SPCorBUST's BRZ STI | Cusco | Jackson | Perrin Build Thread

[tracerit]

Originally Posted by SPCorBUST

I've had the corner balance and alignment from West End for a couple days now, and I can say that its a night and day difference in terms of how the car handles. I love it, I'll probably never go back to a standard alignment place for this car again.

Are you stating the "night and day difference" regarding daily/spirited driving or track/autox use? Do you remember your before and after alignment numbers?

[SPCorBUST]

Originally Posted by Celica00

Looking really sick. Love the sound of the pulls. I always appreciate a solid function>form build. Were there any Cusco parts you installed that you feel didn't improve anything by much?

I think the sway bars and tower bars. Coming from the SRT-4, those made a huge difference - here, not so much. Not knowing that first though, the sways and strut tower bars were among the first mods I did to this car. (to my dismay) I just expected more based off of prior experience, and I was wrong.

I'm not sure the front lower arms do much. Going back and forth between the Cusco and STI front braces I can tell a difference, but the front lower arms were always paired with one of those, and with the STI flexible draw stiffener I thought the feeling wasn't a drastic improvement over stock. (but, there is one) I'm inclined to throw the front lower arms into the bucket of does nothing or almost nothing on its own.

I'll caveat what I'm saying with this though - someone who has a lighter touch or better feel might be able to pick up on the differences better. There are reviews of the draw stiffener making a bigger difference for other drivers. Thats cool, maybe they're just more sensitive to that; I'm just going off of my own experience.

I'll also add that I think the majority of these braces are small improvements that simply add up - not all of them are immediately noticeable, like the diff brace. Its like how you probably don't notice a mod that does a 3-5 hp difference, but in conjunction with a few other small hp bumps you notice the extra pep in your step.

Slightly off topic here but...

After my first failed attempt at a large gain with the sways and tower bars, I opted to batch the front and rear installs to see if I could find the improvement in "the feeling." I was wary about this after reading several forum threads to the contrary and my own experience, but I'm a bit stubborn and like to find things out on my own. That, and many of the guys that actually put their money where their mouths were and bought the parts found there to be some improvement. And (not like anyone cares but) my personal preference and history on this forum has all been like this - to do my own due diligence, e.g. around dyno numbers reading high, component quality in SC kits, and other things for my own satisfaction. Not being able to speak from actual experience is the equivalent of a bench racer. (to me)

Personally I'm satisfied that there are noticeable improvements to be had with bracing. If I didn't feel that way, I would either pull them off or just think of them as dress up. (and certainly some parts on my car are in that category after my personal assessment)

[Celica00]

Originally Posted by SPCorBUST

I'll also add that I think the majority of these braces are small improvements that simply add up - not all of them are immediately noticeable, like the diff brace. Its like how you probably don't notice a mod that does a 3-5 hp difference, but in conjunction with a few other small hp bumps you notice the extra pep in your step.

That makes a lot of sense. Too bad getting the Whole (or most) of the Cusco catalog is so god damned expensive :/


Keep it up. Your frankness well as your trial-and-error process throughout makes this quite a personable build.

[SPCorBUST]

Originally Posted by tracerit

Are you stating the "night and day difference" regarding daily/spirited driving or track/autox use? Do you remember your before and after alignment numbers?

Daily spirited driving. About 130 highway miles over 8 freeways (5, 57, 10, 605, 91, 22, 405, 55), about 20 miles of street driving (Irvine, Fullerton, Balwin Park, and Gardena), and a couple light canyon passes (Santiago, Trabuco).

Its been 2 days since I got the alignment and I had work and family stuff in between then, but I am expecting track seat time about a month out from now. I hope to finish the other installs before then.

Yes, I have my before and after numbers. My before's were embarrassing out of the gate, so I don't plan on sharing those.

[SPCorBUST]

Tonight I installed the high mount third brake light from @wheelhaus as well as the STI door armrests:



I installed the STI armrests first, mostly following the install video from FT86speedfactory on YouTube. (many thanks to them) I tried to do it the lazy way and not remove the entire door card, e.g. just pop the clip, remove the three screws, pop the door card off and unscrew the armrests. Buuut, I couldn't. I wasn't able to get my long screwdriver in there (I don't have a short one) so I opted to unclip the door and lock cables and tilt the panel. From there it was fairly easy to unscrew the armrests and fiddle with the clips. I think they turned out nice, especially with the other padded elements in the car and the STI trim pieces:



