The OTHER Stranoparts STX FR-S - build thread

[apexaddict]

Hi, I'm Andrew, and this is my build thread - there are many like it, but this one is mine.

I am going to be building my personal FR-S for national STX competition this year (and surely following years assuming the car stays in STX), and I will be doing it with a lot of help and advice from Sam Strano - owner of Stranoparts, multi-time National Champion, and all-around nice guy. By "multi-time" National Champion, I mean no less than seven class championships across FS and ESP, six ESP ProSolo championships, and another ProSolo overall championship. And that's not counting the countless other drivers he's coached to their own jackets. He knows his stuff, and he certainly has the credentials to back it up.

A little bit about me: I've been autocrossing for about seven or eight years now. I've been to Nationals three times, winning the STU National Championship and Rookie of the Year in 2010 in an Evo 8, then trophying twice in an F-Prepared Evo 9 in 2011 and 2012. I've driven and owned all manners of different cars - mostly Evos, but I have also done okay in RWD momentum cars like RX8s and Miatas.

There are three main goals that I hope to accomplish with this car, and they are as follows (in no particular order of importance):

- Autocross competitiveness without excessive compromise of daily drivability
The ST* category had the original intent of being a place to play for people with ordinary street cars and street tires. While the category has evolved into something that has gone far beyond that, I think the spread of information across the internet has set the precedence that the only good ST* cars are the ones that are completely unstreetable and are better off trailered. I don't think this is necessary. In fact, I'm faily confident there is an acceptable middle ground that has yet to be fully explored.

Therefore, crazy spring rates and bar rates are out, as are one-piece bucket seats, solid suspension pieces, and extreme alignments. My FRS is my only car, I drive it to events, and I have a daily commute that is roughly 50-60 miles round-trip - it's very important that those types of things stay off the car as much as possible. Note, however, that those parts also fit under the key term of "excessive". It's a given that coilovers and modern street tires are going to be noisy or less comfortable than stock in their own right, but those are things too valuable to sacrifice from a competitive standpoint. The point here is to find the happiest medium.

- Cost-effectiveness
I've been down the "money build" road a couple of times before, and I don't want to do that here. I've owned no less than two STU Evos that have had Moton or AST shocks, one-of-one sets of ultra-light 17x9 SSRs, or fancy custom sway bars made for them. I'm all for shiny cool things, but I've done that already and I personally think it was a colossal waste of money. I think there's a lot more value in a handful of well-selected, bang-for-the-buck parts than just throwing money at the car for every little detail and hoping it will go faster.

So, the challenge here is going to be keeping the cost down as much as possible. I want to stress that I don't mean doing it as CHEAPLY as possible, because that would be assuming that I'm using crummy eBay knockoff parts or cutting corners - that's not the goal here. Much like with maintaining drivability, the point is to instead focus heavily around finding the right parts mix.

- Fully utilize Stranoparts resources
Putting this car together is more or less a team effort between myself and Sam. Sam has years of experience and vast amounts of setup knowledge that I don't particularly have, and so far he has been more than willing to share it with me. I consider myself very lucky to be able to call Sam a friend, so in return, I want to be able to use the results of the project to help promote his business - there won't be a single nut or bolt on the car that can't be had from Sam (with the possible exception of an ECU tune). He has access to many quality parts, and he will be honest about whether he feels said parts are necessary, or how to best use them. In other words, he'll sell you what you want, but not before he tells you what you need.

So to kick off the thread, here's what I have so far:

- used KW V3s (thanks Tom!)
I picked these up used to save a few bucks, but they came from Sam originally. They are completely off-the-shelf, but we may play with the springs a bit in the future depending on necessity. Personally, I like the balance and compliance of OTS KW V3s on these cars, and I don't think they hold the car back at all at an STX prep level. Some may argue that they are too soft, and I think this is where the slippery slope can begin. I used to be all about throwing tons of spring at a car because it felt great on course, but I have always ended up being faster on a soft-ish setup (much to my surprise/dismay). It's easier on the road, works on more surfaces, and usually makes the car feel more confident - and I feel that an easy-to-drive car is usually a fast car.

