Time to Say Goodbye

The BRZ is a delight, and I haven't really wanted to modify it a lot lately. It just drives really nicely. So, without any new modifications to report on, I haven't really had a reason to update this blog. There are a few things I can report about living with the car on a (semi-)daily basis.

The trunk is surprisingly useful. I have taken tubs of parts up to our Summit Point Pro Shop store at the race track. I have hauled folding tables too and from Boxerfest. The car can indeed swallow a spare set of its own wheels and tires, although it's tougher if they are 255 width.

The front seats are quite nice for a variety of drivers. Even six-foot-plus drivers never seem to have a problem getting to a comfortable driving position. The fact that the seats adjust the old fashion way (no heavy motors to weigh the car down) is a bonus.

The rear seat, on the other hand, is laughably unusable. No human being over two years old can fit back there without sitting sideways with their feet on the other seat.

I've switched back and forth between stock-width 215 tires and the much wider 255's I run in the summer. The 215's give the car a very sharp, precise steering feel. The 255's instill a lot more confidence and I feel like I can toss the car around more without worrying so much that it's going let go suddenly. Either way it's still very easy to kick the rear out with a little goose of the gas pedal. Thanks, twin-scroll supercharger!

For that matter, the Sprintex supercharger gives the car a perfect combination of torque and power. It's not overwhelming, but it's enough to be satisfying. I never have felt like the car wasn't fast enough or quick enough. Plus, the supercharger has been rock-solid reliable. I'm very pleased with it.

The Valenti tail lamps never get old. They look great, especially at night.

But alas, all good things must come to and end. I've recently acquired a new Focus RS, and along with other strays I have adopted along the way, I have too many cars! The BRZ is now for sale. See my for sale post over here on the FT86 forums.

So long. See you over on the Mach V Focus RS blog!

Clutch ACTing Up

Some time in the fall, as the temperature started to get cooler, I noticed some strange behavior from the BRZ when I would apply the gas. The revs would climb, but the car didn't speed up at the same rate. On a really brisk evening in October, it was no longer a question -- the power was just too much for the stock clutch, and I couldn't get hard on the gas without the clutch completely slipping. Time for an upgrade.

I got on the phone with Dirk Starksen at Advanced Clutch Technology.  He has been in this business maybe even longer than I have, so I trust his judgment. He suggested I try the company's heavy duty clutch and flywheel combo. Soon enough we had the car on the lift and the transmission out, and in went the ACT parts.

While we were under there, we replaced the leaking factory cam plate with the lovely Raceseng billet replacement cam plate.  That got rid of that pesky oil-drip burning smell we were getting.  (If you are not familiar with this issue, the problem is a seam on the block that is improperly sealed from the factory, and oil drips out of it onto the exhaust manifold.)  The Raceseng piece is so nice looking, it's a shame nobody but my mechanics will ever see the thing.

The new clutch solved my slipping issues.  The lighter flywheel made the engine feel zippy and willing to rev.  Since the new flywheel is a single-mass part, there is a good bit more drivetrain noise under certain situations, like in-gear coasting at high RPMs.  But it's not like this car is a quiet luxury car in any case, so I don't mind.

Getting the car back to full strength happened just in time, as the snow came and we swapped on the Blizzak snow tires (on Subaru Legacy GT wheels).  The car worked great through the cold weather, and the supercharged power just gets better and better as the thermometer drops.

Next time I'll talk about some more lighting enhancements on the car, both interior and exterior.

Products mentioned in this post: ACT BRZ heavy duty clutch/flywheel combo, Raceseng cam plate.

Trying on new shoes: Rota RKR

We got in some new wheels from our friends at Rota, and immediately installed them on our BRZ.  The Rota RKR has looks that remind me of the old-school RS Watanabe wheels from Japan, but the size is a thoroughly-modern 18" diameter, staggered with an 8.5" width in front and a 9.5" width for the back wheels.

We installed a take-off set of tires from my BMW 335i.  Those happen to be sizes 225/40R18 and 255/35R18.  They fit the car easily, without any rubbing.  If I was buying a brand-new set I'd probably go a bit wider, to a 265/35R18 in the back and a 245/35R18 in front.  I think those would fit without clearance problems.  The rear I'm sure is an easy fit.  The front might be a little tight to the strut -- the spring perch sometimes gets close to the tire when you start going to a wider size.  Nothing a small wheel spacer wouldn't take care of.

In fact, I am thinking I might try some slim spacers just to space this set out a few more millimeters.  There looks to be plenty of room to the fenders.  The +44 offset is a good bit more than most aftermarket wheels for this car, although I definite prefer higher offset to lower.  You can always space a wheel out using spacers.  There's no way to push a wheel in if the offset is too low.

As usual, we secured the wheels to the car with McGard SplineDrive lug nuts.

Weight on the wheels is 21.2 and 22.1 pounds for the 8.5" and 9.5" widths, respectively.  That's only a couple of pounds heavier than the stock 17x7" wheels (at 20.1 pounds).

