Boss's Entry Into Auto Racing
 

Intro: I'm a semi-retired 43 year old fart interested in auto racing. Scratching that very old itch and checking off an item off the old bucket list.

Last year I sold my 2009 Dodge Challenger that I have owned and modded since I bought it new. Pulled the original motor with 500km on the odometer and went from there. When she was sold, she had a 426 Low compression stroker with a 2.5L Magnuson blower running at 12psi. The only things left stock on that car were the brakes and radiator. She was very fast in a straight line but she had too much power and was too heavy to have fun in the curves. I also had a shitton of money into that car and didn't want to smack her into a wall.

It's been a year without having a fun car and that itch came back strong about a month ago. I've always wanted to learn how to power slide a car, but I wanted to start with the basics and something that's not going to break the budget.

After bit of research I found the car that I wanted to start road racing with. The BRZ/86 is perfect. She's small, light, nimble, rear wheel drive and slow enough in stock form, perfect for a beginner. Add to this the technical nature of this forum, tons of information on here to get started racing this car. I feel right at home.

This will be a dedicated road racing car.

Current Status:


2021-09-30: Weight loss, the easy stuff
2021-09-27: She's home: https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...83&postcount=7
2021-07-19: Shopping for a 2017+ Subaru BRZ / Toyota 86. Not winter driven, low KMs, Automatic and as close to bone stock as possible. Ideally in Red.

Modding Plans:

Phase 1:
Gut the interior, drop the weight (completed)
Oil Cooler (Installed)
Canned OFT Tune (Stage 2+) (Installed)
Racing Seats (I'm 6'1' and too tall with helmet on) (installed)
UEL Headers and Overpipe (installed)
A-Pillar Gauge Pod + Gauges (installed)
Master Cylinder brace (installed)
Axleback exhaust (installed, waiting on exhaust hangers)

K&N Filter (ordered)




Phase 2 (2023?):


Adjustable Coilovers (researching)
Transmission Cooler (researching)
Big Brake Kit
Wheels
Tires
Vented Hood
Aero mods (Fascia, Spoiler, etc)

Phase 3:
Turbo or Supercharger
Transmission (Valve body?)

Phase 4:
Engine / Transmission Swap

At this point, I would wait for a gen2.

If I was shopping for a road car, I'd agree. For a track car, I'd opt for a cheaper 1st gen that I wouldn't care too much about beating on.

Same here, while I understand wanting to start with a low mileage (or at least well-preserved) car, I really don't see the point in starting with a facelift car, especially an auto that didn't get the engine update.

As far as mods order, not sure the BBK is the right place to start.

I'd first do (in that order):
-oil cooler
-pads + disks + fluid (+lines?)
-tyres + RPF1s or other lightweight wheels
-coilovers
-shorter rear end
-headers + tune
-misc. stuff (pedal spacer, seats, etc.)

And then take it from there (E85, gutting, aero, FI, etc.)

Yeah, I thought about it. The price difference isn't all that big. But I like the aftermarket support of the 2013+ model, there's just so many options for building up this car. The engine and platform have been dissected in every way, the breaking point of the parts. I don't want to go through that with the new refresh and wait for aftermarket to catch up.

I imagine as a novice racer, I'll overuse the brakes and I want to make sure they will last the session. Right now the only power adders that I would be interested in are bolt-ons, and only if they make an actual difference at the track.

She came home last weekend
 

After a few months of searching I finally found her and brought her home Saturday.

She's a 2017, off-lease with 21k km's on her and absolutely mint, both under the hood and inside. She comes bone stock, exactly how I wanted her.

Totally different story on the body, someone really liked putting their shit on top of this car. Plus she's got so many scratches all around the her, I can't even imagine how bad the driving skills of the owner were. All rims have been curbed. She's going to need a lot of detailing work.

Some thoughts about this car.

- After looking at A LOT of these cars, one thing is for certain, they are not built for Canadian winters. Pretty much every car I looked at that was winter driven and had over 60k was already showing serious signs of rot and corrosion.

- The market for these cars is still so hot. Good deals get snapped up FAST. Sorry 10am appointment guy, I got there first 😉

- After driving big V8 cars most of my life, I am really looking forward to seeing what this car can do. Driving it around town is a lot of fun, especially tossing the rear through roundabouts. Feels like driving a Go Kart. Probably is going to get me in trouble, sooner or later.

- She's definitely lacking in bottom end grunt, I want to put a turbo on her but that's not going to help much on the bottom. Looking for suggestions how to increase low end torque with bolt-ons.

- She's going to need a name

- Couldn't help myself, did some light modding on her right away.
Quick trip to Crappy Tire and debadged the rear, tinted the tails and side markers and covered up the plates. Her ass looks a lot better now, need to fill in the space where the badge was.

