If you have AutoCrossed your BRZ/FRS Give your impressions here

[Ranatsu]

Originally Posted by Scooby South

Very cool...thanks for sharing.. ...

Something All STOCK BRZ owners will be interested in from the Service manual:

Replace the upper mounting bolt of the shock absorber ASSY FR and knuckle with a replacement bolt. (Part No.: Flange bolt 14×60 (901000394)). The range adjustable by replacing the bolts is 0°± 45'.


From my understanding there is a Stock (Crash bolt for the Scion also)

Reference:

I guess I will be pulling the camber bolts from the totalled 05 STi I have sitting in my driveway to see if they fit.

[ubersoph]

Haven't autocrossed yet in this car, but I have some experience...

2006-2009 Drove a variety of unprepped uncompetitive cars for 3 years of autocross.
2010 drove an E-Stock 96R Miata for a year, won both my class and cone king locally, not so much with SCCA
2011 drove an STR 99 Miata for a few months before I broke my toe and that grounded me for the season. Nearly full prep. I never won in Milwaukee, but I did pretty well smaller venues
And now this year I think I'm just going to play with my BRZ on the Prius tires, as I promised a friend who is doing the same in an FRS that we'll play . We'll see how long before I cant stand it and get some good tires for RTR... Anyone find any good 17x7 wheels btw?

[Scooby South]

Originally Posted by Ranatsu

I guess I will be pulling the camber bolts from the totalled 05 STi I have sitting in my driveway to see if they fit.

Think your going to have to Reem out the hole for those to fit...they are quite thick... and it gives up to -1 degree adjustment....of course I might be mistaken...if they do work...LMK and I get those as well..

Bill

[feldy]

I know we don't have the cars yet. But what about the old school way of grinding the strut holes? I call it the Andy Hollis way. Most people won't as to try that on a new car. Thinking about this for st not stock.

[Sccabrz192]

I know when struts were purchased for the old STX WRX I used to drive we just requested the clevis holes to be pre-modified with the slot size we wanted.

Though, if you are running ST, why not just use caster/camber plates and leave the lower attachment alone?

[Scooby South]

Originally Posted by Sccabrz192

I know when struts were purchased for the old STX WRX I used to drive we just requested the clevis holes to be pre-modified with the slot size we wanted.

Though, if you are running ST, why not just use caster/camber plates and leave the lower attachment alone?

if you use standard ones...they raise the front end about 3/4-1 inch..the only ones I would consider for that would be the RaceComp ones..that are machined correctly not to raise the front end.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Those sure are pretty.

I'd still run camber bolts with the plates though. I don't like having plates as the only adjustment.

- Andrew

[Scooby South]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

Those sure are pretty.

I'd still run camber bolts with the plates though. I don't like having plates as the only adjustment.

- Andrew

agreed....

Bill

[xwd]

So I have a pre-order in and when I changed my order I got bumped likely to the bottom of the list, so my car is still wait listed and probably won't show up for a little while.

There is a dealer with the model I want who will be getting one sooner, within the next few weeks, but it has the diffuser as an option, along with a couple other unnecessary things like the chrome trim and wheel locks. I like the diffuser but I wanted to race the car in stock class and I'm not sure if it's legal or not. I can't remember how things go as far as factory versus port installed options... I don't think it does anything to the car except add weight so I may end up just removing it and selling it if it bumps me out of stock.

[feldy]

You can run any option in stock as long as its a factory option. Dealer or port installed items are not considered stock.

[Mavrik]

Well I took my BRZ to an autocross yesterday... and I feel foolish.

Some back story about myself. I've autocrossed for about 6 years now. I've got a lot of wins under my belt with my old 07 STi and my 99 2.5RS. I'd like to think that I know a bit about driving but know I've got a lot to learn.

But it was my lack of gadget knowledge that owned me yesterday. I've never autocrossed a rear wheel drive car and one so advanced as the BRZ. My experience stems from FWD and AWD with little to no driving aid/assists on the vehicles.

I didn't get a good feel and impression of the BRZ until my 8th run of the day and I only got 9 runs.

Thoughts:

Awesome car! light and nimble as advertised. I'm 6'3" tall and I had room to spare with my helmet on For you tall guys out there, this is a big plus.

