We know what you’re thinking: What the hell is a 2021 Subaru BRZ doing in The Bible? Well, that’s what the Different Strokes department is all about! Melbourne’s Marcos Dillmann took the rotary driveline from his crashed Mazda 1300, stabbed it into a salvage Subaru BRZ and made an eight-second weapon, with a manual gearbox and 275 rear meats to boot. That’s worthy enough for us!

First published in the December 2024 issue of Street Machine

A nasty accident ended Marcos’s eight-second Mazda 1300 at Heathcote Park Raceway a few years back, but he found a way to move on from the calamity by using the salvageable parts from that car in this new BRZ. “Initially, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get back into racing; it banged me up a bit inside,” he says of the Mazda’s demise. “You also can’t get old Mazdas like that anymore; they’re too expensive and there’s none around.”

Cue the BRZ. It was all his mates’ doing: they bid on the car at a salvage auction, hoping to force Marcos into building it so that he’d get back out there. And Marcos could see potential in the Subie: “They’re obviously a very common chassis, and parts are so cheap and plentiful,” he says. “That’s what you want in a race car.”

Marcos got to work, transferring the wrecked 1300’s driveline and other useable parts to the BRZ. This included the billet 13B package, G-Force manual gearbox, FuelTech engine management, Precision 8685 turbo and the water-to-air intercooler system. “Granted, there’s probably an off-the-shelf air-to-air for this car we could use, but space was bloody tight in the 1300, which is why we had the water system,” Marcos says. “Plus, we can manage intake temps perfectly, and consistency at the track is what you want.”

Marcos’s mate Elvis from Loco Garage took care of all the fab work forward of the firewall, while Full Flight Engineering added a nine-inch diff, tubs and a sheet-metal floor to the rear in order to fit the 275 drag radials. “The trans tunnel is also bolt-in, because why not make a race car as serviceable as possible?” Marcos reasons.

The wiring, plumbing and assembly work was done at Marcos’s business, The Race Shop, with his good buddy Fabian at Hotwirez sorting the FuelTech FT600. “We don’t build customer cars, but we can do wiring, source plumbing and a lot of parts, and point people in the right direction with their build,” Marcos says.

The Billetpro 13B rotary is based on an FD RX-7 and Mazda Cosmo engine. The machine work for the mill was carried out at the Billet Factory in Campbellfield, before being assembled at The Race Shop. It’s a semi-peripheral-port mill rather than a bridge-port, and features CNC-machined exhaust ports and half-inch studs, and Power Seal apex seals on the FD-spec rotors. The turbo knocks around 22psi through the Pro-Jay inlet manifold; teamed with mechanically pumped methanol and 9000rpm, the bright-red snail makes the engine good for 800hp to the hubs. “That’s on baby boost; we’ll turn it up to around 30psi for Grudge Kings,” Marcos says.

As Marcos didn’t want a repeat of the 1300’s messy end, he made sure the BRZ’s chassis was well thought-out. “Those small Mazdas are bloody hard to race; every pass, you’re on the edge,” he says. “With this car, the chassis was already pretty good, but we spent a lot of time getting the rear end right and doing all the maths so it would drive dead-straight and help me not make another mistake.”

So far, so good. The 1300’s PB with the same running gear was 8.7@156mph, and the BRZ punched out an 8.9@153mph on its debut test session at Heathcote Park Raceway. “It drove so well,” Marcos enthuses. “We did about 10 passes and each was a breeze. The chassis is a night-and-day difference. The rollcage is built to run 8.00, so we’ll see how close we can get to that.”

Marcos hinted that his plans to make the Subaru more street-worthy may see it at Drag Challenge in the future. “All we’d really need to do is change to a front-mounted intercooler and get another front guard and exhaust to swap over. It wouldn’t take much to get it on the street.” We’d love to see an eight-second rotary cat among the pigeons at Drag Challenge, Marcos!

MARCOS DILLMANN
2021 SUBARU BRZ TS

THANKS
Hotwirez Motorsport Electrical; Loco Garage; Billet Factory; GIPP Engines; FuelTech; Full Flight Engineering;

Got something in the shed that you reckon is particularly unusual or interesting? Tell us about it! Send pics and info to [email protected].