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Stutopia

Stubaru BRZ

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That looks great. I think it sits nicely, yeah it's not decked but looks purposeful. What's the size and offset? I know what you mean with houses, would love to spend more time and effort on my car but my house just absorbs everything I have and more lol.

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7 hours ago, Varelco said:

That looks great. I think it sits nicely, yeah it's not decked but looks purposeful. What's the size and offset? I know what you mean with houses, would love to spend more time and effort on my car but my house just absorbs everything I have and more lol.

Thanks, I’m very pleased with them. 

18x8 - 5x100 - 45mm with 225x40 rubber

Only just got setup done this morning, so not had a chance to get a feel yet. It appears it was long overdue, even before the wheel switch, as the tyres that came off the rear had interesting wear to say the least. I think a diversion on my commute down a farm road didn’t do me any favours the last few months!

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OMG, of all the time and money I've spent on trying out various detailing products and tools, weird and wonderful products, budget and boutique, I've finally found the Holy Grail. Who knew it was blue with red ears?

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I've had my eye on an inline water filter for ages but was always a bit skeptical about the filtration being quite good enough to get rid of all the particles, but it turns out it is AMAZING. I should've just taken the gamble years ago. Really pleased with the results, being able to completely eliminate the drying phase is not only labour saving and reduces the love marks of towel drying, it also frees up some time to do other little jobs like restoring black trim.

Bonnet after leaving the water to evaporate.

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And the roof.

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And an unnecessary glamour shot :)

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In other news, chucked a load of heavy 2mm sound deadening, with some thick but light foamy stuff on top in the rear arches and void and the front door and under the rear seats, whilst I fitted the Focal plug n play kit. It's an improvement but it's not perfect, more than good enough for what I intend to use the car for though.

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Finally got around to a starter mod too. I know it's late but I was looking for ages for something other than the valentis, just to mix it up, but the prices were bonkers on the other stuff I liked. Pleased with the results though :)

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P.S. Do anyone else's drivers door control panel buttons vibrate under BASS?

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Yep I also found the window controls rattle noticeably more with the focal speaker upgrade. A bit of sound deadening to the underside of the panel helped a bit but I've not stopped it completely yet

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

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17 minutes ago, willclarke said:

Yep I also found the window controls rattle noticeably more with the focal speaker upgrade. A bit of sound deadening to the underside of the panel helped a bit but I've not stopped it completely yet

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
 

Cheers. Mine rattled before the swap, wish I’d think of this when the card was off. Ta.

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1 hour ago, knightryder said:

Were you on the A34/M40 junction yesterday in the awful traffic? If not, you have a doppelganger...... 😂

Not me, I’m the other end of England. There’s someone else out there with exceptional taste too!

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On 6/9/2019 at 9:54 PM, Stutopia said:

In other news, chucked a load of heavy 2mm sound deadening, with some thick but light foamy stuff on top in the rear arches and void and the front door and under the rear seats, whilst I fitted the Focal plug n play kit. It's an improvement but it's not perfect, more than good enough for what I intend to use the car for though. 

If you've got any of the 2mm matting left over, it's well worth chucking a bit in the spair wheel well. I had a bit of grief with exhaust drone (after fitting a cobra non-res catback) and found that it was ultimately down to the boot floor transmitting the noise into the cabin.

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Been a busy few weeks. A short while ago I did a lovely 2 minute mod, getting rid of the plastic dash panel and slipping in something altogether more bovine

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This week the first job was to collect a rental whilst the BRZ is in the shop. Free upgrade to a C Class as well, thank you Enterprise.

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Rather enjoyed the change of pace, I can see the attraction of wafting on the highway; as it gets harder and harder to enjoy the roads through a combination of road surfaces and traffic. It was pretty quick and deathly silent compared to the BRZ, didn't really get on with the 9 gears, it was never in the right one - but I wouldn't mind trying a non-oil burner, with 2-4 more cylinders though.

