Subota Boy

Silver with the blue is a great combo!  Very nice!

One of those rare occasions that you get a good ‘safe’ space at Bluewater.

Five in a row at Goodwood

Five in a row at Goodwood

Five in a row at Goodwood

Five in a row at Goodwood

Got a red one of each, but can't decide which I like best.  

Got a red one of each, but can't decide which I like best.  

With 2022 fast approaching and after current Omicron wave is hopefully over by the end of winter (and most of us being triple/ quadruple vaccinated by then), its time to start thinking which social and club events we would like to put in our diaries.
Couple suggestions below (in italics are those we either already have in the calendar or usually attend so I assume we'll do it again in 2022).
If you would like to add/ suggest any, or just raise the voice of support/ preference for a particular event leave the comment.
April 2nd 2022, Saturday - Spring Action Day (Castle Combe)
Spring Action Day 2022 | Castle Combe Race Circuit (castlecombecircuit.co.uk)
April 10th 2022, Sunday - Japfest Silverstone
Japfest Silverstone powered by TurboZentrum | Fast Car
(We always attend this one. Hope to see large crowd again next year! )
May 21st 2022, Saturday - Summer Action Day (Castle Combe)
Summer Action Day 2022 | Castle Combe Race Circuit (castlecombecircuit.co.uk)
June 12th 2022, Sunday - Bromley Pageant of Motoring (Norman Park, Bromley)
Classic Car Show | Bromley Pageant | England
(This one is instead of cancelled last year - see details in the calendar )
Bromley Pageant of Motoring - Official Club Events - Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ Drivers Club
June 19th 2022, Sunday - Tunerfest South (Brands Hatch)
Tunerfest Show – South – The Ultimate Performance Car Event
(We usually go to this one, so hopefully will be there again in 2022 )
July 7th 2022, Saturday - JDM Combe (Castle Combe)
JDM Combe 2022 | Castle Combe Race Circuit (castlecombecircuit.co.uk)
(Simon already organised club stand for this one)
July 24th 2022, Sunday - Simply Japanese (Beailieu)
Simply Japanese – Beaulieu (semantic.co.uk)
(This one is usually popular, lets do it again!)
August 6th-7st 2022, Saturday - Sunday - Beaulieu Supercar Weekend (Beaulieu)
Beaulieu Supercar Weekend – Beaulieu (semantic.co.uk)
August 18th-21st 2022, Thursday - Sunday - The British Motor Show (Farnborough)
Home - The British Motor Show
August 29st 2022, Sunday - Tunerfest Midlands (Donington Park)
Tunerfest Show – Midlands – The Ultimate Performance Car Event
September 25th 2022, Sunday - Go Japan! (Brands Hatch)
What’s On – Go Japan!
(Date provisional )
October 9th 2022, Sunday - Autumn Motorsport Day (Brookland Museum)
Brooklands Museum :: Autumn Motorsport Day
October 29th 2022, Saturday - Halloween Action Day (Castle Combe)
Halloween Action Day 2022 | Castle Combe Race Circuit (castlecombecircuit.co.uk)
Still dont know dates for TRAX at Silverstone. Will add to the list when known.

Great review, albeit brief, in the January issue of Evo, out now.

Yes it a 2.0 GR sport looks really nice and goes quite well too. Although I have just mainly been pootling so far was nice to see anything from 40-70mpg

Sadly after owning my 86 for 31/2 years I have now sold it. Was a bit sad to see it head off down the road especially after the 1000’s I had put into the car. Using it as an only car I decided I fancied something a bit more comfortable and was looking for an automatic for city driving.
Only positive really is I’m keeping with Toyota’s and picking up my corolla 2.0 tomorrow. Hopefully in a couple of years the GR86 will drop in price then I can run one as a fun car

Pretty much certain it'll be written off. Mark will not be able to afford it to insure it again after this, so it's game over for that car. It would have been easier if it was burnt out in all honesty. 
Nothing will happen until Mark has an anti-fraud interview on Friday. Guessing this is because it's stolen recovered. 
Police forensics were done on Saturday. Nothing found. 

You'll have to search harder for a BRZ because there are so few of them. It's worth it, though, for the rarity and the funny questions often asked about it.

Right well.. it's been a little while since I last updated this post.. and that's not to say there hasn't been bits going on, i've just been so absurdly busy I keep forgetting to take photos!
 
For starters I finally moved out of my parent's house and got my first property, a decently sized little flat which has been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions and made and already very fast-moving year suddenly jump 3 months in the blink of an eye!
 
 
 
But getting back to the part you're all here for the car & engine although I have to pre-warn you as with alot of the recent engine-related posts it's quite nerdy!
 
After sprucing up the cylinder heads I wrapped those up and stuck them up on the shelf back in March and moved on to removing the pistons from the engine.
I flip flopped back and forth exactly what I was going to do with the internals of the engine and to what extent I was going to take it all apart - In the end I decided to not remove the crank & crank bearings down to a few factors, namely the fear of the main journals going out-of-round and replacing the main cap studs & bolts with ARP items which can get expensive already ontop of having shelled out for ARP head studs etc.
As well as this I decided on retaining the stock internals again because the rod journals are known to go out of round if you go with ARP rod bolts and there's so much drama when it comes to forged items if you're on a budget it's such a headache! - I'm glad I did this in the end because as I type this my lights might simply turn off at any moment due to the fact the flat didn't come with a pot to piss in!
 