The RKR comes in other colors, including black and "Hyper Blue," which is a very vivid deep blue color.  I thought the Hyper Black looked classy without being too loud, but I confess I'm curious to see what the blue wheel would look like on our car.

I think the BRZ with the RKR on it looks very nice.  The spoke design is simple and tasteful.  The wheels give it a little bit of a toy car look, which to me suits the fun character of the car.

Products mentioned in this post: Rota RKR wheels, McGard SplineDrive lug nuts.

"No Power" No More

For a while now I've been fielding questions about the Mach V BRZ's vanity plates, which have spelled out "NO POWER" since the car was new.  It started out as sort of an inside joke about the public reaction to the car's low engine output back when the BRZ/FR-S were first released.  But now the car is supercharged, and it seemed to make less and less sense over time, so we just got some new plates -- see the photo.  It's not super-creative, but Virginia has some of the cheapest vanity plate fees in the country, so if you have any better ideas, let us know and we'll change them up again.

That license plate is mounted on a new, revised Platypus tow hook mount from Craven Speed.  The new mount has a couple of improvements over the older one, including an angled plate to better match the bumper, and a full-size backing plate for the license plate.

I don't have many new modifications to report on the car, save for some very nice Superpro sway bars and Kartboy rear end links.  The Superpro bars installed easily, and the fatter diameter (I went with 20mm front and 18mm rear, compared with 19mm front and 14mm rear for the stock car) keeps the car flatter under cornering.  The Kartboy end links are easy to install and we know from experience on other Subaru applications that they are trouble-free over the long haul.  At this point we don't know of an aftermarket front end link for the BRZ/FR-S.

Other than that change, not much is new.  I drive the car two or three times a week, including lots of plain old commuting with lots of stop-and-go driving.  I continue to enjoy driving it -- the fun handling never gets old, and the Innovate supercharger has delivered reliable and trouble-free power for the past year.

In a previous blog post from last year I mentioned condensation on one of the rear tail lamps.  That lamp was replaced under warranty, but we hear that Subaru has stopped doing that since then.  Our lamps haven't taken on any water in the interim, so with any luck we won't have to worry about it again.

We do have some new Rota RK-R wheels waiting to be mounted up on the car, so when that's done and I've taken some photos I will post up again.

Products referenced in this post: Platypus tow hook license plate mount, Innovate supercharger kit, Superpro sway bars, Kartboy rear end links.

Winter 2014 Update

A couple of our fans have reminded me that it's been almost six months since I updated this blog, so here's a little run-down of what's new.

Bring it on

After running 255/40R17 Sumitomo HTR-Z tires through the warm months, I swapped back to the 215/45R17 Bridgestone Blizzak WS60 tires for the cold -- and boy has it been cold this winter!  With the winter tires, the BRZ has been a solid winter partner, with very good grip in the cold (sub-40 F temps) and wet.  On actual packed snow, the tires don't perform miracles -- this is a light rear-wheel-drive car, after all -- but we never worried about getting stuck or sliding off the road.  After experiencing the scary slithery feeling of driving this car with the stock Primacy tires in the snowy stuff, the winter tires are such a revelation.  I highly recommend them to anyone who lives in a place where it snows.

I had promised an update about tire sizes and different wheel fitment, so I'll get into that now.  First off, I am NOT in favor tire fitment solely for the purpose of appearance.  You might see this called "stance" or "stretch & poke" or other terms that basically imply pushing the wheels and tires out to as far (or farther) as they can go for the sake of looks.  What I am in favor of is larger tires for higher levels of grip.  More grip gives higher cornering speeds, better braking, and better control in all kinds of transitional maneuvers -- planned or otherwise.  I'm definitely not in favor of getting the tire to a point where it will damage the body (or worse) at full suspension compression.  If you can't use the car for its original purpose, what's the point of the whole exercise?

17x9" Mach V Awesome with 255/40R17

Note that for snow, you actually do NOT want wide tires.  Skinny tires will bite harder into the snow, whereas wider tires will tend to plane up on top and not grip.  What I'm talking about from here on out is warm-weather performance.

As I mentioned above, we've been running a 255/40R17 tire on a 17x9" +42 Mach V Awesome wheel at all four corners.  We also run Whiteline Com-C upper strut mounts, which give us extra camber by moving the entire top of the strut, rather than by moving the tire/wheel relative to the knuckle, lke eccentric bolts would do.  I mention this because a lot of BRZ/FR-S guys seem to run the eccentric bolts (or "crash bolts") to gain front camber, and this can lead to clearance problems as a wide wheel and tire can start to run into the spring perch on the OEM shock.

18x9.5" Mach V Wicked Awesome with 265/35R18

I also test fit some 18x9.5" +42 Wicked Awesome wheels with 265/35R18 tires.  This actually did fit okay in the back, but in the front the tire contacted the strut, so we had to use a 5mm spacer to get it to work.  With the 5mm spacer, the front tire was sticking out of the front body work, so without more camber I wouldn't advise running that size on the front of the car.

