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will300

Will300's Subaru BRZ Build

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Just now, sam534 said:

Ah is that rust fallout appearing when you clean them?

That was all the rust from the brake discs after going for a quick drive to get the above photos. I've now ordered some Atom Mac to try. 

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That was all the rust from the brake discs after going for a quick drive to get the above photos. I've now ordered some Atom Mac to try. 

The struggle of light coloured wheels


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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1 hour ago, sam534 said:

The struggle of light coloured wheels

Having once had white wheels you'd think I'd learn.... Guess I'll be doing weekly wheel cleaning from now on. 

19 minutes ago, Stutopia said:

Mica blue paint, gold wheels and red callipers - that's an absolutely perfect combination. You have exceptional good taste ;)

Thank you, I had to try the traditional Subaru colour scheme atleast once.

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8 minutes ago, will300 said:

Having once had white wheels you'd think I'd learn.... Guess I'll be doing weekly wheel cleaning from now on. 

Thank you, I had to try the traditional Subaru colour scheme atleast once.

Car looks great, Will, nice to see a set of 57CR's in 17s, they work really well with the rest of your mods. I'd be interested to hear your favourite products for cleaning them! 

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3 minutes ago, James18 said:

Car looks great, Will, nice to see a set of 57CR's in 17s, they work really well with the rest of your mods. I'd be interested to hear your favourite products for cleaning them! 

Thanks James, the wheels are selaed using G-Techniq W5 Wheel Armour and overcoated with G-Techniq Exo V4, this will hopefully stop any dirt and brake dust from sticking to them, for atleast 18months. I'll spray them with Citrus wash, jet wash them and then wash them with car shampoo and they'll clean up easily. 

On my 949Racing wheels the G-Techniq coating was starting to deteriorate, so I purchased some Bilt Hamber: https://www.bilthamber.com/auto-wheel, which I was very pleased with. 

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Update 27/06/2020 - New Brake Pads

At the start of the year I was looking forward to attending a trackday with Javelin at Spa Francorchamps around March / April time. Because this was scheduled to be a two day event I thought it best to look at getting some new brake pads. My existing front pads were becoming fairly low and I didn't want to run out of brakes at the end of the Kemmel straight for example. Currently I was using the original Ferrodo DS2500's my AP kit came with, I did swap them out for Endless MX72 pads for 6 months at one stage, however I found the Endless pads lacked the thermal capacity needed after several hot laps on track. So I swapped the Ferrodo's back in. I've kept the MX72's as my spare/emergency set. 

This now left me with a choice, do I buy Ferrodo's again or get something different. I like the Ferrodo's as basic track pad but I felt they lacked some feel / bite, as it turns out this is a common complaint from other reviews of them. So I started to look at other options, there is quite a good selection of pads available in the correct fitment for the AP calipers. 

I narrowed it down to the following selection:

Pagid - RSL29

Winmax - W5

PFC - 08

Carbone Lorraine - RC6E

Three of the pad choices are an edurance race compound, so should have excellent durability. In the end I decide to go for the PCF 08 pads, for a couple of reasons:

1. @Deacon had swapped to them last year and he's using them in the stardard caliper without issue or any overheating. Which I think is amazing considering he's still running the OEM calipers. 

2. The Nurburgring GT86 Cup cars run these pads in the VLN races.

3. Cost and Availability, at the time they were the cheapest option for a complete set (Front & Rear).

4. I could source them from @James@Amber, all the other pads would mean ordering from a new supplier and I'd rather not have to deal with an unknown company if they sent the wrong size out with the short amount of time before the trackday. (For reference: Partbox also stock the PFC pads)

5. Being an endurance pad they "should" work from cold. 

Unfortunately however the Coronavirus situation happened and that meant the Spa trackday got cancelled, so I never got round to fitting them until now. 

I'll report back on the pads once I've had time to try them out. 

Here's a couple of photos during the install:

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Front PFC 08 Compound on the left & Ferrodo DS2500 on the right. 

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Fitted: 

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Rear PFC 08 Compound on the left & Endless MX72 on the right. 

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Fitted - Just missing the pins which hold the pads in place. 

