Project Archetype : SpeedHero

[DiscoQuinn]

I got a bunch of messages on Instagram the other day referring back to some of the build threads I posted on Dorikaze. Recently I've missed forums as trying to find information or even just surround myself with a topic of interest is either WHATS UP YOUTUBE or arguments groups on facebook.

Hopefully I can help you enjoy Dorikaze again, and get back to making logical documented posts, with obvious timelines, interesting and lasting stories as well as truly searchable and organized information.

It's been a while since you and I have talked and that's okay. Friends are friends regardless. I've been in Victoria since 2010, lived in Australia, Japan and England for a bit and did little bits of drifting teaching in all the countries I've lived in.

The instruction part of that story is the relevant bit to this build thread. A few years ago I realized there was no performance driving courses in BC really, specifically drift schools, and I would've killed to have a drift school when I first started learning. So I wrote one. I'd done instructing both with racing, drifting, and with just regular driving for a long time, so why not write a course. I can't say I'm the worlds best, but it annoyed me none of my critics had written their own.

Since then we've been running them a few times a year, with occasional visits to help out in other schools. What I love about them, and why I wish I could have the opportunity to do them more, is you get to share with people who are interested in the thing you're interested in, your favorite thing. It's like a show and tell but with people who actually care about the thing you're showing and telling about! With these schools you end up making a lot of awesome connections with people who more often than not become your friend.

One such guy was a quiet local fellow who was a previous national autocross champion? He'd heard about drifting, wanted to try a RWD car for the first time, and just went and bought a BRZ for the sole purpose of learning to drift. He's a pretty private fellow, so I don't want to share too much, but he came out to our drift schools to learn in his brand new car.

This is a still from one of our

in 2017 where the car has maybe??? 200km on it.

This fellow then drove the car for another 2 years. What's interesting is how he drove it. It was purchased for the sole purpose of learning to master RWD, and since he was an investment manager for his own company, the car became his office. He'd wake up, get in the car with his bluetooth on, and drive until he got tired at night. On weekends, he would either be at a drift event, autocross or lapping day. Every weekend for the two years he'd owned the car. If it wasn't at a track day, or driving from coffee shop, to coffee shop, he was hitting our local backroads with it. He went through 6? sets of RE71s on the car during those 2 years, and I can confirm this as I was working at our luxury race circuit (VIMC) at the time as an instructor and let him 'pass tech' on cords.

I'm told that he was passing a Mclaren when the valve dropped at a VIMC lapping day. This enjecto-cuz valve caused a jealous rod to join in on the fun resulting in some unengineered windows to be punched into the block. My only was of corroborating this story was the very very seized handbrake the tow truck driver complained about.

I was sitting at home when I got a call from a weird caller ID, but it wasn't the usual scams or fake collection agencies, so I answered. It was him and he wanted to chat. He had seen that I had recently bought a new car to drift. My Corolla sponsorship from Micheal Sean (You are the best fellow!) had ended and my girlfriend and best friend had forced me to stop moping and buy a new drift car. So I did! I bought the last Hyundai Stellar in Canada. (That's a huge story within itself). The fellow on the phone had seen that and thought that was a pretty dumb car to be trying to drift.

Subaru denied his claim. They suspected it had happened on the track, and he'd been driving the car well beyond the limits of the warranty. To their credit they were right. With the warranty void he'd have to pay $11,000cad to have a new motor installed to get the car back to stock.He was left with a $4k shell that needed a $6k+ motor to just get it back to stock. So that's why I was on the phone with him.

The car was free, if I picked it up from the dealership, he's already ordered a Cayman GT4 to replace it. I called them immediately, organized all the exploded parts into boxes and bins and got a tow truck right away. Though this wasn't him washing his hands of the vehicle. This deal came with some caveats. It has to stay on the island, and it has to help others. I could do anything I wanted with it, within those two restrictions. I like and agree with both of those, even to this day.

****, now what do I do with it? For context, I had just organized and started spending money on a motor swap for the Stellar. I had bought a RWD complete Ecotec swap for it, and was in the early stages of planning putting it in. I had to make a choice, so the engine swap, and the Stellar went up for sale.

I could've swapped the Ecotec into it, and although it may be neat to own that combination, I'm glad I didn't because the horse shoes. Holy **** the horse shoes.

