Long Distance Kidnapping: Smudgeous' WRB 6MT BRZ Limited (Orlando, FL)

[Circuit Motorsports]

It was good seeing you out at the Suby meet last night! Car is looking good. here is the link to the meet thread i posted on here FYI. http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10798

[Kido1986]

Nice new wheels

[Smudgeous]

17x8 +35 TSW Nurburgrings in Bronze, wrapped with Kumho Ecsta LE Sport in 235/45R17 Y:

After getting the tires in from Tirerack 2 days after placing my order, I had to wait another week for the wheels to come in. Once they did, I kept missing the UPS guy (inaccurate time windows of when he'd be arriving at the house didn't help), until I finally called up UPS and had them contact the driver, who I was able to meet at the mall closest to my job while he was doing his mall deliveries.

After finally loading up my car with the wheels, I noticed it was late enough in the day where I had no time to drive home to drop them off before my work's summer bowling league started (and I wasn't about to miss it, since it was the last week, when everyone gets multiple pizzas and hot wings to end the season). It felt weird leaving the wheels in the car, but luckily the car's tint combined with the time of day made it pretty much impossible to notice unless you were pressing your face against the windows. Once home, I snapped a few pictures of what I was itching to have mounted:


The yesterday, I was able to get a coworker give me a hand getting everything over to the local tire shop for everything to be installed. I had them reuse my stock wheels' TPMS sensors, which they were able to remove without actually removing the stock tires from the stock wheels, which made it much easier to bring everything back home afterward.

Side view:


Width of the 235s from rear:


Width of the 235s on the front:


+35 offset on 17x8 from rear:


+35 offset on 17x8 from front:


For those who haven't tried fitting wheels+tires, it's quite easy:


View of packed wheels+tires from front seats:


View of everything about an hour later.. Really wish the camera could properly show how bright the bronze gets in the sun:


For those curious about the weights of these, they're rotary forged, and weigh in at 17.95lbs per wheel in the 17x8 size (compared to stock wheels at 20.1lbs). Tires are 23.4lbs each (compared to stock's 20.39lbs), for a total weight increase of 0.86lbs (this number pops up everywhere ) per corner for wider, better-gripping tires. It also appears that my speedometer is now more accurate than before, thanks to the larger tire diameter

[BRZranger]

These are the same rims I am looking at for my black BRZ, except in matte gray/black. I like that you got the 17, everyone else has been posting pics of the 18. Looks good.

I like my stock tires, I wonder if they would fit proper on the 17x8. Not sure if the rim would stick out too much?

[Smudgeous]

Originally Posted by brzranger

These are the same rims I am looking at for my black BRZ, except in matte gray/black. I like that you got the 17, everyone else has been posting pics of the 18. Looks good.

I like my stock tires, I wonder if they would fit proper on the 17x8. Not sure if the rim would stick out too much?

I debated trying this as well initially, but found my tires for $96 each with a $50 mail-in-rebate form for the wider, stickier rubber, so I decided to do both. They should fit these wheels, but I'd be extra careful every time I parked, as I think your chance of nicking the wheels would definitely be greater. If you do go that route, definitely post some pictures.. I'm interested to see how they look on the stock rubber

[BRZranger]

Did you get the TSW from Tirerack? I don't see them on there.

[Smudgeous]

Originally Posted by brzranger

Did you get the TSW from Tirerack? I don't see them on there.

No, I ordered them from IslandImportPerformance, who got me a better deal than I could find elsewhere online. They took about 8 days to arrive from when I ordered them.

[Smudgeous]

LED interior lighting and Perrin crank pulley:

After working the majority of this past weekend, I decided to take a little break on Sunday evening to install a couple parts that I had received but hadn't yet installed.

The Perrin crank pulley I'd actually had sitting for about a week and a half, as I hadn't had a breaker bar, torque wrench, or 1/2" socket set in general. I decided to fix this and swung on down to Harbor Freight, picking up a 1/2" drive torque wrench and 1/2" socket set that included a breaker bar, socket, and decent socket extender, all for around $50. Being that I've never needed a torque wrench up to this point, I figured going cheap on the parts I almost never use is currently worth it. If anything breaks down the line, I'll definitely be replacing it with something better, but until that happens, I have a little more beer money now.

Since this was the first mod I did in my engine bay, I made sure I was prepared for it, so I printed out Grimmspeed's DIY guides on Removing and replacing the intake, air filter, and and noise generator delete and Removing and replacing the accessory belt to get an idea of what I was doing. This, combined with the instructions Perrin sent, were enough for everything to go relatively smoothly.