Top mounts are Whiteline Com-Cs - I think these are a pretty brilliant idea, actually. Mostly rubber like the factory mounts, but with additional camber and caster built into them. I don't see camber angles greater than -3.0 being necessary, and the Com-Cs + the KWs' eccentric bolts should be able to get there easily.

- Stranoparts 22mm front sway bar
This is Sam's specialized bar, that is not only a decent bit stiffer, but due to its hollow construction, is also lighter than stock. It's not adjustable, but neither are most of the front bars for the FT86 to begin with. Whiteline and Eibach (for example) make bars that they SAY are adjustable, but frankly, I don't see there being that much adjustment between the settings on the bar. They simply don't change the length of the arms very much in each hole, since the design of the front bar and the front suspension doesn't leave too much room to do it.

Regardless, Sam provides a great solution as his bar adds a decent amount of roll stiffness without going overboard, while also losing some weight. No fancy colors or hardware here, either; it's a plain black bar with some bushings in a box - a very no-frills, purpose-oriented piece. This is all in the interest of keeping the price reasonable, as the bar is $169 from Stranoparts currently.

- Whiteline rear subframe collars and transmission bushing
We believe that the squishy compliance of the stock rear subframe bushings introduces some unnecessary "elasticity" to the rear suspension. The theory is that in a transition-heavy situation - for instance, a slalom - the rear subframe will continually build and release its momentum as the car changes direction, creating a pendulum-like effect the deeper you go. We're hoping the Whiteline collars can help to alleviate some of this.

The transmission bushing is just a what-the-hell part more than anything - we'll already be under the car swapping suspension and installing the subframe collars, so I guess it doesn't hurt to install this $30 bushing while we're down there.

- 17x9 +45 Enkei RPF1 w/ 245/40/17 Hankook RS3
First of all, you are reading correctly - no ZIIs or Rivals here. Not yet, anyway. I strongly considered starting the season on ZIIs, but so far, the testing evidence I've seen doesn't show the ZII as being significantly stronger than the Z1. Or in some cases, no faster at all. The common complaint appears to be a narrower slip angle and a more skittish feeling than the Z1, making them much harder to drive at the limit, particularly in the case of stiffer ST* cars. At this point, my assumption is that a softer, more forgiving RT car has more to gain on ZIIs, and may not be particularly well-suited to ST*.

I'm not sure I buy all the hype that surrounds the Rival, either. I have a lot of skepticism regarding the tire "test" that was done a couple of weeks ago, and neither myself nor Sam are convinced that it's as much of a game-changer as it's being advertised to be. BFG didn't even bother to set up timers for the autocross tests - I imagine that if they were totally confident that it would be the dominant tire, they would have appealed to the most important part of racing competitively: the clock. This leaves the only anecdotal data point on these tires to be the laps Andy Hollis did with the Rivals and ZIIs on an MX5 Cup car, which had shown the Rivals to be a second faster than the ZIIs on a 2:08 lap. The Rivals are also reported to be very forgiving and easy to drive fast, like the Kumho V710 of yore.

That said, I'm not counting either tire out completely at the moment, as a lot of what I just said is conjecture - the main thing really limiting me from doing any of my own testing is the lack of current availability in 245/40/17. Therefore, I am choosing to start the season on a known quantity - the RS3. I know what they are capable of and how to set them up, and it will be beneficial to have them to establish a baseline.

Regarding the size, I really do think 245/40/17 is the right way to go. These cars have little torque, so any gearing change at the wheels is going to turn the car into a dog out of a tight corner. With a raised limiter, the car should still be able to do just about 61-62mph, which is fine for now.

I will come back and update this thread with more pictures and updates as things progress. The car is still stock right now and will officially become an STX car in a couple of weeks. First event will be at the end of March.

[Amadeus]

Subscribed

[Scooby South]

Welcome "officially" to the party..

