The Moto-BRZ
 

I've been heavily in the MX-5 crowd for years, and in 2006 just months after announcement I picked one up because it was the only RWD affordable light weight car. I had MR2s, a 240sx that was going to be an RB swap, DSMs; but the light RWD sold me. Fast forward 7 years later and the MX-5 has a disco potato, 350+ whp, and is just silly, but is starting to age. Now with some offspring it is time for something that can take the little ones in a pinch, and being an EcuTek tuner means owning one is a justifiable expense to get the tuning spot on ;)

I wanted the blue, I wanted the subaru variant, and sure enough my local dealer had it. Goodbye forester!

With 8 miles on the clock the EcuTek RaceROM features went in, and I got to work. However, before doing anything drastic we need to see what the stock setup does. That and it is nice to have a reliable, sedate DD for a while!

So there she was, a few days after picking it up:

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build-1.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build-2.jpg

One of the reasons I was able to get a half decent price is that in the NE the RWDs are cheaper when it is mid-winter!

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build-6.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build-7.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build-8.jpg

But it has now thawed, and we are testing some parts on this and other FT86 platform cars. So some of those will make it onto this car after the initial test period. The goal of this build (at least, the first year or two,) is to minimize NVH, maximize HP, and make sure reliability is no different than stock.

So far we've run E85 with no issues, spent some time on the dyno making HP, and soon the header will go on. I don't see FI in the future for this car after experiencing the 4-1 header, but who knows....Fortunately we have folks running all kinds of different setups, so we will pool that cumulative knowledge into the most affordable way to make this platform balanced, reliable, and usable below 4200 rpm!

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your brz!

Nice I love my WRB BRZ!!! Congrats

Welcome! I love that snow pic!


All your base are belong to me.

No, all your base are belong to us ;) can't have my base.....

So despite being the daily some things are frustrating and must be taken care of. Surprisingly the suspension has a nice stiff spring rate, and well dampened; but as I mentioned in another thread, the diff is hung by bubble gum and leads to awful response in the on/off throttle area. So we did as any responsible parent would, and in the name of safety, upgraded the bushings. So far we got the rear subframe and power steering bushings in place. Able to do it with a c-clamp and not need any special tools in the front, the rear was easy as can get. Was going to do it on the lift but it ended up being quite easy on the ground and took less time than the drive to the shop. The "assistant" unfortunately shed some tears at the sound of an impact gun, so we were delayed just a bit here ;)

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...zbuild-1-2.jpg

Whiteline inserts

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...zbuild-1-3.jpg

And the cobbled together single. This was actually a prototype IC pipe from the blow through setup I made for the MX-5, but it was enough scrap to put together a single outlet muffler delete. Oddly enough it sounds GREAT. Hardly any drone (only at 2400 and 5000 rpm) so not at cruise, and sounds awesome up top. It gave me motivation to make some plans for production purposes ;)

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...zbuild-1-4.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...zbuild-1-6.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/flange.PNG

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...zbuild-1-7.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/brzbuild-1.jpg

For now it is back to the stock exhaust, once we get the JDL header we will be doing some pump gas testing and putting together a one-off ultralight exhaust without the titanium price tag, and maybe put together a properly done CAI to see if there are truly any gains there. Until then I think this will remain a NA build, and the goal will be to find the best bang for the buck mods and stay as civilized as possible...at least until the warranty is done ;)

It has been a while since I've gotten to update this, but many things have changed!

We started off playing with the intake while naturally aspirated. Stock snorkel:

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-2.jpg

It is a bit small. So for kicks we made a simple aluminum version of a CAI, and it actually worked fairly well and sounded good, but did not yield any noticeable gains. We will hold out until something a bit more, lets say interesting, comes to the market.

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-1.jpg

So back to playing with the exhaust. We made an aluminum axle back, as well as cat back. Using custom machined flanges the axle back ended up weighing in at about 4 lbs, and sounds absolutely wicked, without drone! These are likely going to be released later this year, we have 35 flanges here :)

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-3.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-4.jpg

The exhausts were mocked up and sent our local autox racer for durability testing, who promptly destroyed the one prototype by driving in NYC low enough to be on the bumpstops! So much for the diff clearance...we'll stick to the axleback for now. Why we take our time testing this stuff...

In the pursuit of power the suspension has plenty of room for improvement. A hotchkis rear sway bar and eibach front took place of the stock units.

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-6.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-7.jpg

The goal is to have it be a usable street car, so we will see at what point we really need to change out the stock shocks/springs. On the stock tires it feels just fine with the sway bars. Now power...here we had to do something! No amount of tuning can make it feel as we think it should. However, I'm not looking to duplicate the miata (high hp/high maintenance) so we're sticking to a "sedate" innovate twin screw SC.

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-9.jpg


http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-10.jpg

Then we noticed how sluggish the response of this motor is. Adding the SC makes this even worse. Luckily our friends at Raceseng make some kick ass pulleys, so we pulled some off their shelf and threw them on the car.

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-11.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-12.jpg

And while adding the products to the webstore, these just jumped out and we had to grab them!

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-13.jpg

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzbuild/build2-14.jpg

^^^^^^^ yes that is a go-pro mount built in!

Giving the car some love before winter.

Prototype Raceseng Stiff Arm STBs. Much lighter than stock and stronger.
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb..._update-12.jpg

For testing purposes we made a cone filter intake. Sounds awesome!
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb..._update-11.jpg

A little interior bling with the Raceseng Slammer shift knob. 623 grams of stainless shifting.

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb..._update-10.jpg

Now all of the power was starting to get a little troublesome on the stock suspension, and the tires were burned through in just 13k miles. We first put on the Enkei RPF1 Tony Angelo edition 18x9.5 35 ET wheels with goodyear Eagle F1 255/18's. Looked a little odd so on went the Muteki lugs in blue and enkei center caps. Fine and good except that it still looked like a 4x4 and the tire rubbed the stock spring perch. It was a good deal of debate, but ultimately we settled on the H&R coilovers. These use stainless bodies, expertly valved, and are a great balance of comfort and performance. Absolutely zero regrets here. They just rock. At fully lowered we were clearly on the bump stops. At the height it is pictured, it handles PERFECTLY. No doubt with a double adjustable shock one could set up for each turn, but this is a street / occasional track or autox car; we will never be devoting the kind of time to make use of that adjustment range. Here it is on a comfortable height:

http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-9.jpg

And after months of waiting, our JDL header came in. What can I say...perfect.
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-1.jpg
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-2.jpg
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-3.jpg
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-4.jpg
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-5.jpg
http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-6.jpg

[ame]http://youtu.be/oN9oltJNzeY[/ame]

So that is all for now. There's a few more things we have to add to this, but this car is so close to perfect as is for what we want. Comfortable, fast, handles, and looks good. If it only came that way from the factory!


http://www.moto-east.com/images/brzb...t_update-8.jpg

Great build so far. I'm from Easton originally and come back often, so I will surely be giving you guys some business once I get my BRZ paid off.

Coming along nice.

Looks good Mike. I wish my old bones could handle a lowered suspension.

is that a massive backfire in the vid?

Yup, it can be enabled it disabled via map switching ;)

Great updates. Can't wait to get my JDL and have you tune.