I like to cast my line out sometimes, just dangle my hook in the water. Like buying a lottery ticket, you can only win if you play. Looking for FA20s was heart wrenching, as I had the most amount of money in my bank account I'd ever saved up, which was a cool $3500. Like there was a $1k to cover my life and $2500 to play with. Every ad though, for 200,000km+ FA20s were $4k-$6k. ****. So I cast my line and just toss out to my friend group I was looking for one, and got a reply, like 2 days after picking up the car.

It was a facebook ad for an KA20. Not just any FA20 though, a 2017 BRZ FA20. The same year and model as mine. It had 17,000km on it, and came with a trans for $2500???? It was JUST posted. I called immediately. "Hello, **** **** ****, you have this, **** **** ****fufuusdfjasdfausda, Can I come, uhhh, right,,, now? ****."

It was just too ****ing good to be true. The exact model of motor I needed, with a spare transmission, somewhat near by to me and exactly in my price range, but like JUST.

I was paranoid, as if I bought this, and it failed, I might not have enough money to live. No one was interesting in my ****ing useless (but beautiful Stellar) or my abstract Ecotec swap (those motors as slept on, stop putting 4ags in things). but if it worked? Then I'd have a completely stock, unmodified 2017 Subaru BRZ with 76,000km on it for $2500.

We borrowed a leak down tester, a compressor, and some courage. Liam and I got into his cube van (1996 AE101 sedan on coilovers) and headed onto the ferry the next morning. Floated over to vancouver to meet the guy and sus out this too good to be true deal.

He'd bought the motor in 2017. The car had been crashed, the motor was pulled to do a JZ swap, and at the time, no one was looking for FA20s, so he bought the motor set for $2500 thinking he'd put it into a Volvo 740 he had as a project car. It then sat under his deck for 2 years doing nothing. He'd just put up the ad, and I was the first to swoop. Liam leakdown tested the motor under the deck, and everything checked out to be healthy as far as we could tell. I gave the seller his $2500, and him and his brother helped us pack the Corolla.

We had to remove the rear passenger doors to lift it in, but the FA20 is light enough the two of us could do that with a few supervisors. The transmission, compressor and tools fit in the trunk, and we dooted back to the island. All while I panicked about the risks I was taking, and hoping for the rewards.

Okay ****. This was all happening too fast. One week prior I was slowly planning an Ecotec stellar, and suddenly I've got a BRZ, and a new motor sitting in my driveway boxes of parts, and not much time to get it running and out of the way of my roommates.

Liam came over, my roommate rob, and myself sorted through the mess one afternoon on live stream. **** it, we'll stream it on twitch, which most turned out to be a live feed of my crying and having panic attacks while liam and robert tried to console me through laughing at me.

*plop* the motor fit the mounts

*click* the transmission fit

*schlink* the exhaust bolted up

*squeep* the rad hoses slid right on.

*snap* the harness plugs all found their homes.

In 3 hours we got the engine in, bolted down, and all the accessories fit. I was so used to swapping engines with ones that weren't supposed to fit that I didn't think putting an OEM one in place of an OEM one was this easy. But the design of the car made it extra easy.

TL;DR the first section. The whole first part of the story, is found here:

[DiscoQuinn]

Second vlog here

This is the end of part 1, it's 2am, and I'll add more shortly.

Continued:

Well ****, this worked out some how. After a few days testing, there wasn't any problems. Not even little ones, it just worked and drove around like it was brand new. Holy ****. I've never owned a car this new, can I even afford the insurance and maintenance?

So what do you do next? The track wont let me rent it privately, and I can't find any spots that will let me teach drifting. So how will I use this to help others then? I've got a nice daily and a reliable drift car, but I'm supposed to use this as a manner of helping others enjoy drifting.

It took me some pondering to answer this question. I really want to do private drift school sessions and help people get introduced to the basics but I can't, so how do I help people get better at drifting with this car? After losing the Micheal Sean sponsorship, I knew I'd probably never own another Corolla again. That sedan he had built was the best Corolla I'd ever driven but the prices of Corollas, even ****ty E7s had skyrocketed. As a poor drifter I'll never be able to afford to build one ag......****! That's it! That's how I can help!

It dawned on me that I'm trying to help people get into drifting mostly. It's the biggest group of people that are asking for help. Corollas are too expensive to drift now, and the prices of the FRS and BRZ are plummeting everyday; at some point there will be a cross over where it makes more financial sense to drift a ZC6/ZN6 than an AE86.

