Strat61Caster's FR-S File (Now an STX build)

[strat61caster]

Never thought I'd do one of these but I'm starting to see the value in documenting what I'm doing with my car and since I'm all for open sourcing (and peer pressure is a great motivator) I'll make it public.

Mission Statement:
I'll cut the philosophical waxing to a minimum but when I bought this car it was a DD and fun-mobile, thought I would drive the piss out of it and never touch the damn thing. Before anybody who's familiar with me jumps in and points at me to say "Hah modbug!" I have one simple target: To beat the hell out of this car and have it come back for more. I'm not terribly interested in competing for points at an event (although never say never) or trying to make a Porsche killer, I just want to make a quick car reliably quick and maximize it's potential in my hands.

In terms of numerical values: Randy Pobst can turn a stock BRZ around Laguna Seca in 1:51, with tires, brakes, proper cooling, possibly a tune primarily for safety (not power), and a proper track alignment (likely facilitated by some suspension modifications) I want to be able to consistently run faster than 1:50 around that track. It will be a long time coming since I am only an average man but not an unreasonable target that shouldn't deplete my bank account significantly (compared to most builds around here).

Begin Saga:
-1-18-1013: Car bought, 12/12 build date, 6 miles on the odometer
-1,000 miles of break in as prescribed by the manual with only one event over 4k rpm



-Slowly ratcheting up the driving experience as I put my foot down and begin to feel out the suspension (yes I've taken it very slow with this car as it's baby's first sports car)
-Some oil changes
-First track day at Thunder Hill (Hooked on Driving): wet morning, dry afternoon. My very first time on a track with left and right turns and a gearbox to row through, thankfully due to the lack of grip in the morning I never exceeded the OEM car's capabilities, no brake fade, tires still looked relatively full of life and most importantly a big smile on my face for the drive home. Had a very good instructor who I hope to see around more often.



-More maintenance



-Second track day at Laguna Seca (HoD): signed up for a beginner group again and the instructor was helpful at finding a good line and not being wasteful on the brakes, some initial brake fade as the temps got up and I can definitely feel the limits of the Michelin Primacy HP's although I think they are an excellent teaching tool as you know when you have gone beyond 10/10ths of what the car can offer.



-2x AutoX events, good fun, nice comparing times with buddies.
-More maintenance @ 30,000






-Installed Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Specs, got the alignment measured and toe fixed on the RR, flushed the brake fluid to Motul 600




-Third track day: Awesome, definitely picking up speed around Laguna Seca
-The bad: check engine light: I've got a dying coil pack that cut my sessions short because I didn't know what it was, will be bringing OBD scanner to next track day




-Called a few dealerships, they won't perform the ECU update to fix the tune and require diagnosing time to fix the coil pack, will be looking at picking up an OFT and ordering a coil pack to install on my own. I hope I never buy a new Toyota ever again, not a single positive interaction with a single dealership in my region.




To be updated with more specific info.

[strat61caster]

Reserved for linking to later posts in the thread.

[strat61caster]

I think the number three is a nice round number.

[strat61caster]

Third day at Laguna Seca last weekend:

Track Prep: bleed the brakes again (Motul RBF600) as the pedal still feels mushy compared to new after I boiled the RF fluid at a track day earlier in the month (see OP, after removing the OEM pads the thinness may have contributed to a bunch of heat getting to the fluid), install Carbotech XP10's.

The Carbotech's were hard to install on the front, the lower slide pin stuck out too far making it difficult for the caliper to go over the pads and re-bolt to the slide pin, some finangling and frustration later it was shoehorned on. This was true for both fronts, the rears were a piece of cake. I bed them in on the street as I would be driving ~1 hour down to MRLS the next morning, squeeling was light and the pedal still feels soft but after persuading from my family I decided to trust my own work.

Was there to support family as they start to get into tracking (I'm no pro though with this being my 4th outing) so I spent some time giving rides instead of maximizing track time, I think it was worth the effort and I did manage to improve. Being in the low intermediate group I got a lot of flying laps in with minimal traffic, my last track day by pausing the video at the start finish line my best time was in the 1:56 range (really only 1 lap), on this day I managed to shave ~3 seconds off with two laps in the ~1:53 range and several laps in <1:58 (17/28). Finally starting to feel like I'm really making use of the car.

The brakes held up and were consistent throughout the day, maybe I'm crazy on the mushy pedals thing, I will run the Carbotechs until they are out of material. I'm still undecided if I will use them on the street, they do squeal lightly and it varies, sometimes they are dead silent but I'm a lazy sunofabitch to swap for track days.