I could have put a 255/35R18 or 245/35R18 tire on the front 18x9.5" wheel, but those tire sizes would not be as wide as the wheel, and I'm really a big fan of having the right size tire for the wheel, and vice versa.  But if you DID want to run the 18x9.5" Wicked Awesome wheel on all four corners of your BRZ or FR-S, I'd probably do a 265/35R18 in back, and a 245/35R18 in front.

17" Awesome in front, 18" Wicked Awesome in back

Anyway, back to our fitment experiments:  Knowing that our slightly narrower 255/40R17 tire fit the front, I thought I might put the 17" wheels on the front with the 255/40R17, and the 18" with the 265/35R18 on the back.  Some sports cars (Acura NSX, Chevy Corvette) run a staggered front-back setup from the factory.  Why shouldn't we try it?  That actually fit pretty well, and the wheel size matched the tire size nicely.

Plenty of people run different tire widths on these cars front-to-back, but I haven't seen anyone else do two different wheel diameters.

One final question the fans asked me to address is gas mileage after installation of the Innovate supercharger kit.  On my daily commute, which is mixed driving, with a good amount of stop-and-go, I used to get as much as 28.5 mpg pre-supercharger.  Since the supercharger install, I have seen 26.5 mpg when I stayed out of boost as much as possible.  If I drive like a hooligan and flat-foot it every time I leave a stop light, I see more like 20 mpg.  (Of course, when I drove like a nut before the supercharger I would take a pretty big MPG hit, too.)  So basically, figure a 2 mpg penalty from the supercharger install -- a small price to pay for a 37% increase in horsepower!

Links: Mach V Awesome wheels, Mach V Wicked Awesome wheels, Innovate supercharger.

Super. Charge.

It's been a while since I posted, but I've this is a pretty big update.  "NO POWER" now has a bit more power, courtesy of an Innovate supercharger kit we installed.  This is a constant-displacement twin-scroll supercharger that makes a maximum of about 9 psi.  It bolts directly on the top of the engine using a custom intake manifold.  The setup we went with is called the "Tuner" kit, meaning the ECU tuning is up to you.  I did the tuning on our car and came up with a maximum of 218 horsepower at the rear wheels on our Dynojet dyno, up from 160 when the car was bone stock.  For the production tune packages I would expect around 210 rear-wheel horsepower.


 I chose the Innovate setup over one of the centrifugal supercharger or turbocharger options mostly because I liked the idea of a constant displacement supercharger -- for every turn of the engine, a constant-displacement unit also turns and compresses air.  Although it can be more limited in terms of top-end power, it's hard to beat the response.  In addition to having a twin-screw compressor, the manifold design and the finish details of the Innovate package are top-notch.

Installation of the supercharger is surprisingly simple.  You remove the stock intake manifold, then remove the port fuel injectors and throttle body from the manifold and transfer them to the new manifold.  Bolt the new manifold and supercharger assembly to the block, hook up a few hoses, and you're set.  It took us less than half a day.  We'd charge $400 for the install.

I spent a couple of weeks and many, many dyno runs developing our ECU calibration for the car.  I tried for stock-like smoothness and driveability, I think I managed that.  A few customers and friends that have driven the car have given us a lot of positive feedback.

This version of the kit is NON-intercooled, so horsepower gains are limited compared to a more elaborate intercooled system.  The Innovate manifold DOES have hose fittings for a future water-to-air intercooler circuit, so that is an option once that intercooler is complete and available to sell.  I have other plans, though...I'm thinking I will use water/methanol injection to perform the same function as the intercooler.  But we'll see.

So how does the car feel with the supercharger on it?  Like stock, but more.  The power delivery is instant -- you step on the throttle and you immediately have boost, so there's never a sense of any kind of lag or delay.  The torque comes on strong and carries all the way out to red line, so although the top-end power isn't massive, the car picks up speed very nicely.  The biggest difference to me is the throttle response.  Previously I felt like there was very little difference in part throttle and full throttle -- the torque was so low it just never felt like it was pulling very hard, even when you gave it the boot. Now it surges forward.  It's really fun.

Rear-end traction is more of an issue now.  Punching the throttle in a corner will slew the car sideways and get you a bunch of flashing orange tranction control warning lights.  If you happen to have the traction control all the way off, you can get yourself into trouble easily.  I'm still working on feeling out the limits of lateral grip while on-throttle.  I may have to take the car to a track for some play time in a safe environment.

To keep track of manifold pressure, we also installed a new Prosport Premium EVO boost gauge, in a vent pod from ATI.  I'll give some details about that install in my next post.

Products referenced in this post: Innovate Supercharger kit.

Shifter shortening, for sure!

The stock BRZ shifter is one of the tightest and most direct-feeling I've experienced, so I was kind of skeptical about putting a short shifter in it.  Does it really need to be any shorter?  Still, my friend Tom at Kartboy assured me that his short shifter would be an improvement.  I figured I could always take it back out if I didn't like it, so why not?

The Kartboy shifter is beautifully made.  Almost every part is a custom-machined of metal.  It's hefty and solid in the hand.  All the moving parts are pre-greased, and an additional syringe of grease is included for the install.