I've got a free, bone stock base to play with, and partial bits of access to a race track. Let's see what the car drives like, and how to make it drive better.

CHADS, endless CHADS. The FRS and BRZ forums were full of people who could afford the car new. Researching the popular mods, and digging through all the tutorials turned up only expensive solutions to problems that mostly either dealt with vanity, lap times or dyno numbers. There was only a small handful of people actually out drifting these cars. The few that were, were not doing it from a perspective of poverty or from an angle of a variety of driving experiences. Mostly newbies with cash to burn. They were throwing money at solutions that weren't needed in the first place.

So being alone on this perspective is my advantage. I've got 16? years of drifting experience through 70+ cars, and about $43 spent between all of them. Let's use my seat time and creative problem solving to boil the problems up to the top.

This was the beginning point of Project Archetype. Let's build the best drifting BRZ/FRS by changing as little as possible for as low cost as possible.

Mission Statement: What is the bare minimum I need to do to make these cars drift competently and reliably?

Step 1: Access. Let's take it to a track day and find out how it really drives. I'd drifted a bunch of them before, but it was never my own car. I could slide them around a low angle, safe power slides, but what was it like to try and link corners and max out the steering angle and do some advanced techniques?

We hit up a track day. Drift day, before the track was shut for Covid!

I knew we had to pedal dance. Turning off the traction control by holding the button actually doesn't turn the traction control off at all. It allows a little more freedom then usual, but often is stepping in to do what it thinks is helping.

Toyota and Subaru put in a secret code for journalists and vehicle testing called the "Pedal Dance". A series of hand brake pulls, brake stabs, makes the dash light up like a christmas tree. This circumnavigates the software limitations imposed by DOT testing that some form of traction control always be present. It supposedly disables everything but the ABS. In testing though I found this mostly to be true, but at extreme angles noticed the throttle pedal not doing what I told it. I suspect the traction control is still there but extremely relaxed.

FIRST MODIFICATION!!!!!!! I pulled the ABS fuse and threw it into a bush. **** you, with all my heart. The pedal dance, had to be done every time you start the car, but the car must already be warmed up completely, and if you spin out and stall the car mid run, gotta pedal dance again. **** that. Additionally brake proportioning is variable through the ABS unit when it's active, so sometimes under deceleration drifts using touches of the brake, the wheel lock up was unpredictable. Dangerous.

Pulling the ABS fuse, solves 90% of the argument with the car. Yes the dash is covered in lights, but electrical tape is cheaper than going to the frame shop when the traction control "helps".

This ABS fuse delete was not only free, but it solved a few of the major problems immediately. The car drifted more predictably, which is an upgrade for $0. It may seem really simple, but the point of this is to boil it down to the minimum, and finding a minimum is more of an art.

Some people don't seem to understand that drifting isn't "Flooring it". That it's a management of momentum and traction loss. We did the track day, and even with the ABS fuse pulled, I was still swearing like a sailor in the car and feeling really nervous being in a pack of cars. The consistency still wasn't acceptable. I was struggling with throttle modulation, and with transitions.

I sat down after the event and talked with myself for a bit to figure out what feelings I didn't like, when they happened and what I think caused me not to like them. What was holding me back from drifting a car with twice the horsepower of my previous E7 sedan, as well as that nearly 40 year old car? Where is the disconnect holding me back?

I drew up this poster of my feelings.

To sum it up, the car drifted pretty well if you just kept it medium angle acceleration type drifts. Anything else and it sucked.

The differential is 80% of the problem. The Torsen operates worse than a 1-way clutch type diff. It only locks on acceleration, and if the road speed ever catches up to the wheel speed then it unlocks. Feathering the throttle? Unlocks. Dab the throttle? Unlocks. Lift transitions? Unlocks. The ****ing torsen is always looking for an excuse to unlock.

To understand: Torsen is actually a design style, but also brand of differential. It's a short form for TORque SENseing. Where it only locks when it has the mechanical pressure of trying to accelerate and the ground resisting that acceleration, to cause it to lock. Without those two factors, it's unlocked. It can't sense the torque if there is no conflict between the engine and the road.

This makes it perfect for power slides and long donuts, but absolute unpredictable trash for all other drifting techniques. The proof in the pudding; there are multiple companies that sell upgraded clutch forks, as people keep bending them. You can get forged and billet alternatives. So many people are dumping their clutches to keep the rear diff locked up that they created an aftermarket for upgrading bent clutch forks. That's a serious problem.