Anyway, the reason for the rental car was to drop off the BRZ, for these little beauties to be fitted. AP BBK for the front end. Thanks to Reyland for supplying the kit. All went on smooth as butter.

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Much like the fairer sex, it seemed rude not to tend to her undercarriage whilst she was on top (of the ramp).

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Looks rather fetching all buffed up, if I do say so myself.

As for the back end, as per my other thread, I just wanted these to match the fronts, rather than perform better. So I sent off some OEM rears to be refurbished and painted at Godspeed. Sadly, the courier was a day late returning the finished items, which isn't a huge deal, unless you've already handed back your rental car and find yourself carless, miles from home - d'oh!

Helpfully, my mate, who is also my mechanic, happened to have his own DC5 around, so I got the loan of that for the weekend.

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As you can imagine, not only was I relieved to have a car to get home, I was very excited to drive a 'Teg. I've not driven VTEC (yo!) before and the DC5 is a fairly well regarded vehicle in JDM folklore, to say the least. It certainly did not disapoint. So much fun. Ooooodles of grip, that addictive burst as the revs surge and as pretty as you like - if I didn't have a lightweight sports coupe, I'd be VERY tempted to go to the dark side of FWD for one of these.

Anyway, the rear callipers arrived today, looked sweet and went straight on. Huge thanks to @will300 who very generously, not to mention trustingly, lent me his OEM rears to go away and be refurbished and painted, so as to cut the time my BRZ was off the road. Top bloke, I'm very grateful for your help, not just with the callipers but info and advice too - callipers coming your way in tomorrow's post.

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All in all, a pleasing bit of work all around. A nice blend of form and function.

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1 minute ago, will300 said:

Looking good @Stutopia, the rear calipers look really good. 

You need to get some coilovers and 10mm wheel spacers now. 

I don’t believe in spacers, but once I get some more track time under my belt, coilies could be a thing, perhaps boost...

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Due to the start of what is now 'the crisis' and a spare day a few weeks back, I was lucky enough to get access to a friend's garage space and set my mind to paint correction. I'd seen some minor defects (and one major one) when I was recently getting some strange goop off the passenger door and have been itching to spend some quality time with my new toy - a Rupes LHR 75E Mini. For detailing perverts like myself, the Rupes is the little Bigfoot offering for smaller areas and confined spaces. I used one for a few days a couple of years ago and fell in love, I finally convinced Santa to sort me out last winter.

It's too small for most cars and people, as your only polisher, but despite that, I went for it because it's so light and low vibration that the drawbacks of larger areas taking longer, did not outweigh all the upsides in the trickier bits of our small and intricate panels. I will regret this decision if I ever own a Range Rover, but, lets face it, I will probably just use that as an excuse to buy a big Bigfoot anyway :lol:

Back to the task at hand, exploiting an indoor workspace to go after this sort of thing. Nothing really offensive, just the stuff you notice in petrol station, filling up at night under the lights.

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The bonnet is a bit of a head scratcher as I have no idea where this has picked up so many defects from. I can only assume it's from washing, but I do try and observe a very gentle wash process. You can see on the spot, the swirls radiating out, accidentally the overhead strip shows what effects this has on larger reflections - they just look dull and dirty.

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This was only meant to be a single stage job (I only had 10 hours of time) so it was a small test patch to see what got a reasonable improvement and then blanket job all over. The yellow pad and polish combo from Rupes was fine, expect for one stubborn area on the rear bumper where I have gotten too close to the brambles in the work car park - SHAMEFACE - I know, it's unforgivable. Really hard to photograph this but there were three distinct scrapes all on the crease.

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The only 50/50 I took - not so easy to see the difference in the photo, but it is night and day in the video below.

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And this is the bonnet...

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...which is miles away from the horror show I started with.

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Having access to an indoor workspace is an amazing treat for me (especially as it rained most of the day) but having a ramp as well? HEAVEN.

