The pursuit of more power, it never ends...the lesson we learn

[autobrz]

Everytime I read car comparisons I feel like my brz is down on power. The problem is today's cars have way too much power. They also have grip with the help of modern performance tires.

Then when I see vendors come out with supercharger or turbo kits, I hear myself saying how nice it would be to have a little bit more power.

My last car had similar power but it was a 3 liter naturally aspirated in a similarly light chassis. It had a lot more torque and was definitely faster but it wasn't as enjoyable. Having more power meant you had less time and more speed between corners and had to learn more judicious use of the gas pedal. It also meant you had to brake harder and earlier as you're now carrying more speed down the straights.

I didn't enjoy the magnitude of the mechanical acceleration and deceleration of my old car, it was too hard to drive consistently and fast through my favorite roads because I had to be too careful with going too fast into corners or perhaps the car with even modest power by today's standards is already beyond my ability to drive at even 9/10ths on the street.

Everytime I get the urge to look for more power out of the brz, I remind myself that the car has just enough power for me to handle it close to the limit on the streets. Any higher speeds will prove to be too dangerous or useless unless if racing on a track. For a street car, the brz is everything I've ever wanted. It has enough power to have fun coming out of corners but not so much that I will find myself doing triple digits by accident. It also has enough grip but not so much like the GTR that I don't need to go enter corners at ridiculous speeds in order to experiment with the handling limits of the oem setup. ridiculous is subjective, of course. To some people, the brz's limits area already too high to experiment on the streets or all they like to do is actually spin the rear tires whenever the light turns green. To me though, this is just about the perfect street car. I guess I'm in the British sports enthusiasts group because I feel this car also stays true to the formula miata tried to follow by remaining simple and light. I don't smoke pipes though

p.s. if I had more power and I somehow can't put it down on corner exit, I will be very pissed off and start making suspension and tires mods. I can just see ride quality and comfort being overlooked and destroyed in the pursuit for more power and the ability to put it down... In the end, the car will be too harsh, too violent, pulling too many lateral g's, too bumpy and boring to drive at lower speeds, clutch too heavy... I've gone down that path with my previous car and reversed completely back to stock suspension to restore that oem ride and forgiveness at the limits...

[Chimpo]

I've done the modding thing and it is a slippery slope. I want to go nuts with the FR-S, but at the same time I'd like to finally finish paying off the student loans, or pay down the mortage, or just simply not watch my bank account emtpy out again.

[ap5512]

I've got a safety net for preventing the "slippery slope" of modding cars...it's called "I can't afford shyt." I'm amazed how some ppl can afford some of this stuff they do to their cars. I'm shitting bricks just to get wheels/tires/suspension. It seems like a lot of people who go FI are really young and I always wondered how they can afford to pour money into their cars.

[suaveflooder]

Originally Posted by ap5512

I've got a safety net for preventing the "slippery slope" of modding cars...it's called "I can't afford shyt." I'm amazed how some ppl can afford some of this stuff they do to their cars. I'm shitting bricks just to get wheels/tires/suspension. It seems like a lot of people who go FI are really young and I always wondered how they can afford to pour money into their cars.

It's called credit cards . I had a good friend in college with a turbo civic. Well, he bought his turbo on a credit card. I've also got a friend with a 700 horsepower 2.2 KB, E85 cobra. All of that was on credit cards too.

I have to be fair, some of the people just have the money to play with. I'm in your shoes! I was pretty stoked for a set of used eibach pro's to pop up that i could afford

[Whitigir]

Originally Posted by suaveflooder

It's called credit cards . I had a good friend in college with a turbo civic. Well, he bought his turbo on a credit card. I've also got a friend with a 700 horsepower 2.2 KB, E85 cobra. All of that was on credit cards too.

I have to be fair, some of the people just have the money to play with. I'm in your shoes! I was pretty stoked for a set of used eibach pro's to pop up that i could afford

It is not just credit card. I have been there, and done modding. Credit card with high limit is good. But there are 2 things

1/ APR % Charge. This is normally 20% of the Purchase
2/ You have to pay off within a few months, otherwise the APR % will Blow
3/ Mad Depreciation on your car and Mods

For Example, 10,000 into a turbo upgrade. You are paying 200+ a month. That in a year you lose 2400+. Now your upgrade is 12500+. But your car Depreciate. If you sell your car, your mods now worth 5k only

Modding is a Throw away Money Hobby Period.

[suaveflooder]

Originally Posted by Whitigir

It is not just credit card. I have been there, and done modding. Credit card with high limit is good. But there are 2 things

1/ APR % Charge. This is normally 20% of the Purchase
2/ You have to pay off within a few months, otherwise the APR % will Blow
3/ Mad Depreciation on your car and Mods

For Example, 10,000 into a turbo upgrade. You are paying 200+ a month. That in a year you lose 2400+. Now your upgrade is 12500+. But your car Depreciate. If you sell your car, your mods now worth 5k only

Modding is a Throw away Money Hobby Period.

