Rally Subaru Impreza: Richard Clews
Our most recent collaboration with our athlete, Richard Clews, using our bespoke heatshield technology, ZircoFlex® SHIELD on his turbocharger to boost performance and manage engine bay temperatures in his Subaru Impreza.
Zircotec have a long history of providing thermal management solutions for the Subaru Impreza in top level competition, dating to back the world rally Group A days of the 1990’s. What a better way to continue this association than sponsoring one of today’s leading rally crews in Richard Clews and Carl Williamson. Collaborating with Richard Clews of Clews Rallying, we specified, designed, and manufactured a detachable ZircoFlex® SHIELD system for the turbocharger on his front running Impreza. The aim was to improve driveability, throttle response and performance through heat retention whilst reducing turbo lag, and we certainly achieved this.
At the first dyno test, Richard’s comment was that the turbo was now cooler to touch than his cup of coffee! In addition, Richard’s car also now benefits from reduced engine bay and intercooler temps, whilst fire risks associated with soft blankets is negated with our fully encapsulated metallic system.
Continual high engine loads result in performance sapping engine bay temperatures, where exhaust and turbo temperatures can reach peak temperatures of up to 800°C. Zircotec’s high quality bespoke heat shielding solutions is commonly used in premier motorsport and F1 to significantly reduce exhaust and turbo surface temperature, with a positive effect on engine bay environment.
ZircoFlex® SHIELD is developed from our many years of experience, where we specify, design and manufacture thermal management systems to extract the maximum performance. From our findings, ZircoFlex® SHIELD will consistently reduce temperatures by up to 85% and can be used in direct contact to heat sources up to 1,000°C. Apart from turbo housings, as a result of temperature reduction and heat energy retention, ZircoFlex® SHIELD is also used on manifolds, downpipes, catalysts, floors, bulkheads and for protection of any components in close proximity to a heat source to improve car performance.
