This is not a winter car! Fed up! May end up selling...

[7thgear]

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by Burrcold

You linked to the second page of that thread which has a Lotus Elise video.

Only if you read the threads backwards. There's a handy option allowing you to look at the most recent post first. Try it you'll like it.

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by Dipstik-sportech

Or you're expecting things from this car that it was never designed for.

The Frozen North

And it should have been designed for, as that would also make it faster on a wet track and a tad faster on a dry track, as everyone finds out when they fit better tires or a stiffer front roll bar.

Not too much to ask.

Toyota knew what they were doing, they deliberately designed an unbalanced low powered car. Shame the didn't at least offer serious drivers a proper set up. Seems they are still thinking about releasing a proper TRD suspension. The UK already has a version but it seems to be only the wheel/tire package.

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by jvincent

Oh great oracle, please forgive me for not properly deciphering your obtuse linking. I will sacrifice a goat as penance.

Please now explain to me how a video of a mid-engine car with 38-62 weight distribution running on 235 wide rear tires handling better on a wet track demonstrates the faults of this car?

Are you saying that one of the mysterious design flaws you keep referring to is the location of the engine?

Or maybe, just maybe, like everyone else is trying to tell you, the fault is not with the chassis of this car, but rather:

- You picked the wrong winter tires for your BRZ.
- Your winter driving technique sucks.

Sorry, but you just wouldn't be able to understand. I'd like to help but this is beyond your abilities to comprehend at least physics and probably other important concepts also.

[jvincent]

Originally Posted by Suberman

Sorry, but you just wouldn't be able to understand. I'd like to help but this is beyond your abilities to comprehend at least physics and probably other important concepts also.

Oh great oracle, please bless me with your patience and try to explain to my poor feeble mind. I am pretty sure I understand the mysteries of physics pretty well given my many years of schooling.

The subtleties of your soothsaying however require clarification if we mere mortals are to understand them.

Maybe I can re-phrase my earlier question.

How does the wet track handling of a mid-engined car demonstrate a design flaw in a front engined car that somehow makes it undriveable, in your opinion, in the snow?

Remember, that's what we're supposed to be talking about here, winter driving.

[7thgear]

word of the day:

SOOTHSAYING

[wparsons]

Originally Posted by Suberman

And it should have been designed for, as that would also make it faster on a wet track and a tad faster on a dry track, as everyone finds out when they fit better tires or a stiffer front roll bar.

Stop spewing bull shit and show a test where the car is faster with just a stiffer front roll bar. Same car, same tires, same driver, same track, same day. No variables other than the front bar swapped out.

Go read in the track/HDPE section about what actual GOOD drivers think the car needs to be faster.

If the car was as badly balanced as you claim all the fast guys would be running staggered tires, but all of them run a square setup.

[Dipstik-sportech]

It was designed in the image of the ae86 of which I've owned and it was just as tail happy as the triplets. They wanted the car to move around, they wanted it to have lower grip. They knew people that wanted it to be a track car would change the suspension anyways.

The Frozen North

[FiRStsc10n]

May I just say I purchased the FR-S for the pure handling delight. The ability to have some fun at non-frightening street legal speeds. I never plan on tracking the car, nor do I care how fast I go around a track. The car was meant to be a blank canvas, an introductory sports car to bring fun back into driving, if you want it to be better, you can go out and do so with suspension, swaybars, tires, etc. I understand your frustration with the vehicle, but there are plenty of solutions to tailor your needs and create your ultimate road warrior. Ultimately however, if you are upset enough to sell the vehicle, then you made a wrong choice to begin with and I am sorry to hear that. Best of luck with another vehicle.

There is a whole series of TRD or STI bits from Japan you can order if you want the factory extreme.

[Burrcold]

Originally Posted by Suberman

Only if you read the threads backwards. There's a handy option allowing you to look at the most recent post first. Try it you'll like it.

Suck a ****.

[PMPB]

Wet traction is the same thing as traction on snow/ice... yep. Explain to me how putting a stiffer front roll bar is going to help someone plow through deep snow (as is the origin of this thread?)

Can we lock this thread? Suberman is officially a troll.

If you need traction in wet+cold/slush buy High Performance winters.
If you need traction on Ice or snow cover buy Studless winters. Simple as that.

The worlds best suspension isn't going to help you drive up an icy hill, and the one in the BRZ/FR-S is perfectly adequate to perform this job if the the vehicle is properly shod, and the right combination of nannies (right foot included) are being employed.

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by PMPB

Wet traction is the same thing as traction on snow/ice... yep. Explain to me how putting a stiffer front roll bar is going to help someone plow through deep snow (as is the origin of this thread?)

