Mim's daily driver

[Mim]

Hi all,

Kinda late I know but figured I'd piece together a thread on my own build. Everyone has their own views on moding and it can be both entertaining and educational to see a persons journey, the motivation behind a change, the why and what effect it had.

A little background on my past cars and myself. I pretty much grew up around Holdens down here in Australia. My youth was filled with one V8 Holden or another through successive cars in the family and I even went through my learners and probationary licenses driving V8's. Things have very much changed since with restrictions for the younger drivers these days on power like no V8's or turbo's, but to be honest I never thought much of it when learning. I was used to the power and sound of a V8, its all I literally knew and got so used to it I never payed it much attention. My first car was a white 5.0L 1997 VT Commodore followed later by a 5.7L 2001 Monaro, some pics of which I managed to find!



I affectionately called it the flying Jaffa, which much like the confectionary, was more or less orange and black. It was a rare Flame color, which as you can see is kind of a mix or red and orange. Somewhere in between and a really lovely color to see in the flesh.



They were later exported to the US as the Pontiac GTO so some of you may have seen them on the road. They were an adaptation of the Holden VT sedan platform and based on the Calais luxury in specification. They initially came out in both a 5.7L Gen3 V8 and a supercharged V6 (3.8L if I recall correctly). I actually never test drove one prior to buying and so was very much a heart over mind purchase. These were a really big deal in Australia back then and recall many of a time when I used to cruise round and kids would run down the road pointing at the car and screaming Monaro to their parents. It was a dream car for many.



Mods were pretty light. I made reasonable money back then, but not enough to go overly nuts with moding. As you might notice it was a 4 speed auto. Mods included the stereo, a final drive ratio change to match the manual's one of the time, cat back zorst and a maf-less custom tune.

Did a total about 55,000km after 9 years and ended up selling to an enthusiast who already had one of the original ones (from a very long time ago). We still stay in touch actually. Turns out he does Holden meets and shows with her.

Fast forward a few years and now I'm the lucky owner of a new MY15 BRZ purchased in October 2014.



One of my very first pics. Was very much in love with the car back then, no less now. She currently looks much the same now as back then with no body kit or wing. I have pondered many times whether I should add a kit or personalise the exterior in some way, but have grown to love the clean simple aesthetic beauty of the car. My commute takes me into the city centre and I tend to see a lot of expensive euro's and occasional supercars. When looking at them I notice they don't have wings and body kits and simply let their core design speak for themselves. Much like them I simply keep her super clean and polished. I see my example aging well in the future.



A drop in filter was the first of many mods. The old filter on the bottom was only in there for a few months and look how dirty it got! The fins of the STI one look thinner, which would contribute to a less restrictive flow. Could I feel the difference? Not in a major way, but I admit the throttle did seem a fraction more sensitive and I did hear a slightly higher tone when accelerating, but its one of those little mods that add up to the sum of all parts so figured what the hey!



Next came a little bling via the STI push start button, lovely shift knob and a center console garnish to finish off the console.



The only real mod visible on the outside was some clear TOMS' brake lights. Sorry I am one of those that thinks the stock ones are just teribad. Purely my own opinion, its something that annoyed me so I fixed it! Install was pretty easy and required swapping the blinker control module, which came with the kit and all up took about 40min. Love the clean look of having no wing and how the character lines flow down the rear quarter and around the boot.



About 3 months into the ownership experience I did my first major mod in ordering a Cusco 4.556 FD ratio from CMA (Car Mods Australia). I also purchased an aluminum drive shaft and got the lot installed together. Being essentially an OEM Toyota part and apparently a dealer tick option for Japanese cars, I felt the risks were minimal in doing this mod while still under factory warranty.

I had a recommended work shop fit it all for me in Sydney's seven hills area. I recall them being called Award Diff and Transmissions. Great people who very nicely didn't charge for the shaft install seeing as it was really just an extra set of bolts really to remove the old and swap in the new.

Break in was fairly straight forward. To avoid going the same steady speeds like freeways and vary up and down as much as possible. Stop start traffic being essentially ideal. Also to avoid any heavy launching and to not exceed 80kph. All this for the first 1000km then I was free to go batshit crazy.

For those interested this is the Oil I was told needs to go in when being flushed.



