It Gets Old Fast | Real Life: Modding a Nerf

[raul]

25% of your problems = Climate
another 25% of your problems = Forced induction

I live in Florida and track the car N/A, with no issues whenever I bring it in for warranty (4 times now, including once for DI seals), it hasn't gotten old yet.

[Dezoris]

Originally Posted by post_break

Why not rip the oil cooler you have out, and do the forester one? It's been proven on the track by one of our members (albeit NA) but supercharged can't be that much more heat on the engine.

No more oil lines, just a few coolant hoses. I have it on my car and its performance is pretty remarkable.

Ran an hour session last summer and oil was up to 260F with cooler. I have my doubts the water cooling would be better with FI.

[ZDan]

Originally Posted by Dezoris

1. Spent months testing the car stock in autox, street and track. This was to gather base line data, dyno, temps etc. Before the tracked the stock car we swapped out, Gfour fluid and PMU 800HC pads. Also tried DBA Rotors.

Conclusions?

2. Carbotech 1521s are some of the best street pads but they are for the CP8350 AP Calipers, more expensive. But since they were ruined I was not going to buy another set when I had gotten a set of Hawks from Essex for next to nothing. They are the HPS but like I said I have run other street pads that are more aggressive and the transfer layer disappears. Like yesterday it was 75 during the day and then was almost 35 this morning. I needed the mildest compound for street, nothing else seems to work.

It's just bizarre to go from $400 "street" pads which must be overkill, to literally the worst street pads imaginable. I know Carbotech and others go on about transfer layers, but I've *never* had any issues swapping XP8 and XP10 pads out for street pads (OEM on the s2000, Centric and even Duralast Gold on the FD).

I also have sitting in a drawer the following pads:

• Carbotech XP10
• Carbotech XP12
• Ferodo DS2500
• Ferodo DS UNO
• Project Mu 999
• Project MU 800HC

So I did not just randomly just decide, on pads and brakes, we tried plenty.

Well, if you throw enough mud on the wall, something's bound to stick sooner or later. But you're taking a maximum effort/maximum expenditure approach where it really shouldn't be necessary.

3. I do swap rotors out when they old ones were warped and pads were getting destroyed yes.

I would have just used those grooved street pads instead of throwing them out. I would feel a bit miffed about expensive rotors that warped, when lesser rotors can be used on these cars without issue.

4. Tensioner, I am going to have 4 belt swaps so far on the kit. One to upgrade the belt, the other proactive, the other because I took the blower off to inspect pulleys and now finally to swap in the new idler and new size belt vortech released. Not sure how much pulling and prying on the stock tensioner has effected it so bought a spare, as it is noisier than it once was.

PITA, but yeah, par for the course. I went through three power steering pumps in short order on my LS-engined FD for stupid reasons, but now it is sorted and shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully this is the case for your supercharger (fingers crossed).

5. Again I know you dont follow my build but if you did you would see I posted all my logging of track temps, street temps and winter temps of oil.
The thermostatic plate opens at 185F but there is always trickle flow to the oil cooler for pressure reasons etc. When it drops below 40 degrees running 0w20 redline oil I could never get the engine oil pas 170 degrees after a 20 minute commute it would settle around 160F. Thats not good.
That's over cooling. So it was disconnected.

That's absurd. I would *much* sooner live with 160F oil temps than go to the trouble of disconnecting the whole thing. 0W20 synthetic at 160F is not going to hurt a damn thing. Again, WAY too much time/effort/money expended for absolutely nothing. Just leave it hooked up.

[post_break]

Originally Posted by Dezoris

Ran an hour session last summer and oil was up to 260F with cooler. I have my doubts the water cooling would be better with FI.

The guy who tracked his with the water cooler was around that temp. Next track day I do I'll be logging too.

[86-tundra]

good riddance

[Dezoris]

I got maybe 5 laps at Gingerman before the brakes faded on HC800 and stock Rotors. Switched to XP10, held up 10 laps. Continued with setup for 4 more session until the Rotors were toast. Next track day switched to 4000DBA and XP12. Much better, no fade. But braking felt inconsistent over the long haul.