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My back was her so grateful for this. As a Johnny Pencilpusher in my day job, a day of physical effort is no minor undertaking :)

 

After all the polishing, I laid down a coat of AMMO Reflex, which I am increasingly impressed with. It's so quick and easy to work with and has literally none of the pitfalls of the super strength ceramic stuff that I am yet to be impressed with - sorry I know I'm a dinosaur. Naturally after all that effort I could not resist a very quick glamour shot or two.

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If you've stayed with me this far, you may as well lose 90 more seconds on the movie too.

 

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I've been a bit quiet on here as the last few months I've left the BRZ alone and been on the prowl for something slightly different. It's taken a while and a couple of disappointing trips to dealers, in between stinking lockdowns, but last month my new 'practical daily' arrived, Klaus.


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Klaus (we might rename later) is a 2014 Cayman GTS and fits the 'practical daily' category because it's a PDK 😉. Since lockdown, most of my driving has been city based and motorway cruising, so I've been wanting to try out one of these fancy autos for ages. Needless to say, after an initial test drive on some very pleasant A & B roads in North Yorkshire, I was hooked. A quite different drive to the BRZ and although I'm a big defender of the BRZ from the 'it's not got enough power' brigade, I must admit it's nice to have a bit more oomph on tap for the odd overtake and occasional motorway burst. Other than that, it's quite a bit smoother on our less than perfect tarmac (even though it's on 20s and has the lowered sport chassis) and a lot quieter indoors too. So far, this added refinement is a bit alien to me, it has the effect of feeling less knowledgeable of the surface beneath you, which has plus and minus points, depending on what you're up to.

Currently it is totally stock and the only possible change to that might be to drop down to 19s, to further relax the ride and perhaps a cheeky little ducktail to jazz up the back end. I genuinely have no intentions of doing much else, as it is pretty much sorted right out of the box (and much more capable than I am). Annoyingly it was not spec'd with Cruise Control, which I might get Porsche to retrofit - I miss it on the motorway in the ever increasing number of average speed area, but it had all of my other shopping list of extras; PTV, black dials, black alcantara interior plus the usual GTS refinements of the sports exhaust and sport chrono. Perversely, it sees about 4mpg more than the BRZ, for a similar driving mix, but other than that, I don't expect to see many cost savings, other than no mods. The only gripes I have are the paint is in bad shape, so it needs a correction in the new year and I really, really do not like the Pirelli P Zeros. Maybe it's because I've got more grunt and carry more speed than I'm used to but the grip in the wet and dry does not inspire confidence at all, they also make the most horrible noises and judders manoeuvring in car parks. Annoyingly they have about 6mm left on them. If I can't make up my mind on 19s soon, I'll stick with what I've got and get some lovely Michelin rubber on ASAP.

 

Where does this leave the BRZ then? As it's only cost me about £135 a year extra to go mutlicar on the insurance, I'm very tempted to keep hold of it and scratch my modifying itch by adding some lightness, maybe some coils and having a dedicated track car that I am not worried about needing for a daily. For the time being, I'm keeping my powder dry to see if this stinking pandemic is ever going to end...

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interesting, this is where I would go after the GT86 possibly in GT4 guise. As I am charged the grunt wouldn't be as bigger jump. Look forward to hearing some more comparisons.

 

Looks really nice enjoy!

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I've been a bit quiet on here as the last few months I've left the BRZ alone and been on the prowl for something slightly different. It's taken a while and a couple of disappointing trips to dealers, in between stinking lockdowns, but last month my new 'practical daily' arrived, Klaus.

