Lauren's GT86 100K miles and onwards

[Lauren 2259]

26 minutes ago, Tareim said:

as you've replaced the manifold does this mean you are fully decatted now or have you put a cat back in the front pipe?

I haven't got any now. This is why I went for a resonated cat back. 

[surrey86 352]

Good feedback on the Superpro polybush kit! Sounds like not many have had it done yet if there was a fitment issue. 

[Cerastes 204]

Nice write up. 

Decent gains on dyno. Did you have the TD EL before though? So just a change on the catback? 

One thing I would like to know on my car, the sort of power it's making. Although I suspect a lot less than most on here. 

Wish I was closer to the TD guys. 

[Stutopia 158]

Great selection of gifts for your birthday and the 100k milestone, thanks for the reviews too.

[Lauren 2259]

6 hours ago, Cerastes said:

Nice write up. 

Decent gains on dyno. Did you have the TD EL before though? So just a change on the catback? 

One thing I would like to know on my car, the sort of power it's making. Although I suspect a lot less than most on here. 

Wish I was closer to the TD guys. 

No, the TD EL manifold was new, I didn't have it before. Always interesting to see what you make. Stock seems to generally vary between 185-195bhp as a guide on this rolling road. 

[Adam9 37]

Thanks for the write up, those LCAs really are beautiful.

How does the resonated TD system/manifold sound compared to the old miltek?

[Guest]

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[Mike 458]

12 hours ago, Lauren said:

I usually drive in Sport mode but noticed that the stability control seemed to be cutting in more. I now realise this was the new rear tyres of course. But in all honesty I'm bored of it's interfering nannying nature so I just decided to turn it off all the time now, no more getting in the way, no more spoiling my fun!

How long do you think it'll take to wear the advans in? I've got 4 to wear in before Angers

[Lauren 2259]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

How long do you think it'll take to wear the advans in? I've got 4 to wear in before Angers

Took me a couple of days of driving probably a 100 miles for them to grip up properly. 

[Lauren 2259]

4 hours ago, Adam9 said:

Thanks for the write up, those LCAs really are beautiful.

How does the resonated TD system/manifold sound compared to the old miltek?

It sounds quite different. Not as bassy as the Milltek much more throaty. I'm getting used to it. Mark commented that he thought it sounded pretty good. It definitely sounds better at the top end.

[alucardo 55]

I have the same setup with one cat. At Donnington few people on the wall on the straight did mention it sounded good as I went past . I do like the throaty hard charging noise around 3.5- 4.5k revs now..

[Cerastes 204]

8 hours ago, Lauren said:

No, the TD EL manifold was new, I didn't have it before. Always interesting to see what you make. Stock seems to generally vary between 185-195bhp as a guide on this rolling road. 

I kind of wished I had a dyno before putting stuff on just to see what it was before. I guess at the time I wasn't fussed about the power; I'm still not but just would have been nice to know I guess. 

[Tareim 343]

18 hours ago, Lauren said:

I haven't got any now. This is why I went for a resonated cat back. 

good luck with the mot now then 

[Lauren 2259]

57 minutes ago, Tareim said:

good luck with the mot now then 

I'll probably end up sticking on a high flow cat at some point. 

[KevinA 695]

2 hours ago, Lauren said:

I'll probably end up sticking on a high flow cat at some point. 

That's what I did, better than nothing :-)

[Stutopia 158]

The Berk HFCs on my 350z were great for gains and rasp, but in terms of any help at MOT... Let's just say I'm glad my guy is friendly.

[Lauren 2259]

22 hours ago, KevinA said:

That's what I did, better than nothing :-)

That was my thinking, Kev. I feel guilty about it more than anything! 

What one did you put on? 

[KevinA 695]

I got the Berk front pipe with sport cat, I think there is better now but I feel I'm doing my bit. 

[MikeB 79]

33 minutes ago, KevinA said:

I got the Berk front pipe with sport cat, I think there is better now but I feel I'm doing my bit. 

Did you have to have it remapped again?

[KevinA 695]

It was all fitted before final map.

[Kodename47 446]

3 hours ago, MikeB said:

Did you have to have it remapped again?

Won't make much difference to need it.

[MikeB 79]

7 hours ago, KevinA said:

It was all fitted before final map.

Thanks Kev, I still have original system and can fit mid pipe with cat when required

[Lauren 2259]

It's been a few months since the last update, but my latest addition to my car is a set of AP Racing 4 Pot calipers with 330mm grooved discs. How this came about was in part due to a recent track day I did at Oulton Park. Whilst attempting the 'Island bend 100mph challenge', it became brutally apparent that stopping in time for Shell Oils Hairpin was a growing concern. I've been running stock brakes with Project Mu HC800 pads. These are actually pretty good, having a really nice level of feel to them, but I was murdering them on track. Now,  I'm not the last of the late brakers, but I really like to trail brake which requires a consistent and good feel from the brakes and they do actually need to work. I was finding that after two or three laps they were really struggling and well, not sounding that good. All said and done I felt I was going over the limit for what was achievable with a stock setup. 

