FatalElement's 2015 FR-S Project Thread

[LucidMomentum]

Originally Posted by fatalelement

Threw a Whiteline 18mm Heavy Duty adjustable rear sway bar on the other night to counteract the new stiffer front end in the 2015. I set it to the stiffest setting (Whiteline advertises this as over 200% as stiff) and wow, it is a lot easier to get the back end to come out. Super fun! Exactly what I wanted, install was a breeze. Will add pics.

This is good to know. My FR-S came with the TRD front sway bar on it, and now the back end really doesn't want to move unless I demand it does. I'll have to look into one for myself I think!

[fatalelement]

Threw on a front lip, I kept scraping and finally hit a grapefruit-sized rock the other day and decided I needed some paint protection. Not wanting to really shell out, I grabbed one from BaysonR, the same place that I got the rear diffuser from.

It's flexy urethane, which seemed super shitty fitment-wise, but once all the mounting hardware was in it was perfectly solid and flush with the bumper. Barely moves if you put some pressure on it even. Scratches are still visible on the bumper as you'll see in the photos but it's better than before and at least I won't get any more of those. The front lip was only $85... so it is really hard to have any sort of problems with this. Instead of one-week shipping, for $20 I went with the other choice, which ended up coming in less than 24 hours (I ordered this last night).

I'm pretty happy with the look and fitment and such, but I'm missing the total look so I'm probably gonna grab rear spats and side skirts from BaysonR. At some point I plan to really go for it bodykit wise, but until I have the money to shell out for Origin Labo or something, I'm gonna stick with this. Pretty ridiculous value.







You can still see the scratches if you lean under the edge of the bumper, but at least I won't have any more. That rock sure showed my bumper what.




The fitment around the edge - it wraps around the side and tapers off pretty cleanly. I'll add some other angles later - was strapped for time earlier.

[Re~Mix]

Originally Posted by fatalelement

Threw on a front lip, I kept scraping and finally hit a grapefruit-sized rock the other day and decided I needed some paint protection. Not wanting to really shell out, I grabbed one from BaysonR, the same place that I got the rear diffuser from.

How was the installment of this? Not a big lip or side skirt guy myself but I could see myself coming around for bumper protection.

[fatalelement]

Originally Posted by Re~Mix

How was the installment of this? Not a big lip or side skirt guy myself but I could see myself coming around for bumper protection.

Pretty easy. Put the big two pop rivets on, then press the lip up where it should be and started putting the screws in. I think it was eight total, but I'd have to double check. Then one screw and pop rivet each around the wheel well. I hit it with a hairdryer to make sure it molded to the body and wasn't like still a bit off, but it honestly wasn't necessary. Was flush and gapless and even across the whole bumper, just had to hold the lip where I wanted it when putting the screws in.

Took like 20 minutes including unpacking, jacking up the car, etc.

They have a couple styles, I think at least one was more subtle than this.

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[fatalelement]

Some more pics of the lip from different angles and then distance shots to show the effect it has on the profile.


The edge where it wraps to the wheel well.



An angle shot, you can see that it lowers the car at least another inch. I'm definitely more protected bumperwise but more prone... lol. At least it looks good!



A final, low-angle pic to show the new clearance. Forgive the giant bugs on my bumper, apparently even in Cali there's some big ones on the coastal highway.

[fatalelement]

Side skirts!


Only took a little bit, and a drill for the screws into the side skirts because they attach to metal, but a fairly painless install. Fitment is the same as the lip - super good especially considering the cost.

[FR-BLESS]

love this build!

i've been looking at the bayson front lip and side skirts, but for the love of groot i can't seem to find it on their website? could you post links pls?

[fatalelement]

Originally Posted by FR-BLESS

love this build!

i've been looking at the bayson front lip and side skirts, but for the love of groot i can't seem to find it on their website? could you post links pls?

Sorry I haven't been paying attention to my own thread! I'll do that as soon as I get home from this short trip.

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[fatalelement]

Not much since my sway bars (which I need pics of!), but I purchased an HKS Hi-Power exhaust that is sitting at a FedEx office that I'm picking up Monday morning! Super excited for a full catback from such a good company. Hopefully it's worth the money! I'll post pics and then a video of the startup and drive by etc when I have a chance this coming week/weekend.

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[fatalelement]

So, I finally broke down and went with the next mod step and got a catback. Being someone who is trying to save $$ but still wants something nice, I figured the HKS Hi-Power single exit was a good compromise, as it's about $600.

I ordered from Redline360, and they were awesome as usual. FedEx was crappy and came at a really weird time, then took over 24hrs to leave it at an office for pickup, so I had to go out of town before I could get it. I landed at 1am, and since I chose a 24/7 FedEx facility, picked it up at 1:30 and drove home.

Below is the whole pics and install thing, but I'll jump right to the review since that's more interesting for most people.

HKS Hi-Power Single Exit Racing Muffler
75mm piping, Helmholtz, straight-through muffler and a special HKS coating to reduce rust, etc. 96mm adjustable Ti tip, optional silencer (not included)

Looks are a big plus. The coating is consistent and clean, welds are tight, and the whole thing just looks fancy. Instructions were thorough and had torque specs, which was a big plus.

Install was pretty straightforward. Some clearance issues with a normal sized torque wrench as the M10 bolt heads are inset into the flanges, making it very hard to fit a wrench in some of the spaces. Hanger layout for the muffler is weird too, it's intentionally much closer together than the stock hangers so your hangers end up hanging like this: \ /

Idle noise is really fabulous. Coming from a Nameless 5" muffled track pipe, this sounds incredible. Startup noise is great too.