Nice! Those are all good points. True story! :happy0180:

[supragoods]

My favor words to hear are wanna race my buddy has Supra? lol

[WingsofWar]

i was always taught credit cards are the devil. I actually never owned a credit card until 25, in which had a low limit, only thing i really bought with it was a computer monitor.

I think i spent upwards of $200,000 in cars, parts, and labor since 2002, all out of pocket. Now im slightly regretting my journey which all ended up with how dissatisfied i was with speed.

Nobody really gets what I mean until they hit it just like the supra guy in the video. The whole "can never have to much power" is the spiral of death, and when the FT86 was announced, it was like 2nd coming of Jesus, telling us that the fun that we had when we were young and first started our tuning adventure can be experienced again.

My wife was talking about the other day how advancement in technology can eventually lead us to de-evolve. and it got me thinking of how cars get better and better, but they don't make US as drivers better.

Cars today redefined automotive fun...todays tuner cars give us a false sense of fun, but the 86 reminded us of our own origins of fun.

Its nice to see a car that caters to our "roots"

[DarkSunrise]

Cars are more expensive (both time and money) than most people realize. Only invest as much as you can comfortably afford, and make sure you get a larger return in fun/memories than you invest into it.

For me, just autocrossing and tracking during the year will end up costing a fair amount (time and money), so I'll probably keep my car mostly stock and just have fun driving it.

[Whitigir]

Originally Posted by DarkSunrise

Cars are more expensive (both time and money) than most people realize. Only invest as much as you can comfortably afford, and make sure you get a larger return in fun/memories than you invest into it.

For me, just autocrossing and tracking during the year will end up costing a fair amount (time and money), so I'll probably keep my car mostly stock and just have fun driving it.

Couldnt have said it better.

[regal]

I had couple old fast muscle cars when I was young, but they were unstable even in a straight line and not fun. Then I had a turbo regal (sleeper GN) and a factory eaton super charged Super-coupe. But even those were just 14 second cars.

Then for nearly 20 years I was plenty satisfied with an 94 EX civic, so buying this FR-S felt like I was driving a speed demon. To me a DC2 Integra was an incredibly fast car and I couldn't understand folks complaining the FR-S was low on power. In my book a 14 second car with less than 7 second 0-60 is fast.

But now after a year of driving the FR-S I realize it could use more low-mid range torque and HP. I think it is due to the fact that the engine just sounds unhealthy over 4k, like the engine is rough over 4k. The old Japanese 4 cylinder revvers weren't like that, they wanted to hit 7k+ and were smooth all the way to redline.

By now I had hoped there would be a simple I/H/E + tune formula for 200 FR-S rwhp, however that's looking like a $3k expense for 10 HP! But it looks like the innovate super charger may be the sensible reliable upgrade, looks well engineered and not overly complex, thing about upgrades and long term reliability is it all comes down to a solid tune with no detonation. This isn't like a Toyota or a Honda where engine work is simple, this long block is going to be expensive to replace should something go wrong. Even a simple blown head gasket is going to be $2k to fix.

[m.box.design]

Originally Posted by WingsofWar

Cars today redefined automotive fun...todays tuner cars give us a false sense of fun, but the 86 reminded us of our own origins of fun.

Its nice to see a car that caters to our "roots"

And I think that is where we can appreciate Tatsuya Tada's genius idea. But it seems that ideal is hard to understand for most people.

[m.box.design]

Originally Posted by regal

By now I had hoped there would be a simple I/H/E + tune formula for 200 FR-S rwhp, however that's looking like a $3k expense for 10 HP!

I really have to recommend you look up the electric supercharger system in the FI section. I sat shotgun in one of the cars using that system recently, although the owner says just 189whp, the system compensates for the torque dip and makes the car feel much more lively.

The system is still in developmental stages and isn't ready to be sold, but it seems the cost is well under $2,000 at this point.

[fatoni]

Originally Posted by DarkSunrise

Cars are more expensive (both time and money) than most people realize. Only invest as much as you can comfortably afford, and make sure you get a larger return in fun/memories than you invest into it.

For me, just autocrossing and tracking during the year will end up costing a fair amount (time and money), so I'll probably keep my car mostly stock and just have fun driving it.

thats why you spend an extra 3k on a miata silly. you can draw comparisons between cars all day but like you mentioned, its hard to entirely enjoy a car you are afraid you might total. i can buy trackable coilovers, sways, rims and tires for my miata for the price i can buy coilovers for the brz. plus, when you drive a miata, you arent too worried that the frs is underpowered