Branka: Country Road Specialist

[Tristor]

Originally Posted by nitro_alltrac

Nice build.

You're right about some great roads around there. The Twisted Sisters are a blast.

Is that track up around San Marcos?

Thanks, I've been out on Twisted Sisters and Hill Country Trail several times. I'm basically building the car to focus on Twisted Sisters runs in particular

That track is in Austin, it's Driveway Austin, near the airport. The one in San Marcos is Harris Hill, which is also a great track I've heard.


After further reading/research/internal debate I've decided to do the JR Dual Rad + the Stark AT Cooler this year at some point + swapping fluids out in the process.

[nitro_alltrac]

That's cool. I didn't know there was another track in Austin besides COA.

I lived in San Antonio for three years and got some good driving in down there with the Celica All Trac I had at the time.

Keep up the good work.

[weederr33]

Originally Posted by Tristor

Thanks, I've been out on Twisted Sisters and Hill Country Trail several times. I'm basically building the car to focus on Twisted Sisters runs in particular

That track is in Austin, it's Driveway Austin, near the airport. The one in San Marcos is Harris Hill, which is also a great track I've heard.


After further reading/research/internal debate I've decided to do the JR Dual Rad + the Stark AT Cooler this year at some point + swapping fluids out in the process.

Have you joined any of the Facebook groups? There's one I'm in called Texas Lateral G and we join up with folks from Austin and SA and drive various roads around the hill country. The Twisted Sisters is an amazing series of roads. Almost like our version of European twisty back roads or something out of Japan.

[Tristor]

Originally Posted by weederr33

Have you joined any of the Facebook groups? There's one I'm in called Texas Lateral G and we join up with folks from Austin and SA and drive various roads around the hill country. The Twisted Sisters is an amazing series of roads. Almost like our version of European twisty back roads or something out of Japan.

Howdy, yep I'm in a few Facebook groups. One of the folks I met at the track actually just invited me to Texas Lateral G. I'm looking forward to doing a Twisted Sisters run with y'all at some point. I used to live in Colorado and there's some incredible roads out there, one of these days I'm going to drive back up there to visit and hit some actual mountain passes but you're spot on that Twisted Sisters is nearly as good. It'd be well suited to a Touge style race as well.

[Tristor]

I had just posted when my Perrin Wing Risers (for MY 2017-2018 BRZ Limited factory wings) came in the mail, so I didn't post immediately since I didn't want to be too spammy. Well, today I went to Twisted Sisters and when I got back I cleaned my girl and took some pictures so you can see what the wing risers look like. I'm a fan since I think it's very subtle, but still present.









I didn't see any other imports running Twisted Sisters today, just a lot of motorcycles and a miles long convoy of beautiful restored classic American cars, as well as what looked like a group drive by a bunch of Ford Focus enthusiasts (there were around 14-15 in a row together). I usually see at least a few Miatas and a few other 86s out there, but none today.

I'm hoping to get out on the track again on the 14th before I install the new wheels/tires, we'll see how it goes.

[Tristor]

Blackstone Labs got back to me with the reports from the oil samples I submitted after my track day last month. I changed my oil and sent two samples, a used oil sample and a sample of virgin Subaru 0W-20 oil just for comparison purposes.

Virgin Subaru 0W-20 full synthetic (PN# SOA427V1315 ):


Used oil after my track day on March 24th (changed oil and submitted samples on March 27th):


There you have it.

[Tristor]

Hello All,

I'm trying to space my updates out a little bit, so I hope 8 days is enough. I had a good car week last week, attending 3 shows and culminating in another Twisted Sisters run on Sunday during amazing weather. And today, blessed day, my wheels finally arrived and a day earlier than predicted. I just finished up the unboxing and am going to be taking them to a local recommended auto detailing salon to have them cleaned and ceramic coated before I get tires mounted up.

On my Twisted Sisters run, I think I took out half of the West Texas Air Force on the hood of my car, but my baby had a bath as soon as I got back and she's looking fine again:



Here's the photos from my delivery:



If you see peeking out from the back are my AP Racing Sprint BBK that's waiting to be installed after the wheels get on.



They're legit, took forever. 18x8.5 ET44 ZE40 Time Attack Editions



Opening it up



Their sexy faces

Now I just need to wait for the delivery today of some H&R Trak+ 5mm hubcentric spacers for the rear. Then I'll be able to get ceramic coating done, tires on these, and get everything on the car with me doing +44 in the front and +39 offset in the rear. Not quite perfect flush on a stock suspension, but very close.

I'm hoping after I get back from some work travel I can get a few rollers made for me by a friend. We had 5 FT86s meet up and do photos the other night at one of the meets:





These are just the ones I took from my phone while the real photographer was working. I'm still waiting on the final proofs to get sent over to the group.

Anyway, happy driving all.

