Well, I did it. (BRZ content)

cmcgregor wrote: There's some pretty good info in the race/autocross section of ft86club. The rest of it I could take or leave. It is amazing how quickly companies sprang up to make stuff for the twins. Hopefully that translates into a long lifetime of aftermarket support, so I can buy another one in a few years when they're cheap.

It's because the owners are spending money. They're not the same people who are buying NC Miatas. The marketplace is responding.

Congrats when I was at the Subie dealer picking up my STi there was a blue series BR-Z staring at me saying "take me, you know you want to come inside me, just do it, please" then I would turn around and there was an angry spouse staring at me and the only way I was getting the STi over the new Mustang was that it had four doors so the BR-Z was out of the question. Still not complaining about the STi.

Congrats and it should be a blast! The last track day I was at those guys were killing it.

Thanks, and congrats on the STi!

That's what I really wanted, but that would have cut into my mod budget.

Congradulations, I have had mine for about a year now and love it. No mods and is a DD.

Thanks Jon

I have 2800 miles on my 2015 FRS now. Once you get used to avoiding the torque dip, it becomes much more fun to drive.

rotard wrote: I have 2800 miles on my 2015 FRS now. Once you get used to avoiding the torque dip, it becomes much more fun to drive.

I've already got an Open Flash Tablet. I'm going to load the stock tune back onto the NC when I trade it in, then likely put a header/tune on the BRZ. I've read that nearly eliminates the torque dip.

DirtyBird222 wrote: ...a blue series BR-Z staring at me saying "take me, you know you want to come inside me, just do it, please"...

LOL

NSFW

z31maniac wrote:

rotard wrote: I have 2800 miles on my 2015 FRS now. Once you get used to avoiding the torque dip, it becomes much more fun to drive.

I've already got an Open Flash Tablet. I'm going to load the stock tune back onto the NC when I trade it in, then likely put a header/tune on the BRZ. I've read that nearly eliminates the torque dip.

Yeah, I saw that. I didn't know if you planned on driving it stock for awhile, first. I've heard great things about what the header/tune combo does to the power delivery.

Other than the occasional brodozer encounter, I've had mostly positive experiences with the car so far.

In reply to z31maniac:

A couple of guys in my region had cars prepped for STX. One of them tends to go all-out when prepping his cars. If you're interested, I can try to pick their brains on what they did.

And congrats! I keep pondering one of these... maybe in a couple of years when I'm done with mtn bike racing again.

That would be great! I've been trying to research and find the sweet spot on what to do to make the car more fun, but without ruining it's street manners.

Congratulations! The twins are one of the cars I have intentionally avoided taking for a test drive. I did break down and sit in one at a Carmax last week, and I liked it!

I am excite! The local dealer found the only black one within the bordering states so I may have it this weekend instead of waiting 3 weeks!

I've got several friends with them. One thing all of them have said is adding grip changes the feel of the car quite a lot. They did a very good job tuning the suspension for the tires that come with the car but adding something like RS3's reveals the shortcomings in the car. Most cars are like this to some extent, but stock the car feels so good that it sucks when that feeling goes away and you end up spending $$ to get it back.
I'll be following your adventures with this car, it's pretty inevitable that I'll end up with one someday.

mazdeuce wrote: I've got several friends with them. One thing all of them have said is adding grip changes the feel of the car quite a lot. They did a very good job tuning the suspension for the tires that come with the car but adding something like RS3's reveals the shortcomings in the car. Most cars are like this to some extent, but stock the car feels so good that it sucks when that feeling goes away and you end up spending $$ to get it back. I'll be following your adventures with this car, it's pretty inevitable that I'll end up with one someday.

I've already emailed Odi at Feal Suspension about one of their setups.

I know they have one trophy-level National Auto-X'r on one of his setups and I've read good things about the 441 custom valved kits.

I saw a red FRS at our rallycross over the weekend. Combined with the fact that dirtfish added a couple to their fleet of cars, I've always thought about RWD for rallycross, and a really bada** sounding one a few weeks ago I saw, and now I'm in the same boat as mazdadeuce. Might have one of these sooner than later.

