Performance pack preferences and experiences?

[RotARy15]

Recently grabbed myself a 2017 BRZ PP and it's time to track prep it.


I've been researching and reading a lot (holy crap that suspension mega thread took a couple days).


I have however had trouble finding info about the PP brakes. I hunted a PP down because I hate being under-braked but I want to get an idea for what these brakes are actually capable of in advance so I can keep the money flowing toward track time.



I'll be hiding from the track during the Texas summer months until I get oil temperature under control but assuming July in Texas with NA power levels, proper track alignment, proper tires (RE71, 615K+, RS4), and a competent driver;


Are ducts required or just recommended?


How do drivers feel about XP8's vs XP10's, G-Loc and other equivalents with respect to the performance pack?


Do drivers tend to prefer staggering compounds?


I feel like the PP pads and calipers already have strong initial bite on the street but I have no reference point as this model of car is new to me. I have no idea if I should start with high or low initial bite characteristics. I've made mistakes with too much initial bite on my RX-7 that I would like to avoid repeating.

[Jpembry]

There’s tons of helpful threads/people on these forums. I messaged CSG Mike In regards to brake pad compound and ended up going with gloc r12’s based on his recommendation. They were incredible on track and never faded. Even my instructor was impressed with how strong and consistent the brakes were.

[i8ur911]

Welcome to the 86 club! It's a great platform especially for HPDE use. I also run a 17 with the Brembo's (Series Yellow car).

There's lots of great brake options out there. I prefer using Hawk products personally (I run the HT10 pads). I also have a bunch of customers that use the DTC60's and DTC70's.

Brake cooling ducts aren't really a necessity, but you'll certainly want an oil cooler especially where you live (again lots of great options).

There's a great group on this forum with lots of great info. Feel free to fire away with questions.


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[Grady]

Don’t go crazy spending a lot of money changing your car. Unless you just want to and have the money. Make sure you buy quality replacements. The cheep replacements are not as good as what Subaru put on the car. Not sure how much track time you have but chances are the car is not the limiting factor of your track times.
I would look at getting some oil cooling installed first.
Change brake fluid regularly.
Good tires/better alignment.
From there what every you want or find out you need from doing track events.

Where in Texas and what tracks/event operators are you lookin at?

[Goingnowherefast]

IMO:

-Run a quality synthetic oil and tighten up those oil changes (during track session)
-Especially for texas heat, grab yourself an oil cooler
-The stock PP suspension is quite decent. If you are going to stay on a stock sized wheel (with 200TW's), I would simply add camber bolts (https://www.ft86speedfactory.com/whi...E#.Xbl6V1VKhpg) and max them out. Otherwise, you will be dealing with horrendous understeer all day.
-Get mad seat time (not sure how new you are), but definitely stick around this level until you are at or beating local Spec Miata times. That is a great benchmark that basically anyone can use at any track.


Brakes:

As far as brakes go, I'm still messing around with running either square or staggered pads. I've heard both things and I'm currently on staggered GLOC R12's but will try square here soon. I think GLOC and PFC make some of the best track pads out there. PFC's are quite expensive but really are absolutely top notch (as long as you swap track/dd pads). Recommend R12 Front/R10 rear or R12 square otherwise.

[RotARy15]

My plan at the moment is to keep it mostly stock. I'm in an interesting situation with my FD. I was slowly building it to be track worthy (must control thermal runaway...) but at this point, I need proper facilities to complete some of the work. So for now I am going to keep things simple as the BRZ is not intended to be a track toy, yet. It replaced my 03 NB as a daily driver. And will be serving as a track-able daily until I get the FD finished or give up and sell it at which point I will start making spectacularly stupid decisions with the BRZ.

I want to fit it with cooling, alignment and rubber. I am looking at Jackson's dual cooler radiator/oil.

And I haven't decided on width for track wheels yet and my biggest hangup is suspension mods. I'd like at least 245's but best I can tell, a 9 inch is hard to fit on an OE setup and that gets more difficult if you gain camber at the hub. 8.5's are rare and 17x8 isn't really a large increase over the stock 7.5's so I might as well hunt down another set of stock wheels and slap sticky 215's on those in that case.

The main goal suspension wise is track/street alignment. I don't really want to hop off the PP setup yet. Camber bolts alone aren't enough. Raceseng plates are the goal but buying plates for the OE coilover and then deciding I want V3's or Tarmac2's is an unnecessary re-fitting cost attributed simply to indecision and poor planning...