[Tristor]

Howdy All,

So I should apologize in advance for posting again so soon, but I do have a good update My wheels and tires are on the car and it looks great. I was originally planning to mount 225/40R18 Bridgestone Potenza S-04 Pole Positions, but these are now discontinued according to my tire guy. In the end I got a great price and went forward with putting 225/40R18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S on it I'm glad that I did. I can't wait to give it a serious shake-down cruise, and then my next item on the agenda is getting brakes on.

I won't be able to work on my the brakes until next Friday, but hopefully within a couple of weeks I'll be able to do another weekend track day or another Twisted Sisters run, one of the two. Then I'm going to start looking at some minimal suspension modifications I can do this year while I wait on an influx of spare cash I can get away with spending on car parts instead of home renovations

Here's a closeup of the wheels mounted with the tires (photo taken before the car wash). I had to use the collar for the valve-stem from the TPMS sensor, rather than the one that came with the wheels so the colors don't match perfectly, but I could at least use the washer and valve stem cap that are red to match.



I just got back from visiting the car wash to clean out the inside of my car and the outside after having my stock wheels/tires being transported and all the other mess that went with it. She's a beauty, just need to get my suspension mods done sometime soon to both improve handling and to close that massive fender gap.



Pretty girl

[DaBoBo21]

Looks good!

[Iceman]

Looks great, i love ZE40's for the twins...!

[Tristor]

Howdy again y'all!

Last weekend I was unable to do any other significant work, because I had to travel for my job. This weekend I was lucky enough to get some good garage time in, including having my housemate move their vehicle so I'd have the whole garage to myself.



Anyhow, I went ahead and installed my AP Racing Sprint big brake kit + Ferodo DS2500 pads. I also put Spiegler SS lines in the rear (no photo) with Ferodo DS2500 pads to match.

Left (Driver) Side Brakes



Right (Passenger) Side Brakes



After bedding in, I took this shot. As you can see (barely in the bright light) there's a color change with bluing on the rotor.


Unfortunately, while bedding in my TPMS light kicked on... I'm still not sure what the cause is.




All in all though, these new brakes are performing spectacularly in my quick test cruise. Unfortunately even after bedding in the Ferodo DS2500 are VERY noisy. I am hoping to find some non-noisy pads that I can swap in on all four wheels so that my neighbors don't hate me. I'm looking at maybe Carbotech 1521. I'm probably going to email CSG and Essex to see what they recommend.

Cheers and safe driving y'all.

[Tristor]

Just a quick update on both items I mentioned in my last post above:

1) TPMS light

The TPMS light has turned off now. I still have no idea why it came on, or what precipitated it. I've verified my tire pressures again are correct and even across all 4 tires. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2) Noisy brakes with Ferodo DS2500 pads

Noise has reduced somewhat, but is still present when coming to a stop at stoplights. Effectively noise doesn't occur until I'm inching forward at this point. When I'm hard on the brakes, it is quiet. There was an additional noise when traveling at speed which sounded like high frequency bells that I determined was vibrations of the brake pads in the calipers. I applied some Permatex Silicon Ceramic Extreme Brake Parts Lube to the backing plate of the pads and this eliminated the vibration noise at speed, but did not seem to affect the squealing during stops at all. The harder I stop, the quieter they are, but this unfortunately isn't very friendly to trying to park in my garage so my neighbors have been giving me the death glare. I sent an email to CSG to ask about their thoughts on the Carbotech 1521 since they'd recommended it to solve this issue in a past thread I found searching the forums.

[Tristor]

Howdy All,

Just a quick update. I did another run on Twisted Sisters this morning, but I was running later than usual (I like to be going down 337W by 8AM, today it was around 10AM). Ended up hitting traffic the whole way... especially Harley bikers sandbagging it in the corners. Figured I need to get back on track anyway and scheduled two more track days. I'll be at Harris Hill Raceway on the 13th and the 19th, and will update after each on anything that's necessary to do to the car.

I also have a set of Hard Brakes titanium brake shims I'm going to install tonight to try to help reduce noise from the DS2500s and maybe they'll help on the track too

[Tristor]

No huge updates currently. I went to Harris Hill Raceway for the first time yesterday (13th) and had a blast. I took a course of instruction which included 3 20 minute sessions, total of 28 laps. On lap #19 I did my best time at 1:43.86, although obviously time wasn't especially my focus. I used Harry's Laptimer and was able to get enough data logging to analyze and determine I absolutely do need an engine oil cooler.

Here's a video of the lap: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQyIkywMLEM[/ame]

After analyzing my data logs, my peak oil temperature was 258F and my average oil temperature was 256F for the day. The ambient temperature was around 82F, so I'm especially concerned how things will go as Summer progresses down here in South Texas. I'm thinking at this point that getting the Jackson Racing Dual Rad Oil Cooler is the best bet.

Cheers