Gear One's Endurance BRZ, She can take a hit!
 

As new sponsors to this forum, we thought that everyone would like to see a different take on a BRZ.

We have been a part of the SCCA Amateur endurance racing for the past 6 years in the Spec Miata class. And while that's been a fun and rewarding class, we felt that it was time to up our game and build a faster car. After some careful deliberation we decided that the BRZ/FRS platform would be our best bet for building a new and competitive endurance race car.

The purchase...
We went to our local Subaru dealership to see what colors they had, but in our minds we had already decided on have World Rally Blue Pearl, we wanted to be bright and stand out at the track. We also wanted Premium, no need for the top of the line parts because we were gutting the interior anyway. Aside from these decisions, the sales team thought we were completely crazy, yet excited for our enthusiasm on what would become of the car.

https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...0f&oe=55CC4D78

We got the car home and of course we couldn't resist having a little fun with it for a before and after feel of course. It's a brand new car after all, how many times do you get that opportunity!!

http://i.imgur.com/JVzipjy.jpg

https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...98&oe=55C23DE2

The car immediately got stickered up and stripped out. The engine was removed and sent down to element tuning for some oil modifications. We run 12 and 13 hour endurance races, so reliability is our key goal, in order to win you first need to finish. After the engine was removed we then turned to the interior. Every piece of carpet and trim we were allowed to remove was taken out. In the SCCA STU class this allows us to take out everything except for the upper dash. Although there wasn’t much weight to lose as the BRZ is already a very light car, so with that we were able to delete a few hundred pounds.

http://i.imgur.com/sIiUf6w.jpg

https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...69&oe=55C3E2A9

After stripping the car out and a few light modifications such as the Aerocatch latches, we took the car down to Piper Motorsports for the installation of a roll cage and a custom fuel cell. Unfortunately at this time of our build we had not yet purchased the enclosed trailer that we have now, so a u-haul had to be rented.

http://i.imgur.com/5haY8Me.jpg

Working closely with Fuel Safe and Piper Motorsports, we were able to come up with an ideal fuel and cage solution. By using a custom factory style saddle rear tank, we were able to keep the weight as low and centrally located as possible. Even with the extra 13 gallons of fuel, the dry break system will still allow us to make those lightning fast pit stops that win races.


https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...e7&oe=55D4B1E3

https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...69&oe=55C6D88C

When we got the car back from piper it was time for the fun part, shiny new parts.


https://scontent-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...42&oe=55D5C7B6

We ran into a few issues with aftermarket parts compatibility, however the majority of assembly went smoothly.

http://i.imgur.com/gVfNsJQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CYB869X.jpg

After getting everything together, it was time for a fully balance racing alignment.

http://i.imgur.com/5GbkWQM.jpg

And then the tune....

http://i.imgur.com/iI3eV6s.jpg

Although we didn't have the car sorted well enough to make our goal of the Devil in the Dark 12 hour race at NJMP, we are confident that we will have a strong showing at the VIR 13 hour.

http://i.imgur.com/q4tuzPj.jpg

Work is constantly being done on our BRZ and we will be sending updates as much as we can.

Awesome!

what are the limits of mods you can do in your current class?

What are you guys using for tuning? Ecutek?

We've decided to go with a standalone Hydra Nemesis system

Pretty much everything we can do in regards to the engine we've done. The next biggest jump we could make is a Jackson racing supercharger kit but that adds almost an 800 pound weight penalty.

Keep the questions coming guys! We love to hear from the community.

Do you have any plans for aero?

We will be running the SCCA spec version of the APR GTC-200 wing and a front splitter. The class rules eliminate most off the shelf splitters. Most of our aero aside from the wing will be custom.

It's interesting that off the shelf stuff is not allowed but you're able to custom design and build your own aero treatments. It seems like that would give the well-funded teams a distinct advantage over teams with lower budgets.

Also, people are reporting that high speed/high g left turns are causing fuel starvation. Does your tank have baffles or a surge tank or something like that? Might as well nip that problem in the bud before it crops up.

Subbed

The off the shelf parts aren't allowed because they're actually too big. The rules are written in a way that keeps people from putting massive front splitters and canards on the front of the car. It just happens that the off the shelf options are a little bit too big to be legal.

Yes we're running a Radium surge tank in the fuel cell to solve that issue. No problems with it so far.