The Dunlop ZII Star Specs have great initial grip, it only took a few turns to heat up and really stick, but I feel as though once I overdrive them they started to fade. It feels like I could drive them at 95% all day long but the second I take a handful of corners at 105% they overheat, grease up, and drop off. Not a scary amount but enough to force you to back off, makes it difficult to find the limit. Since my alignment only carries -0.37 degrees camber on the front they have been chewed up pretty bad, I will rotate them front to back before the next track day but it isn't a priority to do now, the RF tire looks chewed up pretty bad, it almost looks cupped (Laguna is hard on RF's, all the really challenging corners are lefties, Turn 2, 5, 6, Corkscrew turn-in, & 11).

I was really fighting understeer, I don't think I'm ready to take advantage of significant changes like sway bars and suspension just yet, a lot of my handling 'problems' can be dialed out by improving my technique (I know I can carry more speed through corners, just have to find the balance) and minor setup tweaks: I had the rears 1 psi lower than the front to reduce oversteer, it may have turned out to be a bit much, next day I'll have the rears +1 psi compared to the fronts and the starting point will be determined based on temperature. I had them set at 37 psi cold the night before, dropped 3 and 4 psi before the first session (front and rear respectively) so approximately 34 & 33 psi cold. Reducing the tire pressures may also help the Dunlops stay grippy throughout the run and my perception of my overdriving them may just be too high of a starting tire pressure. I can also attempt to dial in the alignment more accurately, namely more camber up front (Ideally nearing -1 degree) and playing with the rear toe (I think front is good at 0 for me now).

After the third session I got a check engine light, P0011, scary considering it's been linked to cam position issues and blown motors, my only consolation is that it occurred at low rpm as I idled back to the pits. I cleared it and it did not return. I am thinking that after >15 minutes of hard driving (as I did pull in to swap passengers) the oil may have thinned out giving inadequate control to the timing system, but that's purely speculation. In any case I will change oil before the next track day (currently it has ~5,000 miles on it and now two track days) and I'm seriously considering sending it in for analysis, but again easy driving in the near future means this is low priority for the next few weeks.

An OFT is likely my next purchase as I've had difficulty finding a dealership that wants to flash my car without holding my car for ~3 hours. After that an oil cooler is likely.

Pictures and maybe a video of a flying lap to come.

[swarb]

Pick up some camber bolts!! Camber up front will reduce the understeer. Ideally you want more camber in the front than rear. Also check out elm 327 blue tooth obd2 readers that sync with a smart phone. You can pull codes and use it as temp sender to a app like torque. It will read coolant and oil temps in numbers instead of the dummy dials.

Do you have traction control on at the track? pedal dance?
What size tires did you get?

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by swarb

Pick up some camber bolts!! Camber up front will reduce the understeer. Ideally you want more camber in the front than rear. Also check out elm 327 blue tooth obd2 readers that sync with a smart phone. You can pull codes and use it as temp sender to a app like torque. It will read coolant and oil temps in numbers instead of the dummy dials.

Do you have traction control on at the track? pedal dance?
What size tires did you get?

Camber bolts seem like a pain, I think going to camber plates that are compatible with OEM suspension will be more effective, especially in the long run.

Most BT OBD2 readers seem to have issues remaining in the car causing some errors and unless you spend near $100 the bit rate sucks, I'm leaning towards making an OFT work as a datalogger, seems like a right angle cable and some tape to keep the wires out of the way is doable then I can prioritize the phone as a lap timer. But I may be wrong and it isn't fine enough to catch all the data like a ~$100 BT unit and a flagship phone.

TC off except first session I leave it in sport mode to get a feel for track conditions. I've got a while to go before I find benefit in the pedal dance, still building confidence and even when I get to that point it seems like pulling the ABS fuse is more efficient.

Tires are OEM size: 215-45-17 and as mentioned above Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Specs.

[strat61caster]

@swarb Took your advice on the camber bolts, up to -1.1 degrees camber on the front, went to an AutoX yesterday and I think it really helped. I could probably use more but the shop was skeptical I could get more than maybe 0.1 degree more out of it. I'm lazy on the BT OBD scanner but I'll probably do that as well, I think I'll leave tuning out of the equation until I hit 60k miles with no hope of getting warranty done which means no OFT so the dongle will be my best bet at data logging.

The AutoX yesterday was good, first time dodging cones with good tires and brakes (carbotech XP10, Dunlop Direzza Z2 Star Specs, just to be redundant). I still have lots of time to pick up by fixing the nut behind the wheel but I'm making progress. The first two AutoX's I struggled to break within 10 seconds of top time (old Michelin Primacy's were teaching me a lot but the lack of grip slowed me down) now I'm roughly 5 seconds off the top time of some seriously fast guys on a ~40-50 second course.

Swapped back to the oem brakes today because the XP10's are too noisy, embarrassing the girlfriend with a car that sounds like a rickety old bus is not a good long term strategy. The Carbotech's however have a ton of life left in them, a little sad because I probably went overkill on brakes but I only would have saved a couple bucks on the xp8's and they'd wear out faster.

I'm at 36k miles so bumper to bumper warranty is gone, let's see how the powertrain holds up to abuse. Will do an oil analysis at the next service interval (37.5k or before the next event) see if I could benefit from more regular oil changes.