Because there are so many rich kids driving these, they either just put a turbo on the car to give the diff more torque to sense, or they can afford the expensive 2-way LSD upgrades. This wont work for us.

The poster I put up above was written last year, and although I got most of it right, some of the things aren't quite my feelings now.

Front geometry, or caster effect the next major hurdle with the chassis. I thought it was the caster settings on the car, but I realized that's not it. We'll talk about this more a little further down.

[DiscoQuinn]

TL;DR part 2. Here's a video I did last year reviewing my feelings of the car, and sums up that post mostly.

Besides the MAJOR flaw with the differential, like I'm serious, there is endless pics of people crashing these cars almost as bad as mustangs, and both cars suffer from the same problem: Random power delivery to the rear wheels.

On top of our Torque sensing differential, is the torque delivery issue. The torque dip, and the drive by wire, also fight against you to deliver torque to the diff. These cars are notorious for this weird drop, or flat spot in the torque band where they just fall on their face. This means that idle-3000 rpm pulls, locking the diff, then 3000-5000 the car stops making power, unlocking the diff, then from 5000-8000 they suddenly have double the jam, locking the diff again.

This dip exists in a specific spot where you would normally modulate or feather the throttle during a long drift. This dip feels like extreme turbo lag, resulting in not only the diff unlocking, but just a wheel speed adjustment during a slide. You either hold the throttle pinned to the floor, or you handbrake, and clutch kick multiple times to manage momentum.

Both of these solutions are REALLY hard on the car. One has you bouncing rev limiter, with a 'steer and hope' approach. The other has you starting and stopping the drivetrain over and over, as you locks the wheels, rev up, dump the clutch, lock the wheels, rev up, dump the clutch, over and over and over. Just to manage corner. Banging the **** out of the transmission and diff, but also just overworking the driver offering more room for mistakes.

Dropped valves, bent clutch forks, and sudden grip ups are problems which are more frequent in these cars then others. That sucks, we need to fix that.

Further adding to this problem, is the 'throttle filter'. At first I thought it was throttle lag, but it isn't. Rather, it's a filter. The throttle plate waits for you to commit to a position, before it opens. If your foot is adding or removing 'requested torque' then it waits until you hold that position for a second before it moves the throttle plate. All of this is a nightmare when you're dragging the quarter panel along a wall in 3rd gear in the middle of a pack of cars. **** off, and let me do the work.

Everyone tells me DBW is better, but those are the tuners who are sitting on a dyno, not trying to rub their leading tire on their friends door because they just finished their new wrap and it'd be funny to leave a tire scuff on their new graphics at 100km/h. DBW sucks ****.

OOps, I'm late to help a friend sand his truck. More later!

[DiscoQuinn]

So what happened next? COVID! Everyone favorite, I'm scared to leave the house because the air might kill me era. This shut down the track for the past year, and so I had some free time to toodle, and toodle I did!

Our first step was to try and solve the biggest problem. The differential. 2-way race type LSD? Ideal for driving feel, but not ideal for the budget minded. Welded diff? No! Not only is it tough to weld the torsen, but it also is more expensive. Hear me out.

Spools on average cost $50-$200 depending on the vehicle. BRZ and FRS Torsens, sell used for $300 all day everyday. If someone were to make a spool for the car, then theoretically they would have a stronger rear end than a welded, which has less rotational mass (this is like putting a lightweight driveshaft on your car), improved diff cooling as there is a larger mass of diff oil, AND they could sell their stock diff to break even or maybe make money? (Or just save it for when they get a VI?) all bonuses to me.

The problem? No one makes a spool for these diffs.

The FRS/BRZ diff is kinda neat, as it's the same diff as an IS300, MX83, and MK3 supra, and nearly the same as JZX80/90/100 and JZA80, etc. It's a Toyota 8" diff, which is a common diff. But no one has ever made a spool? WTF.

So I dug my nose in and started researching. Automotive splines for the most part are standardized. What this means, is that a car made with 30 spline axles, will have the same diamenter shafts and spline cutting as another car with 30 spline axles. The number of splines is kinda a rough diameter measurement. The more splines, the bigger the axle diameter.