xWTPUSi.jpg
mSDPMlY.jpg
uWp1tch.jpg
SGYNTfi.jpg
 
Klaus (we might rename later) is a 2014 Cayman GTS and fits the 'practical daily' category because it's a PDK . Since lockdown, most of my driving has been city based and motorway cruising, so I've been wanting to try out one of these fancy autos for ages. Needless to say, after an initial test drive on some very pleasant A & B roads in North Yorkshire, I was hooked. A quite different drive to the BRZ and although I'm a big defender of the BRZ from the 'it's not got enough power' brigade, I must admit it's nice to have a bit more oomph on tap for the odd overtake and occasional motorway burst. Other than that, it's quite a bit smoother on our less than perfect tarmac (even though it's on 20s and has the lowered sport chassis) and a lot quieter indoors too. So far, this added refinement is a bit alien to me, it has the effect of feeling less knowledgeable of the surface beneath you, which has plus and minus points, depending on what you're up to.
Currently it is totally stock and the only possible change to that might be to drop down to 19s, to further relax the ride and perhaps a cheeky little ducktail to jazz up the back end. I genuinely have no intentions of doing much else, as it is pretty much sorted right out of the box (and much more capable than I am). Annoyingly it was not spec'd with Cruise Control, which I might get Porsche to retrofit - I miss it on the motorway in the ever increasing number of average speed area, but it had all of my other shopping list of extras; PTV, black dials, black alcantara interior plus the usual GTS refinements of the sports exhaust and sport chrono. Perversely, it sees about 4mpg more than the BRZ, for a similar driving mix, but other than that, I don't expect to see many cost savings, other than no mods. The only gripes I have are the paint is in bad shape, so it needs a correction in the new year and I really, really do not like the Pirelli P Zeros. Maybe it's because I've got more grunt and carry more speed than I'm used to but the grip in the wet and dry does not inspire confidence at all, they also make the most horrible noises and judders manoeuvring in car parks. Annoyingly they have about 6mm left on them. If I can't make up my mind on 19s soon, I'll stick with what I've got and get some lovely Michelin rubber on ASAP.
 
Where does this leave the BRZ then? As it's only cost me about £135 a year extra to go mutlicar on the insurance, I'm very tempted to keep hold of it and scratch my modifying itch by adding some lightness, maybe some coils and having a dedicated track car that I am not worried about needing for a daily. For the time being, I'm keeping my powder dry to see if this stinking pandemic is ever going to end...
Hearty congratulations, from an NA flat 4 to an NA flat 6, this is the upgrade. From 4 seats to 2 is the downgrade from £10-15K , used to £25-50K used is a big upgrade Enjoy the new toy.

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I know it's not BRZ or even GT86, but I am so pleased with this work that's been done I wanted to show it off and give a shout out to Revolve Automotive and I know there's fellow detailing nerds like me on here too. If you're in the North and thinking of getting some paint correction and protection, look no further. Usually I like to get my hands dirty when it comes to keeping my car clean, but sometimes a job needs indoor space and professional skills, way beyond my own. I've known Paul at Revolve for a few years via a 350z club and a while back he struck out to follow his passion for detailing. I have been watching his work online ever since. After letting him practice on lesser marques like Maserati, Aston Martin and Ferrari, I've been looking forward to having the right job to send his way. I wasn't expecting perfect paint when I purchased on a 6 year old black car, but one of my first visits to the petrol station revealed just how bad things were.

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As well as correcting this horrorshow, I also booked in to have some protection applied and a "little" job that's been on my list for a while. I've never really liked the black badges. First the easy bit.

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Then the template.

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All done.

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I'm super pleased with the result. I know chrome is not for everyone, but it is literally the only non-black part of the whole car, so I think it's not too bling. The spacing and alignment are absolutely spot on.

Onto the paint. As you can see, he had his work cut out. 

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But he was more than match for the hard Porsche paint. Two stages of correction has given it a beautiful depth, removed all the minor marks and a lot of the big ones too. Where they've not been eliminated, they've been softened so much as to make them almost unnoticeable.

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Also the wheels came off for some love and protection on them and the callipers too.

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He cleansed the leather and alcantara, leaving a layer of protection inside and a nice little signature that my ass has since dealt with.

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He also stocked me up on the good stuff from Envy. I am a big fan of all the Envy products I have used to date, not tried Iron Awe yet so looking forward to that.

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As well as the Envy gear, I left with some SC-MIST to keep the ceramic protection topped up. As well as making her look almost perfect, Paul's done his best to lock it in with a couple of layers of Envy Futureproof+. I'm impressed just by the gloss and I hope I'll be the same for many months to come, perhaps even years.

