Our 2022 BRZ Development Car

If you've been clicking around our website, you've probably seen our 2022 BRZ development car featured on some listings and other articles. This blog will dive deeper into the parts we have on our car that make it what it is, an awesome daily and a tough track car. 

How the Car is Used

Our BRZ development car is used as both a street and track car; driving around on the weekends to run errands, go on some nice social cruises and then at the track about once per month. The modifications that have been done to the car though are primarily focused for track performance. So now that you know how it’s used, let's dive into the details of the modifications done.

Modifications

Engine

The FA24 engine in our BRZ still remains stock with the only additions being:

• Our oil cooler kit
• Ansix Auto Pressure Sensor Kit
• Our GR Cup style intake tube

There has been no tuning done at this stage of the build. We run Motul 8100 Power 0W-20 as our oil of choice, having been recommended it by a few people in the local club who run their cars at sprints as well. Prior to the Motul oil, we were running Castrol Edge 0W-20. To find out more about the oil cooler, visit our dedicated blog on how we developed it.

Exhaust

On the exhaust side of things, we have swapped out the front-pipe and catback portions to an Invidia Catless front-pipe and an Invidia Q300 catback. Headers and overpipe have not been touched. If you are going to be running an underbody aero like our car, then it’s important to look at catbacks that will fit with your chosen parts. In our case, we previously had the Invidia R400 catback, however, due to the stacked muffler design, we could not fit the Verus rear diffuser. 

Wheels, Tyres and Suspension

You could probably write an entire novel on wheel and tyre combinations for the 86/BRZ platform. On our car we run the following:

• SSR GTX01 18x8.5 +55 in Flat black (15mm Spacers added on the front)
• Yokohama Advan AD09 Semi Slicks (245/40 R18)

SSR are a Japanese manufacturer of wheels based out of Osaka. In addition to their consumer wheels, they have also manufactured and supplied wheels for the Japanese SuperGT racing series. The GTX01 specifically are a street version of some of those wheels supplied to SuperGT teams. The flat black colour matches the matte black stock wheels we had previously. In the Australian market, Subaru brought out a limited run 10th anniversary addition (limited to 150 examples, with ours being #50) which among other changes, came with matte black wheels (normal models had grey wheels). 

We don’t need to say too much about the AD09 tyres as there is plenty of reviews online. We’ve run them on other cars and find they perform well on track whilst still being good on the street, especially in wet conditions. A set of AD09s usually cost us about $1,600AUD installed. Another tyre we see people running at the track are the Bridgestone RE71RS. These tyres do perform better on track (around a second faster) due to being softer but come at a more expensive price compared to the AD09s.

For suspension we are running a set of MCA Red coilovers. These sit at the top of MCA’s consumer suspension product line before you get to dedicated motorsports suspension. They have 12 clicks of damper adjustment as well as the usual sets of adjustment such as camber (only on the front) and ride height. To get more camber in the rear we purchased a set of adjustable rear lower control arms by KTS which came direct from Japan. We had a professional alignment done by someone who knows the BRZ/86 platform well. The alignment specs are the following:

• 0.5 degrees of toe out on the front
• 3.8 degrees of negative camber on the front
• 0.5 degrees of toe in on the rear
• 2 degrees of negative camber on the rear

Braking

Not something that should be overlooked on any build, especially for a track car. We are running our big brake kit which consists of the following parts:

• 4 Piston front and 2 piston rear calipers. 
• DBA 5000 Series two-piece front rotors (326mm diameter)
• DBA T3 4000 series rear rotors (316mm diameter)

Our kit replicates the Brembo optioned cars that Subaru and Toyota both produce for those who don’t have them, it’s all bolt on except for some trimming of the rear dust shield which is only required if you cannot be bothered to go through the extra effort of both sourcing and replacing the dust shield to the one of the Brembo car. 

For brake pads we run the following:

• Front (Street Use): DBA Street Series Brake pads - cheap, and do everything needed for city driving and some spirited mountain drives.
• Front (Track Use): Circo M119 - We came across these from other BRZs and 86s running them at the track. They've performed well and been very consistent, plus we are yet to overheat them on our brake setup.
• Rear: Project Mu - These are a good balance between street and track. We could opt for running different pads for track, but at this stage the extra effort in switching rear pads in addition to the fronts for track days is not worth the additional performance we may get. We will say that for one reason or another these pads do squeal a bit when coming to a stop on the street, but don't count them out because there are many reasons that it could be happening.

Aerodynamics

If it wasn’t obvious already from photos on our site, the car is running the classic trio for aerodynamics with a few extra bits sprinkled in.

Front

Starting up front is our chassis mounted quick release front splitter (available for sale soon). Constructed out of marine plywood it is waterproof, strong and easy to repair. To make the splitter effective we’ve bolted on a protype air dam so that air on top is pushed around the sides of the car instead of going straight through the splitter and under the car, reducing the effectiveness of the splitter. The air dam also increases the rigidity of the splitter. On the ends we’ve got our custom endplates 3d printed out of carbon fibre filled plastic as well as skid pucks underneath the splitter. Also up front is a set of front canards that have also been 3d printed. 

Rear

On the rear we have a replica STI style swan neck wing (cause the real carbon fibre one is $6,000). We acknowledge that this doesn’t produce a meaningful amount of downforce, but it does provide some stability to the rear end. For now, this is mostly for looks as the car looked a bit odd with the aggressive front aero, so the wing helps to balance it out a bit. In the future we are hoping to put on a more functional rear wing such as those produced by Verus or APR.

Underneath we have the well-known Verus rear diffuser and further in the underside we also have their tunnel covers. These are all design to smooth the airflow under the car and accelerate it out the rear, creating a low-pressure zone which sucks the car to the road.

On The Inside

Compared to the outside, the inside has barely been touched with only a few things done. We started with a fire extinguisher mount from Kap industries, so we have a solid place for our extinguisher that is required for some motorsport events. Following this, we installed our door pulls to give the car that Porsche vibe. Finally, a harness bar from Cusco and harness from RPM to secure the driver.

We hope that's given you some good insight into the parts we run on our car and our experience with them. We always changing up the car so will post updates as that happens. If you've got any questions drop us a message or email. Happy modding!