So I was curious, the Toyota trucks also have 8" diffs, how many splines do they have? Welp, the same, both the Car and Truck 8" diff have 30 splines. Dang! okay, they make spools for the trucks all the time, I wonder if the ring gear fi.....oh it does. They use the same ring gears.....This should be easy then?

Sorta.

First I had to track down a Toyota "V6" spool. Which shared the same bearing size with the car diff. If I remember correctly the 4cylinder used a smaller bearing? But I never got my hands on one to confirm. It then took me a month or two to round up a spare factory Torsen so I could measure the differences in the two.

The two were really close. Though it took me another month to find some axles as well, just to confirm. (there is more story to that!)

There were some differences I didn't expect though. The ring gear flange being offset by nearly 4mm was annoying, but, the biggest thing I didn't think about was the spring clips to hold the car axles inside the diff.

This spring clip design and axle fitment changed the whole profile of the splines which created a problem I wasn't sure how to solve at first.

I approached a local machine shop, who was able to profile the the outer half of the splines, but didn't feel they had the tooling to get the inner set where the spring clip would sit. ****, how am I going to do this??

Easy, I'll be my own machine shop! So I drew up some plans using a 3D printer and an old rotary cutting tool.

It was a quick little drawing in my brain, I showed it to a few friends and they were like huh? But the idea is to be able to set the left/right depth separate of the cutting depth. Using an offset center cylinder, I could slide the cylinder in and out, but then rotate it to move the cutting disc in and out to cut the spring clip grooves.

EZ GG. I 3D printed it out, bought some cheap bearings from amazon, a rotary tool for $20 on facebook market and glued it all together on my work bench and started cutting.

It worked great!! Like almost too good, as the axles needed gentle taps with a rubber mallet to move them in and out of the spool!!

Matt Tregar volunteered to set up the diff, and since it was a lot of Quinn grinding **** by hand, it took him 9 hours to shim it to his perfectionist standards. lol Thank you again Matt. <3

[DiscoQuinn]

I didn't get to test it though for a long time. Covid closed the local race track, and where I'm living on the island is hours away from anywhere I could even do street ****ties without risking my job. So daily driving duties had to do until the track opened up.

In the meantime though I got cracking at some other other issues.

I tried 3 different ways to battle the throttle and ecu issues.

Attempt #1, overwrite the stock tune.

This is a KESS clone. I'll admit it, it's a Chinese knockoff, but it's not a fake. It's from the same factory making the legit ones. The real ones are $10k with software licenses though, and this one was $76 shipped to my door with the full software suite....I don't feel good about it, but supporting the original company is almost impossible with that wide of a disparity in prices.

If you're not familiar with a KESS system, it's a tool to read and re-write factory ECUs like they were aftermarket ones, and it works on nearly any vehicle with an OBD2 port. Like, I can plug my car in, download the complete firmware? of the stock ecu, save it in a backups folder, and then upload new tunes to the original factory ECU.

It was really scary, as I'm used to just gluing vacuum caps on carbs that don't idle well, so going from that to re-writing an ECU is terrifying. The bonus is from the engine replacement I had a spare ECU just in case.

I found out that because you're modifying the OEM tune, it's illegal to sell those tunes. You can sell the service of modifying them to the customers needs, the dyno time, and the installation, but you can't sell the tune itself. So, from many popular FRS tuning firms you can find free tunes on their websites to download for yourself.

A majority of these tunes are for E85 (which sucks, don't do it) or they're for turbo cars, both which require you to delete your stock cat. Sadly though, that doesn't fit our project. It took a while to find a tune that suited the stock cat. I installed it, and it although the car has a bit more scoot, the lag, delay and filtering of the throttle remains.

Few people seem to know what I'm talking about when I skim the forums, and make posts. Many of them grew up driving DBW cars and don't see the problem, which really, is a limitation of the finite control of the car. The issue is a little bigger than just playing with the maps though, as the stock ECU has approximately 20,000+ maps that all refer to each other, and the modders have only identified and documented 15 of them, which mostly are for E85 and turbo tuning. ****.

Attempt #2. Pedal Commander.

I'd see all the ads for the pedal commanders at Formula Drift and other events, so maybe that will work? Wonder what those cost? $400? **** that. OH, it looks like Manabu Orido has one he designed specifically for the FRS....$389? **** that.

