TopSpeed.com - Scion FRS race car build

[phastafrican]

Originally Posted by philooo

As far as I know the other TR3 race FRS are not boosted.

TR3 has done many forced induction cars for road customers, but I believe their race cars only have cooling and shocks modification, aside of the gutting and interior safety.

I have not seen them all so I'll report back once I know more about the whole thing

I got a good opportunity buying my wrecked FRS locally so I decided to jump in. But I have not done that much research, I'll see how it plays out.

Gotcha. Every pic of their cars I've seen has had a blower on it, but I don't know how many cars they have. I need to come down to Ft Lauderdale soon anyway, so I'll go check out their cars. Definitely share any info you find on any other 86 race cars.

[raul]

Originally Posted by philooo

@KingTut, it is very presumptuous of me to think about pirelli or continental challenge as I have not participated in any racing series yet. I have done many open track days and I want to get into racing. So FARA seems like a good fit for a newbie like me
There are 7 FRS track car here in the Miami area so I hope we can even create a special class for them at FARA and may be more.

I would be interested in competing if it's all N/A cars.

[Jyn]

Isn't TR3 the shop that keeps blowing up peoples' cars by using Toni?

[philooo]

Tomorrow sept 6th, I'll be at Homestead for my first tryout, mt car will be the only FRS with all black mat front clip (unpainted), stop by to say hello if you are around.
I'll report right after about how the car felt on the track for the first time.

Right now only mods are: brake pads, bfg R1 tires, 6 point harness and momo daytona xl seat. Let's hope that oil temperature stay under control.

[philooo]

Originally Posted by phastafrican

Gotcha. Every pic of their cars I've seen has had a blower on it, but I don't know how many cars they have. I need to come down to Ft Lauderdale soon anyway, so I'll go check out their cars. Definitely share any info you find on any other 86 race cars.

all frs posted here from try had the fa20club turbo on it made by Tony.
But the owners' personal FRS track car are all normally aspirated..hint hint

[phastafrican]

All the best out there. Take it easy and slowly build up speed as you go. You'll love this car

[slicktop]

Thread started 10 August 2014. Reserving this post for first page honors.

[philooo]

Rebuild is done

The car was rebuild without any trouble, only one part, some coolant cast pipe, was unexpectedly cracked. Everything else bolted on as expected.

There was more small parts missing than I thought. If you do buy a crash cars, make sure you keep every single bit you can because small $5 plastic part add up quickly. The rebuild cost was 90% parts as the car is pretty simple to put together and plenty of space to work with.

The biggest costs of the rebuild were: hood, fender, bumper, windshield and radiator fan shroud. I could have gone aftermarket while at it, but considering the stock part are cheaper and I did not know if the car would even drive properly I did not want to spend money on carbon fiber parts and make things more complicated than they need to.

To save cost I skipped a couple of items: ac radiator (ac compressor removed), windshield washer tank, fender side emblems, fender side lights, 2x airbags (dashboard is open on passenger side), 2x seatbelts (note the seatbelts are dead once airbag goes off), no paint job (I plan a wrap later).

My only concern is that we were not able to align the fender and bumper perfectly. As you know the bumper supports/fitting around the headlight are not ideal, and in my case the gaps are less than stellar. I think the problem may be with the fender support on the chassis, by the a pillars . I bet these are misaligned after the crash, and it will be near impossible to bring these back to factory specs. For a track car, no worry, but I was hoping to bring the tolerance back to stock to stay away from the 'lemon racer' look :S

Track bits $$
For the track I added the following parts(approximate values):
- $500 - 17x9" rims
- $100 - 245 BFG R1 tire
- $400 - carbotech xp12 pads front and back
- $100 - motul rbf fluid
- $700 - momo daytona xl seat
- $100 - momo seat side brackets
- $100 - recaro seat slider
- $160 - floor mounting bracket (planted)
- $200 - harness bar
- $400 - 6 point harness scrotch enduro

First day at the track
I was quite worried when I got to the track, so much so that I came with my previous track car, just in case the FRS would fail after the first lap. So much can go wrong because of a small $2 part, I was bracing myself for the worst.

The first lap was under rainy condition with new tires and pads, so I was taking it very easy. To my surprise, the car was running smooth and straight.