[strat61caster]

Had another autocross yesterday and I'm pretty happy with the car and really look forward to improving my driving with it. I'm at just under 38k miles and 2.5 years of ownership, nothing has changed since the posts a few inches above this one but to recap: Carbotech XP10 Pads, Motul RBF660 Fluid, Whiteline Camber Bolts, Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Specs in OEM size 215/45/17. I just changed the oil at the 37,500 interval and have a sample in a bottle to be sent to Blackstone, hopefully all good news on that front, given the stories I wouldn't be surprised if the engine ate itself before I hit 100k miles, I'm hoping this gives me some peace of mind.

Brakes: Top notch, super happy, it will take me awhile before I can outdrive the brakes, tons of life in the pads, they will likely last me through next year unless I strike it rich and go tracking 2x a month. Swapping between the OEM and Carbotech's on this car is dead simple, I'll time myself this afternoon but it's a breeze to do with hand tools (breaker bar, torque wrench, 19mm socket and extension, 14mm wrench, brake compression tool and adjustable wrench for said tool, jack and stands). Writing that out, it's a several hundred dollar investment to do this, easy to forget that someone who's never done this before and doesn't have the facilities this task would seem very daunting but it's really just a 'pull tires off, brake pads out, brake pads in, tires on, go!' operation for me. The stock pads are starting to near the end of their life (they do have 2x HPDE, 1X AutoX, and ~37k miles on them) and I think I will replace with stock pads again, order through whoever is cheapest, they're low dust, low noise and if I don't track them they should last a good 40k+ miles, whether or not I get them depends on the cost.

Tires: At about 8k miles they look much better than I expected with 1x track day and 3x autocrosses, I'd guess whether or not they survive the year depends on how many track days I go to. I've had trouble getting them to hook up consistently and I think it's all air pressure related, I was running them much to high at 35 and up when looking around they prefer around 32 psi hot. Yesterday was very cold (site is near the ocean, high winds, overcast all day so no sun heating up the concrete) so it felt like an ice rink, luckily everyone had the same conditions. I was around 31-32 after coming off and parking, maybe I was still too high? Maybe they never got up to temperature and to compensate I should have been higher? I'll probably never know, all I can do is experiment.

AutoX: I'm happy where I ended up, there is likely a few tenths there with practice in the condition the car was in, maybe some air pressure adjustments and the right combination could drop a second off but I'm only about 4-5 seconds off the top time typically taken by a Formula Ford or a built M3 on R-comps so I think I'm nearing the car's capabilities.

I like the way the car drives on the road, all the typical complaints people make (noisy, rough, torqueless, barren interior) are background noise to what the car does well: it feels great and is always ready for more. I don't feel the need for more power or coilovers at this point as when being pushed the car is still more capable than I am.

The one place I am not satisfied is the alignment, sitting at -1.1 degrees of camber up front and -2.0/-1.7 in the back I know that I am not maximizing the use of my tires. I am seriously tempted to blow the money on the Raceseng camber plates and some lower control arms but after all is said and done that would put me at nearly $1,500 for front+back along with an alignment if I go top of the line. I am thinking that the CASCAM's can be fitted later on to match a different suspension, I've got a PM to them on this site and will probably contact them through their site/phone number if I don't hear back in a few days if that's the way it works, I'd buy the OEM compatible set first and then if/when I get coilovers the cost to upgrade the CASCAM's will be much lower (<$200).

Now, a nap and a brake job

[Bergen23]

@strat61caster I did coils pretty quickly after I got the car. As soon as spring rolled around, I put my sticky tires (Bridgestone re11's) on. The tires were a bigger change than the suspension. The suspension just kind of firmed up the ride, but the steering feel with high performance tires was absolutely unreal. Then I added camber bolts. My god! What a huge difference in the handling. It felt like it was on rails. Definitely a worthwhile mod for the price.

Cool to see someone taking it slow and really getting to know the car before doing big changes! Unfortunately for me, I have a combination of too much work, and too much time in travel to get to a track, so my track days will be for pure enjoyment, and not really trying to hone skills for a little while.

Really looking forward to seeing where this goes.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by Bergen23

Cool to see someone taking it slow and really getting to know the car before doing big changes! Unfortunately for me, I have a combination of too much work, and too much time in travel to get to a track, so my track days will be for pure enjoyment, and not really trying to hone skills for a little while.

Really looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Warning, you got me talking. I love bullshitting and since the thread is mine I don't feel guilty

Thanks! Part of it is that I'm a cheap bastard, I don't want to waste money. I've been around long enough to know that this early in the car's life there are a lot of unknown's, to experiment can be costly i.e. lots of people were hot for Visconti tunes, then a couple stories of poor customer service and one car up in flames meant that was the last option you wanted to consider.

