We use cookies to make your experience better. To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent to set the cookies. Learn more.
Innovative products by Roger Clark Motorsport
December 04, 2019
Roger Clark Motorsport has been building some of the fastest Subaru's on the planet for over a decade now. And as they have done this, they have picked the best manufacturers to work with. But when there is not a good option for a part in the aftermarket, or there is a particularly unique problem that needs to be solved on a Subaru engine, RCM has taken it upon themselves to develop a solution.
Through the years, this has added up to a number of innovative products that Roger Clark Motorsport has developed, and we wanted to take a moment to highlight a few of them.
Any Subaru that is making a lot of power, is a dedicated track car, or is being built to rev beyond the stock rev-limit can definitely benefit from a Dry Sump Oiling system. The problem is that there are not many kits that are designed for a Subaru engine, and putting together your own Dry Sump oiling system is not easy to say the least.
Fortunately, Roger Clark ran into this problem while developing their Gobstopper I race car, and put together a solution. Their Subaru Dry Sump kit was one of the first available, and it uses a tested and proven design to keep your engine properly oiled no matter how much power or what the application.
As Subaru developed the EJ series engine, they started with a timing belt tensioner that was horizontal, that used a separate pulley. They in roughly 1999, they switched to a tensioner that had a vertical hydraulic element that incorporated the pulley. Both designs have their benefits, but what Roger Clark did was to take the best of both of these designs, and make their High Grip tensioner.
By using the larger, horizontal hydraulic element, the High Grip Tensioner can easily and reliably be re-compressed to be re-used. By adding in the small idler pulley that came with the new design, the timing belt is held better, and the belt is prevented from slapping under high rpm which can cause a skip in time. All in all, the Roger Clark High Grip Tensioner is the best timing belt tensioner you can put on your Subaru EJ engine.
If you are building an older GC, or you are swapping in an older WRX or STI engine that had a single coil and spark plug wires, you may wish that you could convert to the new coil on plug style ignition that the GD got. This is especially helpful if you are trying to make a good more than stock power on an older engine. Roger Clark got enough requests for a solution here that they made up their own coil on plug conversion harness. If you want to go coil on plug, you need this harness!
The stock head studs in the Subaru EJ engine are 11mm. There are a number of up-grade options that keep the 11mm size, and just use higher grades of material for the studs, such as the ARP 2000 head studs, or the Roger Clark 11mm Super Studs.
But if you are making a lot of power, or more than about 22 psi of boost pressure, you may want to look at going to a larger diameter stud to further increase the clamping force of the head stud, and to hold your heads and headgasket in place. Generally, that means going up to a 1/2 inch, or 14mm head studs, and that means that you would typically have to machine your heads to match.
But in some circumstances, you may need something that is just a bit beyond what there is to offer in the 11mm studs, but you don't want to go all the way up to 14mm studs in the block and the head.
For that exact reason, Roger Clark has developed their 14mm/12mm head studs. This will let you install the 14mm studs into your block (which will require that your block is machined for the 14mm studs), but you can then use your standard heads without needing to machine them for a larger stud. And these studs will have more clamping force than any of the 11mm options.
On the topic of larger head studs, one question that comes up is if you do machine your block for lager head studs, how do you get a dowel pin to go over the larger studs?
The answer is simple, you just need the Roger Clark 14mm Hollow Dowel pins to go over those larger studs.
While we are on the subject of pins, there are a set of pins that locate one case half to the other. These aren't available on their own, so if you are doing any block machining, etc. and those pins get lost or damaged, that can be a real problem.
Roger Clark decided to make these pins so that they would be available, and since they were designing them, they decided to make them even more durable than the stock pins. The RCM Case Pins now give you a better option even than what comes from the factory!
Your oil pan has a seemingly simple job. It just needs to hold the engine's oil, and make sure that the pick-up is covered so that a constant supply of oil is available to your engine. But if you track your car, this can make things a bit more difficult for your oil pan.
One issue that can occur under hard cornering is that the oil can start to work its way up the side of the pan, and in extreme circumstances, this can threaten to uncover your pick-up and starve the engine of oil. The factory oil pans have some baffling to help prevent this, but Roger Clark took this to a whole different level with their Group-N Oil Pan. They attach aggressive baffling with flapper doors to do as much as possible to prevent oil from coming up the side of the pan and uncovering the pickup.
And now, all of their Group-N pans also include the Roger Clark Dampened Oil Pickup to further help to ensure that oil can always flow uninterrupted from your pan into your engine.
If you have a heavily modified Subaru that is running an Atmospheric catch-can or air-oil separator, or a car running a Dry Sump Oiling system, you will most likely need to remove the factory PCV system. That will require capping off a number of fittings on the engine, but it will also require capping off a bunch of fittings on the turbo inlet hose.
Each one of those caps can be a potential leak down the road, so to make things a lot simpler, Roger Clark designed their PCV Delete Turbo Inlet hose. It is just a straight hose that has the fitting for the recirc hose, and that's it. This will clean up your engine bay, and ensure that you won't be chasing a leak from any of your turbo inlet caps in the future.
If you car is going to go fast, you will need to stop fast. And the more power that you make, the more important brakes become. Roger Clark worked with Alcon to develop this 365mm brake kit that will give you a huge improvement in your braking capacity, even if you have an STI that comes with Brembos.
This Alcon brake kit is also a true motorsports brake kit with no external dust seals to melt, and it uses a very thick 18mm pad. You would be hard pressed to find a better performing brake kit than this Roger Clark Alcon 365mm brake kit for the price.
- Jon Cooley