First time tracking the BRZ

[Sphinx]

So, 100% stock, prius tires and all. I did an SCCA track night at Road Atlanta last night. Managed an under 2min lap, but there were easily a couple more seconds on the table.

From a performance perspective, car was too quiet to be able to figure out shifting by ear. Gearing kinda sucks. Gears are too short at the worst time. between T5 and T6, you need 5th gear if you carry enough speed through 5.
If you don't, you'll be at the top of the revs by braking zone for T6. Turn 6 is a 4th gear turn - I'm used to 3rd. But coming off of T7, I didn't try 2nd, but 3rd was super slow. Brakes into T10 were FANTASTIC - stock pads and all. I could've dug deeper into the braking zone, but didn't want to risk stuffing it on the first outing. I broke a little before the 300 mark, on race pads bet you can easily go down to the 150. Braking into T1 was similarly too easily. I could've broken much deeper, and rolled more speed through there, but was too chicken.

I kept picking up more and more speed going down 12, but left a lot of time on the table.

Suspension is very soft (not a surprise, but slightly disappointed). But it made pushing through T1 super fun because the car would just compress on the left side. However, if you haul up the hill to T3, braking for T3 got sketchy.

Not sure if I was doing something wrong with respect to the nannies. I held down the left button for many seconds until both stability control and TC were turned off. But it felt like there was a little TC in a few turns. Also, ABS surprised me when it would engage. For example, on a braking/downshift going into the 5, you'd hear the front left kinda lock - perhaps when I touched the inside curbing.

Temps - another surprise. I collected the telemetry but haven't analyzed it. What surprised me was how hot the oil got under track conditions - consistently over 270. It also cooled quickly to under 200 during the session breaks.

All in all, I liked it, but didn't love it. I've been toying with buying a salvage car and turning it into a properly prepared track car. And now I might do it. Car will be crazy good with sticky rubber and a proper suspension.

And I'm not sure I'll take this car back to the track, except only if a friend wants to go around. But as a track day car, I'm too used to my SM and found this car frustrating to drive at the limit, as it is currently set up. And I have no need desire to turn this example into a track car - too nice, still has under 5000 miles on it.

[Code Monkey]

What was your actual lap time and what lap times are you running in the Miata?

Gearing in 2017+ does suck at RA, running out of gear in 5, 6, 12. You can get the car tuned and extend the redline to 7,800.

I stay in 3rd going into 7 as 2nd is too short coming out of turn. Header (and e85) will give you more oomph at lower rpms.

You need the pedal dance or a Trac-Box to turn off all the nannies.

With a 19-row Setrab oil cooler oil temps will stay around 240.

Coilovers and proper alignment will transform the handling, you need around -4 camber in front.

[TommyW]

This is not an out of the box racecar off the showroom floor however it's a good platform to modify to personal desired specs.

[Sphinx]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

What was your actual lap time and what lap times are you running in the Miata?

Gearing in 2017+ does suck at RA, running out of gear in 5, 6, 12. You can get the car tuned and extend the redline to 7,800.

I stay in 3rd going into 7 as 2nd is too short coming out of turn. Header (and e85) will give you more oomph at lower rpms.

You need the pedal dance or a Trac-Box to turn off all the nannies.

With a 19-row Setrab oil cooler oil temps will stay around 240.

Coilovers and proper alignment will transform the handling, you need around -4 camber in front.

Best actual was 1:59.83 with a theoretical best of 1:57.61. Miata my best is a 1:48.49 with a theoretical 1:46.8 (that large of a gap means I can't put it together, be it due to traffic or bad driving). Fast guys run 44's and 45's.

In the future, I think downshifting to 4th going into 6 and then downshifting into 3rd between 6 and 7 will be better for me. Fastest I went on the back straight was 118.5, but that wasn't on my best lap.

I thought that with the 17+, you no longer needed to do the pedal dance if you hold down the left button to deactivate the nannies (that was the response I got in another thread). Not true?

[deca]

Originally Posted by Sphinx

I thought that with the 17+, you no longer needed to do the pedal dance if you hold down the left button to deactivate the nannies (that was the response I got in another thread). Not true?

Long press maintains EBD, pedal dance disables it. There’s a fair chance that was the oddness you felt under braking.

[Code Monkey]

Still need to do the pedal dance.

With better tires and brake pads you should be able to go below 1:50.

[Sphinx]

Originally Posted by deca

Long press maintains EBD, pedal dance disables it. There’s a fair chance that was the oddness you felt under braking.

Ugh, live and learn. Does long press eliminate 100% TC or just reduce intrusion?

[deca]

Originally Posted by Sphinx

Ugh, live and learn. Does long press eliminate 100% TC or just reduce intrusion?

I believe long press does fully disable TC/SC but I’m not 100% sure. I don’t remember it ever intervening, but I only used long press for one or two days before just always pedal dancing.

[strat61caster]

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25494

auto-lsd is the feature that messes with track duty, doesn't happen under braking, happens under throttle application with one wheel too lightly loaded/bad traction so it starts spinning up and the computer brakes that wheel to prevent you from one-tire-firing out of the corner, but if you're smooth on the gas you're faster without auto-lsd.