Coilovers are a bit safer, most makers have a reputation already and the science is well known however the hot ticket for what really makes this car go (stiffer front or rear? up to >10kg/mm? Or does it do better at ~7kg/mm and with stiffer sways?) could take years to figure out and there's never going to be one solution, Miata guys have been working at it for 25+ years and there will never be a consensus.

Even with the camber bolts I struggled with some heavy understeer during one particular corner, I could fix most of it by changing my entry but I can't help but think that another degree would have made that corner much more manageable...

That's the fun, always hunting for more. Totally get where you're coming from, I did two track days in January and my wallet was considerably lighter especially just a few weeks after christmas shopping, I didn't really recover until the end of March. I might be in line for one more track day this year and while I'll be running a laptimer it'll be much more important how I'm feeling at the end of the day, smiles per mile is the most satisfying metric after all.



As for where this goes, I'd really like to lap Laguna Seca in under 1:50 without going crazy (i.e. wide and/or stickier tires, power mods) which should be doable with my upgraded tires and brake pads alone, maybe I'll have dropped money on the camber plates and control arms by then so the alignment will be dialed in. Not sure what I'll do with the car after that, probably save up to go drive it in more far flung places, Southern California with Fontana, Button Willow, Willow Springs, their various canyons, maybe even the MidWest like Road America and take a shot a COTA as I'd like to visit Austin. I'm not opposed to the idea of supercharging but the power is still amusing to me at stock levels, I'd just be overwhelmed by a 50% increase one day, and besides me being a cheap bastard I want to be pretty sure of how the stock block holds up to boost.

Picture from Saturday:

[strat61caster]

So Autocross number whatever today, I think I finally got my pressures on the Direzza ZII Star Specs in the right range, I started out by posting THIS and then today I posted THIS so I wasn't that guy that posts a problem on the internet and never returns, I found a semi-acceptable answer.

Current car configuration: OEM unless noted otherwise, Carbotech XP10's front/rear, Motul 660 RBF brake fluid (same fluid as January, planning on changing out this winter), SPC/Whiteline Camber Bolts (in top hole, -1.1 degrees total), Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Specs 215/45/17 oem size on oem wheels, zero toe front, 1/16-1/8 toe in rear, (rear camber is in the -1.3 to -2.0 range).

tl;dr I'm going to start at 25 psi cold and let it drift up with heat. Today the car seemed to work best in the 27-28 psi window after coming off a ~50 second course rolling about 100+ feet to my grid box, taking off my helmet and measuring pressures, I tried going a little lower and they seemed to not come on until way lat in the run, higher and they came in too quick or I overshot. Oh and yes, this does mean the tire pressure warning light is on throughout the runs.

Sidebar: I've heard that the new Mini Cooper S will force traction control on when it senses low tire pressures, probably applies to most BMW programming.

The more I drive these tires the more I feel that they are peaky, they operate at best in a very narrow window and if you're not bang on they slip and slide around. As I am not gunning for a top time (taking a step back and putting priority on smiles and personal satisfaction, I still want good times though) their durability is seriously winning me over, we will see how they look before the wet season kicks in around November, I should have 2-4 more autocross days on them and 1 HPDE by then. The challenge of dialing them in has been frustrating but hopefully my knowledge pays off over the coming months.


I was hoping to hold off on changes to my car until the winter (because I'm cheap), but I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get the raceseng camber plates in the next few weeks, the understeer in the sweepers is too much, I can feel the heat on the outside edges. While it may be beneficial to fight the car and build my skills I am currently of the mind that it's silly to waste time to compensate for 'simple' problems in the car's setup (my only problem is that the tire isn't pointed in the right direction).

Pic related, this car was something very unique. Shame my phone camera blows.

[strat61caster]

Apologies, if you came here for tech info you'll have to wade through my prose to get to the nuggets but hey, I'm giving this away for free.


tl;dr camber plates helped me get a neutral car, I now love autocross and i spent too much money on chunks of aluminum and justify it to help me sleep at night.

Well as a late birthday present I got some cash to contribute towards early camber plates. I decided to go with the Raceseng Cascam plates, yes they are probably the most expensive option on the market but I like their function and after speaking with the lovely Jared Seng he assured me that the three components that go between the plates and coilover are mix & match, meaning I can adapt them to any coilover setup I purchase for probably much less than $200 (and no changes at all for some setups that are meant to interface with OEM top hats like Bilsteins).

Install was pretty easy, only trick was that to get the shock into the camber plate you need to grab the strut and wiggle it around to line it up, after that concept clicked it was cake. No noticeable drop in height without measuring (which I forgot to do) but it does seem to add negative camber even at "0" as seen in this pic, which I assume means that true zero would require the bolts to be placed into the other holes.




