Church

Rich: maybe something as simple as exhaust leak somewhere and thus can be easily fixed?

Hmm, i guess then it's worth for 'worst case scenario' to get few laps as passenger. Not exactly right test, as IIRC feelings of passenger are often magnified, due him not being in control and many acceleration/braking/steering maneuvers coming unanticipated/catching nonprepared, thus throwing all around, unlike driver, who knows 'i'll brake hard in 0.5s, i'll brace myself or strengthen neck muscles and such', but still may tell, if individual motion sickness specifics may strike out this hobby from enjoyable.

No experience is moot. Everybody started somewhere, you'll still have loads of fun. Just that will be slower then many, even on comparable cars. Best way to shorten learning route - good HPDE instructions. If not professional one, then at very least some local more experienced driver as passenger or ask to be as passenger in other car for some laps. Instructor should be more skillful giving advises how/what to learn, what habbits/reflexes to correct/fix, what are specifics of this particular track (like where you can push it, where which line is best, where are braking points). Cost risks. I'm not sure that i'll be one that gives right answer, which probably would be insurance or going in some 200-500e "folk-race" class beater car that you can afford to go at 10/10 and total .. but for track real insurance is too damn costly for me to afford :(. Good thing, that due tracks being controlled environment it decreases those going fast risks by a lot - no oncoming traffic, due repeated laps you learn track layout/specific better to know where/how much you can push, in many tracks at many points sliding off the track will be way less risky, as no high kerb to damage suspension on, no wall or trees, just sliding few metres with emergency pressed brakes over grass or gravel till stop. Safest from all tracks should be auto-X ones with cones. But imho also less fun from enjoyment perspective. So i'd choose some kart alike track on flat ground, where speeds are slower, where you can see several turns ahead, where said spinning out of track is safe due no walls, leaving "real tracks" with higher speeds, blind corners that need to be taken by memory, and sometimes with concrete walls or trees for later, when with more experience Upgrades/building .. 1) for first (or first few) track day i'd go with 100% stock - a) our cars are rather capable even stock, b ) it should show you by feel what/if you may wish to improve, not just some posts on internet :), c) limited grip of stock primacies should let you learn how to get closer to grip limit and balance at that at still safer/slower speeds. For example i started to feel deficiencies of brakes, and wished to dial out some of stock understeer. (P.S. regarding brakes, just go off track to cool them whenever you start feeling loosing them (due overheat). On stock car with stock brakes and stock primacies imho it's about 10-15 minutes track sessions) 2) do minimum upgrades to brakes, like better brake pads and brake fluid of higher boiling temps, 3) do performance alignment (in general more camber overall to compensate more side-Gs/more tire-flex, to get more grip and more even tire contact/patch/wear, and much higher camber in front, to dial out stock-ish understeer (stock front camber 0, rear -1, better have front camer by some -0.5 degree even more then rear, eg. F -1.5,R -1), 4) when you wear down stock tire set completely you may consider tire upgrades of moving up a bit in grip, eg. some stock sized MPSS or AD08R. Aand - for me this seems wise point of first stop to upgrades and just keep going to track with this setup paying not for upgrades, but for fun/tracking itself & wearables like fuel/tires/pads. Oh, forgot to say - at some point i bought also own helmet (oh, agree to Lauren, get openface one - it subjectively felt less sweaty/less limiting eye view and so on), balaklava, gloves to not keep borrowing them from collegue or lease on track. Otherwise spendings so far should be rather reasonable, camberbolts and powerflex bushing front, rear LCA, performance alignment, better pads, brake fluid, tires .. and fuel of course Further you have upgrade options like getting good coilovers to work well even with stickier more track oriented tires, longer track sessions enabling (and sometimes cheaper on pads/rotors wearables) Big Brake Kits, clutch type LSD diff, maybe different ratio final drive, stiffer bushings or replacing many of them with pillowball ones, oil catch can, aftermarket air filter, ecu tune, catless headers, forced induction (i'm disliking later option, but that's subjective), lightening car in various ways, getting aftermarket seats and safety harnesses, aftermarket steering wheel, installing aero elements like splitter, rear wing & splitter, cage and so on and on .. but these all need money/budget .. which i found better spent on actually driving on track P.S. From skills i advise to learn first proper seating pose, hand position on wheel and such, then generic track information, like rules (flags/passing and such), most effective way to take corners (outside-inside/appex-outside). Then heal & toe downshifting. Otherwise you'll put lot of load on clutch/synchros and often may throw car off balance when downshifting. Then learn mass transfer with brakes to lessen understeer/get extra rotation. Would be nice if with left foot, but not mandatory. Worth also at beginning to intentionally sometimes push too much and almost intentionally spin out to learn limits one should balance not overcoming and how to recover. If you are going without electronic nannies, know how/what to do with brake/accel/steering to correct/fix. Also remember, that at some point overconfidence may appear, be beware of it :).