Any good online stores for stuff for this car? (turbo kits, brakes, headers, etc, custom stuff?)

Counterspace garage is great, there's also ft86speedfactory and 86speed (not sure if they do canada?)

A header, tune, and e85 will fix the bottem end for you and depending on dynos you're looking at, pick up anywhere from 20-30hp and tq.

A smaller turbo that is appropriately tuned will give you low end grunt, not sure how familiar you are with newer turbo setups. Smaller gtx's and EFRs can make a lot of boost in the low 3k rpm range.

You can also look at the edelbrock or harrop sc kits if low end is what you're after.

Keep in mind these engines are not the most stout and you really want to stay in the low to mid 200lb/ft range for reliability.

Thanks for all the sites to check out, much appreciated.

Most of my experience is with superchargers, haven't dabbled in Turbos yet which is why I'm doing Turbo on this car. I have a lot of reading to do before I plan this build fully.

She's going on a serious diet soon, hoping that this will help with the launch from standstill. Ultimately though, she's destined for a racetrack, so unlikely that she's spend much time in the lower rpm range.

Before you turbo, I would suggest driving the car stock. Start with an oil cooler, pads + fluid, then tires + wheels as someone else mentioned.

For buying parts I use Subieland.ca located in KW, anything on RallySportDirect he can get and more :). Hope to see you at the track, Grand Bend has a lapping day on the 9th and it's a great track for beginners!

For sure. The old "turbos take long to spool, turbo lag, only add power up high" etc is really based on older turbos. They've come a long way. Obviously if you're looking at a huge turbo to make 700whp on a 2L engine you're going to have lag and not make power for a bit, but a smaller turbo good for 250-350whp will spool very quickly.

I agree, the turbo is a next year project. I want to see first what I can do with just bolt-ons, tune and weight loss.

Thanks for Subieland :cheers:, I'm in KW myself.


I'd like to make at least one trip to the track this year so I'm down for Grand Bend assuming the stars align and my schedule works, where can I find more info on this?

700hp on this car would be insanely fun, but, I want to do a track build so the engine needs to last under boost. Based on what's on this forums, ~400hp seems like a good target for cost/performance. The rest will have to come from weight loss.

https://grandbendmotorplex.com/ ! If you do come, feel free to come talk to me. I'll be in Yellow with the Lava FR-S :party0030:

As a novice, actually, you're likely to underuse the brakes. Experienced drivers will be braking harder, later, and if they're carrying more speed, longer, than a novice.

If this is a dual-use street/track car, I would look at upgrading wheels and tires first, brake pads to a semi-track compound, and then moving on from there.

245s F/R on a 17x9" wheel around ET 32-40 are a popular choice, but as you get faster you'll need to look at adding camber beyond what the factory adjustments can support to avoid prematurely wearing out the outside of the tires.

The only realistic "easy" bolt-on thing you can do for low/mid-range grunt is get an equal-length, catless header and tune. Other than that, you're looking at superchargers.

I'm starting to see the benefit of delaying the BBK. Seems like the oil cooler and AT oil cooler should be on top of the list of mods to maximize track time.

Some parts fell off
 

Spent the week detailing the hell our of her and putting her on weight loss. I have to admit, I'm really impressed with the Toyota / Subaru engineers. Stripping most of the interior of the car resulted in weight saving of only about 100 lbs, far less than I anticipated.

Incidentally, the interior for this car is for sale if anyone is looking.

Breakdown of interior part weights below:

Attachment 205778

First time at the track at the Grand Bend Motorplex yesterday. Ran into @Villanous_FRX who gave me some good pointers and off we went.

Went out 3 times, once on dry, once during rain and once again after the sun came up. It was one helluva first day out, ended up doing a nice 720 into the grass during the rain run, now I know what the limits are.

I love this car. Feeling very confident that this was a great choice for a lapping car.

Need to get a lap timer of some sorts for next year. Stock up on oils, tires, brakes etc over the winter months.

One thing is for certain. After yesterday, I'm absolutely hooked. This is definitely going to be an expensive hobby ;)

Go for it!

We live only once :)

A great tool for lapping (and even video-making) is your smartphone. Pair it with the Harry's Laptimer app, a high-quality mount (like a RAM mount or similar) and a high-frequency GPS antenna and you'll get all the front-facing video, laptime, split time, section, and speed data you want.

And another one hooked because of the twins.

Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk

Full Blown Motorsports oil cooler install today. One step closer to getting this thing for extended track duty. This car is so easy to work with compared to some other projects I've worked on.

I know that I want to shed all unnecessary weight but I still want some music and navigation for the road to the track and back. Got some basic Polk Audio speakers and mounts on the way, picked up a Sony head unit, nothing fancy, just a basic model with Android Auto. The car is completely gutted inside so audio quality won't matter much when the interior is bare metal.



