Verus' Shop BRZ - Development Thread

[VerusEric]

Originally Posted by ermax

Those bearings do look good. Just curious, how many miles are on these bearings?

22-23k miles total. I haven't looked at the ODO for a little while but it's right around there.

Originally Posted by Trust86

Was is an early or late MY14? Also were you still running 13.5 psi??

Very early 14. I got it late 2013. Yes, 13-14psi; ~400whp.

[Summerwolf]

What wheels are on the blue car?

[VerusEric]

Time to update the forum thread! Well I picked out and received the heart transplant for the shop car. It's a gen V 3sge. I own an MR2 Turbo as well, so this engine kind of brings me back to what started all of "this" for me... it seemed fitting and I hope that it will have a bit more reliability at ~350-400whp.



The engine came with a shelf full of other goodies that I'll get to install along with the 3sge.



Got a lightweight flywheel coming after feeling how heavy the OE unit is (it was also fairly worn and used).



The oil pan was semi-dented; and the PO brought a spare he was planning to swap on anyway, so that is what I did this weekend. Below are a few photos of the lower oil pan off, showing the factory windage tray, etc.





New pan is installed. I also threw on a TRD oil filter which is probably 6 years old at this point... but still an awesome filter and super JDM.



I'll keep the thread updated as I work through everything and hopefully get it running again before the end of the year.

Thanks,
Eric

[VerusEric]

I noticed a bit of black/soot build up around cylinder 4 when I was cleaning/working on it over the weekend (top right).



So I grabbed the header and hit it on the belt sander. The flange is slightly warped.



I then spotted a crack in one of the cylinders.



A few of the other tube to flange welds seemed a bit skimpy as well.



I ended up adding a bit of weld to a few locations I thought were a bit thin. Not a great welder but I think the added material will help the header survive.



I need to get the header to a friend's shop now to deck it flat. My belt sander just isn't powerful enough to get it done in any reasonable timeframe.

Thanks,
Eric

[RallySTI]

What transmission are you planning to use ?

[VerusEric]

Originally Posted by RallySTI

What transmission are you planning to use ?

Altezza trans. Looks similar to the AZ6, but a bit different. Unsure how it will handle power yet.

I was able to make my way down to Fathouse Fabrication this past weekend and they helped me deck the turbo manifold flat. Looks quite sexy and should seal much better.



I did a bit of quick griding/porting as well. The tubes weren't perfect to the ports, so I just opened them up a bit to flow a bit nicer.





Small steps I know, but I don't have much free time.

Thanks,
Eric

[VerusEric]

Spent a bit of time on it this weekend.

The transmission needs a bit of massaging to fit, or so it appears. Below is how the trans was delivered.



A half an hour with a grinder and some sanding and it looks a bit better. At least I'm a bit happier with it.



The PO also polished the intake, but it left some cracks that had me questioning the manifold's integrity and sealing.





When I pressure tested the manifold, it did in fact leak. It was likely not enough to actually matter but being a perfectionist, I wanted to fix these leaks.

Due to the manifold being used (oil on the inside) and polished (polishing compound in the cracks), this was not a fun and easy job to weld. I'm not a welder by trade so what I did; may not be 100% correct; however, it did work.

I started by going over the weld joint to pull all the contaminants to the surface.





Once the contaminants were to the surface; I used a wire brush to clean them off as best I could. After this, I was able to re-weld the seams without major contamination in the weld pool. Towards the end (bottom right curved weld) I started going over the joint twice to pull out more of contaminants. This allowed me to actually make a decent weld.



Thanks,
Eric

[VerusEric]

Below are some photos of the past few weeks of work. Progress is pretty slow as the business always comes first... but progress is progress!

Picked up a set of Ohlins Road and Tracks. The front units are supposedly blown, so I will have to rebuild them sooner than later.





Lightweight flywheel and clutch on


Transmission bolted to engine


The drivetrain in the car


The coolant system needs some work. The PO had a dual filler deal going on, and one had the overflow welded shut. I wanted to re-use this radiator neck, so I worked on fixing this. Yes, I could have bought a radiator neck but wanted to try fixing the threads first.





I'm also a cooling snob, and while the kit came with a kit specific radiator and fans, I have to use ours as I know it is the best unit available for a factory bolt in ordeal. This lead me to fabricate our own coolant hoses.

Driver side


Passenger side


The only thing left on the cooling system side will be the radiator neck! Pretty excited to be able to fill the system up with coolant shortly.

Thanks,
Eric

[ichitaka05]

Originally Posted by VerusEric

Quick question... or maybe I missed it, but this spoiler already on sale? If not, have you thought about making the mounting like Sard spoiler? Easy mount on and off. Of course, bolted on is always better. For me (& maybe other ppl) I prefer to have spoiler on for autox/track on the weekend and have it off for weekday without worrying about someone stealing or showing the bolt marks on the trunk. If it's too much to change now, you can ignore it.

