2022 Subaru BRZ hpde build
 

Ordered on 10/22/2021, picked up on 4/15/2022.

Premium trim, not a single accessory, just like I wanted.

This may turn out to be a more serious build than the previous one (from which many mods will transfer).

Up-to-date mod list:

Tomei oil pan baffle
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MCS coilovers, 650/700 springs
Whiteline KCA416 camber bolts
Megan Racing OEM FLCA with spherical bushings and +15mm RCA
Hardrace RC tie rod ends +15mm
Karcepts FSB
STi flexible v-bar
RacerX rear UCA
MCA Suspension 86 Traction Mod
Removed RSB
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APR 61" GTC-300 wing
custom splitter
DocWalt GR86 Cup replica hood vent
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Jacks Transmissions transmission @13,625 miles
ACT 6 puck clutch
Verus clutch fork and pivot
STi transmission mount
Cusco motor mounts
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AP Racing CP9660 Radi-CAL front BBK
AP Racing CP9451 Radi-CAL rear BBK
Ferodo DS3.12 brake pads
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Advan Racing RS III, 18x9 +50
KYO-EI Project Kics Spacers 20mm in front
ARP wheel studs
255/35/18 tires du jour
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Outbound Motorsports GR86 Cup intake
JDL EL header, overpipe, ultra quiet front pipe
CSG Spec Touring 86 catback
Gerald Just flex fuel kit
Tuned by Zach@CSG
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GSpeed roll bar
OMP HTE-R 400 seats
PCI seat rails
Schroth 6-point harnesses
REAL leather steering wheel

Lots of wrenching this month on both BRZs with the goal of taking the red BRZ to Road Atlanta on May 21-22.

Transferring over from the Series.Yellow:

MCS coilovers
RacerX rear UCA
MCA Suspension 86 Traction Mod
STi flexible v-bar
OS Giken LSD, 4.3 gears
STi transmission mount

Dropped off the dampers today for service at MCS, should be ready next week. Used 550/550 springs before, will be running 550/650 springs.

Ordered the AP Racing CP9660 Radi-CAL front brake kit with Ferodo DS1.11 pads, should be arriving next week.

Still need to source OEM 18" wheels and pick decent 225/40/18 tires.

Would you please elaborate on wheel choice?
Many people are going for wider 17”.

Need to accommodate the Radi-CAL BBK. OEM 18" wheels will work for now. I will figure out proper 18x9.5 or so later.

Picked up dampers from MCS, two day turnaround!

Service note:

Both front guides needed replacement which is not a abnormal wear item on the BRZ chassis. The strut is relatively short on this chassis and the angle is fairly steep so it tends to wear the guide.

nice choice of mods - looking forward to your build :)

Got 18" wheels from the limited trim. Plenty of clearance for the Radi-CAL calipers. :)

Radi-CAL brakes installed and bled with Castrol SRF, rear diff with OS Giken and 4.3 gears swapped in, and CSG Spec Touring 86 catback installed as well. 715 miles on the car.

Tackling coilovers this weekend with an alignment scheduled Monday.

0-100 real quick, loving these updates!

You got right to it! Looking forward to seeing the progression.

Lots of serious components!!
What made you want to change differentials? Is the OS Giken more suited to the gearing you need for your track of choice or did you just do it for durability?

I'm curious as to why you chose the Radi-CAL over the smaller/lighter/cheaper Sprint or Endurance kits from AP Racing. Thanks!

Did it for performance; many threads on why the OS Giken outperforms the OEM Torsen. I moved the whole diff assembly from my 2017 Series.Yellow so 4.3 gears. Too lazy to open both diffs, swap the Giken into the 4.1, and check backlash.

Buy once, cry once. Just driving around rural GA the stopping performance is mind blowing.

Suspension bits installed at 825 miles, alignment at 840 miles. Was hoping for more camber in front and could see -4.1 on the alignment rack, but once everything was tightened, could not get more than -3.5 on the passenger side.

Measured OEM ride height at approximately 6" pinch weld to floor. Dropped both front and rear 1" as scientifically measured by the coffee can (5.04" tall).

Almost ready for Road Atlanta this weekend.

illy > lavazza

;)

Ugh, no way, no how.

First oil change at 975 miles. The drain plug was spotless clean but some monkey at the factory must have tightened it to 100 ft-lbs. I still have two oil filters left over from my Series.Yellow so used one instead of a gen 2 filter (gen 1 filter is taller). Gen 1 took 5.8 quarts of oil and gen 2 spec is 5.3 quarts, weird. I swear the engine took more than 5.3. After driving another 20 miles, the dipstick is at 3/4 mark.

Got tires installed by Tire Rack Mobile Installation, the service is top notch, highly recommended and what a time saver! 225/40/18 Kumho Ecsta V730 and almost ready for Road Atlanta. :)

Same in my case.

Curious what are the pros/cons. One would think a larger filter would be able to catch/accumulate more stuff before saturating and/or allow more oil flow?

Do we know the other specs of either filter besides height?

