Possibly New Owner
 

Longer story long, may be taking possession of a Firestorm FR-S this week. Been out of the car scene for a while as my passion is motorcycles however, wanted to get back into racing and started looking for some inexpensive vehicles and had my heart set on a VW GTI until I stumbled on the Suburu BRZ and subsequently the FR-S.

Couldn't find any Suburu dealers with any BRZ's in stock and decided to give Scion a search. Found a dealer nearby that listed having a Lava colored MT Scion so gave them a call. They had just sold it however, were getting 3 more in this week, 2 AT's and 1 MT in Firestorm...so I decided to, "settle" on the Firestorm.

Couple of questions, that from all my reading, are murky as mud. Are there any real suspension differences between the FR-S and the BRZ? Some resources indicate that the suspension setup on the BRZ is more aggressive than the FR-S, while others suggest the opposite.

Next question, have any true coilovers been developed for the suspension. I've seen a number of shortened springs that utilize the stock shocks, but have not see a complete set of adjustable coilovers.

Looking forward to picking up the FR-S, seems to me to be a throwback to real sports cars (ala, MG, Austin Martin), not big on HP, but big on light weight balanced cars that excel in the twisties.

Welcome to the forums

Check out this thread regarding coilovers

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8739

Supposedly the FR-S has lower rear spring rates with stiffer damper setup and will give more tailout fun than the BRZ. I haven't driven a BRZ, but on the stock tires my FR-S does like to rotate the tail out (extremely controllable though... just really easy to chirp/screech the tires around the entirety of say a RH turn at an intersection from a stop without ever revving it above 4k rpm) in track mode (everything off). On really sticky street tires though (Like Kumho Ecsta XS), it changes things and you can't swing out the rear the same in track mode - it's much more balanced yet stable at the same time. It also is perfectly balanced for track with sticky tires as well (just having done some open lapping last Thursday, 21st). Personally for me I see no need to change the stock suspension setup at all other than when it needs replacement due to wear - with sticky street tires the balance is perfect on track and it turns in beautifully with no rear end drama like with the stock tires! None of the track cars I've had previously (which were modified suspension wise to make them better/more capable for autocrossing and track days) comes close to the FR-S with its stock suspension setup.

Nice, thanks ZN.

Appreciate it Vracer. I'd heard the suspension was really well done, but usually seems to be the first thing that needs to go for anything but a daily driver. That's good to hear.

I have videos in my thread in the Track/Autocross/HPDE section of this forum about my track day; so you can see kinda of what it's like stock except for sticky street tires and lightweight wheels. I wasn't fully pushing it (it's my new daily driver after all) but I wasn't taking it easy either....