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Update 04/07/2020 - Bedford Autodrome Trackday

As I'm sure most of your are aware and have been in a similar situation with the Coronavirus situation and lockdown, I found that I've hardly used the car except for a run once every two weeks to keep the battery topped up. That work for the first two months until I needed to go into work one day and the battery was flat, typical. I then jump started it at the weekend and it's been fine since. I might look at getting a jump start battery, if anyone has any suggestions please let me know. 

Anyway due to the lack of use the car has had and the announcement that trackdays will be allowed in June, I decide to get one booked. I didn't want to book on one too early in June due to the main restrictions still being in place. Unfortunately most people didn't care about this and it meant most trackdays got booked up pretty quickly and I missed out. However I noticed the OpenTrack added an extra date for Saturday 4th July at Bedford Autodrome. So I and @willclarke promptely booked the day. 

Now to the trackday, upon arrival I was greated by a member of OpenTrack sat in his car at the entrance, he instructed me to park in the regular car park and sign on, in the usual place. The regular forms you need to take with you and briefing have both been replaced with online versions. To be honest this is much better as it saves alot of hassle in trying to remember to take the forms with you. It also helps remove some of the urgency to get to the track before 8:30 for the briefing. The sign on, consisted of standing behind the person in front at a 2m distance, the sign on area had perspex screens up in place and the sign on team only need to know your name and see your drivers license. The sign on area was one way so you had to go out a different way to the way in. I then drove round to the garages to unpack/get ready. I was then meet by anyother GT86 owner Mike who was attending and we had a good chat. Social distancing stayed inplace for most of the day. 

On to the track time, the first session I was aware I needed to bed in the new brake pads, this didn't go as well as intended due to Bedford having so many long straights which allow the brakes to cool, and the fact I had the VSC on Sport mode. This meant the rear brakes got hotter than the front, which caused a moment on the main straight when the rear locked up before the front calipers. I did a few laps and it started to settle in, I then came back in to the pits to let the car cool. The 2nd session I turned traction control off fully which help as the rear brakes weren't heating up so much. I didn't have any issues from this point on. The stopping power provided by the new pads is excellent and I'm happy with the purchase. This helped to give me more confidence in the car. I'll report back on the pads after the next trackday.

If you've been following the build you note there have been a number of changes since the last trackday in Feburary, these are the new Seat, new wider wheels and tyres, TRD fins and new brake pads. Overall these changes helped make a massive difference to the car. I can now carry more speed through the corners and I'm not rolling around in the seat so much, this has helped give me a better feeling and controlability. In some cases I found that I was over slowing the car for some corners and this meant I lost the balance and it washed out. 

Looking back at my footage I can see that I've improved by 6 seconds from my previous fastest lap with the new setup and there is still plenty of time of the table. I'll link my fastest lap video below, as you can see I have a small oversteal issue towards the end at corner 18 (2:55 on the video) where I lose grip for a second and this killed my momentum, plus I definitely think I can go faster through that corner. A sub 3 minute lap should be possible. The new setup also seems more consistant as my laptimes throughout the day are now much closer together, when I got a relatively clean lap. 

Here's some pictures from the day:

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Update 04/07/2020 - Bedford Autodrome Trackday Video #2 - BMW Incident

As with most trackdays there was a little incident involing another selfish driver, in this case a BMW M3 driver. Myself and a Mike were doing a few laps at Bedford autodrome GT circuit, lead and follow. I lead for a couple of laps and then decided to let Mike overtake so I could follow. 

On the lap that we swapped positions a Civic Type R (1st car) and BMW M3 (2nd car) came up on myself fairly quickly around turn 9, before the big hairpin of turn 10 which leads on to the main straight. 

I'm aware both cars are significantly faster than my N/A BRZ, so I keep far to right on the main straight to let them past on the left. I was expecting the Civic to pass me first and then pull in front of me on the right and the BMW to overtake us both. My logic was Civic has 320hp and BMW around 400+hp so the Civic should clear me quickly and the BMW should clear us both in the similar amount of time, and then slot in behind Mike for the chicane. 

Instead the CIvic goes to overtake me, at the same time the BMW decides to overtake us both, so we end up 3 abreast down the main straight. I thought that was abit close and abit silly of the BMW, end of. 