I bought a 4L pack like this and handed it to my dealer to use on my last service. It came back minus 3L or so I hope they actually used it!

From a performance perspective the change was pretty dramatic. Everything in the drivetrain simply tightened up and I could properly drive via the throttle in sports mode ie engine breaking more noticeably when lifting off the gas. Throttle response also improved and each gear became around 11% faster.

The only negative is that each gear now ran about 300rpm higher at the same given road speed, but this was an improvement to me as I could now use a higher gear in the speed zones I commute. Post change at 60kph the car sat on 2300rpm in 4th (AT) and eagerly accelerates from there without the need to drop a gear. Second gear is pretty addictive.

Only other thing is I hear is an occasional thunk from the rear as I shift into reverse. I assume being one piece (old was 2 piece) the new shaft lost some of the give that the knuckle in the center would of had to help counteract this. No biggie though and all gears sound no different from stock so win!



Next came bracing in the form of some TRD door stabilizers and this STI strut brace. I must say the strut brace really settled the front end down. The car instantly rode better and felt a little firmer. Road bumps would not crash through as badly as prior and the front simply became more planted. As for the TRD door stabilizers, the old body side latches were a pain in the ass to remove and required an impact screwdriver to get them out due to the screws being installed (at factory) with blue lock tight.

From a handling perspective the car feels more stable when turning / cornering. There's also a more solid thunk when closing the doors and lastly it cleans up the unfinished looking lock area. Sorry forgot to take a pic. Might add one later.



Around the time of the STI push start and shifter I did a full stereo rip out and replace. Involving the head unit, 4 channel amp, all speakers and a reversing camera. I ended up going with an Apple Carplay capable unit from Pioneer. The CarPlay function requires you to plug the phone in to a cable in the glove box. Its a nice to have future proofing option, but to honest I really don't use CarPlay. On the flip side the head unit is amazingly responsive and feature rich so no regrets there.



One of the ditsy little 3" rear wall speakers. I had them replaced by a set of JL Audio 5.25" units in a similar, but custom aluminum bracket.



How tiny the JL Audio four channel amp was when originally installed in the boot. I had it installed on the left in the opposite corner to the driver for some placebo notion of weight distribution.



Life was good on the audio front for some time till about a year and a half in I got an itch for more bass. Luckily buy then, Pioneer had come to the party with this amazing little thing being a 85cm x 35cm x 9cm dual 16cm powered sub unit. Yep you read that right, it only comes into the boot 9cm.

The whole thing weighs around 6kg ,which appealed to my notion of keeping weight down, note I did not go for any sound deadening. It actually sounds pretty amazing. Not rattle your teeth and shatter your wafer thin rear windshield amazing, but enough for a rich amount of bass and apart from a little extra weight over your driving wheels, not of much detriment to the car.

You will notice the amp has been moved. Its now living under the passenger seat, again feeding my likely placebo notion of weight distribution. Interestingly the audio installer was at first skeptical at the Pioneer sub fitting into the boot, and tried test fitting one of those Kicker under seat sub units, but there was just not enough clearance under the seat to make it work.



This brings me neatly to my next and latest mod being a set of Tein Flex-Z's and EDFC Active Pro + GPS.



The install and calibration work was done by Tunehouse in Sydney. I had then install some custom metal brackets to protect the rear EDFC motors from damage by lose objects flying round in the boot. This is all that's visible. Might try lifting it all to help provide a better idea of what their solution looked like. Another picture showing just how little boot space that funky sub takes up.



Placement of the controller inside. They drilled a hole for the cable into the side silver bracket rather than the center console. Yes you will notice it does obscure the climate control display, but only half of it from the seated angle I normally look at it from. The eagle eyed among you will also notice I have them set to manual mode with dampers set to 5 all round. I'm yet to take the time to re-program the shift points for EDFC's active dampers. Will get there eventually!



A little side shot. I had the ride only lowered 10mm. Front camber was set to -1.0deg. Wheel gap was closed just enough make it all look clean and symmetrical. I don't actually mind wheel gap, but at least it now looks like Ferrari gap vs Tonka truck.