I admit there was  big part of me thinking just how good the car would be if I had brakes that could take a bit more heat and provide a greater level of consistency whilst on the track. I'd also noted when sprinting that I felt like I was just killing the brakes. Whilst it's only one flyer of a lap, you tend to brake later to try and save a few hundredths of a second absolutely anywhere you can. 

So, I went away and had a think about it. The only thing really that was putting me off, was the price. They seemed to come out at £2K+ which is a lot of money. I thought about the cheaper alternatives, like K-Sport with their seemingly over engineered 8 pot setup. Willwood also do a 4 Pot setup for around £1K. But again whilst I've heard nothing bad about Willwood, racing teams don't tend to use them. I didn't consider shite like D2 and all that, but still I was put off by K-Sport being a sub-premium brand and well it came down to the AP's and Brembos but they were even more expensive. It was only after posing the question to the forum that got the link to Reyland Motors who did an AP 4 pot setup with their supplied discs. This brought the price down to a far more appealing £1500. Still a lot of money and yes it is. But my thinking with my car is that I'm careful about how I modify it and when I do it, I only want to do it once. I don't want to mess around endlessly swopping parts and inevitably wasting money in the process. I admit, though, I'm quite good at talking myself into stuff. 

There were a few options on the Reyland site, see; http://www.reyland.co.uk/subaru-impreza/ what with for another £250 you can have AP discs to really go for it, or for £150 you can having floating discs which expand more freely than a fixed disc to the bell. But having considered my usage, I felt that it was key to get the AP 4 pots and well I can always upgrade to a floating disc setup or go full AP on the discs in the future should I wish. Something to note, you have to call Reyland using a phone, you can't order online, so it was slightly unsettling to hand over £1500 on my card with no email confirmation or anything! It's what we used to do, but it's feels odd after years of just clicking the mouse and getting your order details instantly. 

I naturally chose Toyota RRG Macclesfield to do the work and I knew the Master himself, Gary would be doing the work and I knew he'd really enjoy doing it. Stuff like this matters. 

Here's what the calipers looked like out of the box: 

Image 17-11-2017 at 22.02 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Discs wrapped up: 

IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

The kit came with braided brake lines, all bolts needed, CNC aluminium mounting bracket to fit the calipers to the hubs and Ferodo DS 2500 pads which are a street/track type pad:

IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Gary got on with the install. Richard commented that one of the mounting brackets didn't have it's thread tapped properly. No problem though, Gary got out his tap and die and sorted it. It's for reasons like this I use RRG Macc. Gary sent me pics on Facebook of progress: 

23621988_1774765709209175_2878800822716104916_n by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Here's the caliper mounted with the disc. Looking good. I went for black calipers as they were cheaper than red and wouldn't clash with my red wheels:

23621988_1774765709209175_2878800822716104916_n by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Setup on the car when I picked it up. Note the colour of the discs. 

IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Richard kindly lent me his 2017 Clubsport GT86. It hasn't been leant to anyone else before which was noted when they were doing the loan car agreement! 

It's interesting to drive the newer version in stock form to compare to mine.

IMG_5049 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

I was really interested to what the car felt like on the drive home, but it was in rush hour traffic, so no heavy braking at all. It felt good, pedal pressure is a little reduced, though I was recalibrating myself after driving the demonstrator which felt different from my brakes did and were a bit more grabby on initial bite than my previous Project Mu's. I decided to after rush hour had subsided to bed the brakes in. I took the car out on a national speed limit dual carriageway and started to heat the brakes by braking firmly at around 60mph and repeated this around 15 times. The instructions say to use 50% of the braking power and repeat 25-30 times. Seems like quite a lot. I then moved onto increasing my speed and braking harder and harder another 20 times or so. It's definitely not an efficient way to drive! I did this until I could smell the brakes and then I knew I was done. The brakes felt a bit glassy when I started but I could really feel them starting to bite greatly improving the stopping of the car once I'd done 20 runs or so. 

I stopped at the local Shell and as you can see the discs have gone a bit blue. This shows that the pad material has transferred to the disc and increases the friction. 

IMG_5057 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

I've driven the car for work today covering about 50 miles which is pretty average for a day. No real hard braking. I've noticed that initial bite when cold is better than the Project Mu's, but probably similar to what the demonstrator GT86 I had felt like. Except the progression was better which made it very easy to modulate. I'm really interested in how much feel I will get out when on the track and how repeatable it will be. Certainly in town driving there is no fuss, the brakes work well but just feel a bit 'stronger' than stock brakes. 

The real test will come when I'm out on track at Oulton Park on the 9th December. I am rather looking forward to it.

 

[Lowe 191]

I had AP 4 pots on my last car and they were fantastic, only issue was with age the pins and pad holders have a tendency to corrode into the caliper itself which can make pad changes a little awkward. Buy some in as spares else when you change the pads you’ll not be able to finish the job. Bleed nipples have a habit of snapping too, having those extracting is a bit scary for the engineers haha! 

[GT86Jay 202]

They look awesome! Will be mega on track.

 

As for Lowe point of the pins. Just copper grease the pins whenever they come out. Mine seem to have been fine after 3 years of abuse.