Bill

[enigma]

Subscribed. I'm about as seasoned of an autocrosser as you, but minus all that talent. :p Never spent a ton of $$ on it and never put forth the effort to really race on a national level, but I still enjoy the fun of it on occasion.

Was definitely planning on doing some STX running this season once I have more $$ to get the car exactly how I want it. Until then, it's all about seat time in the new car.

[GTB/ZR-1]

Great post--full of meat & potatoes.

[Aznsky]

I think I heard about you from a local friend of mine (Kenneth) who races an rx-8 in STX. Glad to see you seem like a really friendly guy and look forward to hearing about your progress

Will you be at the upcoming Wilmington Match tour? If so I'll try to introduce myself and say hi.

[iLuveKetchup]

*Subscribed

[neurokinetik]

Well, this makes three of us then, lol!

My goals for what I want out of the car (as well as the components of the build so far) are pretty much the same as yours, though I don't see myself doing any more national events until my local regions get a national-level site back.

[BlaineWasHere]

I'm doing the same STX/daily idea but my commute is 100 miles a day! I've already got 20K on the car.

I'm pretty excited about all these new tires! I've been giving Hankook a lot of my money lately.

[blkwrxwag]

I agree with you on the 245/255 theory - if you look at STR, a lot of the MX5s switched to the 245 in 2012. I felt the handling was sharper and GRM did some test do back up that theory on the clock.

Jury is out for me on the Z2, but I'm certainly not blown away by my set yet. We're making some setup changes to the car and we'll see how it goes as they get some more heat cycles on them.

-Max.

[Areddi]

Subscribed!

I am pretty much in the same boat as you, daily driver being important, probably a bit less on the competitive side. It sounds like you are someone who gets it for weekend racers in the real world, which we all are!

[apexaddict]

Originally Posted by Aznsky

I think I heard about you from a local friend of mine (Kenneth) who races an rx-8 in STX. Glad to see you seem like a really friendly guy and look forward to hearing about your progress

Will you be at the upcoming Wilmington Match tour? If so I'll try to introduce myself and say hi.

Yep, I know Kenneth. I'll be at the Wilmington Tour, so stop by and say hello!

Originally Posted by blkwrxwag

I agree with you on the 245/255 theory - if you look at STR, a lot of the MX5s switched to the 245 in 2012. I felt the handling was sharper and GRM did some test do back up that theory on the clock.

Jury is out for me on the Z2, but I'm certainly not blown away by my set yet. We're making some setup changes to the car and we'll see how it goes as they get some more heat cycles on them.

-Max.

I noticed the same things when I ran my MX5 in 2011... while the handling differences were nice, I really experimented with it because of gearing, once I started noticing the CS MSRs were picking 225/40/17 over 245/40/17s. I figured getting the gearing right on a 5-speed was important, since they do, what, 70mph in 2nd on 255s with a stock limiter?

I debated 235s, too, but didn't have the car long enough to try that.

[Sccabrz192]

Brad had the same philosophy with his 05 WRX that we used to run in 07-08 together. It was his only mode of transportation, so it had to function both duties. I think the big negative to this type of setup is (particularly in a WRX) the more street-friendly setup will tend to understeer a lot more than a no-compromises car when provoked, so you have to be extra careful not to overdrive the car, but if you can get it right, there is no reason you cant be AT LEAST competitive for trophies, or podiums.

I'm VERY intrigued to find out how the balance of the car turns out in STX form considering it is much more netural in stock form than the WRXs. :happy0180:

[race2win]

Fantastic write-up Andrew!! Subscribed for sure, looking forward to sharing set-up ideas & results with you & Sam as the season progesses.

I totally agree the 245 idea may prove to be the right choice for these cars, we will be starting out on 255s (ZII's) since that is just about the same tire/weight ratio the Miatas have in STR. My main concern is the gearing hit as you mentioned, hopefully the power gains from a good header & tune will wake up the mid-range enough to overcome the extra tire diameter.

Can't wait to meet you & the rest of the STX BRZ/FRS contingent this year, are you going to make it out west for either the San Diego Tour or El Toro Pro?