PMok's WRB BRZ Premium 6MT

[PMok]

Installed a pair of DC Sports tips that I picked up used from a fellow 86er... Took more time polishing them than bolting them on haha. Fills in the exhaust cutouts much better than the OEM tips. Mod cost: $36 for 2nd-hand tips.

[PMok]

a little teaser of my next mod...

[86_ZN6]

whats that towel for on the jacks?

to prevent from scratching?

use blocks or hockey puck!

[PMok]

Originally Posted by 86_ZN6

whats that towel for on the jacks?

to prevent from scratching?

use blocks or hockey puck!

yeah I like the towel because it's not too thick. I can't even get my jack under the car if I used a 2" thick wood. maybe I need to find a puck...

[86_ZN6]

Originally Posted by PMok

yeah I like the towel because it's not too thick. I can't even get my jack under the car if I used a 2" thick wood. maybe I need to find a puck...

puck or like a cutting board material works well

[Kire]

Originally Posted by PMok

yeah I like the towel because it's not too thick. I can't even get my jack under the car if I used a 2" thick wood. maybe I need to find a puck...

just cut a piece of cardboard or 2 and duct-tape it to the contact pad on the jack. that's what i do.

[PMok]

yeah I've definitely done that before, I like to look around and make use of whatever I happen to have laying around.


Anyways this is what I was up to... Plastidip, best $6 mod ever.

[PMok]

This past Saturday I attended my first BRZ/FR-S/86 meet with Stitch! It was an early morning to get over to the park where we were all meeting. I only had time to spray the car down and not properly wash it, and there was a chance of rain so I didn't put too much effort into it. However it looked very pretty with all the water beaded up on the hood.



There were some sweetly modded cars at the meet, and I got to see and hear quite a few different exhausts, and check out the different spoilers in person - I've now seen the TRD, Carsmo, and Five Axis spoilers in person and it's got me even more confused about what I should get. In photos I really liked the Five Axis but seeing the TRD and Carsmo in person I really like them more than when I was judging them solely by the pictures.









A fellow in a red FR-S "GT86" won a free Carsmo spoiler at the meet! I was a little bummed I didn't win anything in the raffle. But I was totally eyeing a set of red painted tails one of the other guys had up for sale. I had made plans to get red vinyl installed on my tails next week, but the installers had told me they might have difficulty getting the vinyl properly onto the little fin parts on the side of the tails, and it would require 3 separate pieces on the tail lights. I wasn't too thrilled with the sound of that. In the end I literally emptied my wallet and made a deal to swap the lights for my stock ones, he was even nice enough to do the swap and install the lights for me. I went home with some red tails and only $1 left in my wallet.





The meet concluded with some group photos and a nice scenic drive down Hwy 1. Some of us got a little lost but it was a nice day and even just cruising slowly down the coast was pretty sweet. I just tuned the XM radio to the Chill station and enjoyed the ride.


photo credit: sid67jp


photo credit: zygrene

Here's some in-car video of us cruising Hwy1 ....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWI0CDvX_Vk&hd=1"]Hwy 1 drive - FT86Club NorCal 86/BRZ owners club - YouTube[/ame]

sorry for the weird format, it's the way my cellphone holder mounts the phone. And due to the traffic on Hwy1 there's no dramatic chases, no awesome drift angles, etc. Just some solid scenery and chilled cruising mode. :happy0180:


After the meet, everyone went their separate ways and I went to pay a visit to WORKS Motorsport at Sonoma Raceway - figured I was in the area and heard they were developing some cool stuff. I spent a good amount of time chatting with Peter, who even though they had "closed" and had some real racing R&D work to turn to, took the time to chat with me about all kinds of things, from the exhaust design on the FR-S/BRZ to Dyno/ECU tunes, to MR2s, to Lexuses, and to Audi TT-RS's ... he is very excited about our cars and has plans to roll out some new products very soon. He was very cool and I look forward to seeing what they put out. By the time I left there it was pitch black outside...





When I finally got home I was pretty tired... but Stitch looked like he still wanted to go for more driving!

[PMok]

Today I took my BRZ over to Vinyl Styles, a local vinyl car wraps place (http://www.vinylstyles.com) and had Lyle rewrap the lower front lip in matte black. The clearbra under the front lip was all scraped up from a few unfriendly driveways so I figured it would be nice to re-cover the bottom with maybe a more durable surface that would be easy to repatch later if I scrape some more. My BRZ is still at stock height, so it's kind of crazy how easily it seems to scrape even without lowering. And that's probably the main reason I won't lower the car any or install any front lip extensions. So I did the next best thing, which is to add some black vinyl along the crease at the front lip, it kind of gives the same look as the STI or Koru/HT style lip but without bringing the edge of the car any lower. I kind of like it and may consider doing a similar under-edge strip along the sides, to kind of mimic the subtle look that for instance the ChargeSpeed kit offers, but at much lower cost. Lyle did my lip for $80 but said if I need replacement vinyl later it would cost a lot less. So here are the pics, it's a litle hard to see the matte black piece under the car, so I juiced up the brightness a little for the first pic.

[Coconuts]

PMok, your username sounds really familiar. Where you on ClubLexus, S2ki or NSXprime forums?

[PMok]

Originally Posted by Coconuts

PMok, your username sounds really familiar. Where you on ClubLexus, S2ki or NSXprime forums?

Yeah I was on CL and Spyderchat. I was fairly active on there for a while. Were you pretty active in the photography forum on CL? Here are my other cars, the 2006 IS350 and 2000 MR2 Spyder.

[Rampage]

Do you find any time for the Spyder now that you have the BRZ? I consider the cars to be too close in character and intent to have both. I opted to keep the Spyder.

[PMok]

Originally Posted by Rampage

Do you find any time for the Spyder now that you have the BRZ? I consider the cars to be too close in character and intent to have both. I opted to keep the Spyder.

That is definitely true, I do feel conflicted about this at times. The last week before my BRZ arrived I spent the whole week driving the Spyder, and loving every minute of it. I haven't really driven it much since getting the BRZ. Long before buying the BRZ, my Spyder had sort of become the weekend/track car, and the Lexus became the DD. Now the BRZ actually takes on both roles. I thought about selling the Spyder but it's worth so little on the market now and I have a lot of great memories with it, and it's still a great car. It's worth more to me than to anyone else. As time goes on and the BRZ is a little less novel, I imagine I will split time between them again, especially when the weather is nice and I want to put the top down. They both work great as canyon carvers, but the BRZ is a little bit more practical.

I'm very fortunate to have plenty of garage and driveway space (and an understanding wife), so I can keep multiple toys around...

[PMok]

Took some better quality pictures today, to show off the various cosmetic stuff I've done recently:
- red tails
- smoked front corners
- DC Sports exhaust tips
- Plasti Dipped wheels
- black vinyl on lower front lip









I think I'm nearly done with the exterior cosmetic stuff. Still trying to decide what rear decklid spoiler to get, I've been leaning towards the Five Axis spoiler but now that I've seen the TRD and Carsmo in person I'm not sure which one I like more.

Performance stuff... I've started looking at exhausts and tunes. I feel like the car has plenty of oomph higher up in the RPMs but feels so sluggish off the line. I feel like 9/10 times from a stop the acceleration is sluggish, and every once in a while I seem to do something right and it moves off the line fairly well. Maybe I need to do the clutch adjustment mod. I started wondering if the traction control is killing power. Anyways I have some hope that a tune will help with that some, and an exhaust will give me some more growl. I really like the simple and weight-cutting designs of the muffler deletes from WORKS and Berk, but not sure I can live with the obnoxious sound.