Awesomely there is no discernible difference in ride quality, no added harshness or noise so as far as I can tell these things have almost no downsides, they are easy to adjust by yourself, the allen bolts only need to be lightly hand tight, loose and then tight only one turn, push the wheel with a knee into position and bam, done. Alignment seemed unperturbed and I drove on them for two weeks in the 'zero' position with no issues



Then my father added some camber to his car using some bushings, that totally fucked his toe and the car was almost undriveable, he took it to an alignment shop and got it fixed Thursday before the AutoX. He made me paranoid so I took my car in at the -4 notch mark (~-1.0 degree according to the raceseng instructions) and had the toe zeroed out, looking at the before it was not necessary but peace of mind is cheap.

I took it to a local test and tune, got ~13 runs on the car on a short ~35-40 second course and ~5 runs for my codriver (his choice to not do more in the afternoon).

Here was the state of the car at the beginning of the day:
Dunlop Direzza ZII SS 215/45/17, 10k miles, handful of events listed above
Carbotech XP10 pads
Motul RBF600 (660?) fluid
Whiteline camber bolts
Raceseng camber plates set to -4 notches (for lack of a better descriptor)
~26 psi cold on all tires
All else stock, TC off via simple button push

Alignment
Front:
Zero Toe
Camber -2.7 degrees
Caster 5.9 Left, 6.0 Right

Rear:
Toe 1/16" each, 1/8" total toe in
Camber -1.0 Left, -1.4 Right

The car definitely had more front grip, actually may have completely eliminated the car's tendency to understeer however turn in was not predictable, I didn't feel confident in how the car would react and it held me back, I topped out at a 39.2 second pass.

I had a fast guy drive the car, he knocked the time down to 37.7 and played on the skidpad, he vocalized the inconsistency in turn in and that it tended to oversteer. I went ahead and backed the camber plates off by 1 notch (so -3 notches from 'zero' shown in pic above) and upped the front tires by 2 psi and hit the skidpad again, car felt much better, more predictable and consequently I had brought a bit of understeer back into the equation but it felt incredibly neutral, I could actually bring the back end around with throttle, the front never gave up unless I asked for too much things started to look good.

I hit the track, topped my previous best by a few tenths, 39.0, 38.6, 38.0!!!


This is the car that got rave reviews, the car that is truely balanced and neutral that does not plow under steady state, that rotates with throttle, I don't know why it took camber plates to unearth it but here it is, the little hachiroku, the car that trains the driver and slays giants. I never topped 38.0, we hypothesized that the car could get a low 37 on that course in ideal conditions, I know I need to up my skills to be on the limit at all times but I feel like I'm no longer fighting the car, like it's working with me instead of rolling over at the first sign of abuse. Maybe I've gone too fast again, maybe I'm covering my deficiencies with setup but I've got a big goofy grin on my face that I haven't had for well over two years in this car, it's hard to regret that.

Some bullshit on the stock setup and what I feel the car needs etc.

Over the past three days I keep asking myself why didn't the car feel like this from the factory? Why didn't the journalists complain about terminal understeer? Was their alignment different? Maybe the cars had less rear camber and consequently less rear grip. Maybe the Prius tires induce less weight transfer and require less camber to work properly, a phenomenon I wasn't aware of until this weekend (although those still pushed on my car as I was at -0.3 degrees camber up front to the -1/-1.4 rear) I've come to the conclusion that camber is a must for any performance car, it needs to be dialed in and sorted out every time, I went from terminal understeer to light oversteer to damn near true neutral in the space of 1 month and $650 and a few hours of my time (I suppose I should include the $130 alignment too but eh, that was a waste) and changing literally 1 lone parameter.

I am concerned that when I get lower control arms to dial in the rear that I will reintroduce understeer as I increase rear camber. Ideally you would set camber to maximize traction on all four wheels, but that does not seem possible with OEM suspension, I think I've got front grip maxed via camber and any additional rear grip would bring the understeer back.

I find this incredibly disappointing but a minor challenge for the short term as my skills take a front seat, keeping the car neutral and sacrificing some rear grip is not going to keep me up at night.

I've read a fair amount about springs, three general schools of thought, stiffer front, stiffer rear, and even. Now given that the way the suspension is setup, the motion ratios seem to dictate that the effective wheel rate on the rear is less than the spring rate put on it, that is a 10kg/mm spring on the rear damper is more like say an 8kg/mm spring at the wheel (check out the suspension subsection stickies), combined with the factory setup for all 86's carrying a stiffer rear it would make sense that's the baseline and any deviations should be minor. Combined with the understeer I and others have felt it would make sense to retain the stiffer rear. However I definitely feel the front is much too soft, it wallows in the transitions making slaloming a quagmire, and as publicized by the Randy Pobst the rear is stiff and unsettles easily. I'm kind of lost what to do on the suspension side, I'd really like to play with many spring rates to determine my ideal balance but I cannot ignore damping, something that is relatively new to me. While the car definitely needs a stiffer front I think the rear must increase with it otherwise I'd just be exacerbating the understeer from the stock non-aligned setup.

