Wow, it's been a minute since I updated.
Lots of changes over the winter...
SPL front control arms and tie rod ends. I wanted roll center correction. This was the only option that worked with the 2022+ BRZ aluminum knuckles. The aluminum knuckles are fatter and require longer threads on the ball joint and tie rod studs. It really tightened up the steering feel to super-nice status. I did my best to replicate the stock arm shape, and I think I succeeded given how close my alignment still was after installing them. There's noticeable increase in noise and bump impacts, but didn't really make the ride much harsher. Well worth it for the steering feel, and checking of "spherical bearings" from my car mod bucket list.
SPL rear control arms. This was one of those "if I'm spending this much on SPL parts, might as well..." mods. They added quite a bit of NVH. Tolerable for my usage, but TBH I probably would have skipped them if I had realized the stock outer pivot is already a spherical bearing. Still, it's kinda nice having extra holes for the swaybar endlinks, and I might fiddle with some of the other adjustments some day.
RacerX front and rear endlinks. I went with them mostly due to price, but wanted something lower-profile than Whitelines, which rubbed on my inner wheel wells under hard compression like turn 2 at the Ridge. They accomplished that. I also wanted turnbuckle-style adjustment in the rear, and spherical bearings instead of the stiff bushings in the whitelines. The downsides are that the spherical bearings feel looser than I'm used to new ones feeling, so we'll have to see how they hold up. And also, the number of different wrenches that aren't 12/14/17/19 required to adjust the rear is pretty frustrating.
949 Racing steering wheel spacer. It works, and let me move my seat back a bit. Mine's a tiny bit crooked, but not enough to worry about imbalanced steering after aligning it. For the price, it seems worth it.
Super-duper cheap perforated leather steering wheel cover from amazon. It started off awfully shiny and greasy. I probably didn't do the best job stitching it up, because I knew it wasn't gonna be pretty anyway. Once it broke in, it did give me a fatter, softer, grippier steering wheel, which is much more comfortable to hold than the naked stock steering wheel. Well worth the $20.
Ansix Auto oil pressure sensor and CAN bus thingie and OBDLink MX+. Install was straightforward. Now I have all the dataz (see later vids).
I found someone local on Facebook Marketplace who wanted to trade an Evo XL QRT for an Evo L QRT. Pulled the trigger on that, and got the seat in. Still tweaking the seating position.
Sparco 6-point harness with pull-down lap belts and wrappable ends. I bought this to replace the Schroth belt that came in the car, that had pull-up laps and sewn-in clip ends on everything but the shoulders, that I didn't have a good way to actually get mounted in the car. I welded a square steel tube across the back of my PCI seat mount to wrap the sub belts around. And I bolted in the lap belt, and wrapped the shoulders around the Brey-Krause harness bar. Lap belt angles aren't ideal, and real race shops would poopoo on bolting one side of the lap belt to the seat bracket and also having the subs connected to it. But I'm confident it's at least as safe as the stock belts.
Cusco front and rear tow hooks, because black friday. Hopefully I never need them.
MTEC shifter springs. Install was a bit of a pain, but really not too bad. Shifts feel much nicer now, and the 2-3 shift coming onto the straight at the Ridge isn't as much of a struggle.
I put the Perrin 22mm front bar and 19mm rear bar on, and drove it for a while. It felt ok on the street. Not so much on the track. The car was way too loose, and I went slower than last year.
I hit the track on april 5th with Turn 2 lapping. I was on the stock rims with old Falken RT-660s, because I wasn't confident enough in the weather to put on the SuperCar 3Rs. There was some rain on the commute, and it started dumping rain on the track before my 2nd afternoon session, so I went home early. I did set a new PB by 0.2 seconds in the first session, but I wasn't able to replicate it for the rest of the day.
Vid: