Will300's Subaru BRZ Build (UK)

[will300]

Update 21/02/2020 - Bedford Autodrome Trackday

Myself and several other members of the 86 drivers club recently attended an MSV trackday at Bedford Autodrome, this would be my 2nd trackday of 2020. I was looking forward to getting back on track again, especially at Bedford. Whilst some people see it as bland, I really enjoy it and think it has good mix of charactistics from long straights, tight corners and sweeping bends, making it a good circuit for a medium powered car like the 86/BRZ. Plus with it being the UK longest circuit, you normally get plenty of track time without too much hold up.

The day started out well, with me having some fun chasing down a Honda S2000, unfortunately he got black flagged, I'm not sure what for as he was driving well. Knowing Bedford I suspect it was noise limit, anyway I carried on for a couple more laps. I was probably pushing abit harder than I should have been this early on (making mistakes basically).

The second session, I ended up behind a very dirty diesel VW Golf 🤢, unfortunately whilst chasing him down on the inner circuit straight (not sure what the actual name is) my engine management light came on. The car felt fine and had been performing perfectly fine up to this point. I drove back to the pits and into our garage where I turned the car off and left it for a minute before restarting it, unfortunately the light stayed on.

Thankfully a fellow 86 owner, Michael Chan came to my rescue and lent me his diagnostic code reader, we read the code and found a P0351 error, Ignition Coil A. Knowing that this was a common occurance for older 86's, we cleared the code and restarted the car and the engine light was gone, happy days or so I thought.

Session 3, I went back on track and ended up behind @VAD17, I had some fun for a couple of laps keeping up with him. It's surprising how well matched we are around a lap of Bedford, he's abit quicker on the straights than me thanks to his TD Turbo kit, but I end up catching him in the corners. It was going well until the dreaded engine management light came back on. So I pulled back in the pits and read the error again, it was the same P0351 code.

Session 4, my final session of the day, I was less aggressive on the car by shifting at 6K RPM (thanks to @Lauren for the suggestion) rather than the 7.5K RPM rev limit. I did try and keep up with Michael Chan in his 86 for a lap or two, before the power deficit came into play. In the end I managed about 5 laps in this session before the EML popped up on the dash. By this point I'd had enough for the day and decided just to park the car and get a couple of passenger laps in.

The drive back home was completely trouble free, and I've used the car for a week going to work without an EML. Thankfully I'd already booked the car into Rogue Motorsport in March for a pre Spa-Francorchamp checkup. I'll get them to swap out the dodgy coilpack for another one with some added heat reflective tape. Hopefully this will stop the issue from happening in the future.

I've also ordered a Carista OBD2 dongle, so I can clear any error codes in future.

Here's a couple of pictures from the day (basically the same photo repeated 😄 )

















Video:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qnYo6BBHY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qnYo6BBHY[/ame]

[GarageNoGarage]

I love seeing the track footage, and I can confirm the AD08 not liking greasy conditions. I have experienced the exact same thing. All predictability goes right out the window

[MCTeeJ]

Subaru does make an updated/more heat resistant coil, so that might be of some help to you. I killed one of my coils, and then like you the code went away. It ended up causing bigger problems down the line so I would change that sooner than later. I don't mean to pry or anything, just trying to help.

[will300]

Originally Posted by MCTeeJ

Subaru does make an updated/more heat resistant coil, so that might be of some help to you. I killed one of my coils, and then like you the code went away. It ended up causing bigger problems down the line so I would change that sooner than later. I don't mean to pry or anything, just trying to help.

Thanks MCTeeJ, I'm going to have the coil replaced in a couple of weeks. I'll make sure the replacement has some heat resistant tape applied to it.

Thankfully I've been fairly lucky with coilpacks in that this is the first one that's gone in 60K miles and I've done countless trackdays during that time.

