TRev's BRZ RTR Autocross Build

[Dezoris]

Originally Posted by TRev

Here is the video from my fastest run this weekend.

This just affirms how fast the car can be in RTR, you are going to see a lot of STX people unhappy.

[Kido1986]

Originally Posted by Dezoris

This just affirms how fast the car can be in RTR, you are going to see a lot of STX people unhappy.

At most local events, I tend to keep close or beat the STX crowd. Except when we have a national level RX8 from Alabama come through (name escapes me though). That driver puts time on me :P

Edit: Dennis Sparks is the RX-8 driver

[apexaddict]

Originally Posted by Dezoris

This just affirms how fast the car can be in RTR, you are going to see a lot of STX people unhappy.

IMO, as someone who has driven both RTR and STX variants of the FRS, the handling of the car is pretty comparable between the two specs. The RTR car moves around a lot and you have to lead it more, but generally, the car is balanced well enough from the factory that you don't see as massive of a difference on coilovers as you would on some other cars.

A well-driven RTR setup honestly makes a very acceptable local/budget STX car, in fact.

[DylanFRS]

Nice driving Trev, I am very jealous of your smoothness, I gotta work on that. Glad to see that the back-end still rotates nicely with the aftermarket front bar. Are you on the Direzzas in that video? They are so smooth and easy when they give out a bit.

[TRev]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

Nice driving Trev, I am very jealous of your smoothness, I gotta work on that. Glad to see that the back-end still rotates nicely with the aftermarket front bar. Are you on the Direzzas in that video? They are so smooth and easy when they give out a bit.

The car was about perfect for my taste. There are a few autox like corners on my way to work and I took a few of them at 90% speed this morning. The front was pushing like a pig on corner entry and the rear was planted. I wasn't trail braking like I do on course though and also had about 1/2 tank of gas.

It will be interesting to see what the difference is at Lincoln on concrete. I definitely need to dial down the front rebound for daily driving.

I am running the Rivals and like them on my 3rd runs much more so than my 1st runs in 40 degree temps. Around .2G increase in lateral grip between cold and having a moderate amount of heat in them.

[Dezoris]

Originally Posted by Biggins

I'm impressed with your results, but I'm puzzled/surprised at your shock settings that you mentioned on your updated post. I must be doing something wrong because my Koni settings are flipped from yours. I'm running 1/2 from soft up front and 3/4 from stiff in rear, but I do have the big Hotchkis up front. I know your results definitely showed success, but did you actually like those settings?

Less bar up front is much better on this car. Also the valving on the Konis even at full soft is more agressive than stock so you dont need much more firmness on normal pavement or you are just overdamping. Less is more.

[Scooby South]

Trev.. What are you using for a display... tab? or phone and do you have the gopro linked ... I am using a tab2 7" but can't seem to find a decent/sturdy mount? Suggestions would be great.. oh and where do you put your GPS receiver???

TIA

Bill

[Scooby South]

we have a similar setup but I havn't used the solo Storm yet.. and from an above post it appears to be a phone setup.. sorry didn't notice that before.. would like you to PM me your perimeters of the software you have entered if you could/would Please..

Thanks
Bill

[TRev]

Originally Posted by Scooby South

Trev.. What are you using for a display... tab? or phone and do you have the gopro linked ... I am using a tab2 7" but can't seem to find a decent/sturdy mount? Suggestions would be great.. oh and where do you put your GPS receiver???

TIA

Bill

I put the GPS reciever above my mirror on some of the new style velcro. I can still tilt my mirror all the way up. My phone is mounted below the mirror just so I can still see/use it with my mirror at normal viewing. While on course, I push my mirror up as high as it will go so it is out of the way and I am not tempted to ever look back.

Feel free to stop by in Lincoln and check it out.

Originally Posted by Scooby South

we have a similar setup but I havn't used the solo Storm yet.. and from an above post it appears to be a phone setup.. sorry didn't notice that before.. would like you to PM me your perimeters of the software you have entered if you could/would Please..

Thanks
Bill

No problem and I can post them here too in case anyone else wants to compare. It may be a bit as things are super busy on my end right now between work and after work commitments.

[Scooby South]

thanks .. be interesting to see the difference on setup of the software from what I 'thought' to be correct.. and that would be great to put the baseline setup up so maybe everyone that is using it here can be on the same sheet of music..

Bill

[TRev]

I have been looking into the fuel rules for stock and RT classes.

The rules state:
3.6 FUEL
A. Stock and Street Touring® category vehicles will use fuel is which is
“Federally approved for use on public highways.” This includes the
pump fuel known as E85, but does not allow racing-type fuels which
are available at service station pumps.

Based on that, blended fuel is perfectly legal as it is "Federally approved for use on public highways." It doesn't say anything about it needing to come from a service station pump either so a custom blend of e85 and gas would be legal too.

On the flip side, it does say "does not allow racing-type fuels which are available at service station pumps." This would seem to include 100 octane unleaded race gas even if sold at a service station, correct? It is a "racing-type" fuel.

Update: Here is the reply from Doug Gill regarding unleaded racing-type fuels.
"It depends if it’s compliant with Section 3.6.A. “Stock and Street Touring® category vehicles will use fuel which is ‘Federally approved for use on public highways.’” Ask the distributor or the manufacturer if the fuel is federally approved. Sometimes the website has that info. It’s a good bet if the pump says that road taxes have been paid on the fuel, then it’s also federally approved. But it’s up to the competitor to be sure that the fuel is compliant for Stock category."

[xwd]

E-85 is only legal for ST for the rest of this year, they added a section to 3.6.3 in the Febuary Fastrack (which was approved) which goes into affect next year.

“Fuels comprised of more than 15% Ethanol may only be used when specified by the manufacturer (e.g. in the owner’s manual for Flex-Fuel vehicles)"

They didn't add this to the stock fuel rules because re-tuning is not allowed in Stock and they felt the car would probably not run correctly on E-85 unless it was a flex-fuel vehicle. My guess is if people start blending fuels to get more power, they will just add the same statement to the stock rules. I don't know how much detonation resistance you will get if the car ends up running too lean anyways. I've heard of folks running up to a E40-E50 mixture on other NA Subarus before the car starts throwing codes, but this is a different car/engine.

The best way to figure out if you are at optimal timing is log the IAM (ignition advance multiplier) value, I think the Toyota Techstream tool can read it. If the IAM is at 1.0 then the car likely has not suffered any knock and is running at peak timing. If it's lower like .8 then it's not running as much timing due to some knock event.

I have my QStarz GPS mounted via velcro to one of the child seat cover things on the back shelf, seems to work well, but you have to account for it being that far back when setting the markers in Solostorm.

[TRev]

Here are print screens in PDF format of the settings I am using for SoloStorm (they are in large part default settings).
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Y8...it?usp=sharing

[TRev]

My plan for determining if an ethanol blend is beneficial is by logging with Torque Pro.

With Torque I can log:
Timing Advance
Measured AFR

The BRZ has a Denso limiting-current type wideband sensor. The only caveat is that ODBII will only show as low as 12.1. Since the car is NA anything under 12.1 should not be of concern. I did a bit of logging on the way into work this morning and under WOT the car goes to 12.1 and stays there. That leads me to believe the car is richer than it needs to be with the factory tune.

I am going to log a variety of driving to get some AFR reference points as well as values to use as reference for timing. I can then start adding ethanol to see how the car reacts.

Torque has 0-60 and simulated TQ/HP numbers. If I perform enough tests, I should be able to see a pattern if the blend helps or hurts performance even if those numbers are not completely accurate.