[Moto-P]

Originally Posted by Scooby South

I have a couple of questions also:
-What type of competition are you going to participate in?

I will be building my BRZ to SCCA Solo spec in whatever Street Tire Class it falls in.. as I have already started to accumulate the needed parts, rims/tires etc to facilitate this..

I haven't started or have concrete plans for structured competition entry with my own FRS just yet, as this is my daily driven car, in AT paddle and it wasn't my focus as much as, going to various Sunday events, over many varieties of track, autocross, ride&drive, and other dynamic excercise and to refine the FRS in ways we like them as personally tuned, functional sports car for Club4AG's readers. So I don't have too much knowlege of what can be done to specifically tailor it to a very finely focused venue like SOLO and SOLO2. I will partake in them as time permits and eventually associate with teams or make my own, that can generate suggestions and data for such usage. My car is still 12 days old so I can't really get a dynamic results with engine still in break-in schedule as well.

-Moto, is it wise to say going with a stiffer rear, even tho slightly, makes it more neutral??? Since it is a new platform, Spring Rates were a crapshoot. I was going to start with 8k/8k.. but that sounds to stiff?? now.

Again, same as above, too early to know for sure on my end...sorry

-With 35mm maximum drop, would Steering Compensators ie: Bump steer kits/Ball joints be a wise investment?

Probably not, since the FRS was designed with really long pinned arms, and with foresight into mild drops and ideal dynamic arm alignments at -20mm.
Yes, Mr.Tada and his team are genious!, as they did this knowing that his original design would get lifted by that much by legal and PD folks who are concerned about ground clearance and snow chain usage, before final product.
So I would say, drop it to your specific ideal configuration and measure the specs, I would really suspect that the steering compensator will not be needed at all, and that it may line up better than at stock height!! I can see this visually too on my car at -35mm.

-Will you still be using the stock swaybars? or are you planning a upgrade there?

This is another element of tuning, where unlike old days, bumping up the lateral spring rate (without altering longitudinal spring rate) of a car is a really tricky thing, and simply jacking it by certain percentage usually doesn't do any good, and sometimes worse. The FRS isn't exactly like a sold beam Mustang or a sport pick up truck, so I'd be really careful.
AS for my personal taste, I like to work with springs as much as possible, so that spring rate is connected to all three axis of car's motions, and when that is spot on to my liking, that is when I can start to see if modifications to laterally isolated spring rate (sway bars) should be needed to reach a certain goal.

-Care to share your Corner weight info???

FL 795 FR 771
RL 595 RR 609
Total 2771 without driver and 3/4 tank of gas.
I played with it till I got about 3 lbs more bias to the right to compensate with me in the car and still keeping ride height even to within 2mm. (I guess I am below the intentional average weight for drivers? I'm 140lbs with clothes on)

-If you were to run camber, How much would you run, Do you have any idea of the how much Static Camber you have during aggressive driving?? And do you know if Toyota or Subaru is going to offer 'crash Bolts' to be able to get more camber out of the stock mounting???

I'm sure standard Subaru crashbolts for older Impreza will work, the bridge and ears of the two bolt mating surface is a little wider with aluminum RS*R lower mount of the shocks but still well within use range for those in length, and configured in similar way. Just how much camber is really up to the crash bolts or with use of adjustable lower arms from Cusco.

- how much room do you have between the shock body/spring and the inside of the tire at this point??

Thanks sooo much for your time..The information you are providing will go a long way in my own build. Much appreciated

Bill

I'll try to get clearance measurements next time. It was well after 5pm last time I had them with Master Mechanic eager to celebrate the last night in Los Angeles before going back to Japan. So I'll have it next week when it goes back on the rack to check for settling and re-tightening anything that might have worked loose.

lastly though, I would add that none of these numbers mean much as it is ultimately up to the driver to setup the car to his liking, and to tailor it more to his habits and abilities, as smaller theoretical performance specs can be greatly erased if the car or driver isn't tuned for each other. I found this many times over in my days of SCCA National/Regional days, when the driver (me or my co-driver) was tense and ready, but without some setup to put some margin on areas where we have a habit of making mistakes or to compensate for any inherent peaky difficulties of the car's character, that counted much more in reduction for each error, than gains of a few theoretical hundredths here and there.

So just drive it and get to know the car first before any changes are made. FRS is an awesome car, but it's a near even balanced car and some characters can be fast and sudden, with lots of human muscle memory being required for upper limit motions. It's a lot quicker seemingly in transitional weight shifts than even the best of the Corolla AE86's that we've raced, and as such, it pumps my blood and fills me with excitement, but at the same time, treating with respect for its enhanced capabilities and potential into the development into a race car of any sort.