Installation was straightforward.  (There's a nice do-it-yourself guide over on the FT86club forms.)  We did install the included rear shifter stay.  We had previously installed Kartboy's transmission mount bushing, too.  The stock shift knob fits right on, or you can use any other knob that fits the stock shifter.  We already had a black Kartboy Delrin knob on there, so we transferred that one over.

I hopped in the car after it came down on the lift, and put it in reverse, then drove out into the neighborhood around the shop.  Hey, what do you know?  The feel is tighter, click-ier, more precise feeling.  I know it's a cliche, but it feels like a bolt-action rifle.  No slop, no give, just a tight, mechanical, direct connection to the gearbox.  The slightly (0.35") lower shift knob height feels just perfect to me.  The reduced throws make the shifting feel quick and sure.

So, to sum up, I'm sold!  It's an improvement over the stock shifter.  Good job, Kartboy.

Kartboy short shifter for FR-S/BRZ

Sorting some details

T.I.C. steering rack bushings

Bushings halfway installed

We got the BRZ up on the lift recently to install some new goodies.  In the front we installed some Turn In Concepts solid steering rack bushings.  From looking at them, I worried a little bit that they would generate a whole bunch of noise/vibration/harshness, but I really couldn't feel any comfort penalty.  There's just a nice tight feeling from the steering wheel. The BRZ steering was never vague by any means, but it's just that much more tight and precise-feeling.

Extraction tool we made

Installation was pretty easy, but getting the stock bushings out took a little ingenuity on the part of our mechanics.  We ended up making a little extraction tool using a couple of bolts, some washers, and a section of tubing.  That allowed us to pull the stock bushing out by turning the bolt and using the bolt's leverage.

Master cylinder brace

Up on the top side of the car, we bolted on the Motive Auto Werks master cylinder brace.  This little item could not be simpler, both in terms of construction and in installation.  It's light, simple, and it completely stopped any excess motion of the master cylinder.  (Try taping a thin skewer or a coat hanger to your master cylinder so you can see it from the driver's seat, then watch as you press on the brake pedal!)  I confess I can't quite feel it in the pedal -- the brakes seemed pretty firm even to start with.  But I like that the master cylinder can't flex anymore.

While we were under the hood, we installed some very nice carbon-fiber-wrapped hood struts.  We really like gas lift hood struts -- they make working on the car so much easier.  Install on these was also easy.  The struts have just the right pressure to lift up the hood, but they don't spring it up so hard it's going to hit you in the chin.

The benefit is that you don't have to use the prop rod, and you don't have to worry about hitting yourself in the head with the rod and/or collapsing the hood down onto your head while working on the engine.  Not that that's ever happened to me, of course...

All the parts I mentioned above are available on our web site.  Click the hyperlinks above or below for more info.

Not everything is happy in BRZ Land.  I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the right tail lamp has a bunch of condensed water drops in it, and it's starting to get a little mossy-looking in there.  This is a known issue with these cars, and Subaru should replace the lamp under warranty.  We'll check back when we've resolved the issue.





Products mentioned in this post:
Turn In Concepts steering rack bushings
Carbon-wrapped gas lift hood struts
Motive Auto Werks brake master cylinder brace

Audio system update

I promised to give an update on the audio system some many months ago.  If you've been holding your breath, you probably passed out long before now.  Sorry about that.

The new view from the passenger seat

To review, I didn't much like the interface on the stock head unit.  I don't really use nav much anyway, nor do I like satellite radio (the sound quality is crap, in my opinion).  So I looked for an aftermarket head unit that had a larger screen, better ease-of-use, and that would function well for playing music from an iPod or other external device.  I settled for a Pioneer AVH-P8400BH.  It's got a 7" touch screen, "App Radio" features that can sort of control an iPhone, and more goodies.

I also wanted a little more "oomph" to the sound system, but I didn't want to add two hundred pounds of gear, so I had CAS Designs install a lightweight JL Audio 500/3 amp, and a little custom fiberglass sub box in the hatch area with a single JL Audio 8W3.

One of the problems I had with the OEM audio was it had a hard time overcoming the ever-present road noise.  There's just not much sound deadening in the car, and it's so low to the ground, you can always here lots of wind and tire noise when the car is underway.  We added some Dynamat to the doors and hatch area to try to reduce that.

New sub is compact and lightweight

The end results were pretty good -- the sound quality and volume level increased dramatically.  I hadn't realized how little bass response the OEM system had until we installed the new sub.  I do love the large screen and the crisp audio from the new head unit, and the ergonomics are FAR better.  It's intuitive to use, and answering the phone or changing tracks doesn't cause me to swear in frustration any more.

There are some disappointments, though.  For one thing, simply upgrading the sound system didn't make the car a better place for listening.  The car is still inherently loud inside at speed.  With the better sound system, I can certainly turn it up loud enough to mask the road noise, but after any extended period of time, it's loud enough to be kind of hard on the ears.  The moral is, there's only so much you can do; the car is not a Lexus.