I'm thinking winter 2016 would be when I pick up some re-valvable Koni's and start toying with spring rates, hopefully I can dig up more information by then and get an idea of what would be ideal so I don't blow thousands of bucks on springs, then when I have a setup dialed in approach Penske/Raceseng for their custom setup provided I have the cash. But maybe that's a pipe dream.


Phew back to the meat, I think with even tire pressures and a touch more camber than I had on Saturday the car would be almost perfectly neutral, given that I have uneven camber in the rear I may also be experiencing some inconsistent balance left to right (i.e. could be oversteer in rights, understeer in lefts) but I'll just take that as it comes.

Current baseline on adjustable bits:
Camber plates -3 marks from neutral (est. -2.5 degrees)
Tires ~25-26 psi cold, even
Front Toe: Zero
Rear Toe: Slight in (~1/8")

I'm going to try adjusting Caster and toe through the rest of the year and have an idea of what those will do but I don't think they will significantly affect performance given that my current limitation is driver. Direzza ZII's are now at 10k street miles and I'll be hitting the track in September, they're holding up fantastically but I will be trying probably Hankook RS3's sometime next year when I run out of tread on the Dunlops.

[strat61caster]

Another autocross another lesson: I suck at driving (specifically on the brakes).

The car setup ended up being understeery again, I think that the faster course with higher g's requires more camber, back up to 4 notches for the next round and I'll focus on the driver over the car.

The course fast time was around 39.5-39.9s range, this was set by two racecars: an old formula style car and a 911 GT2. I struggled and failed to brake 45s, I asked an instructor to drive a session and he put the car at a 43.7, a whopping 4 seconds slower than a 911 GT2. He opened my eyes, I need to be on the ragged edge and find the confidence overstep the limits and then dial it back (at least in an autox scenario) and there is much more grip available than I am currently aware of.

Advice of the day: Hit more cones.

[strat61caster]

Put a goal forth for myself: Nationally competitive STX build

I know I'm not a good enough driver to go run at the top this coming season so it will be a building season, I will focus on the hardest part to get right and that's the suspension and driving. Next winter I will get some power under the hood and shoot for a run at nationals in 2017, assuming the rules don't change and fuck me over.

So this winter it's time to dial in alignment, coilovers, tires, and skill. I also needed some better brake pads so I'm not swapping between events and street driving.

Brakes:
Right now I'm sticking with stock calipers and discs, they're cost effective and more than adequate stopping power assuming a proper pad compound is chosen. I know an upgraded BBK will shave weight and reduce pad costs but I'm not at the point where I feel that money would significantly benefit me more than seat time, tires, and schooling, much less dialing in the suspension and alignment. I got myself some Project Mu NS400, I might have gone a little on the weak side and these may not last me, but they are very streetable and I like the initial bite. At the wet AutoX this past weekend they didn't hesitate, but with cold temperatures, small course, and a wet surface they didn't get a proper workout. We will see how these hold up once I start running the big national style courses and get some proper third to second gear braking zones.

No pics, they're just pads yo, who cares?

Wheel Studs:
And during installation of the new pads, I stripped a wheel stud on the Left Front. Yay. I decided that instead of buying stock studs and painstakingly replacing one every few months or whatever to just drop the money down on the bigass ARP studs I know will work well. There was definitely some growing pains on the installation, I work slow (as I'm no professional) and as such I'd estimate it took about 4-6 hours on the front studs. I had the lovely problem of the brake disc not fitting back on, called in some backup who said "You didn't get them all the way through so they're not aligned yet" I was using a lug and a conical bearing tool to pull them through, blasted them with the cheap harbor freight impact and tada, perfect alignment. I only did the fronts because the rears felt ok, thought I could let them be for a few months.

Here's the DIY:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21563



I didn't like using the tool this way, it cocked the stud in the hole as it came out, see second picture for how I balanced the point of the tool on the tip of the stud to get a clean press out. Most of this was done with hand tools, no presses or fancy stuff. But it's a pain in the ass. It's a harbor freight 'ball joint separator' that does the job quite well considering how much money it takes.

http://www.harborfreight.com/3-4-qua...tor-99849.html





Not pictured, conical bearing lug installer thing, thank you Amazon for the suggestion.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Lisle-22800-Wheel-Stud-Installer/dp/B000ETUD22/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450198396&sr=8-2&keywords=lug+install+tool"]Amazon.com: Lisle 22800 Wheel Stud Installer: Automotive[/ame]

Grease helps a ton when it comes to pulling the studs through, shouldn't be any detriments to using it, if a stud backs out or spins you've got other issues.

Two weeks later the left rear stud strips as I go to install my coilovers.

