Track Chronicle of my 2014 BRZ

[AndyBRZ]

I took the day off Today and I wanted to share some of the lessons learned with my 2014 BRZ after 3 years and 25,000 miles of hard track life in the Midwest, mainly. I am a solid and experienced driver and instructor for more than 25 years and I am also a mechanical and electrical engineer with hands on experience in cars for about the same amount of time.
I will go through improvements in what I consider more to less importance order and then I will end with a list for Maintenance and Important Check ups in your track BRZ/FRS.
Improvements:
1) The car needs more brakes. Not necessarily for stopping power but for long term reliability. The factory brakes with a good rotor (DBA 4000) stop really good but the seals will disintegrate and the XP8 pads will wear fast. Since I have my AP Racing Kit consumables are close to nothing and the car's braking is so reliable and consistent. A good fluid like Castrol SRF works wonders too.
2) The car needs more tires. Read about it and you will find a lot on this subject.
3) The brake booster unit needs to be braced. The firewall is too thin and you will flex it. Cheap and awesome mod.
4) If you track this car, you need an oil cooler. No discussions on this one.
5) The factory suspension is too soft. You really need Coil Overs and you need camber plates to really be able to dial in your suspension. Not going to talk about brands or anything like that but usually the performance is directly proportional to the cost. I found that -3.6 negative camber in the fronts and -2.6 on the rear works best with my car and tires wear evenly now. I do 1/16 toe in the fronts.
6) All rubber bushings are soft from factory so a small white line all around bushing investment replacing as many as you can is always a good thing. It changes the feel of the car a lot for the better.
7) You can get rid of a lot of unnecessary weight in this car but it all depends on what do you do with the car when you are not in the track. Basic stuff you can do is replace the factory battery with a lightweight one, remove the junk in the trunk, the rear seats and replace your factory mega heavy dual outlet muffler with a simple one outlet pipe. That saves a chunk of weight. There are many helpful threads on weight savings so just spend your time reading. My car only drives going to the track and back and I have a small trailer so I am to minimum weight settings. 2,540 lbs. with a full tank of fuel.
8) Power is not very strong and the torque dip is notorious in this car. I have driven in the track with a lot of BRZ / FRS in my time with different force induction kits and what have you. In my humble opinion the best and most reliable and fast track setup is naturally aspirated, Flex Tune, header with no cats. I say this with many things in mind. Yeah you can make more power and torque with inducted power but then you need to deal with heating issues, drivetrain issues, etc.. and at the end of the day when you add force induction you are also adding weight in all the wrong places so the car's actually nimble performance gets really hurt by it. I do not want to debate about this one as I know a lot of people really love their kits but all I am saying is that in the track with friends with these kits I always come ahead after any given session. They may go around me at first but as the session wears out I always come out ahead. For the street it is a whole different story. I would love a turbo one.
9) Down force. This is a dark science and there are a lot of great threads and brands in these forums. I am absolutely happy with my setup and glad to share it. APR 2 foil rear wing with Front APR splitter and APR canards. I also have all the under belly plates and rear race type diffuser from FT86.
My cars turns really fast with these and 245 slick tires and it is where I really gain time on almost any other car at any given race track.
10) Once you can drive this car to the limit, you need to turn off all your electronic nannies except ABS. There are many ways to achieve it but I will let you read about it. I will add a comment at the end of this thread about what I have, which works awesome.
Maintenance and Important Check ups in your track BRZ/FRS:
1) Change your clutch fluid. Whatever comes from factory is not very good. I use Castrol SRF, same than my brake fluid.
2) Ball joints from factory are not so strong and they will wear out quick. Keep an eye on them and replace as needed. I ended up changing them for Titanium ones from SPC Control. The factory does not sell the ball joint by itself and I became tired of this BS.
3) If you use e85 as I do, change your oil every 1000 miles. With regular gas you can go up to 3000 miles for heavily tracked cars.
4) Whatever headers and cat / pipe under the motor ECU, make sure you coat it with good stuff to dissipate heat. I use Swayne Coating which is simply the best and all my misfire problems with 1 and 3 went away. Also regularly check torque in the headers. Under heavy track use the nuts can loosen up. Just do it a regular check item when you change the oil. When they loosen up they do not leak terribly but they will cause indeed several performance issues and misfires in your coils due to heat. You should still carry a coil or two at the track as they do go bad.
5) Keep a close eye on your direct injector seals. The 4D fuel system may be very efficient but it is a very convoluted complex fuel system. Direct injector seals are nearly impossible to replace safely and the firecracker noises can drive you nuts and end up blowing fuel out of an injector or a motor. No aftermarket on these. I wish this car had the regular Subaru fuel injection system.
6) Check your hub bearings often when you have it jacked up and keep a fine tuned ear for noises while turning at speed. They will bark at you when they are going but they do not last very long. In my experience, the fronts went at 15k miles and the rears at 20k miles.
7) Replace you factory wheel studs with APR ones. For normal use when the wheels are rarely removed, the factory ones are perfect but for track cars that have wheels removed and installed all the time, the APR ones are well worth the peace of mind. Several factory ones have sheared and that is not a problem you want to have in the track.
8) Flush your Manual Transmission and rear differential at least once a year. Analyze oil if you can. Use best fluid available to you.
9) If you use Castrol SRF brake fluid, just bleed the fluid around the caliper before every track event and you will be gold forever. If you use other fluids, I am not sure but you may have to bleed more often.