[will300]

Update 20/03/2020 - Bucket Seat Fitting

At the start of the year myself, @DeaconRoc & @Keethos were lucky enough to get some very cheap tickets for the AutoSport International show at the NEC in Birmingham (UK). Normally we wouldn't bother going as the show can be very hit and miss, however as the tickets were cheap we thought why not. Whilst we was there, we heard that Cobra Seats were doing a special show discount on all seats ordered at the show. There was one particular seat I was interested in, the Cobra Nogaro. I'd seen this seat fitted to Paul Cowlands BRZ back in 2015 ([ame]https://twitter.com/paulcowland_/status/556138688988864512[/ame]), and thought it worked really well with our stock interior. I particularly liked this seat as it's supportive but shouldn't sacrifice to much daily comfort, should be easily to get in and out of due to the low bolsters and you can also use the factory OEM seat belt with it. However due to the price and the fact I would rather have a Edirb 023/033 seat I basically ignored the idea, that was until I heard about Cobra's generous discount offer.

After speaking with @DeaconRoc at the show we both agreed to buy one seat each, and would sell the seat to the other person if we didn't like it once fitted. A simple specification was given to Cobra, alcantara center, leather sides and red stitching, to match the OEM interior. Now the next hurdle would be sourcing some seat mounts, I didn't specifically want a fixed mount and I wasn't happy with the aftermarket options available, due the reports of flexing and various rattles/creaks they can make. This is another reason why I didn't consider buying an aftermarket seats before now. However about 6 months ago a post was made on the forum by @BizzMan, who was dealing with a company called Brey-Krause Auto who manufactures seat mounts in house that utilize the OEM sliders for multiple different cars and had just developed a set for his BRZ (link: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137015), these looked like the perfect solution. I showed the guys at Rogue Motorsport this seat mount design and asked them what they thought about this design. They basically said, that it looks like a functional design, but was concerned about whether it'd fit with the Cobra Nogaro seats. They also said they'd probably be able to make them cheaper (once you've added on shipping and taxes, etc).

Two months later, the seats arrived at Rogue Motorsport, by this point they'd come up with a seat mount design but needed a car to test on, fortunately @DeaconRoc had his car booked in the following week, so they used his OEM sliding frame mechanism to test their first prototype, which @Deacon ran for a few weeks before he suggested a couple of changes to the seat position, so he's now running V2 of the seat mount. I was booked in a couple of weeks after this, rather then Rogue making a new prototype they asked if I could try the V1 prototype mount for a couple of weeks and report back my findings. I'll update the thread in due course, unfortunately due to everything thats going on at the moment, I haven't driven the car alot.

Whilst I was at Rogue they changed my brake & clutch fluid along with replacing my dodgy coilpack, which they then covered with a heat resistance/reflective material (all four coilpacks were covered). Which should hopefully stop the issue from happening again, if not they will try fabricating a metal plate to try and block the heat. They also might have found a couple of blows on my ACE CS400 exhaust manifold, however they won't know this until they can remove it, they didn't want to do this as my manifold has been on about 4 years and thought the gaskets might disintegrate, I need to source some replacements.

Here are some pictures of the seat and the seat mount:

[will300]

Update 29/03/2020 - Car Cleaning

I gave the car a quick wash over the weekend. Whilst I was at it I thought I should probably give the engine bay a quick clean to remove any winter crud:

[will300]

Update 10/04/2020 - Easter Weekend Jobs - Part 1

I recently ordered some new wheels from @Lucas@PartBox, so before fitting them I decided to give the wheel arches a quick scrub down to remove the majority of crud and clean my Tein Coilovers.

Whilst I had the wheels off I noticed my calipers were looking abit sorry for themselves and caked in brake dust and brake fluid. Normally this wouldn't bother me to much, however as I was fitting new wheels I thought I'd tidy them up and reseal them with a coating of G-Techniq C5 Wheel Armour. Several days later they look as good as new.

I also gave the exhaust a quick polish (before, during and after photos).

I really need to get some Bilthamber Atom Mac that @Sam534 recommended to stop my disks rusting when washing them.

