I finally drove a 2nd gen BRZ
 

Ever since the second generation BRZ came out I've been toying with the idea of trading in my beloved 2019 for one. I've been tempted by all the glowing reviews, owner's comments, and the proverbial 'more power.'

Plus, it seems this may well be the last year for the BRZ, with Toyota reportedly pulling out of the relationship to focus on their own line of upcoming sports cars (Celica and MR2).

Last week I finally test drove one (which has been hard to do, since most dealers haven't had any in stock). It was a 2025 tS, which I compared with my 2019 Limited with Performance Package.

What I liked:

Power. The 2025 clearly had more power. It's amazing how quick it felt with just a 2.4 liter engine. Subaru delivered the good on this. Absolutely no one can now reasonably complain about the car not being 'fast enough' at this price.

Ride. It seemed a bit quieter and possibly smoother riding, though if it was it was slight and subjective. The seats also seemed a little more comfortable than my 2019.

What I wasn't impressed with:

Exterior styling. Styling is purely a personal thing, there's no right or wrong about it. It's solely whatever you like. I personally don't like the styling as much as my 2019. To my (admittedly old-school, because I'm old) eyes it seems somehow a combination of less distinctive and a bit more generic 'sports car.' Most of all I can't warm up to the atomic rocket bunny side sills. They just seem overwrought and cheap. I did like that the forward view preserves the bumps on the front fenders.

Interior styling. Was my biggest disappointment. It seems more cheaply built and less stylish than my 2019. The dash looks the cheapest, with the all digital dash. Yes, some people will prefer and love that, but I'm not one of them. An iPad for an instrument panel instead of gen-u-ine analog gauges just screams cost-cutting to me.

The infotainment touch screen is certainly bigger, but looks less well integrated. It looks like it was hot-glued to the dash.

The door panels are less styled. Compared with my 2019 which has different textures, materials, and colors, the 2025 door panels look like the most one could do in a single mold, torturing polymers to the limits of their abilities.

The dash on my 2019 has controls with more colors and textures than the 2025. Of course neither is a premium car, this is very much a car built to a price, but it seemed to me that the 2025 was engineered with a finer scalpel put to costs.

Much has been made of the 'torque dip' of the first gen 2.0 engine and how the second gen 2.4 eliminates it. Probably. truth be told, I've never been bothered by or even felt it in my car in normal street driving. It's not important to me what an engine dyno shows. All that matters to me is my butt dyno, how it feels in the seat of my pants, and if I'm having fun driving like a (reasonably) sane person on public roads. For that kind of driving I've never noticed the supposed torque dip of the 2.0.

Overall, if I didn't own my 2019 I would absolutely buy the 2025 and love it! But my 2019 only has 8500 miles and is in pristine condition. To get a 2025 would probably take about $13,000 on top of my 2019. To me it's just not worth anywhere near that difference.

I might someday regret it, but the experience left me even happier with my 2019 than I was before.

As always, YMMV.

Your experience kind of backs up my feelings on the 1st gen vs 2nd gen proposition. Aside from the engine, I see no compelling reason to update from my 2020 Sport Tech RS which only has 18,000 kms on it, and I personally MUCH prefer the 1st gen exterior and interior design.

With the FA24 swap now being pretty much plug-and-play, updating the one thing that's superior with the 2nd gen, while not cheap, is relatively simple, so that's what I'm aiming for down the road when funds allow.

Your experience kind of backs up my feelings on the 1st gen vs 2nd gen proposition. Aside from the engine, I see no compelling reason to update from my 2020 Sport Tech RS which only has 18,000 kms on it, and I personally MUCH prefer the 1st gen exterior and interior design.

With the FA24 swap now being pretty much plug-and-play, updating the one thing that's superior with the 2nd gen, while not cheap, is relatively simple, so that's what I'm aiming for down the road when funds allow.

There’s a plug and play FA24 swap? I need to look into this. Not now, my car only has 8500 miles, but if I come across a junkyard engine…

Thanks!

Particularly for 2017-2020 1st gens, it's very straightforward. Hachi Electronics has a harness adapter that mates the FA24 to the FA20 ECU, and then you swap over a couple of sensors and modify the engine mounts. Details and a guide to the swap are here: https://hachielectronics.com/product...e-swap-harness

If you are interested in more power, it's a good swap. I love mine. FA24's run any where from $4000 up to $6000. You could probably sell your engine for $4000. Doing the work yourself would make it a sweet deal.