I have not had any clutch issues or transmission issues, knock on wood. I did have a motor issue that was repaired under warranty as it was a genuine engine failure in the street. Regardless, you can swap a motor in these cars in under a shift worth of work. It is so easy and well engineered for serviceability.
Regarding traction control and electronic brake distribution, I find all of these things extremely annoying, specially when driving on slick tires. I would not recommend to turn them off for novice or maybe some intermediate drivers, depending on the organization we are talking about.
In any case, I came up with a very easy solution. I bought an OBD Y cable that provides me with 2 OBD ports. In one of them I connect an OBD wireless scanner and in the other one I connect my traction control eliminator at the track.
I removed the factory radio and installed a Samsung Tablet that reports to me through Torque (software) in my custom built display of gauges G-Forces, AFR's, oil and water temperature and intake air temperature. This is the bomb and cost me under 100 bucks all together.
I hope this thread helps some of you folks.
The 86 platform is an incredible delightful platform to track with and we should always keep sharing our experiences.
I will confess that I wish I had a WRX motor in the BRZ to really destroy Porsches consistently and not only when the Porsche drivers lack driving skills but until Subaru wants to, we will keep the momentum drive going....

[zerobrz]

Good Stuff! thanks for this.

[CSG Mike]

Andy, a few things that I think may help reduce your operating cost and improve reliability.

8. header choice is important. Remember, if you go FI, you're no more unbalancing the car, than taking weight out of the trunk. You've already pushed the center of gravity forward with your rear weight reduction. For the average person, using a light battery and aftermarket header will completely mitigate the weight of a supercharger or turbocharger system.

9. GT1000?

10. Are you using a traction off unit or a pedal dance unit? Only one unit is pedal dance and the rest are all traction off.


3. No need to change oil so frequently if you're using an oil that doesnt get attacked and broken down by E85. You may save a lot of time and money here by using such an oil. Motul 300V in its current formulation is one of them. Test a sample by pouring some 300V into a cup, and then pouring in a small amount of E85, and letting it sit for a few weeks. No milkyness or thinning.

4. You must have a very early 2014. The later ones eliminated the coil pack failure from the factory, regardless of header heat or cat in the header.

5. DI seal failure shouldn't be happening in anything 2014 or newer.

6. Similar to brake ducts, use ducting and/or air guides to direct airflow to your knuckles. This will significantly extend your wheel bearing life. Your load is much higher than most since you're using slicks.

9. If you're having to bleed every day to maintain feel, you are actually overheating your braking system. Send me a PM and I'll send you some thermal strips, so we can diagnose.