After a couple of laps, tires and pads were ready and I started pushing it pretty hard. I did not manage to get the oil temp on my damned iphone but water temp stayed stable and the car was driving straight as an arrow. I could not believe it but the bet paid off!

After looking back, I think I would have been better buying an auction car with high mileage in the $14k wholesale. Less headache and cleaner car and less risks. But I did save a good $5 to $8k going the copart route, that should allow a good bit of performance parts

At the track all parts performed beautifully, the carbotech XP12 brake pads are fantastic, no fade and tons of bite. I'll wait to see how long they last, but a great purchase for sure. I am not the best driver and brakes take a lot of heat with me so you can buy these without hesitation! I don't even think I'll need brake ducts for a while. remember that I am in miami and ambiant temperature were above 80F. Tires were a lot more predicatable than I thought. I'd say the BFG R1 are more of a slick R compound than a race slick like hoosier. It was my first time on slicks and I was able to feel the car slide and get some minor drift under control. I was not pushing it in the high speed sweeper as they are still more brutal to save than my previous yokohama adv08 though.

I should have skipped the recaro slider as it increases the seat height. To fit I had to remove the seat bottom cushion, which in turn resulted in butt sliding because of the lack of cushion grip. I wanted adjustability for the begining, but it was not needed as I fit really well in the car.

BTW, I did not have any problem with ABS or other nannies. At first I did not press the traction control (TC) long enough so TC kept interfering especially under wet pavement. I maintained the button pressed to fully disable the traction control and I did not feel TC interfering anymore. My mechanic told me that the ABS got out of whack in one of their car because they had removed the steering sensor as they changed steering wheel, and that once you put it back, you have to reprogram the ECU or wrong data with steering alignment cause the ABS to act up. You apparently need the toyota tech computer to reset it, a pain in the ass. So they were carefull while removing my airbag to keep the sensor on the wheel.

Comparaison with previous ride
Now for some comparaison with my previous ride. My fastest time with my 2003 porsche 911 stock except ad08 + pfc08, was 1:46. My fastest time of the day with the FRS stock except bfg r1 + xp12, was 1:50. Needless to say I was going round corner faster and braking later, mind you the tires are not in the same league. With the Porsche, I was always worried about something, oil pressure, gear box, paint job. That's the main reason why I never switch to slick before as many reported the additional grip could cause oil starvation and engine failure...you get the idea. Advantage Scion FRS!

The Scion inspired so much confidence that I was able to brake in the 100 feet zone in my second session and ... do my first off track grass mowing session in my 3rd session. Too much confidence there

Conclusion
Overall, I am super happy with the car and my decision to retire the Porsche from track duty. The scion will cause me less grief if I bang/crash it and it goes around corner fantastically. I have to say that I will miss the grunt of the porsche and the rear engine bias which is so much fun to try keeping under control. I love both cars but for a track duty, The FRS is a superior car for me.

I can't wait to add some good syspensions on it !

Video:
unfortunately I got very spotty connection with my bluetooth GoPoint BT1 so Harrys Lap Timer (HLT) is not showing much data and GPS reception was also very poor. Strange as I never had problem with my previous ride. Anyways HLT was never able to read the oil temperature as toyota use an usual PID for it and this can't be configured with HLT I hope they come with a fix on that as I love this app. High quality videos made simple. I recently purchased a Vbox sport that I'll try next time.
[ame]http://youtu.be/dHgGYtsyp60[/ame]

[jdmblood]

that last picture makes it seem like you can't close the door with the window rolled up

[philooo]

yes I saw that, the optical effect is weird. You can actually close the door and have the window up but it is very close.
If you look close you will see the window goes on top of the rubber joint and not inside of it so there is some added clearance.
I wonder if it would be water tight under heavy rain but considering the car is not titled that will not be a problem

[Luckrider]

I am loving this 100% so please don't take this as banter or flame fanning, but please be aware of who you are in bed with. This is TR3 who also happens to be affiliated with FA20Club... the company known to have destroyed countless motors with insanely terrible tuning. You might want to consider finding a highly respected tuner in your area for the tune.

