In 2010, to commemorate our 35th year in business, we began to restore our 1975 Rabbit Racecar. This car was raced in SCCA in the the southeast through the 80's and into the early 90's. It had been parked in the back of the warehouse and was now going to get a proper restoration to showcase our company history. Our company continued to be enthusiastic towards motorsport and after a few years of DE participation, we decided that we wanted to get back into competetive road-racing after witnessing the formation of the NASA GTS (German Touring Series) Class.

We began searching for a suitable car for use on the track. We carefully considered a few different cars for this and determined that a 1.8T VW engine platform was quintessential to VW's resurgeance in the tuner market. The release of the MK1 water-cooled engine was a monumental step for VW moving away from the air-cooled engines. The 1.8T rocketed VW back into the aftermarket scene with this highly tunable motor so we knew we wanted a 1.8T to focus our track car build around it.

The next requirement was a good chassis. We knew from experience that the FWD Rabbits were tough to get through the corners so we began looking for an AWD platform. The Audi A4 chassis had a AWD option and came with the 1.8T powerplant. We found a few candidates but happened to stumble across a partially completed 2001 Audi S3, 8L chassis car sitting in the back of a warehouse in Alabama. The S3 shared the looks of the B5 A4 but came in hatchback form in Europe and Mexico. Once we saw it, we knew that this was the car for us. Based entirely on the MK1 Audi TT 225, it features the same AWD running gear and 1.8T engine. The hatchback shape is an evolution of the MK1 Rabbit and once we applied a very rough "photo-chop concept" color-scheme, we knew we had the right car to carry on our club road-racing efforts.    

The S3 was the perfect platform for our purposes, having a relatively lightweight AWD chassis and proven 1.8t power. As the only Audi S3 being raced in the USA, the car certainly draws some attention at each event. Dubbed Projekt 35, this vehicle marked a return to our roots in competitive road-racing as we campaigned in NASA's German Touring Sedan (GTS) class.

Having purchased the car in December of 2009, and already having a complete restoration of our Rabbit underway, we had our work cutout. We immediately got started removing the engine for an overhaul, prepping and painting the body and getting the wheels and suspension sorted. The final product was unveiled April 30th, 2010 at our THAWOUT 2010 Track Day & Open House serving as a showcase for our top-tier suppliers of aftermarket parts.

We spent the rest of 2010 attending track days with the car and getting it ready for the 2011 racing season. We successfully raced the car in the 2011 NASA-SE region GTS class earning rookie of the year and winning the regional championship. Visit the following links for race reviews.
RACE 1 - Carolina Motorsports Park /// RACE 2 - Road Atlanta /// RACE 3 - Carolina Motorsports Park /// RACE 4 - Road Atlanta /// RACE 5 - Charlotte Motor Speedway ///  RACE 6 - Road Atlanta /// RACE 7 - Roebling Road /// RACE 8 - Carolina Motorsports Park /// RACE 9 - Road Atlanta

For 2012, we decided to retire the car from competition to focus on developing a newer chassis and focus on local club track day events. The S3, along with other DE cars such as our A5, can now be seen in the paddock at local DE events giving ride-alongs to enthusiasts wanting to experience the thrill of hot laps in a real race car. The S3 is certainly a fun track car and the knowledge we have gained from competing with this car, we are able to apply to our 1.8T engine and the Audi TT chassis client base.

Believe it or not, the sway bars remained stock most of this year while we were finalizing engine performance and reliability tuning. The stock sway bars on our Audi S3 are the same as those on a MK1 Audi TT 225 so we contacted our friends at H&R to see what they had to offer. The front H&R sway bar moves increases the diameter to a 25mm from 19mm stock and is two-way adjustable. The stock rear bar is 15mm and the H&R bar ups the size to 21mm, and is also two-way adjustable.   

Images courtesy of Robin Thompson Photography.

After the 2011 season, we pulled the suspension arms from the chassis so that we could have solid mounts machined to replace the rubber bushings. Factory bushings are the source of an extreme amount of suspension flex and stiffening this up will help us control the vehicle better in the corners.

Brakes and tires are two of the major wear items when racing. After a test weekend, we checked over the car to find that not only had we flat-spotted the tires, our rotors had also called it quits. Here are a couple shots of the rotor rebuild.

The S3 needs plenty of fuel to stay tuned. A surge tank helps regulate the fuel pressure and flow. We fabricated a surge tank in-house from stainless steel.

Our Rabbit Racecar had a smooth interior thanks to a complete set of aluminum interior panels. We are going to add that style to our S3. The interior is much "lumpier" than a Rabbit so we had to start by trimming all the excess bumps and brackets away.

Our 1975 Rabbit racecar ran with a unique color scheme and we decided that the S3 would receive the same treatment.

We have our Audi S3 running on a stand-alone engine management. After the fire at CMP in October, we went ahead and ripped out all the remaining harness and built our own.