[AndyBRZ]

Mike, This is awesome and thank you for all your advice and for always sharing your wealth of knowledge. I will try to break down my answers for you to inform better the community:
8. header choice is important. Remember, if you go FI, you're no more unbalancing the car, than taking weight out of the trunk. You've already pushed the center of gravity forward with your rear weight reduction. For the average person, using a light battery and aftermarket header will completely mitigate the weight of a supercharger or turbocharger system.
Excellent point with weight reduction and force induction. My car does not have any plastic moldings or rear seats or roof liner or door cards. It has been massively weight reduced but I did keep the airbags. If I cage it, I will remove that too. I have actually a dual magnaflow muffler in the back now plus the rear diffuser so weight is nicely balanced to a 50/50 and it is also corner balanced. Since I have equal length headers and no exhaust flow restrictions all the way to the back I needed the dual muffler in the back or the noise is unbearable.
My comment was geared towards what I did soon after I've got my car. Now it is way beyond those early days.
I did go FI with a widely known supercharger brand in the past but although I loved the car in the street with it, I did not like the car in the track with it. I will leave it at that.

9. GT1000? This is an awesome unit too. I am a fan of APR and also Velox. I actually have their hood vents but I know they are developing a rear wing.

10. Are you using a traction off unit or a pedal dance unit? Only one unit is pedal dance and the rest are all traction off.
I use the pedal dance one from Australia that plugs into the OBD port. It turns off everything, including EBD which is a must for proper trail braking.


3. No need to change oil so frequently if you're using an oil that doesn't get attacked and broken down by E85. You may save a lot of time and money here by using such an oil. Motul 300V in its current formulation is one of them. Test a sample by pouring some 300V into a cup, and then pouring in a small amount of E85, and letting it sit for a few weeks. No milkyness or thinning.
This is very valuable information. I use Amsoil 5W30 and I will try your experiment with it. If it is not as good, I will try the Motul oil. I only use e85 at the track and I revert back to gasoline in my way home so I usually go 2500 miles between oil changes. This car does nothing but track duty. I honestly heard the advice of 1500 km oil changes with e85 from the Aussies but I do not even follow it myself. I do always think of oil changes as cheap insurance.

4. You must have a very early 2014. The later ones eliminated the coil pack failure from the factory, regardless of header heat or cat in the header.
Yeah, It is an early one. I tracked it the same day I bought it new with zero mods. I have been through 2 coilpacks so far but I think it was related to my header exhaust leakage. I also have clamped thermal shields between my ceramic coated pipe and the space goingn up to the coils. It is an extra thermal barrier that has worked awesome. My car is usually double and sometimes triple stinted in track events.
It has been very solid now.
5. DI seal failure shouldn't be happening in anything 2014 or newer.
Mine kept ticking rapidly under load until one fine day puked fuel out of injector 3 at the track. I am lucky it did not ignite as it did not make it to the header but just puddled in the recess head space under that #3 injector. Replaced the seal and it has been fine since.

6. Similar to brake ducts, use ducting and/or air guides to direct airflow to your knuckles. This will significantly extend your wheel bearing life. Your load is much higher than most since you're using slicks.
This is awesome advice and I will fab something in the winter for it. If you have something I can try, I will be very happy to try it. Nowadays I only use my slicks when I want to set my fast time of the day. After that I go to my usual RS3's. It is still a lot of fun with the summer tires. I want to try the Chompiros SX as soon as I kill these RS3.

9. If you're having to bleed every day to maintain feel, you are actually overheating your braking system. Send me a PM and I'll send you some thermal strips, so we can diagnose.
I Probably should explain it better. I bleed my brakes once per season. What I do is before each event at home I pump 4 or 5 times on each corner to move new fluid up to the bleeder valve. I just like to have fresh fluid and I think it is also cheap insurance. I have never ever lost brake pedal in the track and we have some brutally hard braking tracks like Road America in Turn 5 and in Canada Corner.
I appreciate the strips but I have used them and found the highest temperatures to be at 350 Celsius (Under 650 F) in my front calipers. The AP kit has it's own duct to feed air and it is very efficient. I coupled that to hand made CF induction ducts in my front bumper and they run straight through minimizing bends. Also my brake usage is really moderate to low. I have the same front rotors for the last 2 years and they are still going strong. My last set of Ferodo DS1.11 front pads lasted me 30 track days. My Carbotech XP10 rear pads are the same for 2 years now and they still have a lot of meat. Just last week I ordered from you actually a spare rear set for peace of mind. I do not even change pads to drive to the track and back anymore. It is ridiculous....
__________________

[strat61caster]

Thanks for the perspective, this is a great thread.

