6 Gun Racing

Latest Product Updates

2007-05-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

After months of testing, the new complete outer tierods for our Ball Joint Relocation kits are coming together. These will replace the entire outer tierod on the Impreza chassis. This rugged design was beaten, bent, banged and twisted on the bench as well as our 400whp STi with R-compounds. Currently no seals our included for the rod end as they are not needed for the FK's precision JMXT teflon lined motor sport rod ends used on the kit. MSRP for the ball joints adjusters, and full outer tierod will start at $459 plus shipping. Existing Ball Joint Relocation kit customers will receive these outer tierod ends free of charge, and these replacement kits will start shipping next week.

6Gun Racing has also taken delivery of the first two sets of 05+ STi hubs machined to support a 5x100 bolt pattern. Over the past year, over 2 dozen motor sport enthusiasts, including national auto crossers, winning time trialists, and endurance racers have swapped to the cheaper, and stronger 05 STi hub using our '05+ STi 5x114.3 conversion kit. These dedicated racers have also enjoyed the large selection of cheap, and wide, 5x114.3 wheels available in the 5x114.3 bolt pattern (10" and 11" wide wheels can be sourced off the shelf from a variety of wheel manufacturers). Our customers have run up to 315 wide r-compound tires.

With the new '05 STi 5x100 hub conversion, wheels will still be limited to less than 9" wide but the cost of conversion will decrease a good bit. The kit will include the front '05 STi knuckles, 5x100 machined '05 STi front hubs, and the speed gear adapter collar needed keep the abs and center differential (on STi active center differential cars) functioning properly. The kit will work for both STi and WRXs. The only other modification needed will be to source front struts that fit the '05 STi front knuckle upright bolt pattern. Users will be able to retain their existing wheels and rotors while running the front hub. MSRP has not been set but will be less than the existing kit. The kits will be available by the end of the month.

Tie Rod Adapters almost ready!

2006-12-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

We wanted to apologize to all of our customers for the delays in finalizing our replacement tie rod ends. As of right now, we are close to completing the prototypes and production should follow shortly. We will ship these out for our existing customers free of charge as soon as they arrive.

In the meantime, we are still selling the ball joint adapters themselves at a reduced price. They offer all the positive handling benefits of the whole kit, but they introduce some bump steer into the equation. They are available on our products page or drop us an email if you have any question about the bumpsteer. If you purchase just the ball joint adapters right now, the tie rod adapters will be available to you at a lower cost once they arrive.

6 Gun Racing goes to Petit Lemans

2006-10-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, all the memebers of the 6Gun Racing team attended the Petit LeMans at Road Atlanta. It was a great weekend of fun, racing, and plenty of drinking. We had a reserved RV spot right off turn 10A, along with a Class C RV for the weekend. After setting up our canopy and grill, a couple GT alumni setup a projector with a screen on the back of the RV. Friday night was movie night, and during the race we played the Speed coverage of the event off of our Direct TV feed. Our setup was a big hit with the crowd as well as RA staff.

Lyman and Hoppe both had photo credentials and took some amazing pics. The gallery will be up shortly, but it has taken a little while to sort through the 500 pictures that were shot. Below is a quick picture (click on it to view full size), and a few more are located here. I will post the link up to the gallery as soon as its setup

Plenty of Ball Joint kits in stock now!

2006-09-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

After running out fairly quickly out of our first production batch of Ball Joint kits, we made sure we wouldn't run out again for quite a long time. They can be purchased from our products page.

In other news, we have started to prototype our brake ducting kit. We should have pictures available at the end of next week

Last but not least, 2 members of 6 Gun Racing will be competing at the 13hr Charge of the Headlights at VIR Nov 3rd. Along with Bowie "Hey Ya'll Watch This" Gray and Karl "Rice" Shultz, Hoppe and Lyman will be piloting Bowie's ITA Miata. There are a lot of sponsors and supporters that made this effort possible. Thanks to Hankook, Hella, Conover Transmissions, and LifeLink! We will have full writeups as well as plenty of pictures and coverage of the event on the site soon.