Congratulations on the decision. Being that it's going to see autocross competitions I would get an oil cooler on it ASAP. I've lost faith in the robustness of the FRS and it has only seen one single track day when I first got it nearly 3 years ago. Just daily driving I've had issues when pushing it and had to have the computer replaced when it started failing. And I have an issue I believe is the bank 1 coil pack failing due to heat (which guys who track the car regularly seem put the bank 1 coil pack (the one closest to the merge collector on the header) as a yearly wear item due to heat degredation)...

Heat management should be #1 priority before worrying about the needed handling mods (the sealed engine bay is both a blessing and a curse...) Oil temps shoot up quickly in the car... one little romp on the throttle for a little bit and....bam...230F oil temp from ~210F normal operating temp in seconds. If you can open up the side garnish vents and make them functional that seems to help some... BRZ has the better fender garnish design to do this with as well. Oil pressure also seems a little low on the car with stock 0W-20 oil... a few FA20 motors have been lost on track builds due to oil starvation. Thicker oil/whatever it takes to maintain oil pressure is recommended if you are pulling G's or running at high rpms for extended time - probably not as critical for autocross but definitely for road courses. Here's a good read about the 86 oil pressures: Oil pressure range thread

Once you have the car not running too hot, then one of the first things I'd recommend is changing out the steering rack bushings to solid ones... aluminum and Delrin ones are available. Inexpensive part but really helps get rid of an annoying mid turn steering hesitation trait (at least on my FRS) from the steering rack moving around on the soft stock rubber bushings and not being concentric with the mounting point.

I agree that sticky rubber is too much for daily driving and brings out some minor quirks in handling (...mainly due to the stock rubber steering rack bushings). Sticky rubber is great for track/high performance driving though. For daily driving I'm very pleased with changing to a 205/45-17 Max performance tire for extremely balanced wet and dry performance beyond stock (do not like the wet performance of the Primacy HPs!) but still retaining the tossable nature of the car at low speeds. And always run with all systems 'off' (unfortunatly you can't really truly turn the systems entirely off with the buttons, 'off' is a lie, it's just mostly off... the Pedal Dance solves the problem though) - the traction/stability system don't like sticky tires; freaks the system out and gets REALLY annoying with cutting engine power and phantom ABS panics at the worst times, will cost you time on course.

What would it take to truly disable the electro-nannies on a Toyobaru? Anyone know?

Pretty sure the aforementioned "Pedal Dance" takes care of it. Basically a diagnostic mode that can be accessed.

I was doing some searching and it seems that pulling an ABS fuse will disable all nannies but you'll get a bunch of warning lights. It's a green fuse, apparently nonstandard color.

You can either pull the ABS fuse or do the Pedal Dance... just a matter if you want ABS active or not. Never had ABS show any signs of being on when I was on track until that one last session I forgot to turn 'off' the nannies and the car thought it knew better... stupid nannies!

Keith Tanner wrote:

cmcgregor wrote: There's some pretty good info in the race/autocross section of ft86club. The rest of it I could take or leave. It is amazing how quickly companies sprang up to make stuff for the twins. Hopefully that translates into a long lifetime of aftermarket support, so I can buy another one in a few years when they're cheap.

It's because the owners are spending money. They're not the same people who are buying NC Miatas. The marketplace is responding.

This is kind of profound Keith. I wonder if Mazda is noticing?

Interesting on the oil issues. I know Subarus in general have starvation issues with the flat engine but the heat is something I wouldn't expect on non turbo subaru engines. Baffled oil pans are easy fix for the starvation issue. The increased oil capacity should help oil temp as well. On my wrx I run a little over the full mark ( ~5 quarts instead of 4.7 ) to keep the starvation away.

In rallycross I pull the abs fuse out so it's possible to stop the car on dirt. Brake light and abs light come on but doesn't hurt anything. It's weird that it's not like the 3 series I drove where pressing the button turned off some tcs, while holding the button for a few seconds completely disabled it.

Thanks for the info!

Picked it up today, love it! Suprised at how much I like the stereo, I'll try to get some pics tomorrow.

mazdeuce wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote:

cmcgregor wrote: There's some pretty good info in the race/autocross section of ft86club. The rest of it I could take or leave. It is amazing how quickly companies sprang up to make stuff for the twins. Hopefully that translates into a long lifetime of aftermarket support, so I can buy another one in a few years when they're cheap.

It's because the owners are spending money. They're not the same people who are buying NC Miatas. The marketplace is responding.

This is kind of profound Keith. I wonder if Mazda is noticing?

We'll see when the new MX-5 is actually available.