Lauren: you probably are simply very careful with handling car. You miss whole universe of possible abuses one may throw on car, be it for specific actual need (eg. "clutch hit" in drifting) or due lack of skills. LOL, it's not exactly clutch itself, but my friend driving wrx somehow managed to break pedal assembly, twice :). Well, he burnt clutch once too, but that was due a bit worse handled pull-out of other stuck car attempt, as snow cowered that pulled car was stuck against some object. There are many cases where "would" != "will". As for fork .. there were actual cases where users had theirs broke, and this vendor just designed part to address that.

This velox billet fork may have it's use with aftermarket clutches. Stock stamped arm can bend if pressed too strongly, making a bit washed out clutch feel, or in some cases - to point of failure, as some reported. This (and another aftermarket billet one, i don't remember brand though) is much more rigid, so should work better with some of aftermarket very firm clutches that many install if going forced induction, to handle more torque. IIRC you need to order throwout bearing separately. For that best to get improved 2017 one. Toyota P/N SU003-07349, Subaru 30502AA150, if i'm not mistakening. For velox clutch fork one can also order this.

As many (if not most) twin owners that track theirs, also use them daily driving, any comments how these fare comfort wise? Of course, everything is compromise and something probably have been sacrificed compared to "normal coilovers", but imho that may also interest potential buyers, as to how much harsher that harsh is

Imho worth stating MSRP, to clarify what is "budget friendly"

+1 to enhancing nut behind the wheel, with more seat time & getting HPDE instructions. & concentrating from upgrades to tires/suspension/brakes. As result while it still won't accelerate like more powerful cars, you'll be able to outbrake/outturn many of them loosing less speed in corners. And car will still be more reliable and cheaper to run/maintain. Those 4-5K are better spend on wearables and actual tracking/fun of enjoying trackdays, then just adding forced induction for getting faster in straights. I found satisfaction catching at each turn 3times more powerful porker that could temporarily distance from me only in straights. I guess, i annoyed him, as he left after 6 laps in such fashion. Or due overheated brakes (heavier car/more speed to bleed to take turn). I'm not sure it's worth comparing track with mountain serpentine roads though. One pushes way less on former and leaves more safety margin there, at least if driving within legal limits. A bit more push then on average public roads, but far from going all out on track, which is controlled environment, where one can learn road specifics better due lapping several times same track & where often mistakes cost less, just sliding a bit if going off track vs falling off the cliff

I always wondered, how it might feel to drive other-hand-drive car in foreign countries. Overtakes probably are major PITA due worse visibility?

IIRC one of distinctive FA20 design traits, was removal of any "excess"/"redundant" material everywhere. Lightening all parts, increasing it's performance, reducing losses and increasing efficiency .. but also limiting it's potential, if one want to gets 200-300% more capabilities then what it is designed to. That's no EJ25 :), nor even RB26. And while one can rebuild FA20 for forced induction with forged pistons, valve springs and so on for more power .. that won't do for high rpm. Mostly due oiling limits i mentioned before. No oiling - wear increased by few orders and engine failing VERY fast. From another forum: If high rev (much higher then +few hundred rpm) is a must, yet one wants for engine to outlast just one race, transplanting other engines is the only reasonable answer. Something like this

IIRC main think that would limit our engines is oil pressure to reach that high rpms, so i doubt to see any FA20 engine ever reaching more then some 8-8.2K rpms. Yes, some shops might be competent enough to completely rework whole oiling system, but by then involved skillset and costs would be that high, to make much more sense to do engine swap to some other.

