains, although it too has been lightened.
Once the Koni coilovers are installed, Allen hopes to have fun drag racing his ever-evolving project car and is sure it'll be fast enough.
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