Started pulling new speaker wire through the door boot since the factory amp is gone and the speakers will be driven directly by the head unit.

Finished installing the head unit and the Polk Audio speakers. Nice to have Android Auto. The sound quality is "good enough", the interior is almost completely bare so not worth investing in good quality sound.

Added Weight:
Head unit weight: 2.27lbs
Speakers weight: 1.71lbs x2

Removed Weight:
dash speakers and tweeter: 1.47lbs

Installed the Garmin Catalyst system today. As a complete newbie to road racing I feel like I will be able to honestly review this product, how good of a training tool is it for me...


Hooked it up to a hidden 12v accessory socket in the glove compartment that I accidentally found while pulling speaker wires.

nice progress how are you enjoying the new oil temps? :) For me it was very nice peace of mind.

Thanks! First track day of the year is Saturday. I'll have a much better idea on temps for both Oil and Transmission after, although ambient temperature is expected to be below 12C.

First day at TMP was a success. Joined the Touge.ca group for a lapping session and had a blast.

Ambient Temp was about 54F and windy
Oil Temp maxed out at about 240F
Trans Temp maxed out at about 210F
Track Mode, Sport mode on
Transmission in "Auto", no paddle shifting yet


Set a benchmark PB of 1:34:52

Definitely lots of newbie mistakes, including gripping the steering wheel too hard, need to learn how to relax more while driving. Last few sessions tried using both feet for brake/gas. I found that the left foot needs a lot of work on controlled braking, this will take some time.

https://youtu.be/MdmsL8feB34


Constructive criticism and feedback greatly appreciated.

Braum Seats installed today. Air Bag light / Chime now on annoying mode due to the passenger occupancy sensor not being hooked up. I don't mind the light but that Chime is insane. Ordered Techstream interface and software on eBay to try to disable it. The seats are kind of dissapointing, I was hoping they would be a bit lighter than the OEM seats and not as low as I wanted. I might pull the sliders from the driver's side to lower it. They do look sexy tho!

Worked on a few more mods this weekend. Installed a master cylinder brace and wired up the gauges for the car. Oil Temp, Oil Pressure and Trans Temp. The sensors haven't been installed yet, next step is to run the sensor wiring through the firewall. This car is fun and easy to mod, but damn it's a tight space to work in when trying to route wires under the steering column!

Installed the oil temperature and oil pressure sensors using a brass T and adapter for the oil gallery. Pressure works but oil temp is way off (more than 40F) from what OBD is reporting. Will have to relocate the sensors, thinking about using the oil gallery strictly for oil temp and split the OEM oil pressure switch and the gauge oil pressure sensor.

Tomei UEL headers installed along with HKS Overpipe. Holy shit, what a PITA that overpipe was. Thanks to a bolt extractor, cutoff wheel and copious amounts of PB Blaster and some cursing, the swap was completed. Was hoping to get the car ready for this weekend track night, but still a lot of things to button up before the car is ready to race.

Very nice Boss! Any plans for a tune for the header?

Thank you. Working on this car is a blast.



I will get a dyno tune eventually once all the power mods are done. I'm still torn on the Turbo because I'm not sure I want to deal with all the extra heat at the track. For now, just having fun swapping parts getting her track worthy.

It sure is! haha

I've been debating to go boost for the last year or so myself with the same thought. I think if I pulled the trigger I'd go supercharger since it would compliment the existing mods. Either way great progress so far man! Looking forward to your updates :) :thumbup:

Random thought I had today but seeing your oil cooler setup and your reported temps.

I use the hks oilcooler and it includes a mesh to cut out in the fender liner. This allows the hot air out coming out the back of the oilcooler to avoid heat re-circulation. Might help with getting lower oil temps

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...t=20073&page=2
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...=142508&page=2

I like this. I would just take out the entire fog light insert and cut the wheel well plastic to match. I saw some guys at the track with holes cut right into the bumper and hood for more venting. I'll have to look into some options for that, but for now I want to gather some data on oil temps as I only want to do mods to address issues that arise.


You had a Stark AT tranny oil cooler and didn't use it, how come?

For me, mostly not wanting to deal with leaks and it's a daily. If it was dedicated just for track, I'd evaluate temps before making a decision.

Spent some time buttoning up the car. All sensors relocated and transmission temp sensor installed. Even with the oil temp probe directly in the oil galley, temperature is still off from what OBD is reporting, currently sitting around 30F lower. Picked up a Killer Bee splitter from Limitless Motorsports to install the oil pressure sensor in the same location as the stock sensor.

Picked up a good condition Axleback exhaust from Facebook marketplace. Quick and easy swap, the stock muffler is absolutely massive on this thing!



Having some vibration issue in the exhaust which gives it an obnoxious sound. Troubleshooting