Toyota GR86, 86, FR-S and Subaru BRZ Forum & Owners Community - FT86CLUB

5-21-2012 Update: Dyno vid 159whp/132ftlb!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46a9L_yHgwM"]dyno[/ame]

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Hi All!

Just took delivery of my car earlier today.

First Impressions of the BRZ-
Driving:
First off, let me state my previous car ownership experiences. 89 prelude, 03 WRX, 91 prelude, 08 Impreza, 330i sport, and have driven various M3s, Lotus Esprit twin turbo, STIs, various 3 series, and others. So my opinion will obviously be based off of these experiences.

The car handles better than any STI or WRX that I have ever driven or ridden in. I don’t say that lightly, either- the car doesn't even feel like it's even playing by the same rules compared to my modded out WRX (which had eibach springs, perrin sway bars, kartboy endlinks). It feels honestly, to me, like a poor man’s Lotus Elise, or comparable to a buddy’s Boxster. The steering is tight and relatively heavy, and you can feel the road in the pedals and the wheel. It’s overall fairly stiff suspension, and it communicates the road to you rather well- and I cringed when I started coming up on a stretch of really poorly repaired pavement that only covered one side of the lane. Well- it handled it like a champ and was very smooth. I was shocked. That must be the sign of a good suspension design, because most of the suspensions I’ve felt are either 1) incredibly stiff in all circumstances or 2) standard commuter car boat like suspension. This was different. Firm on small bumps and imperfections, and then… it glided over a nasty series of patchwork asphalt for a hundred meters.

The braking feels amazing. I was really, really surprised here- it feels better than my stoptech stage 2 setup I had on the WRX (SS brake lines, motul fluid, aggressive pads and rotors). I’m sure they will fade on a track, but the feel and engagement is some of the best I’ve ever felt on a completely stock car. Very little dead travel.

Acceleration- Well, here we are, the dreaded downfall of the car according to the innernets. J I actually feel like it’s pretty quick, from my experience so far. You can tell the car really WANTS to get up past 4k RPM, and I’ve gotten up past there a few times so far, but not too deep. I can feel the torque dip, 3500-4000rpm feels a little low on torque compared to the rest of the power band, but it still accelerates in that range just fine. The MPH numbers tick up relatively fast, but because you can’t feel that torque, it feels like you’re going fairly slow. I don’t mind that torque dip so much, because two reasons: 1) when I’m on the track, I won’t be in that range of the power band 2) at lower, cruising RPMs, you have pretty much all of your torque. The car likes to cruise at around 2500 rpm, and you’ve got all your torque there. I actually felt pretty good about being in 6th gear on the freeway, and the car didn’t feel slow, and I was able to move around people with reasonable acceleration without downshifting. It also helps because the car is so light- you can feel it’s lightness, because the car does like to accelerate and does it easily. The motor doesn’t labor overall, the car doesn’t really bat an eye at freeway curves or curvy backroads. There’s a pretty specific section of 405 here that’s known to slow traffic down to about 40 mph because of how steep the curves are, and I gotta say. It felt like I wasn’t even turning at all. I thought my WRX was a champ, but man. This is another level entirely.

The car feels like it slows down time for me. It’s not crazy fast, but it does like to accelerate, and the handling is so good that it doesn’t break much of a sweat, so it slows down time a little bit. That excites me, because I know that’s the proper way to improve your driving- the better you drive, the slower it feels. This feels like a car that you can really spend a LOT of time learning how to drive correctly on a track, and find lots of extra seconds every lapping session. I thought long and hard about buying an M3, but I know that it would be a different experience in this regard- it’d be harder to find extra seconds on a track, because it’s got so much more power and traction. The car loves to carry momentum, and it just asks to be pushed around corners- plus it’s such a breeze, that it’s not scary in the least to drive it hard, like that M3.

Coming from an AWD and FWD background, I can tell you it feels weird to have such a balanced car- I’m used to managing all the weight up front, and what that feels like at the limit- so now that the rear end feels as heavy as the front end, I’m going to haveto get used to that and what it feels like. That clearly means the overall lateral grip and handling characteristics are better, but that’s why I bought the car- to truly learn how to drive a RWD car properly. J

Color/exterior:
The SWP looks truly beautiful in the light. I have it sitting next to my 330i in Aspen White as you can see in a few of the pictures, and it's a good comparison- I was initially worried the car would look a little beige, as some people had mentioned that when the SWP was first seen on this car. Well I can tell you, it doesn't look beige at all, it's a very nice clean white. It strikes a tone between the satin and the pearl, depending on lighting type and strength.

The looks of the car are growing on me a lot. I'd seen one before in person- a red one, but this limited looks quite a bit better imo, and not just because it's mine. haha. It looks a lot more sexy in person, with it's small stature and pronounced curves. The rear spoiler looks really, really good in person imo. Far smaller than I thought it was from the pictures. The front integrated lip looks really, really aggressive in person- in the pics it doesn’t do it justice.

Interior:
The leathers and soft touch surfaces are nice. I definitely feel like the Limited trim is worth the extra money- the dash layout, buttons, switches, and dials all look quite a bit better than the premium imo. If you want a track beater or cheap sports car, go with the FR-S or BRZ Premium, but if you’re going to put the car in the garage and bring it out on sunny days only and make it your 3rd weekend car, then the limited makes more sense. The limited interior feels pretty upscale for the most part. Far better than pretty much any other Subaru interior I’ve seen (haven’t seen the Legacy GT interiors up close). The seats are… amazing. Best interior feature by my vote. J

Biggest complaint so far: The head unit. I paired the car to my phone via Bluetooth last night, and went for a cruise. The only song selection options you have via the head unit are forward, backward, and next album. That’s it. Zero folder or artist navigation. I haveto navigate my albums from my phone (windows phone) mostly, which is disappointing- I’d rather keep the phone in my pocket and just let the car handle everything, since I don’t like using my phone while in the car. The windows phone voice texting is pretty nifty though- I can receive and send text messages through the sound system with ease. Oh the garbage song/station navigation also applies to XM satellite radio too. I haven’t used the GPS nav yet, no need… I didn’t even really want that feature. J I’d love to see how the iphone integration works, to see if it’s worth looking into an iphone to make the features work better. But if song selection nav sucks even on the iphone integration, then it’s no bother. With the zune software on the windows phone I can listen to almost any album in existence streamed thru the 3g connection and then thru Bluetooth into the car without having to download it, buy it, or anything. I’d hate to give that up.

You can feel the engine and the tranny through the shifter. I think it feels great. :)

One last thing: The idle wanders a bit. Not sure why.

Youtube video(sorry, tried to embed several times, fail me):

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzM90A8B1r8"]gfdg[/ame]

new vid with size comparison, exhaust sound, and engine bay:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6IqF5lXnWU"]Rfdg[/ame]

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video uploading to Youtube now.