My only issues during installation was that the breaker bar I used is only around a foot long, which didn't make it as easy to generate the ~150lbs of force it seemed to take to loosen the factory bolt, and I didn't wait long enough for the car to cool before installing the new pulley. I basically set the bar parallel to the ground and pulled on it from the left edge of the front bumper like I was trying to stop a train with its brake lever. As I was applying continuous, increasing pressure on the bar, once it gave way, my hands flew to the left side of the engine bay and drew blood from the pad of my right ring finger as it got pinched by something. I'm not sure if I should have been giving it short tugs of increasing pressure or just used a longer bar, but I'm certain this can be done without any boo-boos.

Once the factory bolt came off, I realized I had underestimated how long that bad boy stays hot. As I had driven home and only waited 5 minutes or so before getting started uninstalling the intake, both the crank bolt and pulley especially were QUITE hot. Since it was still quite hot outside as well, I decided not to make another run into the house to worry about finding some kind of rag and just endured the pain long enough for me to remove the pulley from the car and set it down in the cardboard box the Perrin pulley came in. After that was out of the way, everything went back together super easily. I had actually forgotten to snap pictures during the install, but was able to turn my phone upside down and sneak it inside the engine bay to snap a few pictures after everything was back together. Here's what it looks like now:



The LED lighting kit #2 that I had ordered from Automation Lighting was actually the first thing I installed, but since I had to wait until dark to take the pictures, I figured I'd mention it second.

Not having any instructions with me, it was easy enough to figure out which LED went to each area, and installing each was fairly painless, once I spent a moment taking a look at the way each LED fit into the housing. The hardest part of the installation was actually removing the plastic covers from the vehicle (particularly the lights at the bottom of the doors).

I'm quite pleased with these lights, as everything now has the strong blueish-white light to match the front HID/LED parking lights, instead of the OEM yellowish-white far duller lights that come standard. It does take a little while to get used to how bright the lights are when sitting in it, but now that I'm used to it, it's pretty awesome seeing how inviting the car looks as you reach your hand out to unlock the door. Even with the window tint on, it just looks well-lit and inviting, and everything is easy to see inside, regardless of time of day.

I'll definitely be upgrading the license plate and reverse lights in the near future as well, as everything else went so smoothly and came out quite nicely. The license plate lights in particular look rather funny right now, as they're significantly different looking from every other light, being the duller yellowish-white.

What I see when I walk up to the car and unlock the door now:


What greets me when I open the door:


The door lights:


The trunk light:

[Mishimoto]

Looks like your making great progress and enjoying the car!
Wheel and tire package looks good.

[Smudgeous]

Installed Eibach Pro-kit lowering springs, Whiteline camber bolts and Com-C strut tops today. First time working with any type of suspension on a car, and ran into pretty much every issue one could think of, short of having the right tools for the job (my front right strut was removed and replaced at least 3 times, haha).

I finally put everything back together after my 6-hour ordeal and the on my way to work, the car made groaning sounds over uneven terrain, telling me that I need to pull the front struts back off yet again. I need to fix the issue of not tightening the strut top nuts enough (the damned allen key insert in the top of the bolt needs to be kept still while tightening the bolt itself, otherwise it just spins and doesn't tighten enough).

[Smudgeous]

...and done. After having a buddy do what I did at the same time to help me finish things quicker, we realized we didn't have to take everything apart in order to tighten the strut nuts. Can't tell you how much I wish I could re-do today with my current knowledge. I'm fairly certain I could do the whole install in about 3 hours by myself after learning everything the hard way.

Pictures to follow when I'm caught up on work

[Smudgeous]

Alright, finally had a moment of free time (kind of..) to post a few pictures of yesterday's hard work, along with a little bonus from today..

As mentioned in my previous couple of posts, I was able to finally figure out what the hell I was doing with the suspension by the end of last night, and took a few pictures of the car post-drop. I basically followed Grimmspeed's Safely jacking and supporting and DarrenDriven's Lowering springs installation DIY guides for the actual installation of the springs, and installed the Whiteline parts while putting everything back together in the front.

During today's alignment, I was told the back is too cambered, and I need to install a camber kit. I did purchase Whiteline's Rear control arm upper inner bushings, but after the install dragged on as long as it did, and I didn't have overly detailed instructions on how to actually remove the rear control arms to get this part done, I decided to put it off until after my vacation (beginning tomorrow ).

As for some pics:

This is actually the WRB demo BRZ I snapped photos of back in March (I didn't take any pictures of my own engine bay in its virginal state)


My engine bay, post-lowering springs and Com-C strut tops (notice the silver color of the strut tops and the cap located further in to the center, for close to a degree of both negative camber and extra caster)


The car dropped:


Front wheel:


Rear wheel:




Additionally, I got a very small package in the mail today, that reminded me that it's not about the size... it's how you use it. I absolutely love how odd this looks to me. It's kind of like a good joke opener: "I was told I had to compensate for something..."

[Smudgeous]

So look what I just got in the mail last night





Going to pop it in during my lunch break and beautify up the engine compartment a bit

[Kido1986]

Bring it by the big Subaru meet at Rev Works Saturday at noon