Headers and tune might be enough

I went the opposite way. Shopped around for a gen 1 in 2020 but prices sky rocketed. I had hoped to get a good deal with gen 2 around the corner. Waited for things to calm down, then gen 2 came out, and I wasn't sold on it until I sat in one in person. It was too hard to pass on the chassis improvements. Stylistically, particularly the interior, there are elements in the gen 1 that I prefer. If anyone is looking to get into this platform, I would recommend gen 2 unless they cant get over the looks. If they already have a gen 1, I dont see it worthwhile to move to a gen 2 unless they are after very specific things

I drove a 2nd gen in early 2022, a while ago now, I loved the extra power and torque, so much so I ended up getting headers and a tune on my gen 1. It made a big difference. I agree with the above if you have a good condition low mileage gen 1 it’s not worth the upgrade. Plus I prefer the looks of the gen 1. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy a 2nd gen, if my car was a write off and I needed a new car a gen 2 would be on the list.

I have 125k on my 16 daily. If the engine goes I will do the swap. But somehow I think I will be taking this thing to 250k or more. Mostly highway driven with headers and tune.

I agree with almost everyone here.
I like the looks of the 1st Gen better.
Wouldn't mind moar powa, but are happy with the 2017 I have.
If I needed to get a brand new car, it would almost certainly be a 2nd Gen.
I didn't get the color I wanted so I would make sure I got the color choice right next time!

"Headers and tune" on a 1st gen won't get remotely close to a 2nd gen. I had ACE-350 header and well-developed tune on my '17 BRZ PP. My stock-power '23 is +5mph faster on the straight every track I ran at. +10mph faster at Watkins Glen with a tail-wind! +6mph the next day tho.

Anyway, I love the '22+ more swoopy front fenders, always found the 1st-gens to be a bit goofy, kinda like an early '70s AMC Javelin. Other than that, mostly prefer my old '17 PP because:
Better steering feel (new one feels like there's some kind of viscous drag or resistance, and also can kind of firm up, lose assist under hard cornering at the track on sticky tires).
Better dash (bright red tach needle >> stupid white swooshy thing)
Much finer fuel gauge resolution (maybe 100+ needle ticks vs. 12 discrete "blocks", which is dumb)
Much more useful DTE which read in 1 mile increments all the way down to zero, new one *stupidly* reads in 10-mile increments, then at the end just goes from "10 miles" to "--". Practically useless...

Also I don't stream and don't have music on my phone, I like to listen to CDs on road trips, new car no CD-player :(

Would you mind to help me understand what must be done for the swap? is it possibile to swap just the short block and maybe intake manifold, and reuse FA20 heads and everything else?

All my complaints about the 2nd gen are about the interior. Not that I dislike it, but gen 1 had more styling, contrast stitching, wider variety of tones, materials, lines, cooler seat design, etc. Gen 2 interior looks cool at first but gets boring very quickly. Lots of black and straight lines regardless of trim. The digital tach is cool in the way of modernizing without going overboard, but compared to an analog tach that actually has color and doesnt look like its graphics came out of a TI-89, i'll take the gen 1 tach

Best bet is to source a complete FA24. There are folks that have done a 20/24 hybrid but it sounds like a pita for only small gains. Here's my saga for my swap.
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154841

I can’t find the post but the FA24 heads are a bit different on the intake side and make more top end. There is a dyno and it pulls farther and better up top.

As the others have said above, swapping a complete FA24 is the far simpler and better-performing solution from everything we've seen so far.

One further example: I remember there was one shop that compared the FA20 (red aluminum) intake manifold setup vs. the FA24 setup on an FA24, and it was a sizable difference in top-end performance.

yes i saw too that intake manifold is crucial
it's expensive a long block... how much do you pay over there for it?

It's strange to me that putting the red intake on the FA24 bumps up the power but putting it on an older FA20 make no apparent difference.

With most (if not all?) of the FA24 swaps I've seen here, folks are buying used complete motors from wrecked 2nd gen GR86/BRZ's, not new long blocks. Average prices I saw last time I looked were around $7000 USD.

It was actually the opposite from that one shop's experiment - the FA24 intake manifold assembly had a strong top end advantage over the FA20 red manifold on the FA24, and there was relatively little difference in mid-range torque (which you might otherwise expect as a tradeoff for higher peak flow).