Impressions on the suspension? At 5 all round it feels very similar to a stock MY15 only firmer. The steering feels heavier, possibly down to the camber, but also likely down to the overall feel that the tires are now in better contact with the road. Speaking of better contact and noting I'm still on stock tires, it feels like traction has improved by a good margin. Not too sure if I can call the amount as a percentage, but I can certainly get on the gas sooner and get more ham-fisted with the gas pedal without upsetting the car, which apart from the 4.556 FD is more or less stock in the power department. Makes me think I really don't want to go stickier with tires, at least not on stock power anyway.

The ride has improved a good amount. Everything feels more relaxed in an odd way. Much of the harshness from road irregularities has been dialed or smoothed out and I can feel a new level of feed back coming through my butt and wheel.

Will be interesting to see what impact if any the change might have on my car's fuel efficiency. Its not exactly brilliant with me living in sports mode all the time, but at least I have a reasonable baseline from all the past fill-ups. See my Fuelly profile in sig at the end for a break down if interested.

So after reading my choice in mods, you will notice I'm kind of more about function over form. The car is mostly a sleeper with enough ride height to handle all the occasionally shity roads I see, speed humps and driveway's. The car's pretty clean and doesn't really attract much of the wrong kind of attention.

I've focused more on mods that change or round out some of the key character traits of the car being handling and feedback.

Where will I go from here? Next cab off the rank will be to round out the bracing with a set of STI V-braces and STI draw brace along with a set of Crawford power blocks to help move the power band down lower, which will compliment the 4.556 FD ratio, and close the torque dip a little.

Once out of warranty, about 11 months from now, a set of ACE ceramic coated EL headers and a custom tune.

Then once the tires finally run out in about two years time, note I only do about 7000km a year, I'll hopefully splurge on some nice 17x7.5"+48 forged BBS wheels and 225 tires.

[yourboyvic]

Details on the fd are hugely appreciated. With your fd so 'high' are you going to stay Na? If you go fi are you going to change fd again? Thoughts on fd for Na versus fi?

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[nikp]

What shop installed your amp and sub?

[Mim]

Originally Posted by nikp

What shop installed your amp and sub?

My local JB-Hifi in Moore Park actually. They got a mobile installer that comes in and does great work.

[Mim]

Originally Posted by yourboyvic

Details on the fd are hugely appreciated. With your fd so 'high' are you going to stay Na? If you go fi are you going to change fd again? Thoughts on fd for Na versus fi?

Subbed


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Really sorry I missed your query. I have since added the STI V-brace, which had a slight improvement on ride and am next looking to try out the STI Draw stiffener as I hear it will further improve ride and turn in when cornering. It combo's with the STI strut brace and all three work together to improve ride and handling so hopefully it will be a step forward!

I always had planned to stay NA to be honest so looked to mods that would both improve ride and to expand on the handling to just transform the car into a relaxing, but engaging daily driver.

Its all come together really nicely so far. The FD and drive shaft combo improved response and gives it a great boost in acceleration off the line. If I keep my foot planted it will chirp the tyres shifting to second now and then. The suspension and bracing settled things down to the point where it feels like I fitted gripper tiers, though I am still on the stock wheel and tire combo. This makes me want to stick with the stock tyres.

Driving in sports mode I rarely see the TC trigger compared to the same situations as when I first bought the car. The rear will slide a little when smooth with the inputs, which just makes it all a joy to drive.

As to my future plans in the N/A space.

I'll be out of warranty later this year so am thinking of Crawford power blocks and move the power band down a few hundred RPM to improve low end response, grab the new MT red manifold and have it installed and all custom tuned on the AT (have not seen anyone try that yet).

After that it will be some ACE headers for even more torque and power along with a nice set of http://bbs-japan.co.jp/en/products/1160/. Might consider stickier tyres once my first set wear out, but will stay with 215's if I do.

[alan.chalkley]

The stock tyres last a long time.
Mine have done 4yrs and 19000kms of city/country/dirt roads and have hardly any wear.
It might be a long time before new tyres.

[Mim]

Originally Posted by alan.chalkley

The stock tyres last a long time.
Mine have done 4yrs and 19000kms of city/country/dirt roads and have hardly any wear.
It might be a long time before new tyres.