 

After all that, now for the glamour. She came up alright.

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Looking ever better outside in the sunshine.

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Delighted doesn't come close to how pleased I am with the outcome. From following Revolve Automotive on Facebook for years, I had really high expectations but Paul's manage to surpass them with his skill. It's almost a different colour, much more like the 'Jet' black that Porsche call this shade. On top of doing amazing work on the car, the process of booking in, discussing what work was needed, talking through options for coatings, agreeing a price and even throwing in a lovable courtesy car - the whole service was superb and I'm really, really pleased. If you want to do something special for your pride & joy, this is a pretty good option. I'd be taking the BRZ over if it wasn't for the fact it needs paint on the front bumper and the Cayman has blown my budget for a few months. On top of this fantastic work, it's recently been in for retrofit of cruise control, had new rubber all round and a minor oil leak sorting. The good thing is, all the interesting mods I might usually think to do, involve adding bits from it's bigger GT brothers - which makes them so expensive I'm not even entertaining the idea :)

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It’s been hard to say, as she’s been on god awful Pirelli P Zeros until a couple of weeks ago and also in need of an alignment, which I sorted on Friday. The good news is that now that’s all done, I can spend more time driving and less time spending. I had a glorious run over snake pass after the alignment, with only one other car in sight, which was easy to make short work of. Which is the single biggest difference, the amount of power on tap is a giant step up and paired with the PDK on manual, it makes slipping past traffic so much easier. I’m still loving the reduced inside noise and increased comfort. Nothing squeaks either! 

The most difficult bit to tell is the balance. It takes so much more to break traction that it’d be irresponsible for someone of my talent level to try at anything other than very low speed, on the road. In some ways, I miss really pedalling the BRZ hard and moving it around (which is why I may well keep it for the track). In every other way, it’s not really comparable and that’s no slight on the BRZ, it has 1/3 of the budget to work with. 

 

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16 minutes ago, Varelco said:

That is lovely, good choice on going for a GTS mind you black is brave colour for someone who likes their paint in good nick.

😂

I did drive a red one, which I really liked, but couldn't agree a price. Glad I missed out on it now because this has 20k fewer miles and PTV and the Sport Chassis options. Also the black plastic bits on the bumper specific to the GTS look much better against black paint IMO.

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It's been a minute since I put some time, love and money into the BRZ - I must admit the more time I spend in the Cayman, the less tempted I am to grab the keys to the Subaru when I need to nip out. Hopefully with the easing of lockdown and putting two cancelled Spa trips behind me, I might turn the tide and get her out on track. 

Speaking of which, she's a bit on the noisy side from some track limits and with that in mind I popped her into JBM Performance in Sheffield to have a large silencer welded in.

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Whilst she was in the rusty sump was replaced with a nice new OEM one, with a Cosworth baffle dropped in - well it'd be rude not to with it off. I also took the opportunity to address the heat wrap on the UEL, which was failing in two places. I've never really liked the wrap aesthetic to be honest, so I did the man maths and managed to justify sending the headers and overripe off to zircotec for a lovely coating. 

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They look sexy AF, if I do say so myself. Might even keep the air in the bonnet a few degrees cooler too!

 

Last but not least, I was getting fed up with shiny leather on the steering wheel, so I set about it today with some APC, leather cleaner and a soft bristled brush - talk about time well spent, the lovely matt look is back.

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Steering wheel junk - yuk!

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1 hour ago, Varelco said:

Looks great. Enjoy the updates on your BRZ. What APC did you use on your steering wheel? I do mine often but it never looks perfect. I use BH surfex diluted 1:100.

Thanks mate, I used generic brightly coloured APC diluted 50:50, sprayed onto the brush. I also used some Auto Glym leather cleaner as well, for a second pass. TBH I don’t think the liquids made much difference, the brush really is the key. I recently got a tip on using a cheap, but soft, shoe leather brush. It did much better results than I’ve achieved before with just microfibre towels and leather cleaner.

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