My BRZ ST* Autocross build

[Simmons]

I have a seat in the basement to put in before Nationals, I just have to find the time.


Simmons

[Scooby South]

Originally Posted by Simmons

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/967/drseat.jpg

This pic has the sliders?


Maybe because your seats were heated and leather?

Simmons

yes they are heated and leather.. Limited version ...
Race Seat 19.4 lbs .. Brackets/sliders 8.4lbs

I will recheck the weight of the stock seat. its sitting kinda wonky on the scale.

[Simmons]

Nice, what is your total weight now?


Simmons

[Scooby South]

Well.. I went back up to 2630ish at the match tour. 3/8ths of a tank of Gas and the trailer hitch. Rear Brakes go on tomorrow.. so I need to corner balance again before Toledo.. soo I will get an official weight for ya. Lance Keeley and Barts Cars weighed 2580ish.. at the Match tour.

Bill

[Simmons]

Originally Posted by Scooby South

Well.. I went back up to 2630ish at the match tour. 3/8ths of a tank of Gas and the trailer hitch. Rear Brakes go on tomorrow.. so I need to corner balance again before Toledo.. soo I will get an official weight for ya. Lance Keeley and Barts Cars weighed 2580ish.. at the Match tour.

Bill

Cool, I am 2,555 right now. Maybe another 18lbs if I do the seat.


Simmons

[JRP]

Originally Posted by Scooby South

Test Fit.... 2 Pot Subaru Rears for Clearance with NO PADS yet.. muuuahahaaaaa



Bill

Do you have pix of the final assembly with pads and no wheel installed? This pic you posted makes it look like the piston is hanging way over the edge of the rotor.

[Scooby South]

Originally Posted by JRP

Do you have pix of the final assembly with pads and no wheel installed? This pic you posted makes it look like the piston is hanging way over the edge of the rotor.

Pm'd you ..

[Scooby South]

Finally got my stuff done for Toledo. Looking Forward to it..
Got my Rear Brakes on Finally... HUGE THANKS to Ken at KNS Brakes.. Once I Got it all sorted.. They Went on without issue.. ...

Also taped up the front end for my bug infested Drive. Got my trailer ready to go also



OEM Rear 2pot..Getting some Refurbishment.



Installation was a snap with KNS Brakes Adapter Bracket.. Make sure if you get this to read the installation guide on Kens Website. http://www.knsbrakes.com





Looks and Performs AWESOME.. Definitely a HUGE upgrade over the Stockers.. plus I lost some rotational weight..

And With the wheel on ..



Overall

[Simmons]

Looks good, see you out there.


Simmons

[GTB/ZR-1]

Great stuff!

[Scooby South]

Here's my normal rig...about 500lbs total...can't even tell it back there towed from Central Wisconsin to Toledo Ohio...NO ISSUES...





Bill

[kask2_6.0]

Hey, nice hitch!

[Sccabrz192]

Hope your test day is going well!!

Cannot wait to get down there in the morning and have a go in this thing

[Sccabrz192]

So I had a very long write-up from this last weekend to provide my impressions and my computer crashed before it posted. In heindsight, it really wasn't that interesting anyway so here is a much shorter synopsys:

1st) I want to again thank Bill for the opportunity to fill the co-drive seat for the Toledo Pro. I would definitely have been sitting at home had he not provided the push I needed to make it out. So thanks!!

2nd) after having a very abysmal Saturday, Sunday was much better, but with the amount of catch-up we were facing it was quite a tall order.
The car setup was off Saturday AM, my driving was incredibly rusty on top of learning a new car on top of a significant amount of understeer on-throttle. Not a good combo to instill much confidence for success. By my last saturday AM run i was feeling a bit better about my driving, and we felt like we had a plan to move the car in the right direction. Saturday afternoon was a complete bust. The heavens opened up and I had no chance to work out the cobwebs further or test out the setup change.

Sunday as I said was better, my driving was improved, the car handled better, everything added up to a big improvement, but with saturday afternoon rained out I just couldn't drop enough time and everyone else got faster as well. Had we been able to do that saturday afternoon and had sunday to make a few more adjustments had more confidence in the car (and maybe try out the Hankooks for a heat) I think it would have came out a little better for us.


3rd) My impressions of the STX BRZ... I think the tune, while not adding much to the ultimate power and acceleration (IMO it's not really that noticeable from the butt-dyno), makes a HUUGE difference in these cars in other ways. In Autocross the dip region in the torque curve is somewhere you can find yourself on courses, the tune can dig it's way out, you feel like you were just punched in the gut on the OE car. The 8+K redline is also MUCH needed, and I learned launch control is awesome (never used a car with it before). Tip-in is a little less anemic as well, but still not going to blow anyones socks off.
Second observation, the way I described it to Bill was "the compliance is gone". With all the mounts and bushings replaced, the car really reacts very abruptly to your inputs, I typically will put in a hair more steering input on the stock car to get the compliant bushings and mounts to load up then immediately start backing my input out as the car takes a set. In the STX car, you have to be much more delicate and deliberate with the steering input. It took me until my last run on saturday AM to start getting the hang of this. Bill and I disagreed on this point, but I felt that I could really tell that the steering was an electric rack with this setup, something I felt was not noticable on the OE car.

Toledo is almost as smooth as an autocross site can get so I can't really comment too much on how the suspension setup handles the rougher stuff.

All-in-all I think I have a better idea now of what it would take to make a trophy worthy STX car... time to put together a cost sheet and start dreaming for a few years down the road. In the meantime I think the car in "stock" trim is very adequate and still a blast to drive and certainly a better choice for driving around the Michigan roads.