Automatic for Track, Bad Idea???
 

Sorry for the noobie question here, but I am considering buying a Toyota 86 with automatic transmission as a dedicated track car. Is anyone out there running a track car with AT?

I test drove a new 86 with paddles and in sport mode felt very responsive.

Other than the tactile feel of rowing through the gears, why else would it be a bad idea to build an 86 Track Car with AT?

If you start adding real ponies, the AT won't grenade but it will slip and eventually die in a less spectacular fashion. @johan


It's also heavier but if you're just out there for fun, who cares? They're not bad at all.

final drive is taller so it'll be slower
not sure if you need a cooler, here's this thread, @Lunatic had one though
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...=61498&page=12

You can, people do and enjoy it

AT's are cheaper at auction. (usually anyway)

ATF has a shortened lifespan from the heat. I get somewhere around 30-40k before instead of the 60k in the manual. This shows itself in rougher shifts usually. And ATF is harder to change then MT. It also costs a lot more since it takes more fluid along with the labor time if you don't do it yourself.

Get a manual and learn to drive stick at the track. The gearing is better, and with a manual you learn more.

There is a reason the automatics are cheaper.

Now, if you already have an automatic and you are only going to the track a few times a year, it might not be worth it to get rid of your automatic to try to get a manual.

Mine was flawless on the track, don't listen to @Ultramaroon. I would recommend a simple ATF cooler though. You can retrofit any of the common options from an auto parts store easily enough.

Most new performance cars are Paddles. There are some very fast 86 drivers with paddles. Personally I love manuals and all my sports cars have been manual however when you really break it down realistically there is really no advantage. I've seen vids with comparisons and the paddle\manual times were almost exactly the same.

The high end cars not ours. I have not lost to an auto twin. If only there was a way tp get the fastest autos and sticks on the forums and race each other. Would be awesome.

You bitch so much about every little thing that I must have gotten your complaints mixed up.

Thank everyone for your input. I started tracking with an Automatic Transmission Porsche and then converted to a manual. Ultimately, i prefered the AT but wanted to find out if there is anything inherently wrong or slow or unusable with the AT at the track on the 86. I would definately install a cooler. As far as the relative cost of future maintenance, true the AT can be a costly repair. But, the MT will need clutches and the possibility of engine damage due overrevs is a likely occurance sooner or later.

I'm probably near about 500 hard launches on my 6 year old MT, more autox runs, ~10 hours of track time, 76k miles, never over-revved, it's fine. Throwout bearing is getting a bit loud but it's a known design flaw on the early cars, next one should fix the problem and take the car to over 200k assuming it's still my daily driver a decade from now, which is unlikely. Edit: I've been changing transmission and diff fluid at 30k intervals fwiw, stuff is cheap, <$100 for the fluid change for both.
:iono:

This car has nothing in it mechanically that wasn't available in 1996, it'll be solid if you take care of it either way.

Just want to add that there is no way to launch an automatic 86. 151 ft lbs and a torque converter will bog off the line. If you only do road course tracks, this should not be a problem since you start with a warm up lap and once you get moving the paddles shifters are quite good. But if you ever want to try an autocross course it will be painfully slow off the starting line.

Most autox courses minimize the launch with a hard turn or slowing element before the timing lights, or enough of a drag that it's in the noise. The final drive will hurt more I'd wager, but there's the fun factor of lighting 'em up a bit.

Actually.... Low mileage, used AT trans for this car are really cheap on ebay. I think you'll be just fine. :burnrubber:

I can't argue with this. :lol:

Once you get the AT, your testicles will shrink. That's all. Chances are you'll be faster in an auto unless you learn to shift really well, at which point the manual advantages win. Final drive. Being in the exact gear you want.

Nothing wrong with the AT. You'll have a gearing advantage at some venues, and a gearing disadvantage at others. Just a matter of how the gears line up with a particular track.

same track same driver, Randy Pobst I believe and an auto and manual. Almost identical lap times. Doubtful it gets more accurate than that for comparison purposes. Regardless, I’ll keep my manual

That's a challenge I'd take! :D

Yeah yeah... you and Senna


We all know how awesome you are. :bow:

The only bad idea is not taking your car to the track.