Oh no, not the end of it at all. The BMW then decides I'm fast enough to overtake Mike in the BRAKING ZONE (not allowed on UK track days) of the chicane. At this point the Mike is prepared to turn in for the chicane and doesn't expect the BMW to dive bomb him. He see the BMW in his mirrors lucky and stamps on the brakes performing a full emergency stop and stops just before running out of tarmac. 

This is all going on just as I'm hitting the braking zone, the BMW and Civic make the corner but Mike has now stopped in the track and I'm not sure if he's seen me, so I also do a full emergency stop as I don't want to take the corner if he decides to pull in front of me. Thankfully the new PFC brake pads pull my car to a stop the car nice and quickly. 

We then both went back to the pits for a change of underwear....

No BRZ's or GT86's were harmed in the making of this video.

 

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2 hours ago, Stutopia said:

Is there any need for that kind of dick move on a track day?

No, usually that kind of thing will get you a talking too or potentially kicked off the day. Opentrack are a bit lax with it though.

@will300 the consistency may also be down to driver experience.... But it couldn't be that, must be the mods 😛

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6 hours ago, will300 said:

Update 04/07/2020 - Bedford Autodrome Trackday Video #1

Here's my fastest lap from the day with data overlay. For some reason full throttle only shows as 80%, treat this a flat out

That's normal afaik, the throttle is only open 80% at WOT. 

Unrelated, is your gauge working or is it just the angle / camera that doesn't pick it up? 

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6 hours ago, Stutopia said:

Is there any need for that kind of dick move on a track day?

Loved the rest of it though Will. 

No, absolutely not on a trackday. 

Thank you

3 hours ago, Kaltorak said:

No, usually that kind of thing will get you a talking too or potentially kicked off the day. Opentrack are a bit lax with it though.

@will300 the consistency may also be down to driver experience.... But it couldn't be that, must be the mods 😛

I'll add Mike the GT86 Aero driver is actually a MSV Marshall at Cadwell, so he knows Dave @ Open Track. I believe the BMW did apologise to him in the pits. 

Maybe your right, normally I'm not that consistent. 

6 minutes ago, Mike said:

That's normal afaik, the throttle is only open 80% at WOT. 

Unrelated, is your gauge working or is it just the angle / camera that doesn't pick it up? 

Ah thanks for confirming, it was my first time using a data logger on the video overlay. 

Yes it's just the angle / light, if you look very closely you can see it's on. 

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20 hours ago, knightryder said:

The TPS sensor is as 80%. That's WOT on this throttle body.

Nice to know. Interesting I watched a video earlier by Engineering Explained about his Supercharged MX5, and that only shows 90% as max throttle, maybe it's something to do with the electronic throttle body. 

20 hours ago, spikyone said:

Nice video - the first one rather than the BMW!

Your car looks great in those photos, just enough attitude, and you can't go wrong with gold wheels and WR blue.

Thank you, to be honest I think I could use alittle more attitude. Seeing the photos of the car on track I think it now needs a rear wing of some description, as the backend looks alittle naked. I also might look at getting a vented hood as I found the engine got quite hot even though the day was relatively cool, for July anyway. 

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Update 04/07/2020 - Bedford Autodrome Trackday Video #3 &#4

A couple more video's from Bedford.

#3 This is my second fastest lap from the day, only a few tenths off the fastest lap, however this one isn't as clean. 

 

#4 A couple of laps from my most consistant session, all in the 3:06 time range. As it turns out this is mostly because of traffic at one point or another during the session. Also it looks like I need some more power as on the 4th lap (3rd lap as you watch the video), the BMW I was chasing went to let me by twice but I couldn't catch him at all. 🤔

 

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Update 11/07/2020 - Blyton Park Trackday

A couple of weeks after I booked the Bedford date on the 4th July, I noticed Javelin had released a couple of new dates one of which was for Blyton Park on Saturday the 11th. With everything now booking up atleast a month in advanced, I decied to jump at the opportunity to do another trackday in July. It has been 12 months since my last trackday at Blyton and with the car now setup differently to last time it would make for another good comparison. Making a comparison at a different track that isn't Bedford Autodrome.