That suggests that the FA24 manifold both had higher peak flow and more optimized resonance tuning (via length, plenum size or some other combination of factors) for all-around performance on the FA24...which you would, of course, expect given that it's the setup that was engineered by Subaru to work with the engine. ;)

yeah it s not the red manifold that make big power on the fa24, but its oem manifold
the red manifold doesn't even bring gains on 1st gen basically

eh... will be tough to find a long block here
i saw just one ad about a full long block even with transmission from Poland but it looked scammy for the price and had no way to be sure of it

Brand new fa24 short block price is quite affordable like fa20 short block, that 's why I asked if it's easily doable using the old heads and everything

Power bump in ‘17 was from header with larger primaries, not the super-bitchin red intake which was 100% the reason I bought new in 2017!
Anyway, I have the factory header and overpipe from that car if anyone’s interested…

New engine assembly is little over 7k includes clutch as well

https://900brz.com/posts/engine-replacements

Just curious, do you still have your ND Miata (MX5)? How do you think that compares to your BRZ?

Yeah, just got polyurethane suspension bushings for it, see if that brings desired lap times. Even with Xida race coilovers, the ND with factory bushings has noticeable lateral squirminess in the corners. Can't turn it in as aggressively, and any mid-corner bumps/undulations result in some wiggling around. Hopefuly poly pushings fixes...

The ND2 has similar power/weight as the old '17 BRZ, and hits similar speeds at the track (120mph at the Glen). 2nd gen BRZ is much faster of course.

What I do love about the ND2 is it is a properly small and lightweight *sports* car. The BRZ feels kinda like a station wagon in comparison!

More I look at the 2nd gen BRZ as of now, I get the feeling that Subaru will announce a facelifted version with all the interior bits and pieces that my 19' Limited BRZ w/ Performance Package has.
Believe it or not, I was so close to trade in my 1st gen BRZ as well.
Ultimately, what stopped me from trading in my 106k mileage 1st gen to 2nd gen tS was the steering feel and the lack of knee pads.
This made me realize that there are a bit more for the 2nd gen to be updated, not to mention red aluminum headers that my car got over the pre-17' version of the 1st gen (also a bit supposed power due to this).
I do love the 2nd gen BRZ, but I can wait it out a few more years to see the final version of it. Instead, I am throwing the down payment money to put mods in my car right now and the experiences I am gaining are well worth it + loving my car even more.

FWIW I think the BRZ/86 is close to the end of its run. They may not be around for much longer.

There have been stories about Toyota reintroducing a Celica and MR2, both designed and manufactured solely by Toyota. If they happen - which it seems very likely - Toyota probably won't continue the BRZ/86 collaboration with Subaru.

Toyota was testing the waters for sports cars with the BRZ and Supra. As big as the company is, they didn't want to make the investment on their own. Instead they bought into a couple of sports cars by investing in Subaru to make the BRZ and then sell their own branded version as the 86, and a re-badged BMW Z4 as the Supra.

While sales of both cars have been modest by Toyota standards, they seem to have been enough to reassure them to go it alone. The discontinuation of the Supra has been announced. I wouldn't be surprised if the BRZ/86 were soon to follow. It's doubtful Subaru would be able to invest the money on its own to continue solely with the BRZ, especially considering the parts and know-how that came from Toyota.

Which means I'm going to take even more fastidious care of my BRZ. It's likely the last of its kind. A forever car for me.

My thoughts align with you.


But while everyone else is announcing big names and hype building, Subaru has been surprisingly tight lipped about... well...


As much pain Subaru caused for the WRX owners in past 3 years, I think we can rest a bit easy.


The 2nd gen has been only out for 3 years so far and it sells far better than the WRX. I sincerely hope, and believe that at least there will be a one major facelift before letting the BRZ go from the lineup.
I mean... the first gen was offered for 7 years and Subaru definitely milked the $#@! out of it.


I believe that the ZN6 platform was the true last analogue sports car (my brother who's a ND3 Miata owner begs to differ), before all the safety techs and stuff became mandatory.
Perhaps the 2nd gen might end right before something else becomes mandatory (good Lord, don't let that be subscription based services BS) and be fondly remembered.

Heh never thought of it that way. Never considered owning a subaru until the BRZ. A gen 3 brz is unlikely. Rumor is toyota will build their own 86 in house, but I have my doubts