Just my 2yen.

[tehShirt]

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

Quick question... or maybe I missed it, but this spoiler already on sale? If not, have you thought about making the mounting like Sard spoiler? Easy mount on and off. Of course, bolted on is always better. For me (& maybe other ppl) I prefer to have spoiler on for autox/track on the weekend and have it off for weekday without worrying about someone stealing or showing the bolt marks on the trunk. If it's too much to change now, you can ignore it.

Just my 2yen.

https://www.verus-engineering.com/pr...g-brz-frs-gt86

[VerusEric]

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

Quick question... or maybe I missed it, but this spoiler already on sale? If not, have you thought about making the mounting like Sard spoiler? Easy mount on and off. Of course, bolted on is always better. For me (& maybe other ppl) I prefer to have spoiler on for autox/track on the weekend and have it off for weekday without worrying about someone stealing or showing the bolt marks on the trunk. If it's too much to change now, you can ignore it.

Just my 2yen.

The issue arises when you realize the Sard is more of an aesthetic piece than a functional one. We can tell this by looking at the airfoil in person, it is very thin and likely does not produce a large amount of downforce. This is great for most people as they are after the looks, and it does look very nice, and likely doesn't come with a large drag penalty.

However, I believe if we were to adopt a similar mounting style, that the loads placed on our wing at track speeds would result in possible failure or trunk deformation. That is ultimately why we mounted the wing how we mounted it as it uses the only strong part of the trunk for quite a bit of strength, and then we reinforced it further with a bent stainless piece.

The mounting we chose is a large reason why you can have two grown (sort of) men stand on the wing without deforming the trunk.



It definitely is not everyone's favorite look but it functions. During the winter I may look into changing up the mounting but we'll have to keep the bottom locations where they are, unfortunately; it's the only strong part of the trunk.

Thanks,
Eric

[ichitaka05]

Originally Posted by tehShirt

https://www.verus-engineering.com/pr...g-brz-frs-gt86

I promise, I did search around site... but it was a bit late night & prob missed it.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by VerusEric

The issue arises when you realize the Sard is more of an aesthetic piece than a functional one. We can tell this by looking at the airfoil in person, it is very thin and likely does not produce a large amount of downforce. This is great for most people as they are after the looks, and it does look very nice, and likely doesn't come with a large drag penalty.

However, I believe if we were to adopt a similar mounting style, that the loads placed on our wing at track speeds would result in possible failure or trunk deformation. That is ultimately why we mounted the wing how we mounted it as it uses the only strong part of the trunk for quite a bit of strength, and then we reinforced it further with a bent stainless piece.

The mounting we chose is a large reason why you can have two grown (sort of) men stand on the wing without deforming the trunk.



It definitely is not everyone's favorite look but it functions. During the winter I may look into changing up the mounting but we'll have to keep the bottom locations where they are, unfortunately; it's the only strong part of the trunk.

Thanks,
Eric

Thanks for clarifying. Spoiler discussion came up w local auto’ers and they were looking at Sard spoiler, so I’ve shown your spoiler (pic) and loved it especially build quality (how strong they are), but due to harsh winter here w snow and salt. They were worried not only for spoiler, but also might rust the bolt area on the trunk. Of course they can swap the trunk, but it might be more hassle than unbolting the spoiler.

It’s a never win situation for daily a race car lol

[VerusEric]

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

Thanks for clarifying. Spoiler discussion came up w local auto’ers and they were looking at Sard spoiler, so I’ve shown your spoiler (pic) and loved it especially build quality (how strong they are), but due to harsh winter here w snow and salt. They were worried not only for spoiler, but also might rust the bolt area on the trunk. Of course they can swap the trunk, but it might be more hassle than unbolting the spoiler.

It’s a never win situation for daily a race car lol

You're welcome.

During install, we discuss adding touch up paint to the exposed pieces of metal. We also include small grommets that sit under the mounts that go through the trunk to act as a weather seal. It's difficult to see as they are small and go unnoticed most times.

Thanks,
Eric

[VerusEric]

More updates on the build finally!

I welded on the radiator neck and installed the turbo.



Grabbed some supplies to fabricate a re-routed dumb tube.



I am going to be using the OEM hard lines to create a return fuel system; or at least that is the idea. The OEM connection points are shown here.



We will see how it all works out; fingers crossed I can use the OEM hardlines. I think that is the best route for longevity and safety.

We are also planning a trip to a local wind tunnel to test our wings. This is for the purpose of correlating our CFD data to wind tunnel data to further our understanding and abilities internally. We're pretty excited! Below is a photo of our 300mm chord unit, we will also be testing our smaller FRS/BRZ wing as well.



Thanks,
Eric