This story began in February 2012 when Subaru of America loaned us one of their pre-production BRZ's for testing and initial product development. From the time that the BRZ/FR-S was unveiled, RaceComp knew that we had to have one. Driving the test car not only reinforced that decision, but it gave us the opportunity to get a head start on doing what we do best: designing and producing suspension components for this exciting new platform.
Our first order of business was to work on our performance lowering springs, designed to be used with the stock dampers. We don't believe in guess work or designing something that's "close enough." When we develop a new part, we do our research and engineer it properly from day 1. So we began by removing the stock springs and dampers and measuring everything; stroke, bump/droop travel at stock ride height, bump stop length, spring rate, spring length, etc. Then came the important part, analyzing the dampers on a shock dyno.
We also put the car on scales to check overall curb weight, front/rear weight distribution, and cross weights.
Armed with all of this information, we had a set of prototype springs on the car in a matter of days. Our research paid off, and only minor ride height tweaks were needed before the spring specs were ready to be sent to production.