Fluid held up no issues. DBAs were good for about another 2 hours track driving (1 hour sessions) and then the high temp paint market activated. And further driving after that was inconsistent. On the street oem pads were quickly destroyed from the rotor waviness. And by that time 850+ dollars later on pads and rotors, the BBK made more sense and cheaper on paper. Track peformance was night and day. Pedal feel consistency everything. But really f-up the pad choices for street, and wound up switching around. etc etc.

Now I feel like I have a setup that pseudo works, but the BBK has to come off in the winter or I am looking at a rebuild due the heavy, heavy amount of road salts.

I don't think people get it but there is no magic answer of what works best or not, I consulted with Mike on pads and setups but climate plays a big factor here.
Yesterday it was 75F here, tomorrow morning we are supposed to get 1-2" of snow. Most of the data on this platform comes from the Cali region, not really applicable in some cases.

In terms of using the grooved 1521s we had a big debate about it. The fact that we spent 3 hours installing the new rotors, the argument was do we really want to throw on grooved pads that could potentially grove the new rotors out of the gate?
Not so much a big deal for street but when we get to the track, I don't want to deal with any brake feel vibration etc. I get spooked to easy.
So we stuck with the Hawks Essex sent. They are totally fine for the street, and pedal feel is about 75% improved over stock. Massive difference.

In terms of oil temps I disagree, the normal operating oil temperature on this type of motor is 190-212 degrees. That's where it tends to settle. In the winter its usually a 10 minute affair to reach those temps without the oil cooler. But with the oil cooler it takes 20 minutes to reach barely 160F. And remember the oil usually starts out at roughly 35-40 degrees and is still about at 110F for the first 8 minutes or so depending on temp.

It's not the 160F that bothers me its the excessively long time the oil is spent in the cold zone, which is where the most engine wear occurs.

But yes, part of all this is the time to get things sorted and figured out. Like your power steering units. Thats where a lot of the money and time comes in.
Next year I could tell someone with confidence, "this is how this works in this condition, and what to expect."

I did not get that luxury.

Originally Posted by ZDan

Conclusions?


It's just bizarre to go from $400 "street" pads which must be overkill, to literally the worst street pads imaginable. I know Carbotech and others go on about transfer layers, but I've *never* had any issues swapping XP8 and XP10 pads out for street pads (OEM on the s2000, Centric and even Duralast Gold on the FD).

Well, if you throw enough mud on the wall, something's bound to stick sooner or later. But you're taking a maximum effort/maximum expenditure approach where it really shouldn't be necessary.

I would have just used those grooved street pads instead of throwing them out. I would feel a bit miffed about expensive rotors that warped, when lesser rotors can be used on these cars without issue.

PITA, but yeah, par for the course. I went through three power steering pumps in short order on my LS-engined FD for stupid reasons, but now it is sorted and shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully this is the case for your supercharger (fingers crossed).


That's absurd. I would *much* sooner live with 160F oil temps than go to the trouble of disconnecting the whole thing. 0W20 synthetic at 160F is not going to hurt a damn thing. Again, WAY too much time/effort/money expended for absolutely nothing. Just leave it hooked up.

[jeepmor]

Good read. Thanks for burgeoning through heavy mods on a new platform. It definitely illustrates the commitment required. And how it wears on you and consumes so much of you time.

I went through this rebuilding my jeep from a fire 20 years ago. And then modding the hell out of it.

I'm waiting a while before I even consider FI for just the reasons you discuss.

[l0aded]

Thanks for writing this Dezoris, really gives insight on modding cars in general. I only have intake, exhaust and a tune and I've spent a lot of time getting things to be just the way I want it. Was seriously considering FI but after reading this it kind of confirms my suspicion: adding a ton of hp/torque would be fun but I'd probably get over it and be stuck with a giant headache at the end of the day.
Or maybe go with the electric supercharger lol.

[calmtigers]

This same shit happened to me when I would roll around stanced in my previous car(obviously much smaller monetary scale). After a while you get utterly tired of replacing shit etc.

I think for this reason, I learned my lesson now with this car I have an extremely hard time deciding on what I want.

