The day finally came, it was the BRZs turn on the track.
I’ve been holding out for this trackday, since it was the first one in the BRZ and I wanted to keep it as stock as possible (except for driveline bushes and things to freshen it up), to experience the car “as it should be” from the factory.
This was meant to be in June, to give me ample time before the WOF expires, but thanks to some bad weather it got called off and shifted to July instead, giving me literally a couple of days before the WOF expires.
We drove up to Feilding the day before, and the next morning we emerged into a very chilly subzero morning, warmed the car up, melted the ice off the screen and cruised around to the track to get the usual pit. The blue car squad was completed by my friends in their mostly stock ZC33S Swift Sport (which is still faster than me in the BRZ).
A stunning, albeit cold, morning
After the driver briefing, we did a few laps of the track to warm the cars up and familiarise ourselves with the conditions and layout, and then we were unleashed in groups of either “slow” or “fast”. I feel there should’ve been a “mid” range group, as there were some fast cars/drivers hanging out in the slow class, causing some grief.
The first session was BUSY
It was hard to string a good lap together with all the traffic, but the car was showing some promise. It gripped well, and hung on in the corners, but it did quickly show up one issue; the brakes sucked.
Coming down the front straight on the third lap of the first session, I get hard on the brakes for turn one and suddenly the pedal feels… weird. It’s not soft, it doesn’t go to the floor, but it feels wooden, like I’m pressing on a block of wood instead of a brake pedal. I’ve cooked the pads. Damn.
I was pulling decent laps already though, my second lap, before the brakes turns bad, was a 1:36.55, already faster than the fastest I went in the Alto at 1:36.91
The next laps were slower, as I wasn’t sure at this point what was going on, so I was feeling out the brakes to see if they were still going to work or not. I found there was almost no pedal feel, and it was taking a lot more pressure on the pedal to actually slow the car, and it was a fine line from having that stopping force, to kicking in ABS. You can see from this video the first couple of corners I really have to jump on the pedal to cut the speed.
Coming into the pits after the session and it was immediately obvious what had happened, from all the smoke pouring off the front brakes
The smell of fried brakes was the smell of the day, for sure. Every session was followed by plumes of smoke like that, from both sides.
I was pretty disheartened from that. The brakes were rubbish, and the car felt underpowered. It turned and handled pretty well, considering it’s still on stock suspension, but it was leaving me feeling a bit cold compared to how much fun the Alto was.
Not to be deterred, I pushed on and went out for another session. After the first flying lap, I decided the brakes weren’t going to completely fail, and I just had to work with what I had.
So on the second lap, I did this
The fastest lap of the day, a 1:32.21. Even though it was the fastest I went all day, I was very consistent in my times, hovering around the 1:32 mark most of the day.
Comparing that to the fastest I went in the Alto, even though the BRZ never really felt “fast”, it smashed the Altos corner speeds in most corners, plus some added speed on the straights. You can really see in the BRZ how early I was braking though by the red shading before the corner.
Unfortunately later in the day I decided to go out without the camera running, and did something a bit silly
I had been getting a bit cocky with the car, pushing it more and more and getting some little slides out of it here and there. I had been running it in “sport” mode, which reduces the interference from the traction and stability control systems, but for this session I wanted to see if I could reduce it a little more. What I didnt realise, was that in trying to turn off traction control, but leave stability on, I had actually turned the whole lot off. I was on my own.
I went into the hairpin fine, carrying a bit of speed, got on the throttle to exit and suddenly in a cloud of tyre smoke I was A: looking at the front of the car that was behind me, through my windscreen, and B: being flung from one side of the track, to the other. Thankfully the car avoided me, and other than my rear wheels just going on the grass, I wasn’t stuck and didn’t hit anything. It was an impressive 360 though. The car fired back into life after a bit of cranking (I forgot to clutch in) and I sheepishly cruised back to the pits, no harm, no foul.
After that excitement I sat out the next session, but the last one for the day I went out and ended up having some fun with an old Holden Commodore race car.
I could get right up his backside in the corners, but just didnt have the straight line grunt to catch him. In the end, I backed off a bit for a lap to give myself some clean space later on, as he was actually holding me up and killing my lap times. It was a good battle though, even if he had no idea I was there.
It’s quite apparent to me in the videos that the traction and stability control are really fighting me on exit speeds. You can see I go 100% throttle but the speed doesnt increase until I straighten the car (and sometimes you can just catch the little yellow lights flashing their heads off). I have a future mod that will hopefully fix this, without me having to turn the whole lot off and end up going backwards again.
Because this trackday was run by a different group, there was a pro photographer there, so enjoy some nice looking speedy shots
Blue car squad
Over all, other than user error, the car behaved well. The oil temps were getting a tad high later in the day after some of the harder sessions, but generally stayed below 120c and cooled off quick when I backed off. Oil pressure was good even with the higher temps, generally holding the recommended 10psi/1000rpm.
I would love to get rid of the mid-range torque dip, as that really dulls the feel of the engine. It reminds me a lot of the old twin turbo Legacy and the Valley Of Death between the turbos, where if you shift into a specific RPM range, there is just nothing there, and it falls flat on its face. To fix that though means spending more money, and to be honest in not sure how much of a Kelvinator car this is. I love how it looks, but it’s not as fun to drive as I wanted. It’s a damn nice car to drive, though. Next track day will tell.
Before the next track day, which is late next month, I have a bunch of things to go into the car to hopefully sharpen up the handling, and some new Endless front pads to get rid of the shite Dixcel ones.