Ball Joint Relocation Kit back in stock!

2006-09-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

After running out right after our initial group buy, the Ball Joint Relocation Kits are back in stock.

Our products page is ready to take orders.

Initial order of kits have shipped!

2006-09-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Last week, we picked up our initial order of 6 Gun Racing ball joint adapter kits and shipped out all the orders for the pre-production group buy. We didn't quite receive as many as we wanted from the machine shop, and sold out of the kits we had in stock pretty immediately. The machine shop is currently working on round 2 of the kits, and we should have them back in stock in about 2 weeks.

I will update our product page with a "Buy it here" link as soon as we have them in stock. We don't want to sell items we don't have in stock, so the button is not there for now. Please email us your information if you are wanting to order a kit, and we'll let you know the second we have them in stock!

Here is a crappy cell phone pic of the kit!

Ball Joint Relocation Kit almost complete!

2006-08-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to the machine shop this weekend to inspect our first run of the balljoints. The shop we used makes anything from medical grade equipment, to wheels. The machines they use are really cool!

Production is right on schedule, and we should have kits in hand this friday. The pre-production group buy is still open for the rest of this week. http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1055510

Below are a couple of pictures. I didn't bring our regular camera, so they are only camera phone pics

6 Gun racing ball joint relocation kit goes into production!

2006-07-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

Now that the FEA analysis, as well as the real world tests have been completed, our 6 Gun Racing Ball Joint Relocation Kit is ready for prime time!

We have begun production as of today, and the first batch of units should be ready to ship in 2-3 weeks. Right now, we are doing a Group Buy on the NASIOC forums through our friends at Turn in Concepts. http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1055510

Once we have the units ready and in stock, we will also begin selling them through our website. Please visit our Products page to learn more.

The picture says it all

2006-07-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

CMP

2006-07-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

Apologies to the entire 6Gun family for cutting last weekend's festivities at CMP abruptly short. For those who haven't heard, I took the STI off-roading at over 100 mph, miring the car in a sand trap which likely bent the inner tie rod, ending our chances for a result over the weekend. I guess that's part of racing, but it was terribly demoralizing as Javid and I both felt we could compete for top honors in TTU. Big thanks go to Crew Chief Tom Hoppe:after recovering from a Friday night case of the "f-it's," Hoppe worked diligently to diagnose problems and troubleshoot them with the skill of a surgeon, including the now-famous "Mt. dAng" volcanic explosion early Saturday morning. Next in the works is getting the tie rod and remedying the severe toe-out the car has now.

I might make it after all!

2006-06-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

So I finished pulling the motor. I've been slacking a bit in doing it as I haven't been able to find a block yet. I also had a slight lack in tools that I had to fix. I spent one weekend unplugging everything, and checking on what was needed to finish the job. I realized I needed an engine hoist ;), MUCH better impact gun, and an 8mm punch (why did I have to have every size but that one). A trip to Harbor Freight, and I was ready to yank it the rest of the way. Going to tear down everything off the outside tomorrow, and then hopefully deliver to the engine builder thursday/friday along with a new block. Hopefully he can have everything back by next Wed or so, and then I have next Thur/Fri off of work to get everything back together.

This weekend I'll do some more maintenance stuff around the car while everything is apart. Replace the fuel filter, new Carbotech rotors, new fresh calipers, check to make sure all the bushings are ok, maybe a new engine mount or two depending on wear, and just a thorough cleaning of the engine bay area and everything else.

Here is a *crappy* camera phone pic of the motor out. I didn't have my regular camera here

Gah, its not easy finding a good B16A2 block

2006-06-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

So I've been trying to hunt down a good, straight, round B16A2 shortblock the past few days. This isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. Some of them are all busted up, or in CA (don't know the condition and 7 days shipping), or not available for another week or so. Unfortunately with the Roebling Race in 2.5 weeks I don't have a lot of time to scour for parts. Hopefully I'll find one relatively soon. If anyone knows of one, please let me know!