Aliexpress? $26 shipped, hell ya. I know, I said I wouldn't buy knock off garbage, but this is for testing purposes, plus, no one in their right mind would pay that even if I recommended it being worth it. So we'll try the cheap one.

After placing my order I got a weird text message directly from China. "Hey, I'm Tom, what kind of car do you have?" 2017 BRZ I replied. No reply. Ghosted. A few weeks later it showed up. lol

Took about 5 minutes to clip in, and immediately it was noticeable. However, it didn't fix the filtering and lag. What it does do is purposely interrupt the signal to the ECU to trick it into thinking you pressed the pedal more than you did. So now 20% throttle = 100%. That's it. It reminds me of those oldschool SAFCs that would tell the computer the motor was getting less fuel than it thought it was, so the bigger injectors would squirt more when the turbo was way too big for the tune.

At $26 it was worth trying, but didn't fix the problem.

Attempt #3: Throttle Cable.

I had a lot of spare parts, like too many spare parts and I figured I'd give a throttle cable conversion a try. The first step was to see how the throttle plate even worked.

Not too complicated, the motor drives a gear, and the gear drives the plate. The plate has a hal effect sensor to feel where it's positioned, but the motor itself is dumb and has no position sensor. So I figured, the ECU made assumptions about the motor, and then adjusted based on the plate.

So, with some creative drilling, I was able to find a location to mount a cable. What was REALLY interesting was the car was already designed to have a cable throttle, even though, there were no models sold with one. The firewall, pedal bracket and even the DBW pedal all had special holes in them for running a cable, just the throttle plate itself didn't? Strange.

Sadly, after multiple tests and multiple configurations the car just didn't like it no matter which way I tried.

The throttle issues remain still and I've yet to find a near free or cheap solution to fix the lag and filtering.

[DiscoQuinn]

People started hearing that I was into these cars and what I was trying to do and started sending me parts. Since I'd finally moved into my own small shop space, I grabbed some bins, organized all the parts, and then documented them on to the speedhero.ca website.

One person called me and told me to bring a trailer, so I did.

We picked up another free one. Though this one is in much rougher shape. It's a weird car. What makes it strange is it's a 2013 model with only 7,000km on it. 2013 is the first year they were sold in North America, which means someone bought it, drove it may a month or two? and wrote it off. It may be one of the first ones ever crashed in BC??? Eitherway, it had a very very light bump in the front, which squished the frame rail slightly, was sold through ICBC, and then bounced around driveways and backyards since 2013 until now, where it resides in my garage.

A few things that makes it weird is there is stereo cable, big stupid wing drill holes in the trunk, and bad tint. I suspect someone bought it, and thought they were the coolest. Which further proves our point of these cars being tricky to learn to drift in.

Besides the shell, I got a lot of the parts with it, so this was an opportunity to relaunch my parts exchange, this time as an FRS/BRZ parts exchange. Every single item, cleaned, labeled, photographed and put on the speedhero.ca site.
If you've never heard of a parts exchange before, it's a kinda like a take a penny leave a penny of auto parts. No money, just trades. If you really need a part and don't have any to trade? That's fine, take it. If you've got an excess of parts and don't want to throw them out? Don't, leave them with us! It's just an easy way to make sure parts remain useful and in circulation.

[DiscoQuinn]

I've also been trying to document and plan better steering geometry for the car, without making the car noticeable for VIs. I need to add front camber by adding track width, but I want the car to also pass inspection if it does get a notice.

This is a tricky approach as it needs to be cheap, but it also needs to look OEM. I found some of the OEM arm stamping companies, but I need to find the best specs for the changes to these arms before ordering a batch.

I wasn't sure what the best way to plan out these changes were without just cutting and welding, and testing. So I did some digging and found that I can scan things with the 360 Kinect. I also tried my hand at some photogrammerty as well.

I wanted to capture as much of the suspension as accurately as possible so I could map the changes in angle. I've only got so many steering knuckles and want to get the most amount of steering angle increase, caster improvement, and plan the leading tire at full lock so the contact patch is hopefully nice and flat.

So I bought a whole spare front end just so I could scan and capture it in hopes to digitize it.

So it took a lot of trial and error, but after spending a week or so on it, I was finally able to build most of a digitized front suspension of the car in Solidworks.

Sadly though I've had some hang ups with it and haven't had a chance to get the 3D rig working right yet. But I'm still working on it in hopes I can find the best spot to redrill the knuckles for the safest and best addition of steering angle!

