If you were to do it all over again...
 

Regarding modifations to your FRS/BRZ and what you have learned... if you were to do it all over again what would you keep and what would you do differently?

I wouldn't have turbo'ed as quickly as I did. Ran into some factory defect issues with cams and oil pressure sensors which required me to uninstall EVERYTHING so the dealer would work on it, then REINSTALL everything after a proper amount of time had passed.


There are growing pains with these cars - teething, if you will. Always allow time to work out the problems before you go and void your warranty.



I wasn't necessarily affected by this, but a lot of people jumped on the intake bandwagon because that is what people do - only to find that the intakes are all pretty much worse than the stock airbox. Don't waste money on an intake - buy a nice K&N drop-in panel filter and call it a day.

I definitely would have gotten my car opti-coated and the x-pel ultimate shield I had put on put on right away instead of balking at the price and waiting around undecided on it for a few months.

My front bumper looked pretty bad in direct sunlight after only four months of use. I was lucky in that I had my front bumper repainted by the dealership that some idiot scraped when they parked my car after bringing it in for its first service.

Same thing with my license plate relocation kit. I didn't want to drill a hole in the tow cap and didn't like the asymmetry at first. Then after having my real plates for two days I got a $80 citation for no front plate while my car was parked downtown. I got the fine reduced by going to court, and I got the GrimmSpeed relocation kit which I really liked almost as soon as I installed it. I just wish I would have done it to begin with instead of letting that happen first and thinking I'd be fine driving around with no front plate in Portland.

Don't think I would loose anything as I'm very happy with all of my modifications right now, but I guess I've only done a handful of them and most are cosmetic.

I wouldn't touch the exhaust again. Everything else went fine

Don't go cheap on suspension.

I wouldn't have purchased the extended warranty. Now since I want to get a tune after I buy exhaust and headers, it seems like throwing money down the drain

2 regrets:
A loud cat back exhaust to start, and after putting headers/FI, the axle back needed to be toned down so I can drive it on the street.

Invidia N1-> Q300, shares the same mid pipe so swapping just the axle back was a breeze.

Should of went for 9.5in width wheel for the rears, its so close to being flush lol.. Not going for the camber look though. I currently have 9in R, 8.5in F.

Everything else I am very satisfied so far!

I would have bought mine in red....

Other than that my mods are all dialed. May add a cat and reaonator in the front pipe.

Would have waited for a monogram :-/

I'm with you on that too. Black is so hard to keep clean, it looked so good in the showroom though.

Which dealership?

It was Beaverton Toyota. From the research I did that is something that has happened a few times there before - I came out to get my car after service and it was forward-parked against a big curb stop with the lower part of the bumper sitting right on the curb stop, and sure enough when I looked at it it was all scraped up.

They paid to have it repainted and I think the job was well done, but I think if I didn't catch it right away and make a big deal about it they might have just denied it - they didn't even want to repaint the whole thing since the scrape was along the bottom, but the assistant service manager Rick made the call to repaint my whole bumper since he knew how much I cared about my car.

I would have put RCE yellow springs on it, an axleback, the supercharger with intercooler, trd quick shifter, clutch pedal height and spring removal, dual catch cans, oil cooler, and diffuser. Everything else I could have used the money to pay off my debt instead of adding to it or bought a motorcycle or save for a future Tesla Model E once it comes out in a few years. I like all my mods, just would like to have the $ back is all.

I've learned a ton about working on my car after all my mods since I did 95% myself.