Smoke is everywhere. It bursts into the cabin through the STI's windows, the roof vent and the hole around the shift lever. It finds its way between imperceptibly small gaps in the floor and it bellows from the holes in the carbon-fiber dashboard like fumes from the nostrils of a turbocharged dragon.




There's no escape. It wafts up your pants, down your shirt, soaks in your sinuses and bores ruthlessly through the Nomex in your fireproof Piloti driving shoes. And it has brutal staying power. Even when it's gone, it still stinks — a sour, pungent stink that's unmistakably burning rubber.

And if you're Ken Block, it penetrates the very substance of your being. If you're Ken Block, tire smoke is in your soul. That's what this 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI by Ken Block is about.





The Block Experience
This is what it's like to be Ken Block in his 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI. And after riding with him in this car in June at the introduction of Gymkhana Two, we knew he had something special. Actually, we knew this after his Gymkhana Practice garnered some 20 million online views.

But it wasn't until we experienced the otherworldly joys of all-wheel-drive doughnuts firsthand that we began to understand the appeal of Block's world in earnest. It is, after all, nothing like ours. You see, he lives in a world where a throttle jab and clutch drop turns four 265mm-wide BFGoodrich tires into performance art.

There's no other way to say it. What Ken Block can do with a Subaru — this Subaru, built by Crawford Performance and cranking out 565 horsepower — is a form of driving like being a Top Gun fighter pilot is a form of flying. It's a specialized skill that comes only from time behind the wheel. There's no learning it from a book, no intuition that will tell you how it's done. And it requires a very special machine.

How It Happened
After the massive success of Gymkhana Practice, Block knew that he had to make a second video — partially to promote his company (DC Shoes) and partially because he likes sliding sideways on pavement at ridiculous speeds. And he wanted to go big.

So that's what he did. And the first step was a more powerful, more capable car. A racing car was what he needed. And a racecar is what he's got.

Crawford Performance was enlisted to build the Gymkhana Two Project — a 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI. The car had been actually Block's personal street car until it was stripped to become the most famous STI in the world.

By now you've seen Block's car sliding around the Port of Los Angeles. You've seen it arc gracefully around the end of the pier and dance right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and you've witnessed all the remarkably precise work that Block does with water balloons and fluorescent light bulbs. But you have no idea how quick this car actually is.

So that's what we're going to tell you.




Very Quick
Just getting this car moving is a feat. Its Exedy triple-carbon clutch flips a big middle finger to any sort of modulation you might have planned. We witnessed Block himself stall the engine during a rare moment of subtle maneuvering. That said, there's nothing subtle about unleashing this much power on the four 275/35R18 BFGoodrich g-Force Drag Radials that Crawford installed on the car for our acceleration tests.

The only way to overcome this much grip is to engage the clutch as engine speed is increasing — somewhere between 6,500 and 7,000 rpm. It's a process not unlike what we use to get a stock STI out of the hole — sort of a rev, rev, rev, then dump the clutch. The result, however, isn't at all the same. How does 60 mph in 3.0 seconds sound? This is also 2.8 seconds with 1 foot of rollout like on a drag strip.

That alone is an insane number. But here's where things get interesting. The transmission that was in the car during our test was the same one that was used during the shooting of Gymkhana Two. What's more, it had seen some other abuse besides. As a result, 5th gear simply wouldn't engage. And since the car won't complete the quarter-mile in 4th without exploding, we shifted from 4th gear to 6th during our acceleration runs. This didn't do the acceleration times any favors, but you'd never know it from the numbers.

Skipping 5th gear, the car still manages a 10.8-second pass through the quarter-mile at 123.7 mph. For reference, that's 0.7-second quicker than the Corvette ZR1 and 1.0-second quicker than a Dodge Viper. It's even quicker than the limited-production 2007 Noble M400, which hammered through the quarter-mile in 11.4 seconds.

Brembo Brakes
The Ken Block 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI doesn't stop quite as quickly as a stock STI. Hauling down from 60 mph requires 115 feet, while the stock car does the deed in 110 feet. Without hydraulic assist, it takes a lot of effort on the pedal, yet there's still enough power to lock up the wheels, thanks to the car's six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers, part of the Brembo Gran Turismo brake system. Brake feel isn't as sensitive as a conventional system, so it isn't always easy to sense wheel lockup.

We managed to bring the car to a halt without flat-spotting its tires, but couldn't do so without a few small wheel locks. Brake bias is also adjustable front to rear via a controller from the STI catalog. During our test, the bias was set such that the front wheels locked first, which favors stability — something we value highly when driving somebody else's expensive, high-profile car. We left it alone.

