Subaru video time lapse of a rally car being built
 

this is really cool. I saw this yesterday but didn't have time to put it up. They strip this car and refit it for rally racing, and then come out and take a bow.

What impressed me the most was that it took about 23 hours to completely strip the car down to its core. It would probably take me at least that long to change a headlamp in my car.

Kinda makes you re-think the idea that they're rallying an sTi, or a Subaru for that matter. Is there anything from the original left?

hmmm having played around at a mechanic´s workshop i´ve been able to strip a car down to nothing in well under a day so it´s a bit surprising that it took a team of ppl so long (and no, i didn´t use a sledgehammer :þ )
-----Added 14/8/2008 at 08 : 00 : 55-----
hah yeah, the shell. good point....

What struck me was using 4 jacks instead of a "real" lift during disassembly and such.

Jackstands are ideal when you have multiple people working on the car. All of the suspension components are most easily removed at a lower height, same goes for the wiring, etc. Being a front wheel drive car, there is a lot less work that needs to be done under the car as it is, since the motor and transmission are both in the engine bay.

When I was still "chassiswelder", most of my work was done on the ground. The only time the cars went up on the lift was when I was doing suspension work for rear wheel drive V8 cars, installing wiring/fuel lines, or when I was welding a full tube chassis car with the body mounted. If the body wasn't on it, we'd just flip the entire thing upside down and set it on the ground (a full chassis with no drivetrain was light enough for 1 or 2 people to carry.)

+1

to dismantle a car the only time i´d use the hoist is to ready a rear-drive drivetrain to come out although in contrast a front drive car would spend more time on the hoist since most have their entire drivetrain dropped out from the bottom on the subframe, sorta like a meal on a plate :)

Very impressive video. Like the bow at the end. Those guys must cry when a Colin McRae (RIP) type rolls it during a race. I was wondering, A) why they don't just get a partially built chassis from the factory if they're just going to strip it anyway, and B) why it needed to be a (more expensive STi) if they were going to take all of the fun stuff out of it, they could have just used a regular chassis (think they're the same...).

Few reasons behind it.

Some sanctioning bodies require it to have been a production vehicle, most of which are not given VIN numbers until later in the production process.

Its far more difficult to get a partially completed chassis because of the assembly line process, and the order in which components are installed.

Drag racers can, on occasion, order a "body in white." Its just that, the bare shell of a vehicle in white primer. They're very difficult to obtain, have no VIN, and are very pricey to obtain. Aside from the time it would take to strip the vehicle, its typically more cost effective to part out what you don't use from a completed vehicle.

As for the models, there are two primary reasons. One is for rulebook purposes. Some sanctioning bodies will only allow certain models, and if all models are allowed, the motors must typically be based off the production motors. As a made up example, if your model came with a 2.0 naturally aspirated model, you couldn't race using the 2.2 turbo variant unless it was available in your model.

The second reason for the models chosen is a bit more straightforward. It's for advertising purposes resulting from sponsorship.

"chassis welder" makes a reappearance! Thanks for the info. I was thinking about the sponsorship part of it, but I think you're right about the whole "production based" thing. Makes it funnier that Nascars have no stock parts anymore.

Well, the counter says "labor hours" and in the automotive repair industry that is simply a calculation on how long it *should* take, not how long it actually takes. That's how bodymen and car painters make money. My dad owns a body shop and his employees get paid by labor hours. The insurance company says it takes 8 labor hours to paint a car. One of my dad's employees gets it done in 4 hours and he gets paid for 8. So the labor hours aren't necessarily the actual time it took to do the job.

Subaru ftw !!

cool video.

I think the labor hours are computer by how many people are working on the car. Five people working one hour equals five working hours, correct?

Most Subaru's are AWD and that one has rear diffriential as can be seen around 40 sec in to the video.

I thought they worked very relaxed at this project when compared with a gearbox changes I saw done in a Subaru Leagcy (special built like this Impreza) before and after each leg in a rally race, their worst time of the 6 changes they performed in that race was 15 min.
The reason was that they used the original gearbox driving between the legs and then used competion gearbox on the timed legs.
They should have given the brakes on the car more attetion since it was without any brakes at end of day 3. It was bebated if I should have disqualified the car but we could not verify if the brakes had been lost before or on the last leg.

Yours
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