[imnotsureaboutbrz]

SO.MUCH.KNOWLEDGE.DROPPED

[ApexEight]

Informative thread! What's the build date of your car? I too have a 2014 BRZ but with a build dat of 9/13.

[AndyBRZ]

My car was built in 8/13. I have never checked it...

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by imnotsureaboutbrz

SO.MUCH.KNOWLEDGE.DROPPED

Quality posts get quality responses from me!

[CSG Mike]

@AndyBRZ

8. Remmeber that most of your weight reduction is from the middle and rear of the car. You likely have 50/50 cross weights, but a front skewed weight distribution. There's nothing wrong with that! Do you have a half cage or passenger seat? What about air conditioning? For the folks reading this thread/post, remember that 50/50 weight distribution is purely a marketing gimmick (when's the last time a Porsche or Ferrari was 50/50, right?), but 50/50 cross weights have a HUGE effect on handling!

10. Ooooh that's one I'm not aware of. Mind posting a link? Beastronix is the common one I see and recommend!


3. If you're parking the car with gasoline and only using E85 at the track, ethanol breaking down your oil wont be a concern at all. I recommend using Blackstone Labs for oil analysis, for both peace of mind, and to safely increase your oil change intervals. Like you said, cheap insurance!

6. The SX2 is a great learning tire, but I'm afraid with your experience level, you may not like the lower level of grip compared to the RS3. It will communicate with you more both through the chassis/steering and auditorily, which is great for feeling out a track or testing new techniques, lines, or theories. Have you tried any of the other 200TW tires?

9. How discolored (if at all) is the fluid that's being bled from the calipers? If it's not, I'd recommend trying lengthening your bleed intervals, so you don't have to crack open a fresh bottle regularly! SRF is a great fluid, but Project Mu G-Four has a unique property in that it's green color fades to clear as it ages, and turns brown if it's overheated. Great visual indicator in your brake fluid reservoir!

[endless_pain]

Originally Posted by AndyBRZ

9. If you're having to bleed every day to maintain feel, you are actually overheating your braking system. Send me a PM and I'll send you some thermal strips, so we can diagnose.
I Probably should explain it better. I bleed my brakes once per season. What I do is before each event at home I pump 4 or 5 times on each corner to move new fluid up to the bleeder valve. I just like to have fresh fluid and I think it is also cheap insurance. I have never ever lost brake pedal in the track and we have some brutally hard braking tracks like Road America in Turn 5 and in Canada Corner.
I appreciate the strips but I have used them and found the highest temperatures to be at 350 Celsius (Under 650 F) in my front calipers. The AP kit has it's own duct to feed air and it is very efficient. I coupled that to hand made CF induction ducts in my front bumper and they run straight through minimizing bends. Also my brake usage is really moderate to low. I have the same front rotors for the last 2 years and they are still going strong. My last set of Ferodo DS1.11 front pads lasted me 30 track days. My Carbotech XP10 rear pads are the same for 2 years now and they still have a lot of meat. Just last week I ordered from you actually a spare rear set for peace of mind. I do not even change pads to drive to the track and back anymore. It is ridiculous....
__________________

Thanks for sharing all this good info.


I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I have not been able to make a set of rotors on my Sprint kit last me longer than 5-6 months. I've seen pictures of people running them until the hooks are almost gone.
After I talked to Essex's engineer, I cut the backing plates on my Velox kit. Left just enough to hold the carbon part. That prolonged the life, but still cracked the drivers side rotor once more.
On the warm up lap, I gradually increase rotor temperatures, I just don't go out full race mode.
Another fast twin in my region goes thru rotors about the same. Don't think this is right.


