Tatsu333's 2020 BRZ Sport Tech RS

[Tatsu333]

So after two years of ownership, I was finally able to get my car out on track! I attended the SCCBC (Sports Car Club of British Columbia) Driver Training this past weekend at Mission Raceway Park, and it was an AWESOME experience.

All the SCCBC instructors, crew and volunteers were super welcoming, friendly and helpful, and I had a great time learning the feel and balance of my car closer to its limits.

Day 1 was cold, wet and rainy, so perfect conditions for working on car control at lower speeds.

Day 2 was still cool but dry, so we got to push the pace a lot more, and I got to where I felt like I was at around 7 or 8 tenths of my limit by the end, which is about as hard as I wanted to push my daily driver on a course where there are a LOT of trackside walls on corner exits! Overall, I think I was third-fastest in my group, behind the white GR86 and the Mustang Cobra.

My 500TW, 3 year old Pirelli P Zero All Seasons held up pretty well, but I could definitely feel that they were going off a bit towards the end of each hot-lapping session.

PowerStop Track Day pads with fresh rotors front and rear also held up great, with consistent feel and performance throughout, but man, are they ever dusty! I wasn't able to get my brake fluid flush to Motul DOT 5.1 done before the weekend, but didn't really notice a whole lot of difference in pedal feel from the start to the end of each session, though they were only 15-20 minutes long.

My RCE SS1's rode the curbs nicely and the car always felt really well balanced. I was running the dampers on the soft street settings (-14 clicks front / -16 clicks rear) due to the wet and cold initial conditions, and do feel like it would have benefited from the rebound being turned up a bit in the later dry sessions as speeds increased, particularly at the rear.

EDIT: Oh, yeah - almost forgot. I averaged 22.8 litres/100km on track, or a whopping 8.3 mpg...LOL! Even a stock FA20 is thirsty when pushing it hard.


Overall - SO MUCH FUN! Here are some pics:

[Racecomp Engineering]

Awesome! Tough conditions for a first track day so I'm glad it went well!

- Andrew

[Tatsu333]

2023.10.23: Just realized I never posted this here in my journal, so copying this over:


Just thought I'd leave a quick initial impression / review on this handy little device - the AAWireless Wireless Android Auto Adapter.

I really like using Android Auto with my Pixel 7 phone and the stock 2020 BRZ head unit, but the wired connection has always been a little flaky when engaging in some "spirited" driving, with both this and my previous phone. The more I've used the wired connection, the more flaky it becomes, sometimes not connecting unless I unplug / re-plug it several times. It has gotten really frustrating the last several months.

My wife's new vehicle has wireless Android Auto, and it's pretty slick, so I started looking around for a solution to add it to my BRZ. I like the stock head unit's look and the physical volume knob, so I wasn't really looking to replace the head unit. Instead, I searched for "wireless Android Auto adapters" and found AAWireless.

There are a few other vendors out there, but as far as I know, AAWireless was first to market, and it seems to be the best option out there. Plus, at only $80 USD, why not?

Ordering from Amazon.com (it's not sold directly here in Canada) was easy, shipping to my US mailbox was free with my Prime membership, and it arrived within a couple of days.

The unit itself is tiny (only a couple of inches square, and maybe a half inch thick), and it comes with a short USB-A to USB-C cable. It easily fits in the otherwise useless little storage cubby between the USB ports and the push-button start, and I just coiled up the extra cable underneath it.

Setup using the AAWireless app was super simple, and after clearing the Android Auto cache and storage on my phone, it connected right away. With my phone unlocked when I start the car, it actually seems to launch Android Auto even faster than the wired connection did, and once it's up and running, it's just as fast and responsive as the wired connection was.

The only slight hiccup so far is that my phone has to be unlocked for it to connect. Once it makes the initial connection, the phone can be locked no problem. I've played around with a couple of different settings to see if I can get it to make that initial connection while locked, but no luck so far. I'll keep messing around with it, and if I find a solution, I'll update here.

Overall, I'd highly recommend it for anyone looking to make wireless Android Auto an option on the factory head units with Android Auto!

[Tatsu333]

Just a quick update with the latest "mod" (LOL) - realizing I was overdue on time (though still about 25,000 kms under mileage) for replacement of the air filter, I replaced the OEM filter with an AEM Dryflow panel filter, model 28-50060. Took seconds to swap out and apply the fancy "Do Not Oil Or Replace" sticker.

It's almost certainly all in my head, but it does feel like it revs out a bit smoother and is smoother overall in my normal mid-rpm, part-throttle driving around town. No noticeable difference in sound (I wouldn't expect there to be with a panel filter replacement) and almost certainly no difference in power.

Just a "present for my car" basically, so I can feel like I'm still making progress while I have virtually zero budget for the next few months.

[Tatsu333]

After driving it around for a couple of days, it's not just in my head. The car definitely is smoother overall, which is an unexpected (and welcome) change with such a small mod. Again, doesn't feel stronger, just smoother.

[itsifun]

Posting cuz I'm a fellow Sportech owner in BC lol

[grippgoat]

Originally Posted by Tatsu333

Just a "present for my car" basically, so I can feel like I'm still making progress while I have virtually zero budget for the next few months.

I've been giving my car lot of presents. Except for me budget isn't the issue, it's weather. I don't have tires that aren't terrying in the cold + wet, so I keep throwing little mods at it to make it (well, me, really) feel better while it's stuck in the garage.

-Mike

[Tatsu333]

Latest mod for my BRZ - the TRD Trunk Aero Stabilizer.

I've been wanting to do this one for a while because with my car parked outside and a big cedar hedge and a few really tall cedar and maple trees right next to it, I get a LOT of crap and debris falling through the gap between the trunk and the rear glass.

