AVO BRZ: 1000km at the track

[AVOturboworld]

Originally Posted by Kiteless

Fantastic write up. Great work and thanks for sharing here. What is your opinion about this car for very occasional track use in stock setup? After I get an FR-S I want to take it to a track a few times a year, otherwise it will be my weekend and once or twice a week to work car.

- J

Oh, it's a fantastic car for that, probably nothing better in the price range.

[GED68]

Can you give any more info on this? Better 0-60 times or does it just feel better sitting in the drivers seat?

[SVTSHC]

Fantastic read! I plan on switching out the bushings as well. Mine will be a DD with occassional (no more than a dozen times a year) track use for the first 3-4 years of ownership but eventually it'll be relagated to track duty only. I'm concerned over those LCA's however, once the new bushings go in with them being so pliable. For those track days I'd like to avoid as many nightmare experiences as possible

[AVOturboworld]

Originally Posted by GED68

Can you give any more info on this? Better 0-60 times or does it just feel better sitting in the drivers seat?

Don't make any mistake here, it doesn't add an ounce of power. It just reworks the throttle mapping (via voltage) for far better response (or far less if you use the "inclement conditions" settings). The main benefit is to get rid of that initial hesitation, and to give the throttle a quicker, more linear feel.

[Toy86]

Great write up, Thanks so much - Subscribed!

[Nardi330]

Can u please share how and where u mounted the harness?

Thanks

[RaceR]

The best thread I have come across in regards of tuning experiences!
THANK YOU!
Please share future findings and information!

[Opie]

Nice to see you here Paul! I had a few your your products on my LGT...

[YeloFva]

The overall impression was still excellent, with great response at the track and clearly superior cornering compared to, say, an STI. Light weight and an ideal balance will do that for you.

Gasp!

I can't wait to test drive one!

[EvoTME]

What will be the goal of this car? Will it be a fully stripped down track car or something that could also be used on daily driving? Which is your targeted tsukuba time? Dyno of the stock car?

iThank you for the answer and great post!

[SnapOv3st3r]

Originally Posted by AVOturboworld

Yes, thinner/lighter. There's a certain logic about it - the car is lighter, so they feel they can make the components lighter. But if you are going to be tracking the car heavily like we are, we don't have confidence they'll hold up to the stresses of traction generated by bigger, stickier rubber.

Paul Hansen
www.avoturboworld.com
www.facebook.com/BRZSportsCarClub

That's good to know. Car is crazy light for RWD, but a little weight in the form of beefier components sounds like a good idea.

[AVOturboworld]

Originally Posted by EvoTME

What will be the goal of this car? Will it be a fully stripped down track car or something that could also be used on daily driving? Which is your targeted tsukuba time? Dyno of the stock car?

iThank you for the answer and great post!

While it's mostly going to see track duty, we aren't going to strip the interior out - going to keep it DD enough to drive to and from the track. It's a R&D platform for our parts development, and developing parts that only work in a race environment would leave out 90% of the market.

[markmatley]

Originally Posted by AVOturboworld

Updates from the Option 2 magazine event, with Orido driving:

We fitted our 18mm solid rear bar halfway through to see how that would affect the handling. Unfortunately, not in a good way - it was nearly a second slower than with the standard rear bar. Orido said it was initially quite entertaining, the rear end would drift through nearly any sort of corner, but also quite twitchy, and ultimately harder to get through the course fast.

What we found so far is that, with the perfect 50/50 balance of the car from the factory, putting on a larger rear bar only, or a larger front bar only, will just upset that balance. Subaru/Toyota really did a good job of setting up the car out the door. Any swaybar upgrades need to be very carefully balanced front to rear, or you'll upset the balance, and ultimately, grip.

Excellent writeup and followup observation. Praise to Toyota/Subaru engineers for making it hold its own in balance! Will you guys be tweaking with which front and rear swaybar setup will better the stock setup?

[AVOturboworld]

We'll definitely be working out new front/rear swaybar sizing for better track performance, but that will take some time.

I've had some questions towards the alignment specs, here's what we have them at now.

Front Camber: -2.5°
Front Caster: +5.5°
Front Total Toe-in: 10 minutes (Japanese measurement, not degrees)

Rear Total Toe: zero
Rear Camber: -1.3° (max available) wasn't too bad tire temperature wise.

We used the factory seat belt mounts for the harness - we didn't have much choice at the time, we need to build a half cage to mount it up properly. At this time, the harness was mainly to keep the driver in place more than for crash safety.