On June 13th we attended the annual Ocean City All Wheel Drive meet down in Salisbury Maryland. Just before that we started work on some of our Aero improvements and our first revision of lighting for night racing.
http://i.imgur.com/XTlIZhn.jpg
As you can see we've added an APR front splitter and some serious lighting up front. The upper lights are 20 inch rigid SR series and the lowers in the grills are 6 inch Rigid SR series lights.
http://i.imgur.com/Ho3hY1H.jpg
Along with the splitter we have also added the APR SCCA spec GTC-200 wing.
http://i.imgur.com/G6p0lkV.jpg
We had a blast at the show with our "way too loud" exhaust and thanks to everyone who came out and stopped by.
http://i.imgur.com/dEaTJeM.jpg

That looks like it'll be a lot of fun to run on track!

Good to see another race car. What seats have you installed in the car?

Keep us posted.

Awesome build!

Thanks!

We're running a Sparco Pro-ADV, it's a good fit for all of our drivers.

do you have more info on the fuel cell, any pics? not sure i understand what you meant.

http://i.imgur.com/GnbWkYC.jpg

Here's a picture of the underside of our fuel cell. It's in roughly the same location as the stock tank it's just much larger.

damn, where the heck did you get that and how much did it cost?

The cell came from Fuel Safe out on the west coast, they should have our design on file if you want to get the same capacity.


We just received a nice low mileage takeout engine to do some testing on.

http://i.imgur.com/QeiItld.jpg

What is the SCCA spec in regards to GTC200? Shorter wing stands?

The airfoil is a hair bigger than what they would normally allow, but this wing specifically is allowed. We still have height restrictions on the stands.

It's been a while since we've done an update and I know you guys always like new stuff.

Since the last update the car has undergone some slight changes. First up is the RR Racing front and rear brake kit. We're running the forged superlite 4 piston calipers front and rear with the light two piece rotors. Our class limits us to 4 piston calipers or we would have gone a little bigger.
http://i.imgur.com/CzuSV23.jpg

We also have a stock brz engine back in the car for testing and tuning. We didn't want to put a lot of miles and abuse on the race motor while just learning the car and figuring out what setups work best.

If anyone in the Tri-State area wants to come out and see the car on track we will be at the Mega meet and track event at NJMP on September 12th.

Excited to follow this. Car looks good, and fun.

Thanks! the car's a blast.

Today we're touching up some of the little things we wanted to get done before the track day on the 12th.

One of our biggest concerns initially was some of the less durable connectors on our surge tank system. Today they're getting replaced with some nice new TE connectors which should outlast us all.
http://imgur.com/7tkfybF.jpg

Would you mind elaborating on your decision to switch from the AP Racing to RR brakes?

Currently, neither AP racing nor Essex parts offers a solution for the rear brakes. The RR racing kit allows us to run a balanced setup with beefy pads in the front and the rear. The consumables costs are almost half as well, we're able to do a full rotor ring and pad change on the RR kit for what it costs us to get front rings on the AP kit. It also doesn't hurt that Rafi is right down the road from us.

http://i.imgur.com/YDQvITy.jpg

Who can guess what these are for?

Remote telemetry data?

GPS for data logger?

Yup, Remote telemetry for the car and a UHF radio antenna for the driver communications.

What do I win? :-)

A gold star!

Awesome!

http://eatlosewin.com/wp-content/upl.../Gold-Star.jpg

As some of you know we went out for a test day on Saturday. The car was a blast and we learned a lot. Unfortunately it rained towards the end of the day but we were able to get a couple dry sessions in to check out our tire options.
The Race-Capture telemetry worked great our only complaint is the system's a little laggy. There's a 6-10 second lag and the refresh rate isn't too quick either, but considering the cost and ease of use for the whole thing those are minor complaints.

http://i.imgur.com/YcGSUfk.jpg

and we may have gone off a little bit

http://i.imgur.com/Dk9vLvS.jpg

Did you present the track an invoice for the gardening? :)

Also - with that lag in the telemetry data - you could have quickly reloaded the data back to the car and made an adjustment to avoid the paddock.

With the bluetooth link it displays instantly in the car on a phone or tablet. We're more interested in monitoring it from the pit during the endurance races, if we can monitor the car remotely during the race that's one less thing the driver has to worry about.

As for the lawn care, I think I need to get a few of these shirts for our drivers
http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/016..._461_large.jpg

Awesome work! Looking forward to following your progress. Good luck out there!

Thanks! We can't wait to get some new stuff developed for you guys.

So RR brakes look similar to Buddy Club.. but they are sold side by side with Willwood? Are they outsourced?