As an instructor I have been in plenty of cars you would think has no business at a racetrack. Crown Vic with a vinyl bench seat sticks out in my mind. The student had a blast! Plenty of automatic rental mustangs too.
Just take it to the track, when you get serious you can think about selling and getting a manual later.

Edit: but if you havent bought a car yet, yes I would say go with manual

DO the automatics come with some kind of tiptronic steptronic?

Yes, there are buttons and levers to tell the AT to shift gears. From all account it shifts good.

It's still a torque converted automatic with a different rear end gear, and I forgot, over a flying lap, Mike's not wrong F/D change will be more track dependent on whether it's good or bad than just the hurt acceleration.

Hi Evan,

The truth is I am building a race car, so I would say its getting serious. Is your answer based on historical manual bias? Or, is there a good reason not to go automatic. Most new race cars and modern track cars are being built faster and more durable with some form of automatic.

I fully get the concept of doing better with less - less grippy tires improves your handling skill, manual shifting with heal-toe downshifts is inherently more difficult so it is more rewarding. I get all that. And, the 86 comes to the table as manual in its DNA. But is there anything wrong with racing an automatic???

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I came to the track scene starting with an automatic so I do not have any manual bias. In fact, I would say the computer has taught me how to downshift better better then most when I do run a manual. But, after weighing it all out, I have decided paddles are a better fit for me at 10/10ths.

Why would I not build a automatic-equipped 86 race car?

I believe you are mixing up AMT and AT.
Paddle shift cars in just about every professional race series in the world are still technically manual.

The trans in our cars is NOT that kind of trans.
They are two very different things.

Not THAT different.

For what it's worth, I've never met anyone at the track with a manual who wished it was an automatic; however, the majority of the guys at the track with an automatic say they wish they had a manual. As an instructor, I've driven all sorts of cars with all sorts of transmissions. I always prefer a manual over anything with 2 pedals. It's reassuring to know that I control when the car shifts, instead of just asking for permission and letting the car decide. An automatic won't help you become a better driver and it will limit what you can learn with the car.

If you are just looking to save money on the purchase price, remember you'll lose the same amount when you try to sell your car. A 'prepped' automatic 86 sounds like it'd be almost impossible to sell (maybe you'd find someone who was looking to put a sequential transmission in it, but that's a very small market).

If you're afraid that you aren't good enough with a stick shift, there is no better time to learn than the present. Now, if you already had an automatic or if you had some sort of physical limitation that kept you from driving one, there's nothing wrong with the automatic in the 86 and you can have plenty of fun in one at the track.

How's that? He's already stated that he can drive a MT. I drive a MT daily and track the AT FR-S. While I'm new at tracking I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I thought about trading in for a MT, did at least 3 test drives and opted to hang onto the AT. It's a very precise transmission and a joy to drive. The fact that it's so different really appeals to me.

You'll always be doing less in an automatic, and you'll never have the pleasure of executing a perfect heel toe downshift. With a manual you're using both hands and both feet all the time. You're more involved more of the time.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Fair enough, you can't heal toe. I wouldn't be able to anyways with my big feet lol


It may be slightly less involving but it certainly isn't not involving at all. I think it's a great car in AT form. To each his/her own.

Hi 14stu, well, i am the exception. My last car was a Porsche GT4 and had a wonderful manual with short shift and rev matching. I get the fun. But, i am going back to automatic - my next car will have paddles. And, based on the feedback, there does not seam to be any problems going AT with a 86.

For me only the AT provides: No overrevs, computer perfect smooth gear shifts, mid corner momentary agressive gear selection, no clutch replacements, and i feel confortable letting my friends drive it.

Fair enough, even though all your reasons for the AT are to avoid driver errors and one of the primary goals of non-competitive tracking is to become a better driver (right after having fun). I guess if you think you'll have more fun with an AT then that's what you should get.

Even with an AT, you should be in the correct gear before you enter the corner. There are very few instances where you should ever be changing gear mid-corner (even in an AT you'll get unwanted weight transfer when changing gears).

