owner's report at 1300+ miles

[squat12]

I haven't seen one of these types of posts for several days. I don't know if anyone is interested in this kind of post at this point anymore, but here goes.

At 1300+ miles, I'm not seeing any of the idle or noise issues that other owners have seen. The car is (relatively) quiet and feels extremely solid when rolling down the road. The handling is fantastic, and I've really grown to like the view from the driver's seat, the instruments, etc. Overall I'm very happy with the car, and my fuel average according to my iPhone program that keeps track of mileage and fill-ups is currently 30.7 mpg, with probably 60% highway/40% city driving, and with a moderately aggressive driving style.

I have had the common issues with the GPS portion of the NAV unit, as well as flakiness with the contacts list when syncing with my iphone, but the music portion of the system has been just fine, so I'm not terribly upset with the crappy GPS performance and I'll wait for the flash update and/or TSB that will probably be coming to fix those issues.

The one issue that I have noticed, and this could possibly be termed an issue with the operator, rather than the vehicle, is the "torque hole" that the car has from roughly (from my driving experience) 3k RPM to 4.5K rpm. When I'm driving around town somewhat aggressively, there isn't much of an issue, as the revs around town tend to stay mostly below 3-4K, where there's decent torque for the most part. However when I'm transitioning from city streets to highway, or while passing someone on the highway, I find it pretty easy to fall in that dead zone from 3-4.5K, and as a result I wind up wasting several seconds droning through the revs until I hit 4.5K and get some worthwhile acceleration, while in the meantime hanging myself and the car out to dry until that range is reached. You can't generally downshift just one gear and get the power you need under hard driving situations, it pretty much has to be two gears, and although the engine is pretty smooth and willing to rev, it begins to offend my mechanical sympathy to do that kind of thing very often. I guess I've been spoiled by my turbo engines I've been driving for years.

Since the car looks from the styling to be a total rocket, this leads to certain types of people on the road trying to thwart you when you go to pass them, meaning that if you aren't on your toes and driving fairly hard all the time, you may be in for some close calls and/or embarrassing moments when a driver in a, say, 8-9 year old Acura TL suddenly decides to floor it during a passing attempt causing you to need every inch of on-ramp to just barely get around them.

[Zoomie]

I very much appreciate these type posts! Thank you! I must live vicariously thru those who still do these types of updates. It mentally prepares me for the fun and the possible weaknesses of the BRZ. It also preps me for the type of work I plan to undertake to alleviate some of what I view as shortcomings (when my car arrives). Please continue to update...

[Nepenthe]

Good report.

Originally Posted by squat12

...this leads to certain types of people on the road trying to thwart you when you go to pass them, meaning that if you aren't on your toes and driving fairly hard all the time, you may be in for some close calls and/or embarrassing moments when a driver in a, say, 8-9 year old Acura TL suddenly decides to floor it during a passing attempt causing you to need every inch of on-ramp to just barely get around them.

People really can be d|cks sometimes.

[slizoth]

I agree with everything except the torque hole, havent really noticed one on mine. Doesnt seem unreasonable to just down shift before passing someone.

[DeepHunta]

If I'm on an on-ramp, I'm always at 6k rpm and above

No issues here either. I'm at 1400 miles now. There is that chirping sound that everyone is talking about though. Until the car breaks down then I am not bringing it in for service.

[squat12]

Originally Posted by slizoth

I agree with everything except the torque hole, havent really noticed one on mine. Doesnt seem unreasonable to just down shift before passing someone.

You haven't noticed the 1500 RPM region where you don't get nearly the acceleration that you do above and below it? All the dyno graphs I've seen of this engine support the idea that there is a fairly substantial torque dip around that area.

And yes, downshifting (again) is the correct remedy, but as I said it generally has to initially be (at least for my driving style) a two-gear drop, not one, in order to get above 4-4.5K RPMS, and by the time I was in an unexpected drag race with the Acura, taking the time to blip the throttle and upshift again would have caused me to drop back a bit, so I figured it was a wash between waiting out getting to 4500 RPM and upshifting. Basically, I should have performed the two gear drop from the beginning, but it feels kind of harsh to rev the piss out of the engine if I don't specifically need to, and I really didn't expect the Acura to try to stop me from passing like he did.

[squat12]

Originally Posted by DeepHunta

If I'm on an on-ramp, I'm always at 6k rpm and above

I think this is the lesson for me here, yeah. The guy I was passing was initially trundling along fairly slowly, it was a two-lane on ramp for a bit, and I wanted to nail the curves on it reasonably hard. In the future I need to remember the type of car I'm driving and behave accordingly.

[squat12]

I guess I'll add to all this: everyone who has seen the car has been extremely enthusiastic about how it looks. The usual reactions are 1) *that's* a Subaru? and 2) i'll bet that thing is soooo fast. Which is where I kind of have to fumble a bit and say "yeah, well, it's pretty quick, but not really fast like say an STI or EVO..."

People see the styling on this car and think it's some kind of supercar or something. Which is good in a way, but you had better be able to back that up on the road, and that's where things get tricky, at least when the road is mostly straight.

[WMS]

"...this could possibly be termed an issue with the operator, rather than the vehicle, is the "torque hole" that the car has from roughly (from my driving experience) 3k RPM to 4.5K rpm."

I have about 350 miles and I am also having Nav/voice recognition problems. Hopefully a SOA tech person will telephone me today to assess.

As for the "torque hole", there has been much discussion about the dyno curve and the perceived drop in power/torque in the region you described. You can find details with a search here and at subarubrz forum.

My take away is that this is a result of the combined types of fuel injections in the BRZ, imparting a kind of barbell torque curve - higher at low and high rpm's (sorry for butchering the explanation...I would have to go find the discussions to provide the techie talk). One assessment was that this could/should be looked at as a a low end boost, rather than a mid curve drop.

In any event, I look at driving and shifting from 2000 - 3200 rpm as my economy mode, and will look at 4000 - 5000 rpm as the sport/passing mode. Of course, I have not got there yet, until 1000 miles.

Hope this helps.

[blu_]

This has been debated elsewhere in depth, but engineers tweek exhaust and intake designs to use frequency resonances which will basically act as a very low pressure form of FI in a small RPM band.

However, in general this added torque, comes at the cost of lower torque over the rest of the RPM range.

[Hanzo]

Squat12, what brand of gas have you been using?

[sdiver68]

I'd like to echo the TQ curve and power comments. People DO want to race you when passing. In my prior cars that was okay because 99 % of them didn't stand a chance. Now they do.

[slizoth]

Originally Posted by squat12

You haven't noticed the 1500 RPM region where you don't get nearly the acceleration that you do above and below it? All the dyno graphs I've seen of this engine support the idea that there is a fairly substantial torque dip around that area.

I'm not denying that the dip is there, I'm just saying I don't notice it. My driving style is fairly tame in day to day driving. Situationally, I would down shift.

If I was going to pass someone on the highway I would look ahead, find my moment, downshift, and pass as quickly as possible. I wouldn't tail gate them, they wouldn't even know I wanted to pass until it already happened.

In the rare case someone tries to gas it so I cant pass them I will already be at my power band because I downshifted before changing lanes.

[squat12]

Originally Posted by Hanzo

Squat12, what brand of gas have you been using?

I've been filling up with 92 octane Chevron gas for every single fill up. That's the highest octane fuel available in my state (WA).