Most of the time I run Maxxis RC-1 and swap between Raybestos ST-42 and Hawk DTC-60.


How many track days you do a month? What tracks you go to that a set of pads can last you 30 Track days?!?


I need to start fishing. Tracking is an expensive hobby.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by endless_pain

Thanks for sharing all this good info.


I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I have not been able to make a set of rotors on my Sprint kit last me longer than 5-6 months. I've seen pictures of people running them until the hooks are almost gone.
After I talked to Essex's engineer, I cut the backing plates on my Velox kit. Left just enough to hold the carbon part. That prolonged the life, but still cracked the drivers side rotor once more.
On the warm up lap, I gradually increase rotor temperatures, I just don't go out full race mode.
Another fast twin in my region goes thru rotors about the same. Don't think this is right.


Most of the time I run Maxxis RC-1 and swap between Raybestos ST-42 and Hawk DTC-60.


How many track days you do a month? What tracks you go to that a set of pads can last you 30 Track days?!?


I need to start fishing. Tracking is an expensive hobby.

Do you have pictures of your cracked rotors?

[AndyBRZ]

Originally Posted by AndyBRZ

I took the day off Today and I wanted to share some of the lessons learned with my 2014 BRZ after 3 years and 25,000 miles of hard track life in the Midwest, mainly. I am a solid and experienced driver and instructor for more than 25 years and I am also a mechanical and electrical engineer with hands on experience in cars for about the same amount of time.
I will go through improvements in what I consider more to less importance order and then I will end with a list for Maintenance and Important Check ups in your track BRZ/FRS.
Improvements:
1) The car needs more brakes. Not necessarily for stopping power but for long term reliability. The factory brakes with a good rotor (DBA 4000) stop really good but the seals will disintegrate and the XP8 pads will wear fast. Since I have my AP Racing Kit consumables are close to nothing and the car's braking is so reliable and consistent. A good fluid like Castrol SRF works wonders too.
2) The car needs more tires. Read about it and you will find a lot on this subject.
3) The brake booster unit needs to be braced. The firewall is too thin and you will flex it. Cheap and awesome mod.
4) If you track this car, you need an oil cooler. No discussions on this one.
5) The factory suspension is too soft. You really need Coil Overs and you need camber plates to really be able to dial in your suspension. Not going to talk about brands or anything like that but usually the performance is directly proportional to the cost. I found that -3.6 negative camber in the fronts and -2.6 on the rear works best with my car and tires wear evenly now. I do 1/16 toe in the fronts.
6) All rubber bushings are soft from factory so a small white line all around bushing investment replacing as many as you can is always a good thing. It changes the feel of the car a lot for the better.
7) You can get rid of a lot of unnecessary weight in this car but it all depends on what do you do with the car when you are not in the track. Basic stuff you can do is replace the factory battery with a lightweight one, remove the junk in the trunk, the rear seats and replace your factory mega heavy dual outlet muffler with a simple one outlet pipe. That saves a chunk of weight. There are many helpful threads on weight savings so just spend your time reading. My car only drives going to the track and back and I have a small trailer so I am to minimum weight settings. 2,540 lbs. with a full tank of fuel.