For what it's worth, the Gen1 filters are different between Toyota and Subaru. The Toyota one is shorter than the Subaru one. Both seem to work fine as far as I can tell, whatever is in stock is what I use on my car.

I found old posts comparing 130 to 170. The main difference seems to be the media surface area which is 608 cm2 for the 130 and 773 cm2 for the 170. I doubt it matters in practice.

I'm not suggesting it is a big number, but could the filter volumes have any impact on oil pressure? With the size difference I would guess it would be in the testing margin of error.

First impressions from Road Atlanta:

As usual, it took me 4 outings to get the tires where I wanted them to be. I would do 6-8 laps, come in hot to the paddock, adjust the pressure, go out again for another 4-6 laps, repeat this another session. Ended up running 29 hot. The front wheels look almost comical sunk in. Need to start looking into a dedicated set of track wheels that will support 255 width tires.

Since the chassis is stiffer, I only ran 7 clicks from the softest in front and 5 clicks in the rear. Previous gen I was at 11/9 clicks. Will try even softer settings tomorrow as there was still some bounciness here and there.

The rear of the car would snap a little bit on me in tight turns, but especially in 10a, coming off the back straight, braking, getting off the brakes and turning, and it felt like something was almost binding in the rear and the back would snap a little bit. I disconnected one RSB end link and that behavior was gone. Came home and yanked the whole RSB out of the car. Really love how the car feels without it.

The Radi-CAL brakes blew my mind, I still have to recalibrate my brain and my foot. Definitely braking way too hard so will work more on modulating the brakes tomorrow. Now I want the rears as well.

Oil temp was at the end of the 2 at the 270 mark, so maybe 265 or so max? That was during afternoon sessions in 91-degree heat and high humidity. Coolant temp bar stayed one bar below the middle mark.

With the 4.3 rear end, I ended up running out of 5th on the back straight. Best lap was a 1:45.93 and virtual best was a 1:42.21 so there is plenty of room to improve. This car will be a bit faster than a gen 1 tuned on e85.

Sunday at Road Atlanta was hot as balls so no improvement in lap times + I gave three passenger rides. More observations I forgot about:

Revs: The redline comes quick and the hard cutoff is brutal, especially in 3rd gear. I set the rev warning to 7000 rpms and a session later lowered it to 6800 rpms.

Hard plastic kneepads suck and the outside of my knees is still tender from bracing myself in turns.

Electric steering is a little bit more robust than gen 1, it got heavier going uphill in turns 1 and 5 but never cut off like my Series.Yellow. Will need to wait until I get 245 or 255 tires to properly assess if the improvement is real.

Pretty normal. The pans get painted after the plug is installed. That black paint makes great thread locker :/ Also, be sure to pull the crush washer off, because that's also painted on and usually REALLY stuck to the plug. The first time you usually need a knife or something to pry it off.

Yep, I used a small pick to get the crush washer off. At first I though the crush washer either fell into the drain pan or stayed on the oil pan, but upon further examination it was squished solid on the plug. :D

Are you not using track mode or all-off mode? Both give a digital temperature readout to the degree instead of the scale.


By flipping back and forth I've found the scale on the standard gauge cluster to be way off - like barely touching the 1 above 190 some days is 175 and some days is 192...

I am in all-off mode, guess did not figure out how to switch to displaying degrees.

Edit: looks like degree display is available only on the 86.

Only the GR86 does this. Missing feature on the BRZ.

Have you seen this thread?

rouuuuuugh... the horizontal bar graphic is terrible, way too wide a range, and really unclear what the temps actually are.


the android auto solution looks like a good workaround though! You could get a cheap burner phone just for track days if you're an apple guy

That seems so incredibly dumb.

More post hpde findings: The front driver tire rubbed on the wheel liner. I had a passenger for 3 sessions but there is no rubbing on the passenger side. Raised the car all around, driver side: 3 turns front, 4 turns rear, passenger side: 2 turns front, 3 turns rear. Fixed the wheel liner with Gorilla tape and we will see next time if the rubbing is still there.

Nice! I have like four Gen1 OE 130 filters from my MY17. I can use those without worry now.

Could not resist and added the AP Racing CP9451 Radi-CAL rear BBK....

Also, installed the Karcepts FSB, just need to adjust the endlinks and should be ready to go.

After raising the car a bit, figured it would be good to have another alignment. Used this opportunity to move over the REAL leather steering wheel as well.

In the filter testing we've done, size rarely adds up to anything (assuming all else equal). Subaru has gone to smaller filters over the years, but that's OK, because the smaller ones have more filter surface area, which in theory does reduce the pressure drop. In practice, it's not going to mean anything to most of us, because it's only going to be beneficial if you fill the filter with debris. On these engines, it means grossly exceeding the OCI... which I doubt anyone reading this thread would ever do.

Love the updates, keep up the good work!

Bit off topic but I saw you had the KDT924 installed on the previous build. How did you like it? I had the diff inserts but had to take them off unfortunately as they were making my 1 piece driveshaft vibrate. Apart from the bushing failing (on track I presume) how was the NVH? Livable? Thanks!