Actually pad choice options are not 100% obvious. When i thought about it deeper - many, especially track pads, have rather different Mu at different temps (eg, 0.3 at 100C, 0.6 at 400C). So one thing is less usage of rear brakes and rear pads purely from wear viewpoint .. another is - if rears heat up less during heavy braking on track, what Mu fronts/rears, what bias car brakes will have at different brake temps. When with square pad setup i had front rotors glowing red, rears were much cooler. Of course, having staggered pad choice will make it even harder to think out resulting brake impact, as each pad has different curve depending on temps, so compounds may have same Mu only at some specific temperature and one bias below it, opposite bias above it. Square pads can have same brakeing bias cold, and more and more divergence as brakes get hotter/with more brake abuse. Extra points for pads, whose compounds have more consistent/linear temp-dependent Mu curves, it at least can ease to find out what behaviour to expect. I guess that consistency over wide temp range that is sometimes mentioned for DS2500, might be another good point about them. Weren't it so that in current german touring car championship, were cars used installed brake bias adjustment to get heat in them during first lap after start and then adjusted them differently for rest of race?

I'd advocate what Lauren said too, to use same compound in all corners. Unless something really thowing off grip balance is in car setup and needs to be workarounded, like massive aero bits with extra downforce only in front or only in rear, or if one has went for staggered wheel width, or if one has installed brake controller that can allow fine-tune bias on the fly and so on. Toyobaru engineers did many tests to find optimum brake bias for shortest braking distance, lessening chance of one end locking up while another is still underbraked, and also designed safety nannies working with specific grip balance in mind (eg. TC/VSC/ABS). Yes, front pads will wear much more and need more frequent replacement, but still, i wouldn't try to outsmart manufacturer vendors, even more so that most top aftermarket BBK vendors that actually throw some R&D behind their kits, try to keep that brake bias balance too.

Yes, compared to other cars i had before, heating seems a bit on a weak side, also kicks in later .. but i don't find it as issue. In most cases when it's very cold outside i'm dressed according weather, also often cold weather comes in hand with cleaning ice/snow from car prior taking off, by which time car already somewhat warms up. Frameless windows freezing to rubber seals in these cars were more of an issue to care about in winter, then weak heating.

Maybe not this time, but worth remembering for future to get alignment printouts. They may help for others in forum to spot if there are some unwished handling traits caused by alignment, or help tell what is needed to change to get some wished trait (thus to pass numbers to be dialed in to alignment shop at next visit), and they may also tell how good (or not ) job alignment shop has done.

Can you post your alignment numbers? Also what tire size? To me it by wild guess seems more like case of not yet used to higher grip tires, that simply magnify "tramlining" a bit, magnifying self centering forces or bump-steer from suspension geometry, not slipping over when lesser grip tire would, but gripping it through. Or one pushing w/o loosing grip car more, again magnifying all forces and all traits. I myself got more tramlining from track-ish alignment (of more caster/and much more negative camber), but imho it might be possible to get something similar feel from grippier tires too.

Water? In cold weather? Just don't. If water is not warm enough it will freeze right away adding extra ice layer. If it IS hot, there is big chance for your glass to shatter in cold weather if splashed upon with hot water.

There is one possible situation where it's better to not persist too much (imho not the case in this video). - If you can dig by spinning tires too much in snow/ground and make it land on belly. Even worse if in deep snow and when it's a bit below water freezing temperature a bit, as snow can thaw from spinning resultlessly, and then freeze below wheels and below car underbelly, making it much harder to get out later on (had this happened first winter when i had shitty tires on mine). Luckily good winter tires let one get going without much drama/spinning wheels, so with grip of them it never gets to that stage. One of many reasons, i advocate proper winter tires wherever one actually get snow/ice in winter. It might be difference of just going whenever one needs to go, no matter what snow/ice around, or trying to spin out of parked spot for half an hour, then dig snow/ice from car and beneath it, then looking for someone to help pull out, and arrive 2hours late. :/

Hmm, i wonder if this is somewhere in manual aswell. If not, it should be, as issue is one which many may experience. And first experiencing this it really may seem like it's broken, thus redundant dealership visit that might have been skipped if known about prior that.