My mistake of the day and an epic one I might add. Traction control and how to properly use it. The manual lied. It states pressing TRAC OFF for 3 seconds and it will disable traction control and other driving aids until turned back on or the vehicle has been shut off. Well its more like 8 seconds that you have to hold that button. I didn't know this until my second to last run.

With the SPORT button on you can get a little sideways with some spin but a hard accel out of a corner and the car falls short on its face. ABS applied the brakes and cut the throttle every time I exited a corner on the throttle. I had to run the course in first gear JUST to try and overcome this with power.

With all the driver aids off I dropped my lap time by 3 seconds. Unfortunatly for me I only had 1 run after that and didn't get a good feel for the car. But there is an autocross next weekend I can attend and one after that. I'll have this dialed in soon.

The BRZ is very unlike a subaru and doesn't handle like one either. This is a good thing. And the tires suck... I'm swapping those out before the next event.

[MarkRacerX]

Thanks for info, my 1st event I just turned all off. Normally we get 6 runs and didn't want anything cutting power on me! Nice you get soo many runs!! Our course is near 50 sec - 1min avg.

Good luck Racing !!!

[RiskyTrousers]

I took the car out yesterday with a friend who also picked up an FR-S. I ran mine completely stock while my buddy ran with 225 Star Specs, -2.4 camber up front and -1.6 out back.

The car is very neutral and rotates extremely easily with a little trail brake in and gas out. Steering is very accurate and communicative. The rear steps out willingly when you want it to and is very easy to keep there or bring it back, no snap nothing!

I used to push (understeer) a lot with my previous car when trying to make up time but the FR-S is sooo transparent that I knew just how hard I could stuff it in a turn. This track layout had a fast off camber sweeper that was a blast! Plant the front at turn in, start feeding in throttle so the rear steps out and start using the throttle to steer, wooooHOO!

I got six runs and by the end the tires started to feel greasy. I ended up being about 2.7 seconds slower than my buddy who is an excellent driver. I'm not sure how much time his tires and alignment were worth, hopefully 2.8 secs lol!

Can't wait for the next event!

Edit: Forgot to mention the super annoying fuel cut. When you hit redline the engine slowly goes down to about 7k, it doesn't just bang off the rev limiter like normal.

[RandyP]

Originally Posted by Mavrik

Well I took my BRZ to an autocross yesterday... and I feel foolish.

Some back story about myself. I've autocrossed for about 6 years now. I've got a lot of wins under my belt with my old 07 STi and my 99 2.5RS. I'd like to think that I know a bit about driving but know I've got a lot to learn.

But it was my lack of gadget knowledge that owned me yesterday. I've never autocrossed a rear wheel drive car and one so advanced as the BRZ. My experience stems from FWD and AWD with little to no driving aid/assists on the vehicles.

I didn't get a good feel and impression of the BRZ until my 8th run of the day and I only got 9 runs.

Thoughts:

Awesome car! light and nimble as advertised. I'm 6'3" tall and I had room to spare with my helmet on For you tall guys out there, this is a big plus.

My mistake of the day and an epic one I might add. Traction control and how to properly use it. The manual lied. It states pressing TRAC OFF for 3 seconds and it will disable traction control and other driving aids until turned back on or the vehicle has been shut off. Well its more like 8 seconds that you have to hold that button. I didn't know this until my second to last run.

With the SPORT button on you can get a little sideways with some spin but a hard accel out of a corner and the car falls short on its face. ABS applied the brakes and cut the throttle every time I exited a corner on the throttle. I had to run the course in first gear JUST to try and overcome this with power.

With all the driver aids off I dropped my lap time by 3 seconds. Unfortunatly for me I only had 1 run after that and didn't get a good feel for the car. But there is an autocross next weekend I can attend and one after that. I'll have this dialed in soon.

The BRZ is very unlike a subaru and doesn't handle like one either. This is a good thing. And the tires suck... I'm swapping those out before the next event.

So, were you completely stopped when you pressed the button? How many seconds before the two red indicators appeared? I'm just starting to play with mine, but it seems the "sport mode" is useless for autox in the dry.