Install was very simple once I understood how to use the spacers thanks to this video:

I'm not one of those people who really cares about having a TRD branded part on my Subaru, so I'm not going to bother with covering up the logo.

I don't expect any difference to anything other than appearance and hopefully keeping the majority of that junk from getting into the trunk surround, but that latter part is important enough to make it worth it for me.

Here are a few pics:

[Tatsu333]

No pictures for this one, but I finally got around to doing my own oil change and installing the Fumoto F-108 oil drain valve I got for Christmas last year (LOL). First oil change I've done in...18 years? Really simple with the top-mount filter, and will be even simpler in future with the Fumoto valve installed.

[Tatsu333]

So, just a few days after I did my oil change, I'm driving along in town, and some dipstick turns straight into the side of my car from the right lane beside me...

Very low speed accident - we were going maybe 30-40 km/h (20-25 mph), and dude just pulled right across into the side of my car. No injuries, no structural damage and the car is still totally drivable, but FML.

My car has just over 17,000 kms on it, and after this will have had upwards of $10K CAD in bodywork (all cosmetic, not structural) from this incident and last year's hit-and-run. WTF?!?! I feel like I'm cursed with this car...













Insurance found me 0% at fault, so it's not going to cost me anything (deductible or future insurance premiums) for the repair, but still a total pain in the ass. Body shop won't be able to get it in for the repairs for about a month and a half, so it's going to be nearly two months before my car is fixed...

[villainous_frx]

Ugh... what a bummer! Something about your bright red is drawing in these bad drivers.

[Tatsu333]

Well, they've been a long time coming, but with the help of a good friend of mine, I finally got some of the bigger items on my list installed. These have been sitting in "inventory" in my attic for years now because I was really hesitant about doing this work on jackstands in my garage, and boy, am I glad I waited until the opportunity came to do it on my friend's hoist with his help!

Here are some pictures:

Engine support bar in place to secure the engine from above (we ended up only using the rear engine hoist point since the transmission mount was still going to be attached and we were also going to be supporting from below, so removing the throttle body, etc. wasn't really necessary):




Transmission jack with wood block supporting the engine via the oil pan from below as a backup (subframe and OEM headers already removed):




OEM headers out of the car - still in perfect shape (as expected with my car only having 19,000 kms on it over the last four and a quarter years...LOL.
That said, I was a bit shocked at the amount of corrosion on some parts of the chassis given the low mileage):




Ceramic-coated ACE A350 headers in place - doing this with the subframe out made this SUPER easy:




2018 tS subframe and flexible draw stiffener installed:




Shot showing everything installed before replacing the underbody panels:




ACE A350 header first impressions

Without having tuning done, I know I'm not getting everything I can out of the header, but my budget won't allow for that yet. I may go back to tinkering with some self-tuning to see if I can dial things in a bit better myself.

That said, first impression is that it sounds and feels smoother overall than with the OEM header, and the power delivery feels a bit more linear. I suspect I'm losing a bit of power at the very bottom end vs. OEM so I'm not feeling the first torque "hump" anymore. Hard to say via butt dyno alone, but it feels like it pulls more consistently through the mid-range.

I will probably see about getting the car back on the dyno for a pull on the stock tune to compare with the pre-header numbers around the end of June.

The reports from folks saying the header with stock front pipe and cat back were as quiet as stock are (thankfully) accurate! There's a bit more of a growl / throatiness to the tone at higher throttle openings under load, but other than that, I don't feel there's much difference in sound at all, which is exactly what I was hoping for.


tS subframe / flexible draw stiffener first impressions

Not really a whole lot to say here because I haven't had the opportunity to push the car hard on any interesting roads (it was just a 90 minute, bumper-to-bumper slog back home after the install), but it did seem to wander a little less on the freeway. That's probably just in my head though.

I don't expect to feel any real difference until I also have the flexible V-bars in, at which point I'm hoping for a bit more turn-in responsiveness along with controlled bump compliance mid-turn. The car is already so good at those things, though, it is surely going to be just a matter of degrees. The main point with these mods for me is simply to put my car in "tS spec" without the big rear wing of the 2018's or the single colour choice of the 2020's.

In any event, I'm looking forward to getting my car out on the twisties soon!


Other notes

The other thing we were looking into while we had the car on the hoist was a light knocking in the suspension I was getting at low speeds over bumps, and that turned out to be the well-known issue with KW-based coilovers of the front swaybar / end links lightly contacting the control arms. I'll be looking into some other end link options (as discussed in this thread) to resolve this issue over the summer.

[Tatsu333]

OK - after a few days driving it around, I think my initial impression that it has lost a little bit of very low end torque (idle - 2,500 rpm or so) but is more linear overall is accurate. It does feel a bit stronger even untuned in the midrange (3,000 - 5,000 rpm), and seems to pull a bit harder at the very top as well. I'll be interested to see the untuned dyno run to see if my butt dyno is correct.

I drove my wife in it for a date night, and she didn't make any comments about it sounding any different / louder, so passed that test - phew!

Cold start is definitely a bit aggressive initially, but it settles down pretty quick, and I can tweak some ECU settings to tame that down further pretty easily. Full throttle can be a little buzzy, but that should hopefully improve when the tuning is done. I don't *think* it's rubbing on the underbody panel (I flattened out the common interference areas before reinstalling it), but I'll pull the underbody panel and double-check it at some point. If anything, highway cruising seems slightly quieter, but it's hard to tell over all the road noise...LOL.

Also, no CEL (yet) despite no cats being present!

Overall, a win, I'd say.

[autoracer86]

Looking forward to hearing how it feels after the tune. Keep us posted