Turns, Too
Switching to 265/35ZR18 BFGoodrich g-Force KDW rubber for our handling tests, we didn't know what to expect. These are the same tires Block uses for his tire-smoking antics, but the car has never been set up to go through a slalom course or generate big lateral acceleration numbers. Its handling goals, as you might imagine, favor controllable sliding rather than controllable sticking.

It did fine. Largely, we suspect, thanks to the fact that our test protocol revealed the car weighs 2,775 pounds compared to a stock STI's 3,352 pounds, a reduction of 577 pounds. The larger contact patch available from the wide BFGs probably didn't hurt either, as the stock car runs 245/40R18 Dunlop SP Sport 600s.

Understeer is the STI's preferred attitude both around the skid pad and through the slalom. Fortunately, understeer is quite often quick between the slalom cones — particularly in a car with this kind of power. Here it blasts through at 72 mph, some 2.9 mph faster than a stock STI. And the car is also remarkably well behaved for a machine whose primary purpose is to produce glory-inducing oversteer. Fine throttle control proved to be a must through the last few cones in order to keep the rear tires behind the fronts, but that's not terribly surprising given the car's overall power-to-weight ratio.

Lateral grip is substantial at 0.90g. Like a stock STI, this one only wants to understeer here. Even huge stabs at the throttle meant to upset the car's balance only serve to increase or decrease this behavior. There is, however, an easy solution to understeer: a huge handbrake that actuates the rear brakes. This is how Block initiates almost every slide you see in the video. We largely avoided using it, however.




All Business Inside
This is a no-nonsense racecar from behind the wheel. There are carbon-fiber Recaro seats and Willans harnesses for driver and passenger, and both seats are set on the floor to lower the car's center of gravity. In fact, from the passenger seat, we couldn't see much beyond the dashboard. And the driver seat wasn't much better. The cage is prepared to the level of a world rally car and all major controls are immediately at hand.

The Sparco steering wheel is fixed for Block's driving position and a Motec digital dash display is set to show engine speed and coolant temperature. A large, red start button resides in the center of the dash, with switches for the fuel pump and ignition power.

Fire up the engine and you'll quickly realize that ear protection is mandatory. We measured a 115.9-decibel sound reading inside the cockpit at wide-open throttle. Consider that your average front-row Metallica ticket only buys about 110 decibels of ear-shattering noise and it's clear this is something to contend with. Hey, it's a racecar. It should be loud.

Mods
Space and sanity constraints won't allow us to list every single part that's been swapped to produce this turbocharged engine's 565 hp and 590 pound-feet of torque (which, by the way, has been measured at the wheels on a Dynapack chassis dyno). But the big changes are easy, so we'll start there.

The 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI's horizontally opposed four-cylinder has had its displacement bumped from 2.5 to 2.65 liters via a stroker crankshaft from Crawford Performance. Stroke increases from 79mm to 84mm, while bore remains stock at 99.5mm. Forged JE pistons, Pauter billet connecting rods and STI main and rod bearings replace the stock parts in the bottom end. Cylinder heads utilize STI camshafts and stronger valve springs.

The engine's turbo and its plumbing have been largely reconfigured for optimal power. Exhaust pulses reach the turbo through an STI manifold from the Japanese domestic market, which feeds the twin-scroll Garrett turbo. Similar in construction to a GT35R, the prototype turbo pumps out a peak of 30 psi. Crawford fabricated a custom stainless-steel exhaust with dual exits. The oversized intercooler is front-mounted and all additional plumbing was powder-coated green to match the car's exterior details.

A Bosch fuel pump and injectors provide ample flow of E85, a fuel chosen because Block likes the environmentally friendly message it sends. The whole mess is controlled by a Motec M800 engine control unit, which is calibrated by Crawford Performance.

A six-speed dog-ring KAPS gearbox replaces the stock synchromesh transmission, increasing shift speed and durability. The stock STI center differential (and its controller) are still in place. Carbonetic clutch-type differentials replace the stock front and rear limited-slip units and have been chosen for their strength.

Underneath the fenders, things are kept fairly simple with Tein Super Racing coil-over suspension units and Cusco antiroll bars. In order to retain predictable handling despite the low ride height, Crawford modified the front uprights and tie rods to raise the suspension's roll center. Spherical heim joints replace the rubber bushings in the front control arms.

Ken Block's World
After a day of hammering the 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI by Ken Block around our test track, two things became clear. The first is that this is an incredible machine. Incredibly fast, incredibly powerful, incredible looking and incredibly loud.

The other is the notion that we rather like Block's world. All-wheel-drive doughnuts are cool. Driving like he does, however, demands some serious sack. We're not masters of the 100-mph all-wheel-drive powerslide or the center-axis spin, but we can appreciate this car's abilities. And after you've experienced this kind of performance, it changes your soul. Just ask Mr. Block.

Maybe someday tire smoke will be in our soul, too.