8) Power is not very strong and the torque dip is notorious in this car. I have driven in the track with a lot of BRZ / FRS in my time with different force induction kits and what have you. In my humble opinion the best and most reliable and fast track setup is naturally aspirated, Flex Tune, header with no cats. I say this with many things in mind. Yeah you can make more power and torque with inducted power but then you need to deal with heating issues, drivetrain issues, etc.. and at the end of the day when you add force induction you are also adding weight in all the wrong places so the car's actually nimble performance gets really hurt by it. I do not want to debate about this one as I know a lot of people really love their kits but all I am saying is that in the track with friends with these kits I always come ahead after any given session. They may go around me at first but as the session wears out I always come out ahead. For the street it is a whole different story. I would love a turbo one.
9) Down force. This is a dark science and there are a lot of great threads and brands in these forums. I am absolutely happy with my setup and glad to share it. APR 2 foil rear wing with Front APR splitter and APR canards. I also have all the under belly plates and rear race type diffuser from FT86.
My cars turns really fast with these and 245 slick tires and it is where I really gain time on almost any other car at any given race track.
10) Once you can drive this car to the limit, you need to turn off all your electronic nannies except ABS. There are many ways to achieve it but I will let you read about it. I will add a comment at the end of this thread about what I have, which works awesome.
Maintenance and Important Check ups in your track BRZ/FRS:
1) Change your clutch fluid. Whatever comes from factory is not very good. I use Castrol SRF, same than my brake fluid.
2) Ball joints from factory are not so strong and they will wear out quick. Keep an eye on them and replace as needed. I ended up changing them for Titanium ones from SPC Control. The factory does not sell the ball joint by itself and I became tired of this BS.
3) If you use e85 as I do, change your oil every 1000 miles. With regular gas you can go up to 3000 miles for heavily tracked cars.
4) Whatever headers and cat / pipe under the motor ECU, make sure you coat it with good stuff to dissipate heat. I use Swayne Coating which is simply the best and all my misfire problems with 1 and 3 went away. Also regularly check torque in the headers. Under heavy track use the nuts can loosen up. Just do it a regular check item when you change the oil. When they loosen up they do not leak terribly but they will cause indeed several performance issues and misfires in your coils due to heat. You should still carry a coil or two at the track as they do go bad.
5) Keep a close eye on your direct injector seals. The 4D fuel system may be very efficient but it is a very convoluted complex fuel system. Direct injector seals are nearly impossible to replace safely and the firecracker noises can drive you nuts and end up blowing fuel out of an injector or a motor. No aftermarket on these. I wish this car had the regular Subaru fuel injection system.
6) Check your hub bearings often when you have it jacked up and keep a fine tuned ear for noises while turning at speed. They will bark at you when they are going but they do not last very long. In my experience, the fronts went at 15k miles and the rears at 20k miles.
7) Replace you factory wheel studs with APR ones. For normal use when the wheels are rarely removed, the factory ones are perfect but for track cars that have wheels removed and installed all the time, the APR ones are well worth the peace of mind. Several factory ones have sheared and that is not a problem you want to have in the track.
8) Flush your Manual Transmission and rear differential at least once a year. Analyze oil if you can. Use best fluid available to you.
9) If you use Castrol SRF brake fluid, just bleed the fluid around the caliper before every track event and you will be gold forever. If you use other fluids, I am not sure but you may have to bleed more often.

