Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast

There are two things that Subaru has told us the BRZ will never get from the day that the design was revealed.1. It will never get a turbocharged engine2. It will never be All Wheel DriveBut now they have built the Boxer Rally spec.Z which is both.How did we get to this point?When we thought that this AWD BRZ Rally Car was just going to be a clone of the Toyota Celica that we have seen testing for the 2027 WRC season, it seemed like this was at least going to be part of Subaru's return to the WRC. But it seemed like it was going to be using Toyota's engine and drivetrain.Now we know that the Boxer Rally spec.Z is at least using a Subaru engine (A turbocharged BRZ FA24 from the looks of it), but that also makes it seem like this may not have nearly as much to do with a return to the WRC as we thought.So why is Subaru building this car? What are they testing and what do they hope to learn?After going through a number of videos from the launch of the car, I have a couple of guesses.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

Ryan Douthit of Driving Sports TV is our guest for this episode of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast.Ryan gets to drive most all of the new vehicles as Subaru releases them, so he has driving most all of the newest Subaru's, so he has a unique perspective on the direction that Subaru is moving in.In this episode, we talk about the newest Subaru EV's, including the Subaru Trailseeker, and Subaru Uncharted, and how they compare to their Combustion counterparts.We also talk about what he thinks about the STI returning to the US market, and the direction that Subaru is going in terms of Performance.If you haven't all ready, check out the Driving Sports TV review of the Trailseeker here:https://youtu.be/bDlvUUzaewM?si=PgkPGqFLz6w5epV6And their review of the Subaru Uncharted here:https://youtu.be/bDlvUUzaewM?si=PgkPGqFLz6w5epV6We also mention the Silver Bullet XV video testing the Trailseeker, and here are links to those videos as well:https://youtu.be/bDlvUUzaewM?si=PgkPGqFLz6w5epV6https://youtu.be/YUp2XQfFx4o?si=93HJbqPF828LCc2LThanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

This went up on YouTube today, but it is a good primer for the Podcast that will go up tomorrow. I decided to put it up here as well just in case any of you aren't following us on YouTube.Hope you enjoy this conversation, and Stay Tuned for the Podcast tomorrow!There has been a lot of discussion of late about the All Wheel Drive BRZ Rally Car that Subaru just unveiled, and for good reason.If there wasn't all ready enough to be excited about as a Subaru Enthusiast, this is just icing on the cake.Art and the folks over at Overtake USA have also been following all of the information coming out from Subaru lately, and they had a bit of a different take on what this all means.I decided to reach out to Art to have a discussion about what all this means.Check out their video on the Subaru Super Taikyu Motorsport announcement here: @OVERTAKEUSA https://youtu.be/lr78aRpJQG0?si=5eK-RXAYqojekBLMAnd if you haven't watched the LoveCars TV video on this, be sure to check it out as well:https://youtu.be/iG2KvgHufpo?si=ro00G3SeO_VLmiNpThanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

Are Subaru's reliable? Do they really have as many issues as you read about on the Internet?It is time to have a real conversation about it, and on this episode, we have the perfect group to get to the bottom of this topic.SmeediaArt from Overtake USAAnd Dewey from IAGWhat is the truth about Head Gasket issues on WRX's, STI's, and Subaru's in general? What about Ring Lands and Rod Bearings?Part of the inspiration of this topic is Smeedia's video where he tries, and fails, to kill an STI here:https://youtu.be/lR7XrfCPz6s?si=NRxxqScLGHnUZ86qThanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

If you are building up a track car or a race car, and you need to add power, where would you start? A bigger Turbo? Supercharger? Maybe building up the engine and tuning the ECU?What about making your race car a hybrid?I think I am safe in saying that most of us would not even consider turning a car that didn't start out life as a hybrid into one, much less making it a hybrid to improve the cars performance.But that is exactly what Sasha from Mountain Pass Performance did with his 350Z Time Attack car.In this episode, Sasha and I talk about everything that was involved to turn his 350Z Hybrid Time Attack car in to the monster that it is. We also talk about how this project relates to the work that Mountain Pass Performance does to improve the performance of EV's like the Tesla Model 3.If you want to see all the details about MPP's KELS build, and everything else that they are up to, take a look at their Youtube Channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@UCq47UcvRMn97rd_ams7dtfA Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

With the release of the latest Gymkhana video, Aussie Shred, we get to see the newest Vermont Sports Car creation in action at the hands of Travis Pastrana.When we last had Dewey, Art, and Smeedia on the podcast, the suggestion was made that we should talk about these new VSC cars because there is a bit of a question about whether or not they are actually Subarus.Why is this important?We get into exactly this in this episode, and we talk about what Subaru and VSC are doing with these cars, and...If Subaru is going to be showcasing their classic cars, shouldn't they do more to support those older models?There were technical difficulties with this recording as my internet decided to stop working, so we didn't get to finish the conversation, but this was too good to throw in the bin.So this is the first 2 parts of a 3 part conversation, and now we just need to find time to get Dewey, Art, and Smeedia back on to wrap things up.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