If this "but on way to" "started to work" is related with cold weather, then it might be due these frameless windows slightly freezing in, and overly sensitive sensor that is there to stop lawsuits of heads pressed in or chopped off , hangs controller. By chance when this happened - didn't switches of rising-lowering windows flickered? Then that is very probable the case. Two things: 1) door window controller reset. No need for 10sec, imho 3-5 should be sufficient. First lower down fully keeping it pressed even after it is fully down for few sec, then rise back, again keeping it up 3-5 sec after it's already fully up. It may not work, if there is something frozen in.. some longer warming up (especially if car is with open window and it's very cold) might be needed. But also possible that it would go up without any warming up/thawing, as i didn't tried longer to keep it pressed longer when this had happened to me, back then drove to dealership with window down .. and dealership's tech with smug smirk on face "fixed" it with "reset" described above :). (IIRC one needs to use passenger switch for passenger door's window though). If window switches don't flicker anymore, reset is done successfully. 2) some rubber-care, eg. mentioned gummi-pflege, to prevent window freezing to rubber seals. After using it, window never frozen to me that much to need it reset. But even if i'll need reset, now i know how This reset trick may work for other cars with frameless windows too. At very least friend of mine with legacy outback knew about it. But IIRC it may work also on non-Subaru cars with such door windows.

Lauren: snow is that rare on islands? You guys are missing a lot

Snow can be wonderful source of sideways/rally fun :). But I advise (from my own negative experience in past ) to never go above vsc sport when driving on public streets in winter or when wet though. On streets it's not just self that can be endangered with hooning, but also other drivers and pedestrians, and mistakes cost much more, due environment with many uncontrolled variables and one that is not designed to decrease them (eg. kerb design, one way direction, lessening of blind corners, short-distance, well-known from repeated/lapped many times track), one not made for mistakes to cost less, not allowing to push more to limits with more piece of mind. Instead it's spinning out & hitting kerb with damaging suspension and paying more for repairs & insurance, versus if on track, spinning out, sliding off track and sliding a bit till stop, then continuing speed lapping. Complete TC off or pedal dance should be left for specialized winter tracks or icy lakes, again, where mistakes are less costly and where there are less uncontrollable variables like opposite direction traffic, blind corners, idiotic unpredictable maneuvers of some one notices too late.