The Pioneer head unit has its issues, too.  The App Radio functions sound great, but in practice they are kind of half-baked.  The system is fussy, and you have to set the phone to a certain app to enable the functions, and occasionally it doesn't work right. Sometimes I have to reboot the head unit to recover from errors.  That happens sometimes just when using the iPod, too.  Someday this will all be debugged and it will work perfectly, but we're not there yet.


Overall I'm happy with the upgrades.  CAS Designs gets a big thumbs up for the excellent quality work.

Winter Mode: Activate!

Mach V BRZ in Winter Mode

This blog has been quiet for a couple of months, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy.  Obviously the BRZ wasn't meant as a snowmobile, what its low slung stance and rear-wheel-drive, but we think any car can be fun and useful in the winter, given the proper equipment.  That means winter tires.  We picked up a set of lightly-used Legacy GT wheels (17x7 +53) with some Blizzak WS60 tires in the stock BRZ size of 215/45R17.  It doesn't really snow that much here in the D.C. area, so we held our breath each time cold weather came around, but we didn't actually put the snow tires on until the snow was falling this past week.

Blizzak WS60. That snowflake means "Let it snow!"

The stock "performance" summer tires aren't what we'd call super-high grip in the warm weather, but they're next to worthless once the temp drops below about 40 degrees F.  The same is true for our Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec track tires.  The Blizzaks, on the other hand, seem to work the same no matter how cold it gets.  That's not to say they're a great tire when it's warm.  The soft tread compound combined with the deep siping cut into each tread block means the dry-weather grip is very low.  We noticed some wheel spin just turning through an intersection -- something that never would have happened with the stock tires.  The tire feels normal in terms of sidewall stiffness and steering response, but the limits of adhesion are very low.

Who says you have to leave the sports car home when it snows?

Then it got cold, and this past week we finally got some snow.  The performance of the WS60 in the slush, snow, and ice, was a revelation.  In particular, braking performance is so good on packed snow or ice, it's hard to believe.  It feels about the same as driving the car on wet pavement.  It's amazing!  I found myself just doing braking tests anywhere I could find snow on the road, just to be astounded all over again.  Acceleration and cornering aren't quite as dramatic an improvement, but still are far better than any all-season tire we've ever used.  (Our 335i is currently shod with Continental DWS, so that comes to mind for an immediate comparison.)  I found myself thinking it would be a lot of fun to throw some skis or snowboards in the back and drive up to the mountains.  (For deeper stuff, factory ride height would probably be a better choice than the Mach V springs we've got on the car.)

That special Blizzak tread compound has a spongy composition that Bridgestone says is made of "thousands of microscopic tubes and cells (which resemble the consistency of Swiss cheese when examined through a microscope)". The tire tread can wick away water that would usually come between the tire and the snow or ice surface. That same light and fluffy compound isn't so resilient in the dry, though, so if you drive these tires around on dry roads for thousands of miles, the special tread compound will wear off. The manufacturer says at half tire life, you only have 10% left of the magic snow tread stuff.

Speaking of wheel and tire swaps, we've been experimenting with some different wheel and tire sizes to fit the BRZ.  I'll have more details in my next blog post.

Off to the track!

Each year for the past eight years, Mach V Motorsports (that's my business) has sponsored a National Autosports Association (NASA) HPDE weekend at Summit Point Raceway.  We invite our staff, friends, customers, and other Mach V fans to come out, drive, hang out, and have a good time at the road course.

Silver Mach V Awesome wheels

It's also a chance to put our cars and parts to the test.  Track driving is hard on tires, brakes, engines, and suspensions, and really shows the nature of how the car handles at the limit.  You can learn things about the car on track that you could NEVER find out on the street -- at least not without being arrested.

In preparation for our track sessions, we fitted up a set of lightly-used 235/40R17 Dunlop D1 Direzza Star Spec tires that we picked up from a local customer.  The Star Specs are one of our favorite high-performance street tires.  They have terrific grip in the dry, and aren't bad in the wet as long as it doesn't get too cold.  The 235/40R17 is 0.9% smaller than stock -- close enough not to matter, but in the direction of better acceleration, which we could certainly use in this car.  We put those tires on a set of our Mach V Awesome wheels in satin black (on the right side) and silver (on the left).

In the paddock

We also fitted our single-outlet muffler delete.  Between the lighter wheels, ditching the muffler, tossing out the spare and other related stuff, the car weighed around 60 pounds lighter than stock.

We needed every ounce of that weight savings.  I was in the HPDE 3 run group, with experienced drivers, many of whom were in high-powered hardware the little BRZ could never keep up with.  I spent the weekend pointing by all manner of Corvettes, Porsche GT3s, track-prepped Mustangs, Evos, and STIs.  Not every car out there was a big-power brute, though.  I was also passed by a turbocharged Toyota Tercel, and various Mazda Miatas.