The last piece was the Wheelhaus high mount brake light. After reading the directions, I found the install to be pretty straight forward, but after searching for days on how to go a lazier route with this I primarily followed the rear parcel shelf removal from another forum (thanks to GT86-Ian there). I was able to remove the shelf without removing the passenger or driver's side panels and shelf plastic, but when I threaded the wire from the light to the trunk I removed the largest driver's side C panel. In my research I also reviewed the excellent rear deck and third brake light removal from @Moshpit37. (hat tip to you sir, thanks!) I found Wheelhaus' brake light kit to have everything I needed in the exact length with explicit instructions, and I am very satisfied with the product:



The STI Engine Mounts, DW 300 pump, Whiteline positive traction kit, TRD door stabilizers and a new STI Engine Oil Filter also came in. More fun ahead...

[SPCorBUST]

Welp. Motor blew. Not sure what happened yet. The car is being towed to @Infamous Performance tomorrow for a full tear down and rebuild in addition to the other work that was planned.

Motor blew making a left hand turn from a stop in light-to-moderate acceleration.

[dj2020]

Ah man, so sorry to hear this. Have followed your build with great interest and emulated many of your power mods. Good luck with the tear down and rebuild. Please keep us posted!

[SPCorBUST]

Originally Posted by dj2020

Ah man, so sorry to hear this. Have followed your build with great interest and emulated many of your power mods. Good luck with the tear down and rebuild. Please keep us posted!

Thanks! This stock block lasted through a lot of abuse, so I think it did fine. If anything I now have the excuse to build the block.

Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk

[dj2020]

Perhaps we'll be seeing a c38 build in the near future!!

[tjohnson104]

what a bummer... secretly been reading your build. Saw you took off the sti flexible draw stiffeners. If you want to sell, id buy it!

[SPCorBUST]

Well, the car is now at Infamous Performance. A cursory exterior analysis at the shop says it was probably a rod.

I guess I'm going to need to re-center efforts around building a motor, and what it takes to support it. After all this, which I knew would probably happen sooner or later, my goals are reliability with high revs and high power.

I haven't done my due diligence around the parts and different manufacturers in depth yet, but I think I can accomplish that with:

- JR C38
- JR high boost pulley
- E85
- 12.5 CR pistons (Carrillo/JE/Wiseco/Manley)
- stronger connecting rods (Carrillo/JE/Pauter)
- new valves, springs, retainers (Ferrea/GSC/Kelford)
- stud kit (ARP)
- rod bolt kit (ARP)
- rod and main bearings (King)

This will be my first built motor experience.

[spicyricecake]

Sometimes I wish I had red stitching so I could buy all the tS interior parts...

[DSOmegaX]

Originally Posted by spicyricecake

Sometimes I wish I had red stitching so I could buy all the tS interior parts...

It's just the gauge cluster cover and the door armrests right? You can always commission those pieces to be custom upholstered in blue stitching. I would say take it one step further and do the blue leather on the armrest rather than the red.

[SPCorBUST]

Originally Posted by Infamous Performance

A bad day for an FA20 for sure. We should all bow our heads and observe a moment of silence. My sincere condolences for your loss.

Cylinder #1 rod broke at the top towards the piston. The rod then traveled around the block beating the snot out of both halves until the rod broke again. There is no "rod" left, just the bearing section free spinning on the crank. The piston traveled up into the combustion chamber shattering a valve (and more). The impact caused valve train components to attempt to leave the head through the valve cover.

Honestly, it does not look like a low RPM, low load event. But I was not there and almost anything is possible. When I drained the oil, coolant came out. When I drained the coolant, oil came out. I suspect (if it did happen at low RPM/load) that there was a preexisting head gasket or other coolant related issue causing excessive crank pressure contributing to the rod snapping.

I do not expect there to be much (if anything) re-usable. Fingers crossed there is no damage to the drivers side head and we can salvage that.

This failure is exactly why we have consistently refused to install/tune the high boost pulley (JRSC) on stock long blocks running e85 (C30 or C38). On ACN91 the fuel octane is too low for the boost level. On e85 the power level is beyond what the engine can handle.

Unfortunately, I see too many FA20's snapping OEM rods.

Thank you for the detailed report. I was definitely low load as I was making a left turn on a side street but had to wait for traffic to pass. Maybe it was from some earlier driving...?

Either way I'll give you a ring tomorrow. I have a bunch of parts from our original appointment that I neglected to bring by, and I would also like to talk build plans.