My first sports car. Looking forward for the community's inputs and advice.

[PAT86]

Hi Everyone,

In this forum I am going to share my ownership experience with my 2014/2015 GT86 that I got just last May with over 57,000 km on its mileage. The previous owner who seemed like a very good person and took great care of it lived in a distant city from Manila and used it everyday in his long distance city and highway travels.

I am very happy with the previous owner who I can say took great care of the car. For example, the oil was changed at least 2x a year, I got high stack of receipts from his 2 year servicing with the Toyota dealership to sustain his warranty and as a result I was able under warranty to change and upgrade to the newer direct injection fuel pump, which may suppress the potential chirping noise that seems to affect every long term owner and finally when I swapped the pads to the project mu hc800, the stock pads were just worn down by not more than 1mm all around and the rotors were all within the stock spec of 24mm & 18mm (if I recall correctly at the moment). I thought that was impressive for a car that has been driven over 57 thousand km.

I am looking forward to own this car indefinitely and I hope to upgrade the car (and its driver as well) making it better than original stock, not really in terms of power but making the car better overall with minimal compromise such as modifications that not only enhances its performance but importantly does so without compromising reliability etc. In fact, any power upgrades might come last.

So please feel free to tell me what you think are great upgrades for the car that does not reduce its reliability. Looking forward to your inputs!

[Somerandom18]

Strut bar, catch can, rear subframe bushing inserts, carbon steel (lighter) rotors, good tires, fluidampr, transmission mount bushing Insert, poly bushings everywhere possible (like sway bar), solid driveshaft carrier bushings. Steel brake lines. Oil cooler with thermostat (a good one don't cheap out).

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[dattran86]

Dont touch anything!! Trust me, I've been there done that. Dont waste your money to mod the car if you have no idea what improvement it will do to your driving. And how you can take full advantage of it

Upgrade the brake pads to something more track duty and 215/45 Ultra High performance summer on oem wheel and go join your local autocross event to get started. its a cheap way and accessible to High Performance Driving

[8RZ]

Welcome, good tires on a lightweight wheel go a long way.

[Slammillionaire]

Originally Posted by 8RZ

Welcome, good tires on a lightweight wheel go a long way.

I second this but other than that, I would leave it stock for a while and get a feel for how it drives. From there pick out what you would like to change about it and do the research into how to make those changes effectively.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by Somerandom18

Strut bar, catch can, rear subframe bushing inserts, carbon steel (lighter) rotors, good tires, fluidampr, transmission mount bushing Insert, poly bushings everywhere possible (like sway bar), solid driveshaft carrier bushings. Steel brake lines. Oil cooler with thermostat (a good one don't cheap out).

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Wow, not one good piece of advice in this entire post.

Get some sticky tires, and maybe some lighter wheels and go from there.

[8RZ]

Yeah, where's the No Thanks button when you need it?

[PAT86]

So the car came with a set of Rota Roku flat black 18x8.5 squared with GT Champiro SX2 235x40 tires. I kept them but I removed them from the car planning to dedicate it for track use only. As a result, I got 2 more wheelset for the following purpose:

1.) Daily driving - Wedssport 18x8.5


2.) Drifting - stock 17 inch wheels that I had to buy since original owner sold his



3.) For track - the rota roku



After using all three wheels for street, drifting and track, I came to the following conclusions.

1.) Square set up for daily driving seems to be the most practical. I used the old set of tires on the rotas and placed them on the wedssport and I am happy with these tires. But I am wondering if 235 is unnecessary for daily driving and that perhaps I should go for 225 for practical financial reasons when the time comes to replace the tires which may have to be next year. Thoughts on this? Note that the wedssport is 8.5 width.

2.) Given how costly drifting is, I think a better choice would have been to buy R16 rims instead of the stock R17 since tires will be much cheaper with R16. Expensive lesson learned!

3.) The Rota Roku seem like a good set of wheels given they supposedly weigh only around 18 lbs. The flat black color also seems to be practical for track driving given all the dust you produce from all the hard braking. I was able to get a very very good condition of another set of champiro sx2 tires that's also 235x35 for under $300. The seller of the tires was only able to use it once since he got the wrong size for his honda civic. The tires still had their tread "hairs"!