Civic motor testing and teardown

2006-06-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

After the Road Atlanta race, I let the car sit for a few days and yesterday it was time to start figuring out what was busted in the motor. The compression check showed at least a bad block/pistons/rings as we measured 90psi across cylinders 1-3 and 150psi on cylinder 4. We are supposed to be around 195psi. After putting some oil in the cylinders to test the rings we went to 150psi in 1-3 and 195psi in 4. Hopefully the block is in just really bad shape and the 4 race old "new" head is in good shape. I've already got a line on a used straight block. Tomorrow we will be doing a leakdown test on the motor to figure exactly whats busted and tearing the motor out of the car to get it ready for the rebuild. The next race is the Double National at Roebling Road and I want to have the car in PERFECT shape as its my favorite track, so I think I can challenge for the win in both races

6 Gun Racing debuts 99 Civic Si in SCCA's SSC Class

2006-06-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

We had back to back weekends of racing our 99 Civic SI in SSC. Our debut came in a double regional weekend at Carolina Motorsports Park and was a great lesson in driving a FWD "momontum maintenance" Honda. I've gotten used to the beauty of AWD in the Subarus that I've driven and its been quite a change getting used to the Civic.

I was fairly slow right off the bar on Saturday, but had a good clean race and finished 3rd in class. I learned that I was quite a bit off on my tire pressures as well no being nearly as aggressive enough on the gears and keeping the car in VTEC. After making both of those adjustments, I dropped close to 3 seconds a lap and was able to record the fastest SSC laptime for the weekend in Sunday qualifying. During the Sunday race I tried to let the 2nd place car by, save my tires for a bit, and then pass him back. Bad call as I got blocked big time by a jerk in a 240SX from another class and wasn't able to make the pass back. It was an awesome weekend though and I learned a lot about the car.

This past weekend was the Road Atlanta National and my first taste of national racing in the car. We had a pretty well contested SSC class and I was ready for the challenge. I enlisted the help of Scott Giles from The Competitive Edge to help me get up to speed faster at Road A. Again I was off the pace Saturday morning as I it was my first time at the track and was about 4 seconds off the pole. With Scott's coaching I dropped about 2 seconds off my time while everyone else slowed down in the warmer afternoon session, so I felt good about the race. On Sunday during morning practice, I dropped another second or so and was feeling good about the race. I started the race in 4th place and had a not so great start as I ended up behind 2 SSB Focuses with the 3rd place SSC Civic getting a good lead on me. I was able to work him back to within a carlength over the next few laps, but then the motor started going south. I slowed more and more over the next few laps and after getting enough laps in to get a race finish, I pulled it into the pits. I can't begin to describe how much fun Road Atlanta is. The track is an absolute blast with elevation changes, blind corners, and the esses. It was incredible. We've got a bunch of pictures in our gallery.

We've got the ball joint adapters installed

2006-06-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty successful couple of weeks and just have been WAY behind on our blog and webpage updates. Last week we got our balljoint adapters installed and tested. They have performed flawlessly and are almost ready for production. The final step is the FEA analysis and the engineering signoff on these. Here is a pic of them on the car as well as a sneak peak of our future brake ducting.

6 Gun Racing completes Subaru ball joint adapter prototype

2006-05-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Our machine shop finally finished up the prototypes for our balljoint adapters. We will be testing these with our 2004 Time Attack STi, as well as doing finite element analysis to test their strength. Lastly we will be breaking these, as well as stock pieces at the Georgia Tech labs, to make sure they are stronger then stock.

We are very excited about offering this product to the Subaru community.

6 Gun Racing comes away with 2 class wins at CMP SARRC

2006-04-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

We finished off a great first race weekend at CMP and walked away with 2 class wins and a 4th and 5th overall out of 14 cars. We were put in a group with GT1, GT2, GT3, SPO, and T1, which are the fastest fendered cars in SCCA. Every car in the group was faster then we were, but we still managed to qualify and finish well. The car performed almost flawlessly, with the TopSpeed tune holding up great, and the Hankook tires and Carbotech brakes working awesome.

