GR86/BRZ Comparison Articles

[ayau]

i don't think the mechanical differences are as dramatic as the engineers make them out to be. pick whatever you think looks cooler.

do you want more oversteer or understeer? alignment and tire pressures can be easily adjusted. if you're serious about balance, there are a bunch of things you can swap out.

[Blighty]

Originally Posted by ayau

throttle mapping confirmed to be different by the subaru/toyota engineers?

i feel like toyota CEO pressured their engineers to differentiate the GR86 from the BRZ simply for the sake of being different, therefore, they can market their car as being unique.

steel vs aluminum knuckle? come on...

Pretty sure its confirmed, everyone talks about it and I think the little display they have they cover it when they cover all the other differences. Not sure if they are engineers but I assume so.

I wont disagree with you about toyots ceo. But I will say that potentially Toyota are looking at it from a legacy potential and it becoming a drift scene darling (like the AE86).

[OtisHenry]

Hi everybody. I need to buy a car to go uphill and downhill safely. I'm considering BRZ and GR86. Although they both are not the same, there are not too many differences. Tell me which is the best option. Thanks!

[Code Monkey]

Yes.

[Yoshoobaroo]

Try paging through the forum or search the site using Google first, this has been discussed at length in multiple threads in the past few weeks:

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...highlight=Iron

[mazeroni]

Originally Posted by ayau

i don't think the mechanical differences are as dramatic as the engineers make them out to be. pick whatever you think looks cooler.

do you want more oversteer or understeer? alignment and tire pressures can be easily adjusted. if you're serious about balance, there are a bunch of things you can swap out.

If you bring in a driver and say the GR is more drifty, then the driver will try to drift the car and later confirm it is set up to drift. If you say the BRZ is more stable, the driver will find safe understeer, but if they find oversteer they will back off and settle the car and later confirm that the car is, in fact, very stable and doesn't like to drift. This, even if both cars are set up identically.

Now, how much priming actually happened, I don't know. Normally, companies do tech presentations before the driving event, so it is possible someone told the drivers what to expect. Which isn't to say that the changes don't have an impact, but to your point, the degree of these changes might be, as you say, minor. But they are being exaggerated for various reasons.

We'll have NA drive reviews next week so we aren't too far off from learning more.

[Kona61]

Originally Posted by mazeroni

If you bring in a driver and say the GR is more drifty, then the driver will try to drift the car and later confirm it is set up to drift. If you say the BRZ is more stable, the driver will find safe understeer, but if they find oversteer they will back off and settle the car and later confirm that the car is, in fact, very stable and doesn't like to drift. This, even if both cars are set up identically.

Now, how much priming actually happened, I don't know. Normally, companies do tech presentations before the driving event, so it is possible someone told the drivers what to expect. Which isn't to say that the changes don't have an impact, but to your point, the degree of these changes might be, as you say, minor. But they are being exaggerated for various reasons.

We'll have NA drive reviews next week so we aren't too far off from learning more.

There is a definite difference between them. When sliding in the Japanese videos, the BRZ requires much less correction to maintain the slide. The 86 seems to need a lot of finesse.

[pzerok]

Can anyone say something about the difference between dealing with Subaru vs Toyota? I know the cars don't seem THAT different but has anyone experienced both dealers?

[Jianlun]

Another article. https://motor-fan.jp/mf/article/5927/ Google translate does a good job.
None of the content is new news anymore, other than this which is a little puzzling:
"Therefore, in order to ensure controllability after sliding, we modified the specifications of the damper. The BRZ is a saturated type that does not increase the damping force too much in the region where the input speed is high, while the 86 has a linear damping force characteristic."

Seems like the damping curve/shape itself is different. Linear vs digressive curve? Maybe I reading between the (translated) lines too much again while staring aimlessly into space waiting for 17 Aug to arrive.

[Yoshoobaroo]

Originally Posted by Jianlun

Another article. https://motor-fan.jp/mf/article/5927/ Google translate does a good job.
None of the content is new news anymore, other than this which is a little puzzling:
"Therefore, in order to ensure controllability after sliding, we modified the specifications of the damper. The BRZ is a saturated type that does not increase the damping force too much in the region where the input speed is high, while the 86 has a linear damping force characteristic."

Seems like the damping curve/shape itself is different. Linear vs digressive? Maybe I reading into it too much hahaah.

Read to me like the Subaru doesn't have as high high-speed damping, so the Toyota will be stiffer over bumps. It's unlikely that these cars will have frequency selective dampers so if Toyota raised the low speed damping the high speed damping probably went up with it.

[Jianlun]

Another thing in the article:
"The BRZ of the front stabilizer is hollow (18.3φ), while the 86 is solid (18φ), and of course, the hollow is lighter. However, "I wanted a linear hand," 86 chose solid"

Got me wondering why a solid bar is more linear than a hollow one. Cos by maths, there shouldn't be a difference within the limits of the strength of the materials.

Unless, like mentioned in this whiteline paper, it's hard to manufacture hollow bars consistently (esp the bends) and thus contribute to the "non-linearness"? More like toyota taking the easy (cheap) way out...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...=1628905167603

[Sasquachulator]

Originally Posted by OtisHenry

Hi everybody. I need to buy a car to go uphill and downhill safely. I'm considering BRZ and GR86. Although they both are not the same, there are not too many differences. Tell me which is the best option. Thanks!

These cars have no torque so theres no way they can go up a hill safely.
So you want a muscle car because you need gobs of power to go up safely.

Going down is different, you can use anything, as long as it has brakes that work.

[Ernest72]

Originally Posted by Blighty

I know right. I can barely justify one sports car, certainly not two

No justification needed if they are paid off. I have my 04 WRX and my 16BRZ, no payments. People say you have two cars, I say you have one more payment then me. I mean I have been having a blast with my 04 WRX and have not had a payment in 13 years, think about that.

[Blighty]

Originally Posted by Ernest72

No justification needed if they are paid off. I have my 04 WRX and my 16BRZ, no payments. People say you have two cars, I say you have one more payment then me. I mean I have been having a blast with my 04 WRX and have not had a payment in 13 years, think about that.

Its not about if they are paid off or not, you still gotta register them and keep them maintained, and use them for their intended purpose.

I will say that if your other car is a WRX then its fine - plenty of practicality with them as they are either a sedan or a hatch that you can daily easily.

I mean you can even put a towball on them, and that's not something you can do on a pure sportscar.