Podcast with Gresham Wagner (GR86 Cup racer)
 

Hey all,

We caught up with returning guest Gresham Wagner (2nd place finisher in the inaugural North American GR86 Cup series and previously 2022 SRO TCA champion in a 2nd gen BRZ) in our latest podcast with The Apex Files. He's got some interesting insights on the cars and the series, plus comparisons to Mazda MX-5 Cup. And yes we talk about oil pressure. :)

But beyond that, he's a great dude to talk to and a damn fast driver.

Video here (with links to Spotify/Apple/Google etc):
https://youtu.be/W5J1Od0Opz4?si=r1lDxK3O1JV2OsPO

Check it out and subscribe if you're into this sort of thing. We've got a couple more BRZ/FRS/GT86/GR86 guests coming up soon too.

Youtube page here:
https://www.youtube.com/@RacecompEngineering

- Andrew

Relevant to my interests haha, here’s the portion on engine reliability:

RCE: Are you guys on your factory motor?
GW: Yes.

RCE: And/or have you or have you heard of any other teams that have had issues around new motors?
GW: I can't speak for if people had issues in testing or this or that, right. I can say there were maybe one or two instances, maybe, during the year where people had to swap a motor out. So don't quote me on that, but I think—for sure there's probably an instance.

RCE: It's a race series so things happen.
GW: Right, right. But you got 30 cars across 14 events, so one or two engine is, I mean...

RCE: That's nothing.
GW: Right, right. For our team and what I was doing, the engine is stock and there were no issues with that. So, you know, I see some people complain about that and I'm sure there were some issues that people may have, but it doesn't come over and affect GR Cup.

RCE: And you guys have aero and are putting down downforce too—legit tires—so if anything you guys would experience that first.
GW: Yeah we run this stuff as hard as anyone is going to run it... I can just tell you that this stuff didn't break.

Thanks to the RCE team for the great interview!

based on community testing it might be more track dependent. They have only raced at Sonoma right so far?

This was the 2023 schedule:

March 30 to April 2 – Sonoma Raceway (Sonoma, California)
May 5 to 7 – Circuit of the Americas (Austin, Texas)
June 16 to 18 – Virginia International Raceway (Alton, Virginia)
August 4 to 6 – Nashville Music City Grand Prix (Nashville, Tennessee)
August 25 to 27 – Road America (Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin)
September 22 to 24 – Sebring International Raceway (Sebring, Florida)
October 6 to 8 – Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Indianapolis, Indiana)

- Andrew

I've watched 4 of the full length races on YouTube and as far as 1 make classes go - it's the best I've seen, just like the Australian TGRA 86 Series.

Mostly clean, unlike spec pinata, and due to the power/tire combination between the cars the racers spread out a little. You can really see who has the pace and who does not, yet there's still 3,4 and 5 car battles that are incredible to watch.

The races are really fun to watch online and the presentation is excellent. I think I've said it elsewhere but it's pretty incredible to be able to watch this (and other series) live on Youtube in HD with commentary. Couldn't imagine that 10-20 years ago.

- Andrew

Thanks for posting. Do we have confirmation on what oiling mods are done to these GR86 cup cars?

it appears none

Word on the street is that they run a small in-pan baffle and a 1qt overfill.

I have no skin in this game, but I will say that in other platforms it seems that a lot of baffle plates tend to hurt more than they help. There is a lot of shit sold that has never been tested properly or even at all.

They must have oil cooler minimum, no?

The syms baffle is listed with a GR86 CUP TRA part number, whether it's used or not on the US GR86 cars, I don't have any direct knowledge but it's likely they have something like this at a minimum.

https://www.blackhawkjapan.com/products/syms-y1000fa012

They do, yes.
There are also separate transmission and diff oil coolers.

One of the rumors going around before about blown engines (though I'm not sure it's 100% confirmed) had to do with under-filling, which is somewhat common in spec series racing but a very bad idea on these cars. Again, I don't personally know if that particular rumor is true.

- Andrew