With all of that I moved on to removing the Cam, lifters, etc and painting the engine block. All very easy and I made a couple of youtube videos covering the topics:
 
https://youtu.be/4Nu4iKF605k
https://youtu.be/1LR8d22JWXc
https://youtu.be/8iSihhg9jcA
 
 
And that neatly brings me on to where I am now, with freshly honed cylinder bores, measured tolerances & bearings and ready to assemble it all again, but as they always say - THIS THREAD IS USELESS WITHOUT PICTURES which was half my reason for a lack of update, i simply keep forgetting so lets see...
 
 
Nicely cleaned up & painted block:
 



 
 
Honed Cylinder bores:

 
Pistons ringed & ready to go!:

 
and the engine block again, this time featuring considerably more pistons!

 
 
 
As for the nerdy bits in regards to tolerances and clearances, here are my findings regarding the top & Middle compression rings and rod bearings:
 
OEM Top Ring clearances:
Production - 0.23‐0.44 mm
Service - 0.23‐0.5 mm
Mine - 0.5mm - so right on the upper edge of a "serviced" engine but It's not the end of the world.
 
OEM Second Ring clearances:
Production - 0.44-0.7mm
Service - 0.44-0.76mm
Mine - 0.56mm - well within even production specs so i'm quite happy with this!
 
Piston Rod Bearing clearances:
Production - 0.023-0.065mm
Service - 0.023-0.076mm
Mine - 0.051mm - Only measured using plastigage but considering this is right in the middle of the range i'm quite happy with this
 
 
And with that the lower end of the engine block is all back together and i've got 95% of the new parts required to close up the engine too!
 


 
If you're a fan of shopping lists boy do I have a fun one for you, in the above pics you're looking at:
 
Brand new intake manifold - /w gaskets, fuel rails, injectors, throttle body & map sensor (purchased "used" but it's very much as fresh as a daisy!)
Head gaskets
LS7 Lifters /w new lifter trays
New Cam Timing gear, chain & guide (required for the removal of VVT)
New Sensors & plugs all over
New cam retainer plate
New Front Timing cover /w seal & Gasket
New Rear main cover /w main seal
More gaskets - Valley cover & Exhaust manifold
New front Pulley
ARP Cam Bolts
ARP Exhaust Manifold Bolts
ARP Head Studs
ARP Pulley bolt
& More bolts, brackets & otherwise as well as the bits I showed off in previous posts.
 
All that really leaves to close up the engine for good is a pair of new rocker covers as mine are rather nasty, a new valley cover simply because I want to and the new Sump pan & pickup tube which comes with the engine swap kit.
 
Next weekend I'm going to get the new Cam, lifters, timing bits and perhaps even the refurbed heads back on and in a way the engine build is then "done"

That bumper looks a bit too aftermarket in my eyes, but it does fix the biggest issue with the front end styling, which is that the tall and narrow grille on the GR86 makes the whole car look too tall and narrow and makes the nose look a bit dumpy.

This resonates with me, in all my years buying and driving cars, the aesthetics/beauty has been very important, as such, I've always bought sports cars. 
Hatchbacks hold no interest for me, the GT86 is pretty much the perfect car for my needs
 
 

I guess I'm settling into the groove of my 40-mile commute down the M3 and trying to 'make progress' without driving like a moron.
My mileage has just reached a new peak of 32.5mpg.  Not bad with a Harrop on board.

For interest:
A recent comment from Matt at Cosworth regarding the use of the Cosworth smaller pulley - and I quote:
"when developing the kit I had the use of cylinder pressure measurement so this gave a real-time measurement of how much stress the rod and piston was under and the stock pulley was arrived at to give a healthy 10% safety margin from where the theoretical limit of the rod is
the smaller pulley bumps up the cylinder pressure to just below this limit but not beyond
to my knowledge those whom are running the smaller pulley have had no issues to date"
 

Yes, exactly that.  People who also think that power is the only important number and then tell me that some uninspiring hatch-box is better because it has more power.
If I wanted a hatch-box I could leave my appreciation of beauty behind and buy any one of 30 different models most of which look the same.
There is only one 86/BRZ and we know why we drive them.

Awwww, it's sweet that you posted that! I tried to 'like' the photo, but apparantly you can only like 5 or so posts per day?? What's up wtih that?? Anyway, nice to hear from you, too. The pandemic has been a bit difficult to cope with. Honestly, the only thing that has kept me sane is my car! Washing it, going for drives, etc. I had such a great time meeting you all. I wanted to go to JapFest, especially since it was on my birthday, but I'm too hestitant about covid. Oh well, keep calm and carry on, eh? I hope you're well!

Hey Cherrybomb!  Great to hear from you!  Hope all is well with you!

Time for a little update, so this year I have just enjoyed driving the BRZ, I love that it just works with no fuss and even though its my slowest car its full of drama.  I fitted the Mod society auto fold mirror module, it works perfectly and fully recommend it. Install video here 
I do need to try and get to a show or two in this as it feels like forever since I've been to anything like that.
Last week I decided to give it a good clean and get some up to date photos as it sits right now:
Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr
Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr
Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr
Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr
Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr
Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr
 
I have no major plans to change things, maybe a few minor mods here and there over the coming months as I am currently going through a house move which is taking a lot of my focus right now plus I have a couple of other projects on the go.  I plan to upgrade the speakers all round at some point and I need to space those rear wheels out a little.
For those that want to see the car in more detail, feel free to give my latest video a watch:
 

GT86 is better looking, IMO. Stock Vs stock, the GR86 seems like it might be a better car in pretty much every way. I'm certainly interested to try one and see how it compares to my SC'd GT86, it'd have to be pretty damn good for me to consider switching though.

The plugs that came out were in decent condition, so I would attribute most of the improvement to the Delicious coil packs.

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