[will300]

Update 10/04/2020 - Easter Weekend Jobs - Part 2: Fitting Wheels

In february this year I posted my car goals for the year, the first goal was: 1. Order a set of forged wheels. I must have spent 18 months looking for a new set of wheels to swap over from the 949 Racing wheels prior to this, as I wanted a new look. I've always wanted to fit a set of forged wheels to the car and there are a couple of sets that I really like, these are:

1. Rays Volks TE37 Saga in Bronze, size: 17x9 +42

2. Rays Volks ZE40 in Bronze, size: 18x9 +40

3. Titan 7 TS5 in Satin Titanium, size: 17x9 +37

Owning a set of Rays would be the dream as they are highly regarded as the top wheel manufacturer in the JDM market and being a massive JDM fan this means a lot to me.

I'd originally spoke to @Lucas@PartBox a while ago about a set of Rays, he informed that a set of Rays Volks (either wheel) would mean spending atleast of £3K on a set, which I wasn't keen on. I therefore looked into importing a set from Japan, however with shipping, taxes and import duty they'd probably end up near enough the same price, plus should there be anything wrong with the wheels it'd be a massive pain to sort out and I wasn't going to pay £2K+ for a set of wheels with no UK contact. Because of this, it basically put an end to the idea of ordering a set of Rays.

The third option is from a relatively new company in the form of Titan 7, they sell a wheel called: TS5, these looked ideal however I wanted something vibrant after running a black wheel for a couple of years. Whilst Titan 7 offer a Bronze finish, they only do this for selected fitments and weren't prepared to offer this on the 86/BRZ fitment, typically they once did a limited run of the bronze in the past, which I missed out on. This left a Satin Titanium finish, which is extremely nice in itself, however it wasn't what I was really after. Whilst I could get these from a UK seller I wasn't 100% sure on them due to colour and my thoughts being if I'm buying forged wheels I'd rather buy Rays.

This ultimately left me with a dilemma, do I spend over £3K on a set of Rays or do I bin the idea? In february I decided to ask @Lucas@PartBox what Rays wheels Partbox had instock for the 86/BRZ or could get relevately quickly. They had a set of blue Gramlights 57DR in 18x9.5 +38 wheels in stock, again this wasn't what I wanted but Lucas did say they could get a number of 57CR's in various colours in within a month, colours being: Sakura Pink, Gold, Bronze, Semi-Gloss Black, Black Chrome and Gunmetal Blue. Knowing several other members are running these wheels I wasn't sure on the idea, as I wanted something different. After some google-fu I found out the 57CR's in 17x9 only weight 8.2KG, this changed my mind on these wheels and I realised they actually make alot of sense, it's a wheel in a size I've run before, no-one else in the UK 86/BRZ community was running this wheel in that size (that I'm aware of, at that time anyway) as everyone goes for 18" version, they are relatively light for a cast wheel and good value at only £1200 and once I've added tyres and accessories it'd come in at under £2k, which was a much nicer figure. Now the choice was which colour do I go for, I'd looked at the 57CR's in the past and wanted them in either Gold or White, as white wasn't available this left only one colour choice Gold. A quick confirmation with Lucas and the wheels were ordered. Less than a month later, to both our surprise Lucas informed me the wheels had arrived. I then sealed the wheels using G-Techniq W5 Wheel Armour and overcoated with G-Techniq Exo V4.

In the mean time I ordered some Rays Dura-Nuts L42 wheel nuts in Blue, Gramlight 57CR center caps in blue & black chrome, Rays metal spigot rings and Rays blue valve caps from Nengun Performance in Japan, along with a set of black (D4S) TRD fender fins. I've wanted a set of fender fins for a while, ideally in carbon however they stopped producing these a couple of years ago, this left black as the next logical colour. Typically these parts took much longer to arrive than the wheels as there was a delay with the production of the fender fins. I also had a shipping issue, I ordered the parts before the CoronaVirus fully hit and used a work address, when I found out the parts had been shipped I had to get this swapped to my home address and yet typically the courier still tried to deliver it to the work address despite being expressly told to change it. A few days later the parts arrived and I could begin fitting them.

Now from some photos, firstly the wheels and tyres:

[will300]

Pictures of the wheel fitment on the car:

[will300]

Pictures of the full car:

[will300]

TRD Fender fins: