Brenda the Blue (BRZ)

[Lynxis]

Some more videos from recent event's I've attended.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlXPMpoL_uU[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSZ_5fhahsY[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0tOe5mQkrY[/ame]

[P3tras]

Great, you are doing with car basically everything that I wish to do as well

[Lynxis]

Bad news.

Got the CEL+stability control light, likely related to TSB 11-130-13R.

When it happened, I was parked in front of Best Buy to pick up some stuff. The drive there was fine and when I came back out and got in the car, there was no obvious issue as I started it. As I pulled away though, I felt some vibration from the back wheels. I checked my mirrors to see if I ran over anything but there was nothing that I could see so I shrugged it off. Shortly after, I pulled onto the road and started accelerating and noticed it seemed to have less power than usual, looked down and saw the lights.

Regarding idle stumble, I have gotten it since I got the car but it would only happen if the heat or AC were running and it never stalled. I did mention it to Subaru but they said the behavior was normal when the AC compressor kicked in and if the car didn't stall to not worry about it.

The car is still drivable so I'm taking it over to Subaru first thing tomorrow morning to have it checked out.

[Milotic]

Hope all is well with the CEL light, love your journal so far!

[Lynxis]

Thanks for the compliments!

I dropped my car off at Subaru this morning and they called me back by 1pm today, very impressed with the time frame. They weren't expecting me at all when I dropped it off either. Anyways, when they called, they confirmed it is related to that TSB and replaced a bad cam sensor and swapped the sensors between the cam banks and cleared the fault code. They have asked me to drive the car for a while and see if the CEL comes back on so that is it for now. Here's hoping it doesn't come back.

[Slammedsteve]

Wow the stock rims actually look good when they are just all silver. Nice job on the repair too! now it just needs more low, lol.

[Lynxis]

More Picton autocross, this time CASC regional events 1 and 2. These are large courses that use all 3 runways compared to just a runway and a half on the other Picton events I've attended.

Day 1
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmdNNxWCWbg[/ame]

Day 2
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqoujtEOCag[/ame]

[Lynxis]

Suppose it's time for an update.

Took the Hawks HP+ off and returned to the stock pads. Hawks don't have much pad material remaining. I think they might survive another track day but my tires are pretty worn now too at 3/32 front, 4/32 rear so my track season is officially over for this year. I don't have budget this year for new rubber but I should be able to afford it next year. While I replaced the pads, I also decided to try bleeding my brake fluid myself after watching some video guides. Made a mistake the first time I tried because the tubing was too large, it wasn't air tight so when the brake pedal was released air was getting sucked back in. A friend of mine has a one man bleeder kit and loaned it to me which worked well and now my brake pedal feels good again. After the frustration though, I broke down and ordered some speedbleeders so I won't have to think about it again. They will go in when I go to bleed the lines next time.

I had some autocross today with St Lawrence Auto Club at Shannonville Motorsport Park. Here is my best run of the day:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08iFqmD0gg4&"]23-07-2015 Shannonville Autocross 5 - YouTube[/ame]

Looks like it's 80 seconds. At this stage, the car is 100% stock because I'm back on the stock brake pads. I am definitely improving, especially my shifting technique but I see a lot of other mistakes that cost me time like blown apexes, turning in too early, braking more than required for certain areas and not accelerating as much as I could in others. There is no reason I couldn't be in the 70 second range, I just need more seat time.

[Lynxis]

So a package arrived from Japan today...



Wonder what's inside...



Oh what's this?



It's a 1/24 scale model of a WRB BRZ.



All of the parts seem to be there. I haven't built something like this since I was around 10 years old I think. Used to make model planes and trains. Don't think this will take me too long considering some of the planes I made had twice as many parts and still only took me a week. Planning to assemble it in the late fall/early winter when I get bored and have lots of free time. Might get done sooner if I run into a fit of boredom before that.

And don't worry, more interesting stuff is in the mail

[Lynxis]

So another package arrived earlier this week.



22kgs! It's a bit heavy. Lets cut open the box!



Wonder what's inside...



Oh, my coils are here!



Got them used from a forum member who has upgraded to something better for a good deal. I gave them a once over and they all appear to be in good shape and everything promised is present.

At the very least they aren't going on until I get some rear LCAs but we are getting late into the summer now so it will probably wait until next spring. We shall see.

I have more autocross tomorrow evening so expect some videos of that soon. Also, a friend of mine might be able to get me some cheap or possibly even free lapping time mid Sept. I don't have a lot of tread left and I'm back on stock brakes so I'll have to take it easy but I think it would be a good chance to record a few hot laps with the car still 100% stock before the mods begin.