I autox and track with a group of 5 other 86 drivers (and one weirdo in a Lexus IS300), only one of them drives an automatic (he wasn't into performance driving when he bought it but we seduced him during the annual 86 day cruise to join us and he's been stuck with us ever since). The guy with the AT suffers performance penalties at both the autox and trackdays (the longer gearing can really bite, especially with the stock tune and torque dip).

You'll be the first person I've heard of choosing an AT for a dedicated track build, but in the end it's your time and money. The platform is great and I love mine as a track and autox car (it's also my daily driver). I couldn't imagine going from a GT4 to an 86 and being happy (well, the nearly $100k price difference might make me happy). I understand not tracking an expensive car since you have to be willing to write off anything you bring to the track; however, I personally would have only gone down to a Cayman or 997 and not all the way down to an 86.

To me, a 'dedicated track car' means a cage, stripped interior, and a major investment in parts. If you do that to an AT 86, I cannot see you being able to sell it later (at least not at half the price of a manual car). Now, if you are just looking at a HPDE build where you throw on some brake pads, swap fluids, and swap out wheels and tires you should be fine. The AT isn't great with FI (at least the turbo AT I drove at the track was a hot piece of garbage, but maybe that was an outlier).

I don't know what your goals are, but you asked if it would be a mistake to buy an AT 86 instead of a manual to turn into a track car and in my opinion as someone who does serious track work with a BRZ is that I'd advise against it. If you said you had an AT 86 and wanted to make a dedicated track car, I'd still recommend you buying a manual and keep the AT as a daily. If you were just starting to do autox and a few trackdays and already had an AT 86, I'd tell you that it's a good chassis and you should definitely enjoy it.

For a full track build, I'd tell you to buy this: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131421
or a NA build like this: https://showroom.windingroad.com/listings/product/4136/
You save a ton of time and money buying a car that's already setup for the track.

Yup. I've not heard any drawbacks about the twins AT. Sans boosting the hell out of the engine.

Oh Noes! The kids will be able to steal it!

I own both an AT and a MT.

I don't know about durability of the AT on a track, but drivability is great. If you are not interested in shifting a manual as part of your driving experience, the AT in the twins is one of the better ones out there. I have autocrossed my wife's AT a few times and, aside from the inability to launch, the auto does great. I put the AT in sport mode and 98% of the time it does what I would have done with a manual, right when I want it done.

Just to be clear the *transmission* sport mode is great. (Button in the middle of the center console)
The sport mode for the traction control is terrible in the pre 17' models. (Button on the right side of the center console) the 17+ models have a "track" mode that's not bad though.

Great reply 14Stu.

There is new thinking on this subject. Mfgs have discovered that with faster onboard computers, and quicker AT shifts, it is ultimately faster to downshift to any gear that leaves some RPMs available in the torque range. Weird I know, but when I converted from auto to manual, and followed the lessons taught from the auto's computer, I was faster than other manual drivers.

Mathematically speaking, if a paddle shifts milliseconds faster than a manual, it will be faster (all other things being equal). Porsche engineers have determined that all is not equal, and that the reason an most autos are quicker on the track is due to reduced driver workload.

If not an 86, then what? I do want to be happy when done.

My parameters are it has to look like sports car (no 4 door hot hatches), lightweight (no muscle cars like Vette, Mustage, Camaro). And, must be built for a reasonable price. I have come to a point where I need added the safety of a cage. Porsche's are wonderful track cars, but when you really analyze the cost of a new, caged auto Porsche, the cost delta is substantially more than $100k. The GT4 is manual. If you want an automatic, you either need buy a factory-built Cayman Clubsport or build it yourself. Either way you are talking $150k ish. That's just crazy stupid money.

The videos I see online of 86s, are within 4 seconds of the fastest GT4 at Buttonwillow, and 2 seconds at Barbers. I can live with that. And, I like be an underdog. ;)

The only downside is the inability to aggressively downshift. It is REALLY conservative.

Wait for a Supra? Or get a used 981 Cayman base PDK ($30-40k) and strip it out?

Not sure I follow...are you saying in AT mode it is conservative? I've sure not noticed any conservatism when in manual mode.

It does not allow for downshifts I would 100% safely make with a MT.