Thank you for making a point to everyone that with any kind of modding, it is rarely straightforward and there are rarely no side effects in some way or another.

[PStaff716]

might catch some heat for this but I firmly believe that you shouldn't be modding a car (big mods, not just a tune/exhaust) unless you are earning a great deal of money. To me, anything less than 10 grand of EXPENDABLE cash on an annual basis is just too little to be turbocharging a 4 cylinder. I will be fully prepared to rebuild the engine at any given moment before I drop a lot of cash into this car (meaning having plenty of spare "emergency" cash). friends earning 60k+ on an annual basis still feel they don't have enough to go all on in their WRX's and g37's. I firmly agree that you need to make good money to mod your cars, unless you want to live in a shitty studio apartment.


with that being said, this write-up makes me feel like I should be searching for a used GTR once law school is done instead of trying to build a track monster out of this car. there is something to be said about having a car that can whoop a ton of ass on its way to the dealership for some maintenance.

[Synack]

My D3PE turbo kit making 350whp is my 45-mile roundtrip DD and hasn't been requiring much maintenance lately. Did an oil change in January and that's the last thing. About to upgrade to a ball bearing turbo to get more power and reliability too.

[Dezoris]

Originally Posted by Synack

My D3PE turbo kit making 350whp is my 45-mile roundtrip DD and hasn't been requiring much maintenance lately. Did an oil change in January and that's the last thing. About to upgrade to a ball bearing turbo to get more power and reliability too.

I can assume your car is street only?

[bdbx18]

As a half a century old owner, I'd like to think of my BRZ as my little red Alfa. Except much more reliable.

I stopped my car modding days about twenty years ago and I still cringe when I think of all the money I would have saved if I had not blown it on mods, trade-ins, depreciation and car purchases (among many other acts). I still do my own maintenance on our cars and my BRZ has not been to a dealer yet at 17k miles.

Still, that doesn't stop me from thinking about more torque, more power and so I peruse these pages for the low-cost, simple bolt-on solution. Which evidently does not exist when one tries to read between the lines. You see, most are not whiners like me. While others are not about to admit defeat to think or say they've made a bad decision about the purchase. They will attempt to chase and 'fix' it and subsequently lowering the expectation bar over time. The justification then becomes the norm that to get a FI solution that yields an additional 50hp, you'll be expected to add this and/or fix this at regular intervals.

As one gets older, we will all arrive with different priorities, mortgage, bills, kids, caretaking, travel e.g. With the younger FRS/BRZ owners, the car is literally everything they have, their 'baby', so they pour all their resources on her. In reply, the after-market is more than willing to draw up glossy marketing ads and graphs to answer the demand. In my day, an Honda engineer once replied to my inquiry about an after-market header that it is ludicrous to think that my OEM NSX header was so poorly designed to restrict the same 15hp I was hoping to regain. Or the second guessing that says the manufacturer with the vast engineering force does not know as much about cost benefits and reliability of additional power.

That said, for many it is not the end-result but the 'journey' itself that is gratifying. Years ago, I was an audiophile that did almost fall into the abyss if not for a limited bank account. The wake-up call came not from my wife but actually from the stereo shop guy who said perhaps I should just enjoy the music from my very nice system instead of contemplating another costly new Apogee speaker and Audio Research power-amp setup. So sometimes, we do lose sight of the forest and instead focus on the trees thereby missing the whole 'intent'.

My BRZL is still stock except for the blacked out wheels, tint, armrest, opti-coat e.g. I would love to get new tires so I don't slide that much in the canyons and a FI solution so I can outrun that pesky Camry V6. But history has proven at least to myself, that stock is good, even better and I don't need the headache nor the expense when there are other things to spend time and money on.

[calmtigers]

Originally Posted by bdbx18

In my day, an Honda engineer once replied to my inquiry about an after-market header that it is ludicrous to think that my OEM NSX header was so poorly designed to restrict the same 15hp I was hoping to regain. Or the second guessing that says the manufacturer with the vast engineering force does not know as much about cost benefits and reliability of additional power.

This.

Thread is straight knowledge