Subaru BRZ Prototype Review by Car and Driver. Calls it a Knockout.

[MF_DEUCE]

EDIT: yea, these numbers seem fishy. hopefully get affirmation from TAS.

[pastuch]

Originally Posted by SUB-FT86

We pay about the same in taxes here in America. If you make 25,000 a year they take 23.5%, if you make 100,000 they will take 40%.

If you live in the province of Quebec, every dollar you make over $83000 is taxed at 53%. I'm not kidding.

[suprachica79]

Costs of health care is what kills us in America. I know families paying $1000 a month for insurance that has a $10k deductible, so basically catastrophic insurance only.

So offtopic!

[NumbersGuy]

Not sure about the specs. 19/27 isn't bad MPG, as long as it is on regular octane and not premium.

[Geard]

FacePalm to specs (hell no on the buying front) and to the Subaru only statement, so were just gonna go ahead and forget what Toyota is capable of producing when they really put work into something. I dont believe it and subaru is the only one singing the we did it all song....

I will wait for final production specs to pass judgement, I am a Toyota guy myself always liked Subaru but this is just sad.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by NumbersGuy

Not sure about the specs. 19/27 isn't bad MPG, as long as it is on regular octane and not premium.

Very unlikely I'd imagine. I can't recall too many performance 4 cylinders that used regular octane. 200HP out of a 2.0 non turbo is going to require decent compression, and as such, higher octane IMO.

[MF_DEUCE]

My first reaction to this article...

[madfast]

I said it all along. Subaru is salty about how everyone think this is a toyota led car.

and yet ALL the evidence leads to toyota having a heavy hand in its design/engineering. its as simple as this: they say they did all the testing, and yet this past weekend who drove the car around the Nring? Gazoo racing is related to subaru and not toyota all of a sudden?

[SUB-FT86]

Originally Posted by madfast

I said it all along. Subaru is salty about how everyone think this is a toyota led car.

and yet ALL the evidence leads to toyota having a heavy hand in its design/engineering. its as simple as this: they say they did all the testing, and yet this past weekend who drove the car around the Nring? Gazoo racing is related to subaru and not toyota all of a sudden?

Do you remember the first prototype? It was a Subaru hack to together ugly monstrosity and it was driven by Subaru back then. Then we saw Toyota's version on the ring when it got an actual body with Toyota's engineers. Do the math and you will see that Subaru footed most of the moving parts.

[Leeky]

Something i've been thinking about this evening.....

The Subaru is going to cost more than the Toyota - this is pretty much a given.

The new 2.0 boxer has been co-developed by both companies, so a lot of time and money has been spent. So both companies will want to use this engine. Neither will want to go and offer a different engine, especially as in Subaru's case they wont want to give this car enough power to take sales away from the Impreza STI.

So same car, same engine, but different prices. So perhaps there may be some truth to the whole story of the subaru getting more power.

I mean brand loyalty is one thing, but is your average Subaru fan going to hand over an extra 5k (25% of the Toyota) just to have the Subaru? - I dont think so. There has got to be something more to justify that price than just a nicer interior etc.

But as per the Autocar article i would say that any such difference in power is going to be purely ECU driven. Mechanically i would put money on them being 100% identical.

So lets say for arguments sake the Toyota is 200bhp and lets assume its mapped for regular 95ron unleaded - the cheap stuff - as after all with this kind of power and rpm there is no need for stronger fuel - your not getting into the NA detonation zone at only 7400rpm on a modern engine like this.

Now with the Subaru version lets assume we could be looking at a map for 99+ron fuel and Subaru explicitly tell owner that this car NEEDS 99 Ron or above. So it gets a noticeably more agressive map to take advantage of this fuel and advanced timing.

I dont know how direct injection works, but i would expect direct injection to be percentage wise more efficient the higher you go with the grade of fuel?

Assume adjusting the map and upping the power may naturally move the power band a lot higher up the rev range; which would require them to move the redline up along with the limiter. So lets be conservative and say another 500rpm. This could make a good 10-20bhp difference.

Using the ST205 as template (yes yes i know its comparing a Turbo car to a non-turbo, but stock for stock we're talking not too dissimmilar power to the FT86/BRZ), the UK Cars were rated at 239bhp (95ron unleaded) when they came out back in 1994 and the JDM version was 255bhp (100ron).

Thats a good 16bhp difference and i know for a fact that the ECU maps are the same but the ecu simply advances or retards the timing depending on the fuel you are putting in.

I've seen standard UK cars which simply run 99ron fuel and they dyno almost identical power to the JDM cars.

So what im getting at is I wonder if it'll be a simple case that the FT86 will be tuned for running on cheaper fuel, while the BRZ will be tuned for 99+Ron fuel?

In which case, who cares if the Subaru has more power?

I'll have the cheaper Toyota, then i'll run it on higher grade fuel and use an Apexi S-AFC to re-map it. I may even get more power than the Subaru!

[Sabastian]

Originally Posted by Leeky

Something i've been thinking about this evening.....

The Subaru is going to cost more than the Toyota - this is pretty much a given.

The new 2.0 boxer has been co-developed by both companies, so a lot of time and money has been spent. So both companies will want to use this engine. Neither will want to go and offer a different engine, especially as in Subaru's case they wont want to give this car enough power to take sales away from the Impreza STI.

So same car, same engine, but different prices. So perhaps there may be some truth to the whole story of the subaru getting more power.

I mean brand loyalty is one thing, but is your average Subaru fan going to hand over an extra 5k (25% of the Toyota) just to have the Subaru? - I dont think so. There has got to be something more to justify that price than just a nicer interior etc.