[Lynxis]

So I completed the autocross on Thursday. Unfortunately there was some user error with my GoPro on my part and it didn't record anything so there is no video and this is all I've got of me from the event:



Turnout was small, only 7 people total. It was short notice and the weather didn't look great so only the die-hards made it out. I was 2/3 in class and 6/7 overall. Don't let the poor placement fool you, I was only 3 seconds from 3rd place overall.

54s Toyota WSR (modified)
57s '94 Camaro (modified)
61s Cobalt SS (prepared)
62s 1st gen Forester (stock)
63s S2000 (prepared)
64s Me (stock)
72s Series Blue BRZ (stock)

Regarding the course, the layout was extremely tight and technical. There was one point where going to third was an option but I wasn't confident it would be faster to do so and so I stayed in 2nd.

Happy about dominating the Series Blue but to be fair, I think this is only his 3rd autocross event where this is my 7th now.

The Forester driver is pretty much the only person who can objectively say he's got a slower car than me yet he's still faster so I thought something could be gained by sitting with him for some fun runs and he was happy to oblige. Unfortunately, his AWD and intense body roll doesn't really carry too much over to the pure RWD BRZ but I did notice that he brakes later and more aggressively than I do.

Regarding my own performance, there is definitely time to be made with more aggressive braking and I still don't think I'm going full speed through the slaloms yet either. I think with more seat time in the cars current form, I could be in competition for 3rd place overall on a course like this. At the very least, I know my ability is still not being limited by the car.

Next autocross is Sept 6th.

[Lynxis]

Sept 6th autocross was cancelled but I did get some lapping at Shannonville on the Nelson today instead. My best lap of the day:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWMTco_PHzg"]12-09-2015 Shannonville Nelson best lap - YouTube[/ame]

The time was 1:20:25 determined by using frame advance and frame numbers in the video. I'll try uploading the entire session later.

It was raining all day long and so the track was very greasy. For example, in the dry, the first right hand sweeper could be taken at 110km/h easily but none of us could take it faster than 90km/h today. It was also difficult to put the power down coming out of corners without breaking loose. I kept the traction control on all day and was rewarded by being the only RWD vehicle without an off all day. My friend in his RX-8 even ended up spinning out into the tire wall shortly after passing me, even got it on video:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2QmUvQcDOA"]shannonville rx8 wipeout - YouTube[/ame]

Thankfully he wasn't hurt but his front bumper was dented up and his undertray was smashed. He was able to remove the undertray, snip some loose pieces and he was back on the track for the majority of the last session although he took it easy from then on.

[Lynxis]

This is the full video from my final session:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH4I6nq4-ag"]Shannonville Nelson lapping 12-09-2015 full session - YouTube[/ame]

It's boring because the course is short and my session lasts nearly 50 minutes. I've got video from the other sessions but they were all washed out and not really any different anyway. My best lap starts at 38:44 but you can just watch the video in my previous post to see that.

During this session, I was experimenting with downshifting at various parts of the course and trying slightly different lines for the hairpin. My fastest laps were ones where I didn't downshift except for the hairpin. I think this is because when it's wet, 2nd gear causes the rear to step out when trying to apply throttle out of a corner. At least in 3rd I can get some power down. I don't think the story would change any if it was dry because then I can take all of the corners fast enough to stay in the power band in 3rd gear.

This is my last lapping event of the year. Looking forward to next year when I get the coils and some good rubber on the car. I've still got a few other events this month before I'm done so expect some more videos soon!

[Lynxis]

CASC-OR regional event 6 was at Picton today hosted by PMSC so I was there. Here is my best run of the day:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRRrci1eSVM"]20 09 2015 casc or picton autocross 4 - YouTube[/ame]

Most of my videos have been 720p60 but I decided to try 1080p30 for this one instead. Anyone have a preference for this or think the higher framerate is better? Let me know what you think.

1:51:93 was official time on that run. 4th slowest RAW, 6th slowest PAX. The fastest stock twin I saw had a 1:47. Competition was very tight but I need a lot of improvement still.

After competitive runs were done, I had two of my very fast friends drive my car with me in it for some fun runs to see what I could learn from them. They were both a lot faster than me, putting down times competitive to the other stock twins within a run or two which is pretty amazing considering neither of them have experience driving a twin. Anyways, I did learn a lot from sitting with them and I'm going to try to apply it at a local event next weekend. Let's see how I do.