Beyond that, best of luck with the car. I hope to watch this progress and tear up some asphalt! This looks like it should make for a great track car.

[philooo]

Thanks for the words of warning. It is always nice to know before hands

I did talk to the shop owner about it and overall the problem seems to be with the turbo tuned cars, and tony is indeed in charge of that. Tony actually work out of TR3 but he is not part of the staff.

My car will not receive any engine modification at all. So Tony will not be wrenching on my car. I don't feel I need any additional power at the track. Straight line power doesn't appeal to me ... at least if it comes with the headaches of turbo.

TR3 shop owners, 3 brothers, are working hard to please the customer. So far I have been very happy with TR3 services. They are easy to talk to and they listen what the customer has to say. The shop is relatively new and they are still working on putting together a steady tech team. What's for sure if that TR3 track support is top notch and they really make you feel at home.

I'll keep you posted further once I start building the car further. Right now we are still making sure everything works as it's supposed to. I think I'll do an additional track day in this configuration then the mod will begin. Hopefully racing at the end of the year, but for sure in 2015.

[phastafrican]

Originally Posted by philooo

Thanks for the words of warning. It is always nice to know before hands

I did talk to the shop owner about it and overall the problem seems to be with the turbo tuned cars, and tony is indeed in charge of that. Tony actually work out of TR3 but he is not part of the staff.

My car will not receive any engine modification at all. So Tony will not be wrenching on my car. I don't feel I need any additional power at the track. Straight line power doesn't appeal to me ... at least if it comes with the headaches of turbo.

TR3 shop owners, 3 brothers, are working hard to please the customer. So far I have been very happy with TR3 services. They are easy to talk to and they listen what the customer has to say. The shop is relatively new and they are still working on putting together a steady tech team. What's for sure if that TR3 track support is top notch and they really make you feel at home.

I'll keep you posted further once I start building the car further. Right now we are still making sure everything works as it's supposed to. I think I'll do an additional track day in this configuration then the mod will begin. Hopefully racing at the end of the year, but for sure in 2015.

Come to Sebring on October 4-5 with NASA Florida.

[philooo]

Second track day

After a successful first day I decided to move forward, gut the car and transform it into a full race car.

I added some new mods to address potential cooling issue, even though my track day was actually happening at night, so I did not really test much of the cooling. The shop added Mishimoto oil cooler and radiator. The oil cooler sandwich plate was leaking after our first session. Quite deceiving for a Mishimoto kit. We had to clean the fitting and add some nylon tape, like in your good old bathroom . The fitting should be of better quality at that price point, but at least it stopped leaking.

During the first lap of the first session one my passenger fender plastic liner flew of... certainly some defective plastic rivets. Also the newly installed APR carbon fiber brake ducts where not ducted yet, so all the air was pushing the fender liners, that could also explain it, even though the driver side held fine all day.

Aside of these two small incident, the second day at the track was a blast. The car ran all 5 sessions without problems. I spent a couple of time fighting some other FRS in stock form, and my car was just as fast in the straight lines so I assume my engine is running the way it should. Car drive straight as an arrow.

Oh yes one little thing was not working... the ABS :S

Since the removal of the steering wheel and a couple other devices during the gutting, the ABS and traction control are missed in action. Traction control is not very useful at the track and I always disabled it, but the ABS, was a tremendous help.

During my first track day I was able to punch the brake really hard and get a fantastic stopping power with no wheel lock and not even ABS pulse. This time around, I can tell you that the ABS was really doing its job because I had a couple of wheel lock at high speed and with the slick tires, there is no feedback whatsoever when you lock the wheels... aside of the lack of braking.

During my first lock I thought I ran out of brakes, and the grass was getting closer than I'd like it to be, luckily I was not driving 10/10 and i had plenty of margin to release the pedal and re-apply the brakes. But it took me a whole second to remember that the ABS was disabled, there was no tire squeezing, no smoke, no weird behavior, nope, just driving straight...on ice

I was luckily to not flat spot the tires ! After that I tried to take it easy but still I did 2 or 3 more small wheel locks at braking level that to me felt inferior to what I was doing when the ABS was active, not activated, but with the computer helping me out .

I really hope we can fix that problem asap, it is just not something adding value to the driving experience.