This exhaust has a pretty hefty amount of drone. It's pretty overpowering sometimes. Maybe I'm not a straight pipes no cats kind of guy, but this is several orders of magnitude louder than the Nameless from inside the car. It appears a majority of the noise I can hear is drone in the cabin. It's too much for me honestly when I'm over 5k. I avoid that now, which I do not like doing. I ordered a silencer from Evasive (purpose built for these mufflers) and I will see how that helps. HKS claims ~7dB reduction which, since dB is logarithmic, is a fairly large amount of reduction. I may also try sound deadening / another resonator in the front pipe.

On upshifts, there's a pleasant backfire, but it's usually hard to hear because any rev high enough to produce it drowns me in drone. Don't get me wrong - I'm happy with the exhaust but I do feel an obligation to note its (to me) low drivability. This is a racing muffler though, and I can't fault it for what it aims to do, which is flow maximum exhaust and provide a large enough pipe for a turbo car while being as lightweight and straight as possible.

To prove I'm not just being a baby about it - I do have sensitive hearing anyway, that's why this stuff bothers me - until you break about 6k starting from around 4k, you can't even hear the rev of the exhaust over the drone in the cabin. The drone doesn't change tone, it's a constant tone but becomes very, very loud until the revs can finally overpower it at the very tip of the rev range.

Anyway, all in all it's a good exhaust so far and I'm happy with it, I just need to explore some options for reducing its noise for daily driving and non-track use, which it of course is not primarily designed for.

EDIT: The silencer came, and christ almighty does it make a difference. A 30 second (including grabbing tools) job switches it in and out and it goes from 105dB @ idle according to HKS to a completely manageable but still throaty and loud noise. For the record, the stock is 55dB @ 5ft at idle, so using the logarithmic scale and the standard perceived loudness scales for dB, the HKS unsilenced was over 16 times louder than the stock exhaust. Stock @ 6000rpm is 98, which is still quieter than idling with the HKS. Silencer was a lifesaver. With the silencer as an option, I wholeheartedly recommend this exhaust to pretty much anyone wanting a louder than stock single exit catback, since it's powdercoated, from one of the more reputable Japanese tuning houses, and is a 3" turbo ready catback that weighs less than 30lbs for under $600.

PICS

As you can tell, it needed to be opened to fit in this tiny, tiny car. I stashed the pipes all over and drove home.



At home the next morning, unpacked and inspected!











Lifted the car up on stands! Couldn't get the front as high - I suspect because the front weighs much more at the jack point, the crappy AC Delco low profile jack gives out much sooner. Luckily, for a catback, not an issue.



Goodbye, crappy midpipe!



Second half of midpipe already in place, with gap for first with resonator.



Dear HKS: F*ck you for the worst clearance in the universe. This one isn't their fault, but it does get pretty bad from here on out. Bolt heads are short and inset into the flange, so it's hard to jam a torque wrench in there.











Here we are! Installed pics.

[SocalMonsta]

Did you ever go to SM toyota? if so, how was your experience?

Ive been there once for regular service and they overfilled my oil quite a bit. I now go to hollywood but its really a pain if all i need is new oil.

Im the other UCLA kid from the meet last night btw.

[fatalelement]

Originally Posted by SocalMonsta

Did you ever go to SM toyota? if so, how was your experience?

Ive been there once for regular service and they overfilled my oil quite a bit. I now go to hollywood but its really a pain if all i need is new oil.

Im the other UCLA kid from the meet last night btw.

I haven't - was about to go for one problem but fixed it myself. My oil didn't come too overfilled, but it was a tad high. The car had some dealer miles on it (under 50), so I don't know if they changed it just so everything was fresh for the sale. I do know one of their techs is a member on here - I can always look it up if you're interested. He welcomed me to contact him and set up a service when he'd be the one in.

I do my own oil changes decently frequently, like after track usage, but I'm beginning to think I should still do the dealer ones even if I replace it later. In the threads where people blow motors, if they missed a dealer oil change the dealer usually stonewalls them on warranty work unless they sue or something. Seems like I might as well spend the time if just to drive it home and swap it out for better/my preferred oil at the time.

[fatalelement]

Well, I emailed HKS asking if the drone was normal and if there was some simple way to fix it, and to boil down the 8 word response, "the word racing is in the title for a reason, sit and spin".

So, the silencer should arrive Friday and I'll see if I feel better about the general situation. Don't like not being able to pass 5k on the street, which unless I have my helmet on is sonically painful to experience for more than a few seconds.

At least for now, I'm a slightly slower driver since I shift under 3k... haha

[SocalMonsta]

Originally Posted by fatalelement

I haven't - was about to go for one problem but fixed it myself. My oil didn't come too overfilled, but it was a tad high. The car had some dealer miles on it (under 50), so I don't know if they changed it just so everything was fresh for the sale. I do know one of their techs is a member on here - I can always look it up if you're interested. He welcomed me to contact him and set up a service when he'd be the one in.

I do my own oil changes decently frequently, like after track usage, but I'm beginning to think I should still do the dealer ones even if I replace it later. In the threads where people blow motors, if they missed a dealer oil change the dealer usually stonewalls them on warranty work unless they sue or something. Seems like I might as well spend the time if just to drive it home and swap it out for better/my preferred oil at the time.

its definitely convenient for warranty to have service records and toyota records will be the easiest. if you do your own oil you should keep receipts so you can prove you at least bought oil.