I have not had any clutch issues or transmission issues, knock on wood. I did have a motor issue that was repaired under warranty as it was a genuine engine failure in the street. Regardless, you can swap a motor in these cars in under a shift worth of work. It is so easy and well engineered for serviceability.
Regarding traction control and electronic brake distribution, I find all of these things extremely annoying, specially when driving on slick tires. I would not recommend to turn them off for novice or maybe some intermediate drivers, depending on the organization we are talking about.
In any case, I came up with a very easy solution. I bought an OBD Y cable that provides me with 2 OBD ports. In one of them I connect an OBD wireless scanner and in the other one I connect my traction control eliminator at the track.
I removed the factory radio and installed a Samsung Tablet that reports to me through Torque (software) in my custom built display of gauges G-Forces, AFR's, oil and water temperature and intake air temperature. This is the bomb and cost me under 100 bucks all together.
I hope this thread helps some of you folks.
The 86 platform is an incredible delightful platform to track with and we should always keep sharing our experiences.
I will confess that I wish I had a WRX motor in the BRZ to really destroy Porsches consistently and not only when the Porsche drivers lack driving skills but until Subaru wants to, we will keep the momentum drive going....

Hey guys, sorry for the late replies. Today is my fourth day at VIR rocking the BRZ.
Would you believe me if I tell you that I have a Viper ACR ready to go next to my BRZ and I have yet to go out in it because I really like my BRZ and I have been playing with a lot of cars that pass me in the straights and then I blow them off in the twisties with nothing but the power of the turning.
In this car, after the left hook (turn 5) I go flat out through all the esses on 5 th gear upto 120 mph to brake finally at Oak tree (Turn 11).
I can feel every bit of my aero working.
Mike, great questions and suggestions. I really appreciate all the knowledge. My BRZ does not have a 1/2 cage. I had one and a race bucket with a 6 point harness but I am 6'2" and 230 lbs and say not so young so ingress and egress was a bit of an issue. I have the factory seats which I really like cause They are comfortable and fit me well. I rigged 2 Schroth rally 4 point harnesses that just click in and work great. Passenger has the same benefit.
I removed the A/C compressor and condenser and installed the Japanese pulley to replace the compressor. All of them are Japanese subaru parts.
At the end of the day, this car feels so well balanced regardless of its true weight distribution.
It is the best car I have ever set for track and the consumables are close to nothing.
Here is the device I use to eliminate the pedal dance:
http://www.ft86speedfactory.com/mig-...l#.Wf7vxJ9OnqA
You can google Google traction control eliminate.
I run Goodyear R1's slicks but not so often. I post much faster laps but I am not sure it is more fun so I keep it entertaining with the RS3.
I drove the entire season on them and they are still not even half wore out.
I am very impressed with these tires by the performance and the very low cost of them. I hope the RS4 are just as good or better.
I ran before R71R's and their performance is excellent but they wear out almost as fast as a slick.
Toyo 888 I have used and wear out fast as well.
I run around 30 track days a year.
Track Talk... On Friday we ran the VIR Grand Course which cuts the back straightaway and gets you in the infield portion which is totally for our cars.
In that configuration I was passed only by radicals in the instructor group.
I took my student out for one session and told him if you feel dissy give me the thumbs down and if you feel about to throw up give me both thumbs down. He forgot but he did leave a present all over the outside of the passenger side of the car. It looked like a comet...
I slow down and make it into the pits. He was still green and I knew he was holding it back.
The track Marshal wants me stop to chat and as I approach I am trying to signal that my passenger is sick.
I had to stop by him and as I do that my passenger opens the door leans out and leaves them a huge present.
Now he gets it and just moves out of my way and waves me by.
My student was so apologetic but I really felt bad for him.
He came later and cleaned the outside of the car.
At least nothing came inside the car.
Keep them windows open peeps.
During the week I will comeback at these thread and answer more in details to everything.
My throw out bearing is going but it still shifts fine so I am in a controlled destruction mission.
Just got to get it home.
Time for upgrades in the clutch department.
I am sure I will be talking to Mike soon.
Got to go to the track. Later.

[AndyBRZ]

I did a lot of good work in VIR today with the BRZ. Today I posted a 2:14 lap in the full course which is not bad at all for the BRZ. My throw out bearing had been chattering at idle since last Thursday. I knew she was in her way out and I decided to give her the track hard work until it imploded. It finally gave up today Sunday in the last intermediate session as I was giving a lap to a fellow FRS owner to help him with his line. It happened right after I actually came out of the pits shifting from 1st to 2nd. I went ahead and rev-matched my shifts like I was driving a truck and completed 2 laps to show him the proper line.
I shifted from 2nd to 3d to 4th and then downshifted rev matching. I have to say that this car never stops to amaze me. She is a fighter in the best of the ways. She deserves a good ACT clutch and all the improvements available like a forged fork and SS braided line for the slave master cylinder. Maybe a lightweight flywheel.
After I got the car hooked up for the repair with awesome local shops I still had the itch so I went ahead and drove the Viper ACR for a few laps. I managed a 1:59.2 in the full course in the fifth lap which made my day as we were playing with radicals and basically erase them from the track. I left a lot in the line but honestly I do not like to drive the Viper so hard as I truly believe it will be highly collectible car.
In any case, the track a little wet which accounts for cojones currency.
I have to say that contrary to what everyone may think in this post, the Viper ACR is a momentum car with a lot of power and downforce.
Makes you wonder why in the hell Subaru does not give the BRZ a fighting chance with a proper FA20 turbocharged engine. Oh yeah! Corporate Numb People Making Decisions.... I forgot...