Robb Holland has had a long and diverse racing career thus far. 2025 has been a great year for Robb with his win of the Time Attack 1 class at Pikes Peak, and a GT4 Class win in the SRO GT America class as well.Robb started out competing as a professional cyclist, and then found his way to racing on 4 wheels in many different classes, including competing in the British Touring Car Championship from 2012 through 2015, and various other tracks across Europe, including multiple class wins at the Nürburgring.He also was one of the founders of Rotek Racing which was based at the Nürburgring and helped build a bridge for American drivers that wanted to compete in Europe.In this conversation, we find out about his path into motorsport, and we get a great perspective on what the differences are between racing at Pikes Peak, and the Nürburgring.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

Damien Bradley has been running in the UK Hill Climb and UK Time Attack series for a while now.But this year, he decided to take on the challenge of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb!Now that some time has passed, we had to reach out to Damien to talk about his experience on Pikes Peak, and what it was like to Race to the Clouds.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

There has been a flurry of Subaru news the last couple of days, the most noteworthy being about the 2 STI Concept cars that are going to debut in a few days at the Japan Mobility Show. The Performance-B STI that has a combustion engine, and the Performance-E STI which is fully electric.But there has been some big news about the BRZ as well, which is that Toyota looks to be switching to Mazda for their next generation GT86. So what does this mean for the Subaru BRZ? Will it stick around? Or are the BRZ's model years numbered?And Subaru is now doing the Press Launch for the Subaru Uncharted in Europe, and the way that they are showcasing that car may be the biggest hint of all about the direction that Subaru is going in the future.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!Here are links to the articles that we reference in this episode:Motor 1 2025 japan Mobility Displayhttps://www.motor1.com/news/775825/subaru-sti-concept-duo-teaser/Subaru moving away from EJ20 in GT300 BRZ:https://sportscar365.com/other-series/super-gt/subaru-announces-retirement-for-brzs-ej20-engine/Article w/ clips:https://www.dailysportscar.com/2025/10/14/subaru-to-replace-ej20-engine-in-brz-gt300.htmlUncharted Test Drive Article:https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/subaru/uncharted-suv/Toyota and Mazda team up for GT86:https://www.gearpatrol.com/cars/toyota-mazda-shared-sports-cars/https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2025/09/28/toyota-and-mazda-team-up-to-develop-new-mx-5-and-gr86/

In this episode, our guests are Justin Grimm and Art Petrakov of Overtake USA.We start out discussing the origin of Overtake USA, and what Justin's inspiration was to get back involved with the Subaru market.From there, we talk about the current state of Subaru, and what we think the future holds for both new and old Subaru models alike.And what does the Future hold for Overtake USA? We get a few hints about that as well.If you want to check out everything that Overtake USA has to offer, you can find it on their site here:https://overtakeusa.com/Flatirons Tuning is proud to offer Overtake USA products on our site as well:https://www.flatironstuning.com/overtakeThanks for watching and Stay Tuned!In this Episode:00:00 The Genesis of Overtake05:01 Rebuilding the Team07:01 Lessons from GrimmSpeed09:07 Navigating the Subaru Market12:54 The Future of Subaru Enthusiasts16:36 Performance Expectations and Innovations20:23 The Evolution of Subaru Models24:24 Nostalgia and the Subaru Community27:48 Project Cars and Future Aspirations37:05 Reconnecting with the Community38:02 Evolution of Product Design and Prototyping43:16 Innovation in the Automotive Industry48:48 Supporting Grassroots Motorsports55:50 Future Product Development and Community Engagement01:08:33 Exploring New Motorsports Opportunities

Pikes Peak 2025 was one of our most challenging years yet. We decided to move to a new Engine and Turbo package this year, running a Turn in Concepts De-Stroked EJ234 engine, and while we saw glimpses of greatness, we were chasing a lot of head gasket issues this year.We have talked about what happened through the course of getting ready for Pikes Peak, and then the engine change during Pikes Peak Race Week, but there is another part of the issues that we were seeing that we haven't gone into yet.Now that we have been able to go through the car, the time has come to sit down with Clint from Turn in Concepts to talk about how we landed on our EJ234 engine package, and to go into the full details of the issues that we saw this year.It has definitely been challenging, but the team from Turn in Concepts has been a huge help to work through what might be going on with our engines.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

When a car is fun to drive and fast on track, it doesn't typically stay a secret for long. As a car gets a reputation with enthusiasts, they quickly become more expensive because they are more sought after.With the lack of new fun cars to choose from at a reasonable price for the last couple of years, there has been a lot of focus on cars that are 5 - 10 years old. It can certainly seem like all of the good options have been picked through and are not as affordable as they should be.But are there some good track cars left that everyone has forgotten about?This is the topic of discussion today with Mike Pettiford of Go 4 it Racing.Maybe there are still some diamonds left out there.Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

Tanner aka Smeedia is back on the podcast! In this episode, we catch up with him on the progress of his RSTi build, and we end up talking about hard to find Subaru parts, old Vs. new cars and the direction that we see Subaru moving in.But we also have big news. Flatirons Tuning is now Smeedia's primary sponsor for Subaru parts!We go over the details of that here, and you can now support both Flatirons Tuning and Smeedia by using his coupon code on our site for OEM Subaru or RCM parts!Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!