Anyway, adjustments to my ego notwithstanding, the car was a treat to drive.  It cornered flat and without drama, and the cornering attitude was nice and neutral.  It would step out a little under power out of the corner, but it never threatened to spin, and never did anything that surprised me.  This was my first time on the track with this car -- actually, my first time on track in any rear-drive car -- so I left the traction control in full nanny mode for the weekend.  The traction warning light was blinking pretty much at every corner exit, but it was less intrusive than I feared, so I just left it on and concentrated on learning how the car behaved.

It's on!

Our car sits on Mach V lowering springs.  I was really happy with how the car worked with the new springs.  Summit is a fairly bumpy road course, and some of those bumps happen under hard braking or acceleration.  The car never seemed unsettled by the uneven surface, and the ride to and from the track was perfectly comfortable.

Reviewers have praised the stock brakes, so I thought I'd see how the car did with just stock pads, rotors, and fluid.  The answer is...not so well.  The front brakes got very hot during every session, leading to a soft brake pedal.  As the pads wore down over the weekend, things got worse, and after a few sessions the pads were smoking.  By the end of the weekend -- we did about seven half-hour sessions in total -- the pads were pretty much gone, the pedal was mushy, and the rotors were badly scored.  So, next time, we'll at least install some pads intended for track use, if not a complete brake upgrade.

Overall, I really enjoyed driving the car.  The driving style for the rear-drive, low-powered BRZ is very different from the grunty WRX I'm used to driving, so I still have a lot to learn, but driving the car on track is fun and rewarding.

Brighter light; louder noise

You know the incandescent bulb is a dinosaur, right?  New technology give us better, brighter light, with less heat and less power consumption.  For automotive applications, the name of the game is LED.  Fancy cars come with LED lighting now, but the less-expensive ones still make do with the older (but cheaper) bulbs.

LED license plate bulbs

Good thing work at a shop here to bring that BRZ into the modern age.  We removed every standard bulb we could, and replaced it with an LED equivalent.  That ended up being the puddle lights (in the doors), the backup lights, the license plate lamps, the fog lamps, and the dome light.  Oh, and the trunk light!

LED puddle lamps

Installation was pretty easy -- For the interior bulbs the lenses just pop off, and the new LED bulbs install in place of the old ones.  The exterior bulbs (fog, backup) are a little more involved.  The backup lights are easy to reach from under the rear of the car.  The fog lamp bulbs are accessed by removing some of the push fasteners under the lower splash shields in the front bumper.  The fog lamp bulb LEDs weren't exactly right -- they are an H16 bulb, and there are apparently different variants.  We had to carve off some of the tabs on our LED bulbs to get them to fit.  One we finished customizing the bulbs, they clicked right into place.  H16's push directly into their socket, by the way -- they don't push-and-turn like most automotive bulbs do.

LED backup lamp on right; stock on left

In each case the light is at least as bright as stock, and MUCH whiter -- closer to sunlight than the yellow stock bulbs.  We like 'em because they are practical and also eye-catching, and they don't cost too much.  It's a fun modification, and you can do a little at a time, or do the whole car at once.

Some new cars don't get along with LED bulbs, because the resistance is different (lower) than incandescent bulbs.  Those cars have automated bulb-checking routines that test the bulbs even when they are not in use.  The BRZ belongs to a simpler time, though, and doesn't have any of that new-fangled bulb testing logic.  In any case, no warning lights lit up in the dash after I installed all those LED bulbs.

Product links: License plate lamps, backup lamps, puddle lamps, fog lamps, dome lamp.

And for the second of the five senses in today's update, we built a prototype dual-outlet muffler delete.  This one has fully-polished double-walled tips, so it looks very presentable (as compared to our strictly-business single-outlet muffler delete).  It isn't what I'd call quiet, but I think it sounds great.  It's still much lighter than stock (I don't know the exact weight yet, but I'd guess it's around 18 pounds lighter than stock.)

We'll be manufacturing this one over the next few weeks.  When they're in stock I'll post a link.

Whiteline Com-C strut tops installed

From the factory, the BRZ comes with almost no front camber.  You can install eccentric bolts to get a little, but they don't help that much.  You can install solid aluminum upper mounts with spherical ("pillow ball") bearings, but those have their own issues, which include lots of noise.  Or...there's the Whiteline Com-C top mounts, which are a traditional rubber top hat, but with firmer rubber (like Group N parts), and with the center point relocated to one side.  It's not adjustable, but by installing it with the offset center pointing towards the center of the car, we can gain both caster and camber.  (See the photo above, showing one of the mounts on the passenger side of our car.)

Having extra camber helps the car to maintain grip in the corners.  Having more caster gives you more camber only while the wheels are turned, which (it turns out) is exactly when you need more camber.

The Whiteline top-mounts installed easily.  Mach V technician Tommy reports that they were no trouble to install; his only gripe was that the factory dust caps are slightly smaller than the holes they would go in, so he secured them with some urethane adhesive.

On the alignment rack, the car gained almost 1 degree of camber, ending up at -1.2 degrees left and right.  Caster also increased by a little over a degree, to 6.8 degrees.