Our Hankook tires performed great and lasted through the weekend with plenty of tread left for testing in 2 weeks. Since CMP is hell on brakes, we were a little worried, but we had zero brake problems all weekend and I was able to go to the woah pedal hard every single brake zone.

Thanks to our Sponsors:
Hankook Tires
TopSpeed

PR: 6 Gun Racing and Hankook Tires Join Forces for 2006

2006-03-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

Korean tire manufacturer, Hankook, partners with 6 Gun Racing for the 2006 race season. The team's SSC Civic Si will race exclusively on Hankook's Z214 Race Tire in all 2006 races, including Regional and National events. Driver/Crew Chief/Tire Changer/Windshield Wiper/Head Lackey Tom Hoppe had this to say about this latest news: "I had great results on Hankook tires during my autocross career, and I'm really excited to have them on board during 6 Gun Racing's play for the 2006 SCC National Championship. I believe that the Z214 is the top DOT R-compound on the market, which will provide me with a huge edge over the competition."

dAng! Gets Some Stickers

2006-03-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

Well the sticker process is not complete but I've made some good progress. Stay tuned as dAng! goes under the knife this week to upgrade the turbo, intake, external waste gate, fuel (including methanol injection), and boost controller. Many thanks to all our sponsors.

Lyman Birthday Blow-out!

2006-03-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

6 Gun Racing held a eating competition last Saturday for Tommy Lyman's birthday. The venue was Fogo de Chao, the revered Buckhead meat factory, and a good time was had by all.

Coming Soon: 6 Gun Racing upgraded ball joints

2006-03-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

We will be coming out with our 2nd in-house designed part in the next month or so! These upgraded ball joints will greatly improve your Impreza's handling. Anti Lift Kit, move over! We will be doing extensive testing on the prototype units over the next few weeks and hope to have the product to market towards the end of April. While we would love to release these sooner, this isn't something we want to rush as its an integral part of the suspension. Along with real world testing on the Time Trial car, as well as a test fitment and trials on the T2 racecar (testing only, no competition), we will be doing lab testing on these parts to make sure they can hold up to abuse. We can't wait to get this part out to everyone, as it will improve handling and the camber curve on every Subaru from a 1997 Impreza Brighton to a 2006 STi and everything inbetween.

I'm a nerd!

2006-03-16T20:19:00.000-08:00

Since I'm a nerd and have a Pocket PC Phone with Windows Mobile 2003 SE, I tweaked the website to be viewed perfectly on a handheld device. I had to disable the CSS rollover menu and make a plain text one instead, and also tweak a few other CSS items to make it appear correctly. At only 150Kb including that big ol' top image, the site loads pretty quickly as well.

Lyman in San Francisco

2006-03-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

The trip out here has been great, aside from temps in the 40s and a freak snowstorm late Friday night. Laguna Seca is an amazing facility, but unfortunately the track was mostly washed out and required repairs;therefore the following pics are of static vehicles. I also managed to get into some serious trouble, those who are "in the know" will know what I am talking about. Ciao. T

Track Day: Dates and setup

2006-03-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Lets discuss dates and game plan for our first trackday. I would rather do it on a sat of sun so we don't need to take off work... I will be out of town this month on the 13th through the 24th or 31st. If I am gone through the 31st then I could take the weekend of the 25th and 26th off. I forget what weekend in april when lyman and I are headed up to autobahn/road america / putnam or when the autoX that he keeps yapping about is... When you crackers free? I think we should team with JonK for this first one for help on how to keep it organized and so forth. We could get wrx-alt involved or possibly EVO Ga///se too. We could do up to 10 or 30 peeps... ( I vote 30, especially if Jon K is on board).

Getting out of the stoneage

2006-03-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

Well, we decided to get out of the stoneage here at Trackmonkey Racing. We finally got hooked up and got ourselves a blog. This way we can publish all of our news items, as well as endlessly blab about our racing and things that are happening with our cars. Enjoy!