Can we lock this thread? Suberman is officially a troll.

If you need traction in wet+cold/slush buy High Performance winters.
If you need traction on Ice or snow cover buy Studless winters. Simple as that.

The worlds best suspension isn't going to help you drive up an icy hill, and the one in the BRZ/FR-S is perfectly adequate to perform this job if the the vehicle is properly shod, and the right combination of nannies (right foot included) are being employed.

Interesting. The stiffer front bar would help the BRZ corner faster by reducing the tendency to oversteer. Stiffer front damper rates in jounce might help in transient maneuvers, but softer rear dampers would work better. I don't know what Toyota decided to do when developing their still unavailable TRD suspension package but I'm pretty sure I know what they did. So far only 18x7.5 wheels with 225/40x18 tires are available and then only in the UK as part of the TRD package. No suspension changes have been yet released.

If Toyota OK's more power, whether it be 2.5 litre or supercharged or hybrid drive, the three options being bandied about, then certainly they will have to bring the rear axle under better control.

As for how suspension settings might allow more straight line grip I agree roll bars won't do it, and did not suggest they would. Despite the original poster expressing his disgust only at the lack of deep snow capability I criticize the car also for lack of stability of any kind on slippery roads be they wet, snowy or icy.

What may increase rear axle grip is softer rear springs, shorter or much softer bump stops, softer dampers in jounce and taller tires. Also, a bit more rear camber might help which would balance a stiffer front roll bar for cornering for example.

The final suggestion I have is to fit a Torsen with a lower bias ratio. 2.5:1 might be more effective.

It is difficult to address the depth of ignorance displayed by several posters to this thread.

Ideas like staggered tires delivering more lateral grip at the rear, which cannot be the case physically, all it does is change the balance of the chassis up to the point where the contact patches let go, then the rear breaks away even more abruptly if its going to.

Ideas like 225 section winter tire offering material additional resistance to forward motion than a 215 section tire which is equally ridiculous and has nothing to do with the problem this car suffers from.

Ideas like failing to understand the implications from a video of three cars on the same track being expertly driven with only one wildly oversteering and, to boot that's the one with the engine in the front!!!

This same ridiculous tendency to oversteer which has been deliberately designed in to amuse a certain demographic also makes this car a handful and a half to drive in slippery conditions, be they wet or snowy or icy. The video shows how hopeless and slow this car is on merely a damp track. Other expert drivers experience the same wild lack of grip.

The car probably gets stuck easily because the Torsen is too aggressively biased but I don't know that. I concede I don't know how changing the Torsen bias affects traction. I do know that powerful fwd cars set up to drive well when equipped with a Torsen use a lower bias ratio. I also know the new Mustang GT with its Torsen is wildly twitchy under heavy throttle.

Bottom line, a car with an engine developing only 151 lb ft of torque and with 47% of its weight over the rear axle ought not to handle this way especially on slippery roads. It will be interesting to see the types of accidents inexperienced drivers will have. I mean Americans can't drive normal cars without experiencing crashes caused by unintended acceleration. Hard to imagine how they will deal with a car that likes to kiss its own ass if you sneeze.

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by FiRStsc10n

May I just say I purchased the FR-S for the pure handling delight. The ability to have some fun at non-frightening street legal speeds. I never plan on tracking the car, nor do I care how fast I go around a track. The car was meant to be a blank canvas, an introductory sports car to bring fun back into driving, if you want it to be better, you can go out and do so with suspension, swaybars, tires, etc. I understand your frustration with the vehicle, but there are plenty of solutions to tailor your needs and create your ultimate road warrior. Ultimately however, if you are upset enough to sell the vehicle, then you made a wrong choice to begin with and I am sorry to hear that. Best of luck with another vehicle.

There is a whole series of TRD or STI bits from Japan you can order if you want the factory extreme.

I'm not unhappy with the car.

I find the winter handling to be ridiculously incompetent. Unnecessarily so and designed this way to amuse inexperienced drivers.

Everyone who knows anything about driving fast knows that this car has a poor suspension specification. The first thing such drivers do is fit better tires but that doesn't fix the balance problem. It just oversteers too easily and you have to work way too hard to get it to drive properly.

Some say this is fun, I find it tediously incompetent. Its fun for the odd "canyon run" as the Californians like to call it but, really, it is puerile entertainment and ultimately unsatisfying. It could easily be so much better. More fun for a serious driver.

[Suberman]

Originally Posted by wparsons

Stop spewing bull shit and show a test where the car is faster with just a stiffer front roll bar. Same car, same tires, same driver, same track, same day. No variables other than the front bar swapped out.
.

Funny you should say that because that's what Subaru actually did for the BRZ and it is quicker than the FRS.