On the street the car feels the same -- I didn't notice any additional harshness from the stiffer hats.  The car drives about the same, and I honestly could not feel the additional front grip -- the limits are so high that on the street it's hard to get the front end to wash out at all.  A few tail-out donut maneuvers in an empty parking lot showed that the rear is just as frisky as ever.



The big 255 tires fit under the front fenders a little better now, too -- before they were distinctly poking out of the front.  Now they're nestled in there nicely.

If you'd like to buy a set of these nifty top mounts, you can (as always) find them over at the Mach V web site.

Production muffler deletes are here!

We now have the production version of our Mach V muffler delete pipe in stock.  It's a simple, lightweight alternative to the heavy stock muffler setup.  Bolt this thing on and your car drops 23 pounds -- we can't think of another single modification that reduces weight by that much!  Plus, it sounds great.  (Check out our previous blog post for the video recording.)  It's all stainless steel, including the hanger, with a slash-cut tip that matches the bumper contour nicely.  Bolts up easily to any BRZ or FR-S.

You can purchase the Mach V muffler delete pipe HERE.

Radiator hoses, updates on previous posts

Cool hoses keep car cool

We installed some new silicone radiator hoses from Fuku Works.  (Fuku?  Sounds like...something from an Austin Powers movie?)  The hoses fit very nicely, and have an interesting webbed scale pattern on them.  The first color available is white, which matches our white car, but I think the other colors (blue, green, black) will be more practical in terms of not showing dirt.  It's a three-piece kit.  We installed them with special "cut-proof" clamps that we sell.

You can purchase the radiator hose kit from our web site, HERE.

So clean!  Of course, rain followed immediately

I washed the car by hand over the weekend, and was struck by how much less dirt accumulates on it compared to some of my other cars.  The rear doesn't have nearly as much soot stuck to it as the turbo cars, and the wheels barely have any brake dust.  Low weight + tiny brakes = low dust!  The small size means the wash doesn't take long, either.

Audio system update!  I really enjoy the Pioneer head unit (full name: AVH-P8400BH).  I have not been using any of the App Radio features -- I never need nav on the commute to or from work anyway -- but I have been plugging an iPod Classic in.  Then I can control the ipod from the head unit.  It works well, and the graphics are great -- cover art shows up nice and large.  The sound is very clear, too.  Actual buttons (as opposed to touch-screen virtual buttons) for track forward/back are very handy.  Answering and hanging up the phone works fine, too -- those are touch screen functions, but they are large enough that I don't have trouble hitting them, like I did with the OEM head unit.

The only thing that I'm missing is bass.  I bought the amp intending to add a sub, but to save time and money on the initial install I left the subwoofer for later.  Now I find that I really notice the lack of deep bass, and I'm pondering how best to address it.  I really don't want to use up a ton of precious rear space, nor do I want to add a bunch of weight.  Hmm.  Sub in place of the spare tire?  Inside of the spare tire?  Tiny sub under the passenger seat?  Custom sub in the rear corner of the hatch?  I'll do some brainstorming and check back here.

We've added a few more parts to our web catalog.  We now offer BC coilovers for the car, as well as Deatschwerks fuel injectors.  (You'll probably want those if you're planning to add a turbo or supercharger to the car.)  We also have the Injen intake in stock.  More parts are coming in all the time!

More driving impressions, and prototype parts

I've been commuting back and forth to work in the BRZ, and the more I drive it, the more I just love this car.  I am afraid I'm turning into a less-polite driver, because every time I'm in the car I just want to grab it by the scruff of the neck and toss it around.  I find myself using full throttle more than in my other cars, and challenging myself to see if I can get past slow cars in traffic.  I feel like I'm reverting to a teenager.  On the plus side, full-throttle driving doesn't actually make the car go very fast, nor does it make much noise with the stock exhaust, so a lot of times I think I'm the only one who knows I'm flogging the car.  The rest of the world just cruises along in their tall, sound-isolated, luxury barges.  Which happen to be faster than my car, but that just makes it all the more challenging to keep up.

The car is very, very low.  It was low to start with, and the Mach V springs have lowered it about another inch.  Either way, I noticed that a lot of drivers don't even see the car -- I've had a couple of somewhat close calls with bigger vehicles changing lanes and not seeing me.  Maybe I need a little orange flag to stick up off the top like on a bicycle.

Getting in the car and driving it, I have these weird flashbacks to other cars I've owned or driven in my past. Today I had a memory of driving a 1988 Honda CRX Si, back when that car was new.  The Subaru has some of the same sensory triggers: Short-throw gearbox, taut handling, naturally-aspirated engine that only makes power up top, and light weight.  I remember revving that CRX to redline at any and every opportunity, and I'm driving the BRZ that way, too.  It's refreshing and pleasant to be able to use every bit of the car's performance, and not have to worry so much about breaking the sound barrier (or my driver's license).