But as per the Autocar article i would say that any such difference in power is going to be purely ECU driven. Mechanically i would put money on them being 100% identical.

So lets say for arguments sake the Toyota is 200bhp and lets assume its mapped for regular 95ron unleaded - the cheap stuff - as after all with this kind of power and rpm there is no need for stronger fuel - your not getting into the NA detonation zone at only 7400rpm on a modern engine like this.

Now with the Subaru version lets assume we could be looking at a map for 99+ron fuel and Subaru explicitly tell owner that this car NEEDS 99 Ron or above. So it gets a noticeably more agressive map to take advantage of this fuel and advanced timing.

I dont know how direct injection works, but i would expect direct injection to be percentage wise more efficient the higher you go with the grade of fuel?

Assume adjusting the map and upping the power may naturally move the power band a lot higher up the rev range; which would require them to move the redline up along with the limiter. So lets be conservative and say another 500rpm. This could make a good 10-20bhp difference.

Using the ST205 as template (yes yes i know its comparing a Turbo car to a non-turbo, but stock for stock we're talking not too dissimmilar power to the FT86/BRZ), the UK Cars were rated at 239bhp (95ron unleaded) when they came out back in 1994 and the JDM version was 255bhp (100ron).

Thats a good 16bhp difference and i know for a fact that the ECU maps are the same but the ecu simply advances or retards the timing depending on the fuel you are putting in.

I've seen standard UK cars which simply run 99ron fuel and they dyno almost identical power to the JDM cars.

So what im getting at is I wonder if it'll be a simple case that the FT86 will be tuned for running on cheaper fuel, while the BRZ will be tuned for 99+Ron fuel?

In which case, who cares if the Subaru has more power?

I'll have the cheaper Toyota, then i'll run it on higher grade fuel and use an Apexi S-AFC to re-map it. I may even get more power than the Subaru!

It's also possible that the Subaru will just come with more standard equipment, and that the Scion won't be as cheap as everyone on these boards thinks its going to be.

[Dimman]

If those power/torque numbers are legit, 210 @ 6500 and 170 @ 4000 is pretty epic for a 2.0L NA.

Like really epic.


Edit: Impossibly epic maybe?

BMEP is ~210 psi (which is freakin' awesome) at both the torque peak and power peak. BMEP on NA motors is always highest at torque peak and then tapers down.

So there is some BS in the air...

[Leeky]

Well i've re-read this article about the BRZ (you can see in the pictures too that its the Subaru and not the Toyota) and there is the mention of things like climate control and a space saver tyre. Plus there are spotlights/foglight in the bottom of the front bumper in the smaller picture on page2.

So if the Subaru has the full spec, is 2800lbs that bad? and is $28k that far off?

The base price Toyota version with no air conditioning, no stereo, no spotlights and a tire repair can rather than a spare this could well weigh in 2600lbs and cost around $20k

Im starting to believe this article......

[Matador]

Originally Posted by SUB-FT86

I believe Subaru on this one. Toyota is better at sports car styling than Subaru so it makes sense that Toyota did the styling and Subaru had to do everything else.

Guy. FR sports cars/ sport sedans/GTs. Toyota; 2000GT, Sport 800 (boxer rwd no less), T/RA2x-T/RA6x Celicas, 4 Generations of Supras, AE86 Corolla GT(s), Chaser Tourer V, Altezza/IS, Soarer/SC, Aristo/GS, LFmtherfkingA....

Subaru; um... hmmmm...

Yes. Makes complete sense that Subaru did everything but the styling.

Originally Posted by Dimman

And all Lotus cars are joint ventures with Camry-by-the-billions Toyota, so..?

Have they personally driven the car to justify their logic of comparing it to a Lotus?

Anti-Toyota article, is all.


Matador, trolling?

(PS, I don't really hate Subaru. More of a reverse demonstration of how their analogy dis-respects Toyota. But the "We did it all!" attitude pisses me off.)

So not trolling. Found the article this morning and was quite disgusted actually. These guys are behaving like spoiled fucking children, and ***if*** the journalism is accurate, they are downright lying. Even on the remote chance this were true, the version that the PROJECT's HEAD ENGINEER gave, was in no way damaging to subaru, they have no reason to be asses about it, and it befuddles me why they would chose to damage their relationship with the guys that own 17% of their company like that. ****s.

The last few weeks have been of the FML...nay... FMELL variety, so I really wasn't in the mood to say more.

Originally Posted by WingsofWar

this thread makes me sad

even if the car handles great, it needs to do all that at a price point. and 28k is not it. especially at that level.

Yeah. Fuck $28k. Better come with a turbo and the better side of 270hp for that price. Seriously.

Originally Posted by pastuch

ROFL! Americans complaining about income tax... oh my god. Try living in Canada. We pay 30 to 40%. If you make more than 100k it's 40% income tax minimum, significantly higher in some provinces.

FR-S/BRZ will be a little more expensive here too likely.

Epic-fail: If you live in the province of Quebec, every dollar you make over $83000 is taxed at 53%. I'm not kidding.

Wow. Fuck working in Canada. That's some serious ass rape-age.

Originally Posted by MF_DEUCE

EDIT: yea, these numbers seem fishy. hopefully get affirmation from TAS.

TAS = Tokyo Auto Salon, which is in January. You are looking for the Tokyo motor show there champ.

Originally Posted by madfast

I said it all along. Subaru is salty about how everyone think this is a toyota led car.

and yet ALL the evidence leads to toyota having a heavy hand in its design/engineering. its as simple as this: they say they did all the testing, and yet this past weekend who drove the car around the Nring? Gazoo racing is related to subaru and not toyota all of a sudden?