The day went nice and smoothly with no issue and only one or two red flags. Everyone was relativetly well behaved, there were a couple of slower cars that held a few people up but other than that it was all good, no BMW drivers trying to dive bomb cars in the braking zones for example. I managed to get a few decent stints in, however you can quickly catch up to traffic at Blyton. This actually meant that I had chance to have a couple of track battles with a few cars. A Honda Civic Type R and a Lotus Exige, both were mega quick in straights but I had better brakes and cornering speed which overall made it a reasonably good match. I just need more acceleration and top end to keep up on the straights.... hmm... Harrop Supercharger anyone 🤔, there will be a video below with some of my on track battles. 

One thing I might look into, is swapping to a less aggressive rear brake pad. The PFC08's are mega but with the STi rear caliper setup I believe they make too much rear brake torque, so the car doesn't dive under braking which makes it hard to trail brake into some of the corners. This just means I have to get 75% of my braking done in the straights, so I don't upset the balanace of the car mid corner. At the moment I can live with this and I'll probably do a couple more trackday before deciding whether to put the Endless MX72 pads back in or get another less aggressive rear pad. Also I'm not sure if it's the lack of shims or groves in the rear pad, but they don't half squeal when braking, whilst the MX72 also squealed it's definitely louder with the PFC's. On the flipside the front pads are exceptional and don't make any noise. 

Here's a couple of pictures from the day:

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Update 11/07/2020 - Blyton Park Trackday - Video #3

After posting the track battles footage on youtube, the Lotus Exige owner commented on the video and informed me that he had footage of when I was infront of him for a couple of laps, here is his video. It's nice to get a different persective of my driving.

 

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On 7/15/2020 at 1:57 PM, will300 said:

Update 11/07/2020 - Blyton Park Trackday - Video #3

After posting the track battles footage on youtube, the Lotus Exige owner commented on the video and informed me that he had footage of when I was infront of him for a couple of laps, here is his video. It's nice to get a different persective of my driving.

 

You can see a big difference in line and speed through bunga bunga... What kind of corner names is that! But anyway, you pull away nicely from the Lotus there. 

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Update 30/07/2020 - Bedford Autodrome Trackday #2

Two Bedford trackdays in one month, I must be crazy 😅. Ofcourse that's not completely true, I really enjoy the circuit and Javelin released a last minute date in July, so decided to jump on the chance to do another trackday whilst there was some free space and to make up for the 4 months without any trackdays earlier in the year. 

The day was excellent and well organised, there were a couple of stoppaged throughout the day but these were cleared up relatively quickly. Luckily I was always in the pits when these happened, so didn't affect my track time. The main issue from the day was the track temperature, it was a very hot day 30c, and little cloud cover meant the circuit(tarmac) heated up very quickly. This was an issue for both myself & @Deacon as we started to suffer with tyre grip issues, meaning we had trouble with the tyre sliding around. However interestingly my PS4's held up better in the area, compared to @Deacon's Yokohama AD08RS, this could be down to the compound being better or the fact I'm running a slightly wider tyre (245 v 225). 

The temperature didn't stop me from putting in some fairly quick lap times. On the 2nd session I managed to come close to matching my previous best time from the 1st Bedford day in July, only a few tenths away. I assumed after this it'd be game over and no more improvement, just because of how hot it was. However this filled me with confidence in my setup and that I'm getting more consistant on circuit, atleast at Bedford anyway. The times fell throughtout the day with one banzai lap at the end of the day, which dropped me down to a 3:01.11 lap, this was so close to being 3 minute dead lap. Unfortunately about 75% of the way round I caught up to a slow Lotus Elise at the wrong place which meant I had to slow down, losing me a vital second. Whilst annoying it's not the end of the world as I now know the car is capable of a sub 3 minute lap and with a couple more days at Bedford that should eventually happen. I suspect with some proper instruction and better tyres (semi-slicks) I could actually shave off another 10 seconds, I'm not quite taking the best line through some corners and not braking as late as possible for others. 

Overall it was a good day with no issues and some fast laps completed, so I'm very happy with how the car is performing at the moment. I still need to look at changing the rear brake pads, as I've previous mentioned.

Here are some photos:

 

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