The handling is forgiving and exploitable in the same way.  Other cars I have, or have had recently, have such high limits, I could never, ever approach the limits on any public road.  It just wouldn't be safe or sane.  The BRZ has pretty good grip, but the limits are very progressive and approachable.  I feel comfortable playing around with the car in a corner, exploring a little bit of oversteer or understeer, and I don't have to be going 100 mph to do it.  A simple cloverleaf becomes my own little section of race track banking, and I'm only going 35 mph.

In other news, parts development for the car continues.  Our muffler delete pipes are in production now and should be ready in a couple of weeks.  We recently test-fit a prototype front license plate mount that bolts into the tow hook location (so you don't have to screw it directly into the bumper), and we should have those in 2-3 weeks as well.  Our Mach V rear differential cover, billet aluminum with big cooling fins, is also in development.

We also got in some aftermarket silicone radiator hoses from Fuku Works, and we'll be test-fitting those sometime soon.

First dyno numbers

Now that the painful 1000-mile break-in is done, I feel comfortable wringing the car out, so that means a trip to our Dynojet dyno.  I did runs with the car in all-stock configuration, and then I also removed the rear muffler section and replaced it with a little stubby pipe that we fabricated.  We observed the same horsepower with and without that muffler section.  The power is about on par with other BRZ / FR-S dyno results we've seen.  The weird semi-circle of low torque between 3000 and 4000 RPM is common across every dyno graph.

I tried one run where we removed the intake filer completely.  That resulted in no benefit.

159 horsepower to the rear wheels is pretty low.  We usually see a 15% loss from the engine to the dyno, so we'd expect 170 rear-wheel horsepower from a 200-hp-rated car.  159 at the wheels would indicate more like 187 at the engine.  Perhaps the power will go up after the car has been run in some more.  We'll check back.

The modest result on the dyno brings to mind our current vanity plate for the car, pictured at right.  (Vanity plates cost next to nothing in Virginia, so we'll probably end up changing these a few times.)

We got some decent video footage of the dyno runs with the muffler on:

I also did a little bit of outside recording of the sound with the muffler delete installed.  To my surprise, the noise was pretty moderate -- I wouldn't really mind living with that on a daily basis.  Although there's no increase in horsepower, taking off the muffler does drop about 25 pounds from the car -- almost 1% - so that's a plus.  We haven't decided yet if we're going to mass-produce the muffler delete.  Let us know if you'd be interested in purchasing one.

Window tint and lowering springs

We got some more changes made to the car, both minor and major.  The first was the addition of window tint.  Matt at TNT Tint applied it, and did a great job, as always.  (He's tinted every car I've had in the last...bunch of years.)  Tint level is 35% on the side and rear windows.






Matt showed me a cool trick relating to the windows.  Like many modern cars, the BRZ rolls its windows up and down when you open and close the door, to get a good seal when the door closes.  When you apply window tint, though, you don't want the windows to move while the tint is drying.  The solution is to remove the single 10mm bolt that retains the rubber button (inside the door sill) that detects the open door.  That button is grounded through the bolt, so removing the bolt makes the car think the door is always closed.  Use a piece of masking tape to temporarily hold the button in place, so it doesn't fall loose and get crushed.

Next up was a set of our new Mach V lowering springs for BRZ and FR-S.  I designed these to be 28% stiffer than stock in the front, 30% stiffer in the rear.  They brought the car down by about 3/4" in the front, and about 1" in the rear.  I think it looks great.  The ride feels the same on most surfaces; it's a little harsher on small bumps, but in most cases I don't notice the difference.  Body roll wasn't really an issue before, but the car feels even lower and flatter-handling than before.  It's a lot of fun!


I was worried the slightly-too-large tires would rub with the car lowered, but so far I have not been able to get it to contact.  I'll see if I can do some more aggressive cornering sometime this week.

The production version of the springs should be in stock around the beginning of September.  In the mean time, you can pre-order them if you'd like.

 In other news, this magic number appeared on the odometer this morning, so the Mach V BRZ is officially broken in.  On the dyno it goes...

Wheel swapping and more

We had a good customer allow us to test fit his Rota D wheels (18x8.5") on our BRZ.  We think it looks very nice.  Tires are 235/40R18.  These won't be on the car for the long term, but we did get some nice pictures and established that they'll fit up well.  We'd probably go down a little on the tire diameter -- these are 3.2% larger than stock.  A 235/35R18 would be a better match for the stock diameter.

The BRZ has 850 miles on it now.  Break-in is almost complete!  I plan to put it on the dyno as soon as it cracks 1000 miles, and we'll swap our prototype stubby no-muffler rear section on and off to see how much power (if any) muffler removal is worth.

We popped in some LED turn signal bulbs, and a different turn signal blinker module.  (Without the proper blinker modules, the LED bulbs will blink extra-fast.)  The LED bulbs are clean and white looking when they're off.  We like the style.  They also come on faster than incandescent bulbs, which could be some kind of safety advantage, I suppose.

We sell the bulbs as a kit, HERE.  You get four LED bulbs and one blinker module.  These will PROBABLY work on the FR-S, too, but I haven't verified that yet.

In up-coming posts I hope to be able to write about some of the parts we have in the prototype phase.