Major Update: I finally got on the track and got to test the spool out! Covid really ****ed that up and I was so excited to finally get a chance to drive. And although there are no photos I can confirm that the spool did exactly what I predicted it. It made the car consistent for deceleration and modulation type drifts!

One other mod I'll be playing with soon, is a power steering delete. I found with the spool installed I really have much more predictable oversteer, and great control on initiation and modulation. However, transitions were still tough. I couldn't do fast, and snappy ones as I liked. This was something I'd noticed last year, but it was only once the spool was installed that I figured out the reason.

The car has a manual steering rack. but an electric column. Doing regular grip driving events the steering feels fantastic, but on drift days, the motor isn't smart enough.

In a traditional Hydraulic assist, there is a switching valve to guide the hydraulic pressure to either side of the steering rack. This is called a Rotary Control Valve, and it changes the direction of pressure immediately. It's extremely sensitive in most cars, and it's marvel goes unnoticed. However, the electric system, needs to sense the change in the direction and make a decision to change the direction of assist. This is fast enough for daily driving and even grip racing, but it's too slow for drifting.

Often I'll toss the wheel for the transition, predicting the direction change, but because the electric steering needs to wait for the presence of direction change there is a delay, and often my counter steering efforts are pushed back against while the column is still helping in the previous direction. This was the cause of my spins. I test the theory by doing slow and smooth transitions and had no problem, but sporty, snappy, hot boi ones, always resulted in the counter steer being too late and a spin. No good. This limits my freedom of driving style.

Using a spare column I've found that deleting the powersteering is easy, non-harmful and fully reversible! It's so simple you could do it at the track, then put it back when you're done. It's a matter of one single internal C-clip, and the motors worm gear winds right out. Ultimately it'd be nice to make a replacement for the C-clip that allows you to add or remove the motor without the need for special tools. On the fly.

At this point, this is all I can think of? for this project so far, but I'm working on it everyday of the past year, so I'll update this when I can! Here's a few extra pics for your pleasure.

[bcj]

You've got teh dum sorted.
Nice score. Looks like the border is almost permeable soonish.
Best luck with that stuff and getting it scorching touges.
You been busy. Thanks again.

Heard that Victoria is finally getting their shit together and putting in a primary treatment plant finally.
A Port Hardy tour may be in the offing.

[DiscoQuinn]

Originally Posted by bcj

You've got teh dum sorted.
Nice score. Looks like the border is almost permeable soonish.
Best luck with that stuff and getting it scorching touges.
You been busy. Thanks again.

Heard that Victoria is finally getting their shit together and putting in a primary treatment plant finally.
A Port Hardy tour may be in the offing.

We will soon poop with the rest of the future, into a big swirling tub instead of directly on the fish.


Also, these showed up and I'm too excited. For those that know, know!

[Arthur-A]

Great thread! I wonder whether the throttle issue can be solved by a proper ECU tuning?
I was thinking that DBW throttle sucked until I drove my EVO X. Although they are DBW, you won't be able to tell. There's literally 0 delay. Theoretically, the throttle on a new 86 can be adjusted as well.

[DiscoQuinn]

Yeah, replacing the ECU seems the most viable option which just feels dumb.

Got some sneaky time at the burger shack. I knew my tires were close, but doing footbrake flicks, caused them to start chunking.

Here's a little flick sequence

[DiscoQuinn]

Mounted the Valinos today, and they are definitely a tire for drifting. I know I'm not supposed to use them for daily driving.....but I'm going to. The road noise is excessive and I love it, but others will definitely not. I'm looking forward to doing some harder driving on them to feel how icy they are as I like icy setups.

Sort of related, our local track (Canadas oldest race track) is closing down sometime this year, so I rented some cameras to do a photogrammerty scan of it, in hopes to preserve it, maybe atleast in video games forever.

Testing the cameras tonight to make sure they're working:

[img]

Then to test that my software is still working I did a quick 5 minute scan.

[DiscoQuinn]

Did another track day on the BRZ spool. Went well, but I'm still fighting the car. This shouldn't be new information to these forums, but atleast helps understand another reason so many people crash them. The commitment levels!

[NoHaveMSG]

This dip feels like extreme turbo lag, resulting in not only the diff unlocking,

I am so confused by this statement. Are you saying torque dip is causing your diff to unlock? Because that is not how torsen diffs work.