The track that I will most likely be driving it on regularly is Clark International Speedway which is about 100 km north of the city. It's about 4km long and I was able to do a total of 26 laps on my first and so far only track day. The tires still seem thick. The only issue I had during track driving was, given that it's a rwd, the car consistently over steers when I accelerate on exit. So I am wondering if a thicker set of tires at the back would help and enable me to step a bit more on the throttle before it slides. Would it make a noticeable difference for a newbie like me to go from a 235 to 265 or 285 in the back next time? Of course I currently don't have the wheelset for that.


Since I plan to continue using this in the track hopefully at least a few times a year, I have done the following brake upgrades:

1.) Project Mu HC+ 800 pads with stoptech steel lines and motul high temp brake fluid


2.) APR Brake Ducts w/o the inlet. Installer came up with their own inlet




So far I was only able to do each run session for no more than 5 laps at a time since I did not have an oil cooler yet. Hence I did not experience any brake fade despite having stock calipers of 2 pot and 1 pot and stock rotors.

With regards to the APR brake ducts, I did not follow their instruction that instructs you to cut through the fender lines. I did not want to cut a big hole along the fender line since I was concerned that too much dirt might get splashed into the engine bay when driving through a puddle or driving on a rainy day. The installer was able to route it through an existing hole below the fender line. I also did not want to remove the existing fog lamps that came with the car hence the reroute and customized inlet on the sides of the bumper grill. The installer tested their routing by using a fan blowing into the inlet and it worked fine and my experience in the track was so far alright.

[PAT86]

Will the catch can be useful even if I do not do any forced induction?

When the time comes for me to replace the stock rotors with better ones, I am currently leaning towards one that is ideally not lighter than stock since it's proven by that engineering explained guy that lighter rotors will be hotter than heavier rotors. Of course the design of the rotors help but so does more weight in cooling it down. So I am leaning more towards the one piece DBA 4000 when the time comes to replace them. Any experience with these rotors?

[TylerLieberman]

Check your pics, because they aren't showing up in your post. Photobucket doesn't work anymore if you're pulling your pics from there.

[PAT86]

Originally Posted by Slammillionaire

I second this but other than that, I would leave it stock for a while and get a feel for how it drives. From there pick out what you would like to change about it and do the research into how to make those changes effectively.

Once I get the oil cooler, since the engine oil temps just get too hot in the track, the next modification I have in mind is getting a set of coilovers. The reason for that is when driving in the highway and also when drifting the stock suspension seems fine to me. But on the track, the front of the car was just too soft and at high speed sharp turns it consistently rubs the tires.

I have been researching for awhile on the coilovers since they are costly and I am thinking of getting the more basic fortune auto brand. I was actually initially thinking of HKS but there's an 86 veteran here in Manila who has been using fortune auto and is very happy with them even for street use where our road conditions are terrible ( a level or 2 worse than new york city).

[PAT86]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

Check your pics, because they aren't showing up in your post. Photobucket doesn't work anymore if you're pulling your pics from there.

I was able to see pics of my 2nd post. Are you referring to my 2nd or 1st post?

[jvincent]

Originally Posted by PAT86

The track that I will most likely be driving it on regularly is Clark International Speedway which is about 100 km north of the city. It's about 4km long and I was able to do a total of 26 laps on my first and so far only track day. The tires still seem thick. The only issue I had during track driving was, given that it's a rwd, the car consistently over steers when I accelerate on exit. So I am wondering if a thicker set of tires at the back would help and enable me to step a bit more on the throttle before it slides. Would it make a noticeable difference for a newbie like me to go from a 235 to 265 or 285 in the back next time? Of course I currently don't have the wheelset for that.

Your pictures aren't showing for me either.

Having been through this myself a couple of years ago, here's my two cents.

1. The most important mod for the track is brake pads/fluid. Whatever else happens you want to be able to stop and melted pads/boiled fluid are no good.

2. Don't make any other performance mods until you have some experience. Ideally get instruction. Other than brakes, I didn't do anything to my car for the first track season. I used up the stock tires learning on the car.

3. The fact that you are over-steering on exit means you still need to learn. See point 2 above. Fat sticky tires will just mask bad driving. The fact that you weren't able to overheat the stock brakes indicates that you still have a long way to go.

4. If you are keeping the engine stock an oil cooler isn't absolutely necessary, but is still a good idea.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by PAT86

Will the catch can be useful even if I do not do any forced induction?

Yes, I have the Racerx catch can fitted to the pcv valve and it still catches plenty on NA.

Enjoy modding and enjoying the car