bigbcraig's '13 BRZ Limited - Autocross, HPDE
 

Hey all!

I've been a lurker since before the FT86-II concept, but finally made the dream true when I sold my AP1 S2000 for a BRZ.

I've been autocrossing semi seriously for a good 6 years now, and the S2000 was locally quite competitive in BS and overall PAX, but I've definitely caught the track bug so this car will sacrifice some autocross class optimization for HPDE preparation.

Here it is as I bought it.
http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/u...141238_HDR.jpg

http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/u...507_141220.jpg

More to come.


Current mods:
-Awful All Season tires
-Subaru crash bolts

Gorgeous. Gotta love it in white!

Started out with what was supposed to be an easy project, changing engine/trans/diff oils for Amsoil, as well as installing the Subaru crash bolts and aligning the car.

Thankfully, this car is super easy to work on! The front jack point is easily reachable by a short jack, trans/diff drain/fill are all a common tool (looking at you, S2000 engineers...), and I found a nice way to get the hood in a higher 'service position' by moving the hood prop.

Unfortunately, I ended up spending a full day more than I planned up cleaning up oil from under the car as well as the top of the engine block. I'm 90% sure there isn't an oil leak... but the previous owner was just REALLY bad at pouring oil into the engine.

Didn't take many pics, but here's a before/after of the under panels because they were easy to take. The engine (mainly left side) and underside of the car were at least this bad. Probably removed 5lb of oil/dust caking. Fortunately, my cam plate isn't leaking (yet).
http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/u...eforeafter.jpg

The alignment went OK - it's been a minute since I've string-aligned the car but it wasn't hard at all to zero toe all around. I don't trust my camber gage /garage levelness 100% but it looks like the crash bolts got me about -1.0~-1.2deg. I plan on making a DIY smartstrings setup for this car, this time I used super professional looking kitchen chairs.
http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/u...527_105347.jpg

Finally, got out the old Shin-Etsu seal grease I used to dramatically help the S2000's top seal better and applied it to the rear edge of the driver's window seal to try and cure some wind noise from there.

First autocross was this weekend, still on the pretty low-grip all season tires from the previous owner, but it was good to feel the car out. Video incoming whenever I can get the time to go thru it.

Went to my first autocross with the BRZ last weekend.

It drives beautifully, as I expected the grip was frustratingly low and I have some things to learn about driving these cars, but had a lot of fun!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVpiCS7cXI8[/ame]

Suction cupped the gopro to the rear window, I really like the angle/view but between the narrow FOV setting and spot meter, it came out a little grainy.

Hey man, it's Anthony from autocross in the grey FR-S! Good to see you on here haha. How'd that seal grease work? Digging the GoPro setup. I need to catch a ride with you next time.

Hey, it was good to meet you too! The seal grease slightly improved the wind noise, I'll probably do a second treatment later this week. I only had time to let the grease soak into the seals for a few minutesand iirc the recommendation is half an hour or so.

Pulled out my old tactrix cable and upgraded to the most up to date ZA1JAB01C OEM software thats available for the 2013s. I believe this is specificed in the DI seal fix TSB and thus still Street class legal...

At first the throttle felt quite numb, but its feeling better now and its good to know I'm safer from some of the early tune issues.

Should be ordering Hankook RS4s this week... Ready for some real grip!