In regard to pads, I have second hand knowledge that R10's last longer than R12's by a wide margin but to be fair, that applies to a friend who insists on tracking the USS Mustang and I'm surprised he hasn't boiled his ball joints yet.

I'm all about spending for the proper parts. I'm just very picky about what needs to change.

Originally Posted by Grady

Don’t go crazy spending a lot of money changing your car. Unless you just want to and have the money. Make sure you buy quality replacements. The cheep replacements are not as good as what Subaru put on the car. Not sure how much track time you have but chances are the car is not the limiting factor of your track times.
I would look at getting some oil cooling installed first.
Change brake fluid regularly.
Good tires/better alignment.
From there what every you want or find out you need from doing track events.

Where in Texas and what tracks/event operators are you lookin at?

I'll be running around MSR Cresson, ECR, and COTA. Focused on safer organizations so, The Drivers Edge, Apex, and I hear Park Place has a new thing going on but I'm vague on that.

[Grady]

Originally Posted by RotARy15

I'll be running around MSR Cresson, ECR, and COTA. Focused on safer organizations so, The Drivers Edge, Apex, and I hear Park Place has a new thing going on but I'm vague on that.

You are going to be doing some traveling. I will be at Cresson on December 7th with Apex. I have not done a lot with Apex but had a good fried track his Elise with them for years and was happy with them. I am looking into Drivers Edge just so at some time can run ECR.

[ZDan]

For your intents and usage, I say run it without an oil cooler first and see what oil temp does. If as on my car in highish ambient temps the oil temp cruises up to just over 270F and holds, IMO you can skip the cooler. If it continues to climb up towards 300F, pull in, limit your sessions accordingly, and *then* see about getting an oil cooler.

I ran camber plates with 1.25" lowering springs and it sucked due to no front bump travel. Probably OK at stock ride height down to *maybe* 0.8" lower than stock, but I wouldn't go any lower than that with camber plates without coilovers designed to run at lower ride heights. Stock struts just don't have the bump travel to deal with lost travel from lowering PLUS another lost 1/2" to 3/4" from camber plates.

225 vs 245 is not a big difference on these cars, so for your intents I'd go 225 on stock wheels or aftermarket 8"+ with lower offset, and run camber bolts, and maybe lower/stiffer springs

Square brake pads have always been fine for me on this car, FD, S2000 (even with nonfunctioning ABS), 240Z, every car Ive tracked. I think staggered pads *can* work for specific pad pairings on specific cars, but IMO for cars like the above, they are way overprescribed for the most part for no good reason...

I loved the Winmax W5s I ran last year except they are loud as fook! Even in a paddock full of seasoned track hounds they got attention. Also ran Project Mu ClubRacers but didnt' like them as much.
Previously ran Carbotech XP10s on other cars and always had good success with them. Also ran XP8s on the S2000, no problemo...
On Cayman I ran PFC 11 on the Cayman this year and they were fine as well.
I like a bit of grabbiness fwiw and in that regard the W5s are the grabbiest of the above mentioned pads. All of them fine for street as well, except maybe Project Mu CR which suck cold.

[Racecomp Engineering]

How much track experience do you have?

- Andrew

[mistople]

Originally Posted by ZDan

I loved the Winmax W5s I ran last year except they are loud as fook! Even in a paddock full of seasoned track hounds they got attention.

Oh how I can relate. I'm always the loudest car in the paddock when putting around with cold W5s. It's comical. Luckily I'm switching to something else for next year.

[RotARy15]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

How much track experience do you have?

- Andrew

Zero HPDE's. 1 autocross on an actual track (that just seemed goofy). 5-6 time trials at Mineral Wells (think high speed autocross). And 2 full years of local group autocross. My on-board video records suggests 27 autocross events.


My plans for next year are about 1.75 track events a month. Avoiding mid-summer. I'm pretty much burned out on autocross. It's not worth the money to seat-time ratio.

[Code Monkey]

You need an oil cooler even outside of summer months.

[RotARy15]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

You need an oil cooler even outside of summer months.

That is what I expect. I found a series of roads where I could run the car at about 7/10 for a couple minutes non-stop and the factory oil temp gauge measured 235ish. That seemed to suggest a 15 minute session is too much.


I have no idea how accurate the factory gauge is though.

[Code Monkey]

With a RacerX 19-row oil cooler my oil temps stay in the 240-250 range during hpde sessions.