Same. I'm just past 19,000km / 2.5 year mark and I have a feeling they will comfortably see me out to the 6 year mark. If staying N/A and mostly daily driving, the stock tyres are actually pretty good. I find them a little sensitive to tyre pressure though. Something to stay on top of each fill up in my case.

[Mim]

Figured it's time to pop up a fresh engine bay pic with the extra little bits of bling I've since added. Here you will see the Tein Flex Z's, Tein EDFC motors. Some STI bracing with the strut / v braces and a sprinkling of cosmetic bling with oil / radiator caps and battery tie down.

I think it will look pretty neat with the red MY17 intake on top once I get round to it.

[alan.chalkley]

Originally Posted by Mim

Same. I'm just past 19,000km / 2.5 year mark and I have a feeling they will comfortably see me out to the 6 year mark. If staying N/A and mostly daily driving, the stock tyres are actually pretty good. I find them a little sensitive to tyre pressure though. Something to stay on top of each fill up in my case.

Yes , i maintain 40psi all round , although a bit skittish over bumps , anything less and the handling is sloppy and ground clearance is a problem.

[Mim]

Originally Posted by alan.chalkley

Yes , i maintain 40psi all round , although a bit skittish over bumps , anything less and the handling is sloppy and ground clearance is a problem.

O_o I've maintained 35psi as per the guide on the drivers side door sticker. I imagine handling in the wet might be a bit on the hairy side with 40?

[alan.chalkley]

Originally Posted by Mim

O_o I've maintained 35psi as per the guide on the drivers side door sticker. I imagine handling in the wet might be a bit on the hairy side with 40?

Check the tyre walls for the real pressure range.Driving with "nanny" on in the rain i can't notice any difference between 35 and 40psi.

[nikp]

Do you know the exact model of the amp that fitted under your passenger seat? Looking to do the same thing on my brz.

[Mim]

Originally Posted by nikp

Do you know the exact model of the amp that fitted under your passenger seat? Looking to do the same thing on my brz.

It's the small JL Audio amp you can see fitted in the boot from an earlier post. Not sure of the model sorry, but its a 4 channel unit and is so cleanly installed and compact that you can't see it regardless of how far forward or back you put the seat.

[Mim]

As readers will notice, I'm a bit of a glacial poster when it comes to my build.

First cab off the rank would be a fresh post of my engine bay with where it's at now.



Latest round of changes include raising the suspension seeing as it had settled since install. This was causing some heartburn with scraping something unacceptable for my daily driver. It now sits around 1" lower than stock rather than 2" or so. A fresh wheel alignment was done and its now sitting at neg 2 degrees camber all round.

I had the wiring fixed and tidied up for my front Tein EDFC motors. Somehow both wires had come undone leaving my rears auto adjusting and my fronts stuck in one mode. Car drove fine, but lost some of its ride quality until fixed.

For new mods I swapped the STI drop in filter with a fresh one, had the STI Draw Stiffener and Crawford Power Blocks fitted. This rounded out and completed all the bracing I wanted being the STI draw stiffener, STI strut and STI V braces along with the TRD door stabilisers.

For those interested in these things I got the shop to do a before and after power run, just to see if there was any real change in fitting the power blocks without doing any engine tuning.



Seeing as I have only had the car back for a few days, I will need some more seat time to get a better feel for what has changed. My initial impressions are the ride has improved to the point that the car feels more like a GT cruiser. Very pliant with only minimal bumps being felt.

As for the power blocks, I find driving the car (in sports mode) to be shifting gears more smoothly (when using the paddles). Its also more content to stay in the same gear and not change down as soon as prior to the blocks.

Oddly the ride and smoothness in shifting feels so serene that the car feels to have slowed down. I was actually wondering whether my FD ratio had been swapped out from my Cusco 4.556 back to the 4.1 stock! Some studying of my speedo negated that when I realised the car was accelerating just as fast (if not faster) than prior. I'm waiting for a few tanks of fuel to cycle through and see if the ECU does some further calibrating prior to passing final judgment. If nothing else, the engine has gotten a little more vocal and growls more now. Actually quite addicting.

I want to throw a slow golf clap out to my friends at http://www.tunehouse.com.au/ for looking after me for my second visit now. Both occasions were hassle free and enjoyable. Their work is of the highest calibre and so its not hard to see why they have been in business for so long.