Messes with the car big time over yumps and shitty pavement, not sure how patched up RA is these days but taking lots of curb can induce weird behavior as well, and again the car clamping down on the brake is slower then not if you can hang onto the car.

disabling ebd can help with rotation under braking but you can get pretty good just by playing with toe settings and managing the weight transfer

You can have a pretty good time just with the button press, pedal dance will make the abs dumber so you better be good about releasing brake pressure through corner entry otherwise I doubt pedal dance will do more then stop the auto-lsd feature from kicking in those specific corners and you'll have to adapt to the new behavior elsewhere, which if you're ok in the SM you should be fine in the 86. Sounds like you got 9/10ths the experience of an 86 and with an SM I would hesitate to dump any more time/energy/money into the 86 as well, other then a set of camber bolts for the front and some decent pads just in case you find yourself out there again.

[Sphinx]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25494

auto-lsd is the feature that messes with track duty, doesn't happen under braking, happens under throttle application with one wheel too lightly loaded/bad traction so it starts spinning up and the computer brakes that wheel to prevent you from one-tire-firing out of the corner, but if you're smooth on the gas you're faster without auto-lsd.

Messes with the car big time over yumps and shitty pavement, not sure how patched up RA is these days but taking lots of curb can induce weird behavior as well, and again the car clamping down on the brake is slower then not if you can hang onto the car.

disabling ebd can help with rotation under braking but you can get pretty good just by playing with toe settings and managing the weight transfer

You can have a pretty good time just with the button press, pedal dance will make the abs dumber so you better be good about releasing brake pressure through corner entry otherwise I doubt pedal dance will do more then stop the auto-lsd feature from kicking in those specific corners and you'll have to adapt to the new behavior elsewhere, which if you're ok in the SM you should be fine in the 86. Sounds like you got 9/10ths the experience of an 86 and with an SM I would hesitate to dump any more time/energy/money into the 86 as well, other then a set of camber bolts for the front and some decent pads just in case you find yourself out there again.

Thanks, this is very helpful.

Regarding the auto-LSD, according to the manual, a long press disables it. See the attached pic.

[strat61caster]

It does not per CSG in the thread I linked, it's better then the early cars but not completely gone.

[ZDan]

Never had any issues at all tracking hard in the wet and dry with the "long hold" on the left button with my '17. Plenty of slideways action... Pretty indistinguishable from pedal dance for me, I tried them back to back and did similar lap times either way. Too easy to screw up pedal dance, and 3-second hold is super-easy and can be done midlap on occasions I forgot!

FWIW I've been running with the big 40A ABS fuse pulled since a malfunctioning yaw sensor (at least that's what the computer diag said) caused the ABS brains to go nuts at Watkins Glen last year. So with all VSC etc. most definitively OFF, still seems not dissimilar to the long-hold on the left button, except for no ABS whatsoever so lockups possible...

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Sphinx

So, 100% stock, prius tires and all. I did an SCCA track night at Road Atlanta last night. Managed an under 2min lap, but there were easily a couple more seconds on the table.

From a performance perspective, car was too quiet to be able to figure out shifting by ear. Gearing kinda sucks. Gears are too short at the worst time. between T5 and T6, you need 5th gear if you carry enough speed through 5.
If you don't, you'll be at the top of the revs by braking zone for T6. Turn 6 is a 4th gear turn - I'm used to 3rd. But coming off of T7, I didn't try 2nd, but 3rd was super slow. Brakes into T10 were FANTASTIC - stock pads and all. I could've dug deeper into the braking zone, but didn't want to risk stuffing it on the first outing. I broke a little before the 300 mark, on race pads bet you can easily go down to the 150. Braking into T1 was similarly too easily. I could've broken much deeper, and rolled more speed through there, but was too chicken.

I kept picking up more and more speed going down 12, but left a lot of time on the table.

Suspension is very soft (not a surprise, but slightly disappointed). But it made pushing through T1 super fun because the car would just compress on the left side. However, if you haul up the hill to T3, braking for T3 got sketchy.

Not sure if I was doing something wrong with respect to the nannies. I held down the left button for many seconds until both stability control and TC were turned off. But it felt like there was a little TC in a few turns. Also, ABS surprised me when it would engage. For example, on a braking/downshift going into the 5, you'd hear the front left kinda lock - perhaps when I touched the inside curbing.

Temps - another surprise. I collected the telemetry but haven't analyzed it. What surprised me was how hot the oil got under track conditions - consistently over 270. It also cooled quickly to under 200 during the session breaks.

All in all, I liked it, but didn't love it. I've been toying with buying a salvage car and turning it into a properly prepared track car. And now I might do it. Car will be crazy good with sticky rubber and a proper suspension.

And I'm not sure I'll take this car back to the track, except only if a friend wants to go around. But as a track day car, I'm too used to my SM and found this car frustrating to drive at the limit, as it is currently set up. And I have no need desire to turn this example into a track car - too nice, still has under 5000 miles on it.

When you go faster, stock brakes won't cut it going into 10, and the "too short gearing" will become "just right gearing". Keep in mind tires will affect gearing, and you can also make minor FD alterations to gear to taste. Ideally you want to avoid 6th at all costs.

Even on stock tires, and a good entry, T12 is flat.

Use 2nd in T7. You'll need a mid-corner upshift.

You need an oil cooler.

You need to pedal dance, not 5 second press. You are likely getting a good amount of electronic intervention.

This car carries speed into corners exceptionally well, and decelerates exceptionally well. Explore it more when you have a lower risk venue, you may find it surprisingly rewarding to drive, compared to a SM.