Disassembling the rear hubs in this car made me appreciate the simplicity of Japanese engineering, many people who take these cars apart or dump a ton of money into having other people take it apart for them bitch about how 'cheap' everything is, but cheap and smartly engineered means easy and economical to fix. Thanks again Toyobaru, it's a great little car. As a side note, I'm not entirely pleased with the cheap Gorilla lugs I purchased off Amazon, they seemed to get stuck and need working in, loosing material on initial installation, I may be upgrading these to larger higher quality lugs with closed ends to keep the threads clean, not to mention using some spacers to clear the eventual 17x9 wheels and hide some of the extra thread away.

Coilovers:
I decided to pick up some Bilstein B14's. Anybody who's done a ton of research into running competitive autox probably just went "wtf" as these are not known for being sportingly oriented. And they are absolutely right. These are a quality simple DD setup that shoots for "OEM plus" and I think it hits the target pretty well. The progressive rate springs are stiffer than stock but not harsh in any way, the dampers are quality bilstein units that follow their highly modular product line and valved for the street. They lowered the car ~1" on initial install based on where I put the adjustable collars (basically 5 turns in from zero pre-load) and have dropped further since. I think I'll be adding more preload in an attempt to raise the car up a bit as I am scraping my front bumper a lot and got a nice big thump as I came into my driveway last night, probably bottomed out the front end.

The result is a ride that is definitely firmer but not unlivable for a DD, my girlfriend barely notices the difference except, it bounces on big bumps. Not necessarily fast bumps, but big ones. Speed bumps pot holes give you at least one big bounce before the dampers catch up and control the ride, it's probably a consequence of Bilstein attempting a low-effort streetable lowering. However as a flipside these things seem to soak up and destroy minor road imperfections, places where the surface was kind of grainy, cobblestones, quick low amplitude undulations are non-existent now, might as well be driving on something smooth as glass. Most sites advertise 50mm (~2") of lowering on these things, and I have no doubt that's achievable but I can't imagine what it does to the underside that I've already trashed at the stock height.

tl;dr good DD setup, without any experience on other setups, I've seen enough people bitch about how harsh the ebay setups are (godspeed, megan, ST, whatever) and the slightly more name brand budget setups like Tein that I wouldn't hesitate to buy these again with the intention of DD lowering and casual performance use. They've been on the car for little over a week so my opinion may change but so far notbad.jpg at around the $1k budget.



I need a better camera... but I'm cheap so I'll probably just get a better cell phone... Sony, please make the Z5c with vanilla android.


AutoX
So, I had an AutoX this past weekend and put all of the above to the test. I'm still on the ZII's which deserve their own blip down below but suffice to say I've likely used up all useful grip in them. The track was wet (as evidenced below) and it was the first time this group ran the site in many years so it was a bit of a wreck of a day with only three runs to my credit and none of them spectacular. It was my first time at this site as well (it does typically host a national tour so better get used to it!) so lots of unknowns but the runs were fun and enlightening. First run and final (third) run are below, not a huge improvement (despite significant drying of the course) but considering how much was new I wasn't a total basket case. I fucking love driving in the rain and hope I get at least a couple chances at it per year.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg6qb3KnEmU"]GGCBMWCCA Dec 2015 AutoX Crow's Landing Run 1 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW3mup0MgSQ"]GGCBMWCCA Dec 2015 AutoX Crow's Landing Run 3 - YouTube[/ame]


Aftermath of the car, submitted for photo of the month contest because why not:





B14 at the cones:
Hoo boy, understeer central! Now this isn't entirely fair, I believe I can get these things to rotate with some time and effort, quite honestly if I had a full day to tune the car and try again I think I'd be pretty happy. With spring rates similar to OEM and it'd be foolish to tune balance with damping I think I had three things wrong in the setup which contributed to my understeer issues.

1. I did not re-install the whiteline/spc camber bolts I had in my original setup, this meant I had less negative camber available to me than previously (I am running Raceseng Cascams for camber adjustment). I knew this going in and tried to max the camber plates out but the coils ran into something, I'm not sure what but I heard/felt some clunking on the first run and immediately came in and backed it out, one clunk on the second run, zero on the third so I need to make some investigations to see what was causing it.

So, not enough front camber = reduced grip in the front.

2. The lowering the B14's offered meant I had increased rear camber, I did not measure, just kind of winged it. but it was visibly more than OEM.

More rear camber via lowering = increased rear grip

3. My suspension tuner highly recommended I cut the bump stops on the front dampers, I resisted because I wanted to see what the B14's did off the shelf. While the bump stop Bilstein provides is significantly shorter than the one provided by Toyobaru, it's not the -1" shorter one would hope would come with the lowering. I was probably hitting the bumpstops while out on course reducing my front grip even further.

Bump stops = stiffer springrate under load = understeer

Now, I wouldn't want to correct #2, reducing grip to go faster is like, well fuckit I can't come up with a good analogy at the moment, but I should have known that at least in conjunction with #1 I should have put more effort into correcting the alignment before doing this. How much did #3 contribute? I'm not sure but I believe the B14's can be made to handle as well as I had the stock setup (which I was very happy with) on just camber plates + camber bolts. Correcting the alignment and cutting that bumpstop would probably get these things pretty capable as a DD and casual setup as they are sprung and valved off the shelf.

However because of my current goals I won't be exploring that avenue. Tagging @jsimon7777 as I think he had some interest in the units and I believe he may want to explore that route. I'll probably repost my feelings on the B14's in the suspension thread, they seem to be incredibly unpopular compared to the Teins and el-cheapo setups and I think that's a damn shame. XX way adjustibles get all the love without any evidence of whether or not they work, and it's much easier to get them 'wrong' than get them 'right' but I don't want to rain on anyone's parade.

For those still wondering 'wtf did you choose B14's to go racing?' it's because they are modular and revalvable. I considered RCE Tarmacs, Ohlins, Tein SRC, even played with the idea of saving up for a year or two for Penske's instead of a house (lol) but realized they would all need rework from off the shelf spec to get maximum performance, nobody I have easy access to is friendly and willing to help on those setups. Meanwhile there probably is someone in every major metropolitan area in the U.S. who can revalve and tune Bilsteins for you, not to mention having it done relatively cheaply by sending them down to Bilstein U.S. in Poway. If you are diligent and find a few deals you can pick up B14's, Swift (or other) springs of your chosen rates, spring adapters, and an official Bilstein revalve for less than $2k and end up with a quality monotube tuned to your setup. I know Bilsteins official revalves are a bit hit or miss, it's a pretty simple form and they also kind of wing it, but for less than $2k the only competition is Racecomp with a twin-tube KW variant. Definitely a solid option, lots of people are running those successfully and they certainly have adjustability for those who like to fine tune. I just happen to like my chances with the Bilsteins right now. I'll definitely post up as they evolve but I plan to do it in the short term, I probably won't run the b14's at an autox again but I'll put more street miles on them over the coming weeks.

Tires:
Still running the Dunlop ZII Star Specs on the oem wheels (as seen above) these suckers have taken 50+ autox runs, 3x track days, and 14,000 miles of abuse and still have tread left. Maybe not so much grip left but I'm a big fan, I'll run these until I feel the tread is too far gone and I'll likely try out Hankook RS3'x for a DD/street/track tire, BECAUSE it'd be dumb to try and run STX on 7" wheels with 215 wide tires. I'm currently hunting for a good deal on the right used wheels and if they come with tires I can abuse so much the better. I've put this purchase off until January however as I dropped a fair amount of money on other stuff over the past few weeks, Tirerack will sell me a set of new RPF1's and RE71R's for $1.8k, not too shabby to have them arrive on my doorstep but saving a couple hundred bucks certainly wouldn't hurt.

So, now that I've dedicated an article too long to feature in a newspaper or conspiracy blog lets talk about what I'm leaving out.

Alignment goodies
Raceseng Cascams: still pretty happy with these, especially as whatever I end up using on the Bilsteins, all I have to do is change the spring perch, buy a new one for $60 or modify the existing one. Pretty pleased with that and that was the plan all along, other camber plates that mate to OEM would probably have to be tossed out or require significantly more work on adapting them to my purposes, especially if I didn't end up with B14's which are designed to mate to the stock top hats just like my CasCams were designed to replace the stock top hats.

LCA's
I ended up buying some RacerX lower control arms on black friday sale which was a whopping 20% off so these arrived on my doorstep for just over $400. Yes there are cheaper options out there and more expensive, but STX requires you to keep flexible bushing in the car so on the high end you really only have two options from what I can see, RacerX and Velox, with Velox being at least $100 more expensive (and at the RacerX sale price $200) and not quite available at the moment I jumped to these. Pretty happy with the quality and look forward to installing them early next year.



Sway Bars:
I honestly don't know what's best here, but I'm going to steal CSG's philosophy that sways are for tuning balance, I'll probably run a bit with the stock sways and figure out what's needed to compensate for however the B14's turn out, who knows maybe I'll be the only guy running a stiffer rear bar. I like the idea that the less sway bar the better, makes perfect sense but it'll probably be necessary to have a front bar to get good slalom response out of the 86.

Other odds and ends:
Bushings, weight reduction, secret sauces
At this point any improvements here will pale in comparison to the stuff I plan on installing over the coming months and the improvements in skill I need to make. They'll probably come along, maybe sprinkled throughout the year, maybe not until I try Nationals for the first time and see that all those hundredths gained from the little things would take me into the top 10, idfk.

Conclusions: well I'm a sloppy mess right now, but this car is fun and has so much to offer someone who wants to learn and develop their skills and knowledge. I'm about to drop a ton of money into it over the coming years and for no good reason other than it's fun. I'm hoping that at the end of it, at least 2-3 attempts at STX nationals, maybe more, I can undo some of the more aggressive things I've done and have a long term DD/weekend toy that's extremely reliable, track capable, and supercharged.

Phew, finally ran out of steam, thanks for sticking with me and happy holidays!