Some trivia. Better fluid will not differ a slightest bit in braking feel to stock fluid. It will just carry that feel even at hotter temps (in other words - also for longer) due not boiling yet. You get same braking until fluid is boiled, when incompressible fluid turns to gas/vapour bubbles, which are compressible, and hence your mushy feel with less press force on pads delivered per same brake pedal travel, "soft pedal", "brake fade", etc. "Racing fluids" simply have higher boiling temps and that's it. (unfortunately such fluids also are more hygroscopic, and by time may have some water (of low boiling temps) absorbed and worsening overall temps, hence they often have specced "dry" temps of fresh fluid and lower "wet" temps if 3.7% of volume is absorbed water, and they may warrant more frequent change of brake fluid due more absorption, even if you have never boiled it). Of course if brake pads are way overheated past their design temp range, they can add to brake loss too, eg. pad material may crumple off, may chemically change, may glaze .. reducing their friction coefficient/Mu. Some resurfacing may help, but in general better to ease off their abuse (by eg. shorter track sessions with cooloffs in between), or choose pads whose working temp range by material properties better fits intended scenario of use. Another ways to enhance brake capabilities is to increase their heat capacity and/or enhance cooling. Usually Big Brake Kits do both, by having larger rotors of better vanes design, so ones that can accumulate more heat prior heating up to some temperature, also dissipating more & quicker heat off, better caliper design can enhance cooling too. Also there is option of airducts, that direct air to brakes, further enhancing cooling of them. (of course, one should remember, that if one is capable of locking tires with brakes one has now on car with current tires, then "braking force" is sufficient for those tires, and BBK won't decrease braking distance even slightest. It's heat capacity & cooling, that is enhanced in BBKs, in other words - it lets you have same sufficient braking force for longer. Not eg. some 10min sessions with stock brakes, but eg. 20-30mins. Braking distance will be enhanced with BBKs only if tires used are of that much of grip, for stock brakes max braking be less of that max tire grip. Though stock brakes can still be used if one uses pads of higher friction/Mu). Longer track sessions, grippier tires, forced induction - are all bits that increase speed, and thus speed to shed off prior turns, and thus heat that is put into brakes. So often people upgrade to BBKs due those 3 things (well, i left out case when stock brakes are clearly subpar/inadequate). There is bit that one may get by using less capable pads with BBKs though, due their enhanced cooling and more heat capacity with rest, except brakes, being same. Temps are lower, so you may get by pads of less max temps. Temps are lower, and it's harder to bed pads or get upto most efficient working temps. So be careful with taking into account experiences with some pads from people with BBKs if you are searching pads for stock brakes. Some less track oriented pads may have worked better for them on track, and vice versa, some pads that didn't squeel for one with stock brakes, may get squeeky loud for one with BBK, due harder to bed those pads due less temps. There is also bit that not all cars have stock brakes adequate for them. Eg. our stock brakes are imho rather good for mass our cars have .. but eg. i've heard that S2000 has a bit underbraked stockers. That also may mean that S2K will benefit of pads of more track oriented types if used with stock brakes .. or that one needs to be careful when listening advices like "we used pads X with great success on <insert other cars, like bmws/subarus/hondas/mazdas/etc here>". If one seriously got track illness and hones ones skills frequently, and gradually introduces some upgrades, such as grippier tires, and gets better and better laptimes, faster speeds, better braking skills, i've heard such view on pad choice: Regarding stock brakes of twins .. they are regarded as rather good for stock (wrx has same fronts, but is heavier and faster due forced induction. On last track day i could go all day long with apropriate cooling off between sessions, but wrx's of my colegue brakes literary caught fire on 4th lap that day and was towed off track. Admittedly he also had better tires though.). With stock brakes, just with better pads and fluid, one should be ok with ~ 10-13min track sessions on stock primacies or slightly grippier tires (of course, wide tires, cheater tires like RE71R, or slicks, will change the picture). Also for twins on dry tarmac track one may think of using pedal dance, to switch off TC/e-diff & EBD, leaving just basic ABS, as first one had impacted for some pad wear or sometimes worked at wrong times throwing off balance a bit, and EBD may make trail braking harder. Also when/if considering purchase of BBK .. worth considering: 1) for kit to be designed for this car. Don't go for cheap route of retrofitting brakes from other cars. They have different front-rear weight distribution & grip bias, different ratio brake cylinders diameters, so you may shift brake bias/balance, as result having worse braking of longer distance or less safe one (if one of ends locks way before other end is close to locking), it may also impact proper working of safety aids/nannies. BTW, this is also reason for one to use same compound pads on both front & rear, to not shift bias. Yes, rears probably will wear at 1/4 the rate of fronts, but bias is important for most optimal & safe braking. Only if you have very specific aero on one end, i'd think of staggered pad choice to workaround that. 2) wheel fitment (get brake fitment templates for that BBK and check if your wheels will clear those brakes w/o rubbing), 3) optionally how common brake pad shapes are used (to have or not have different compound pad aternatives for those), 4) how cheap are pads/rotors for that BBK (if track use is intended, imho it's important to be able to save on wearables), 5) how usable or not are those brakes on street (if dual-use intended. Eg. two-piece rotors or calipers w/o dustboots may be bad fit corrosion-wise where salt in winters gets sprayed on streets. But then again if one uses brakes as intended on track, then it's very easy to burn off rubber dustboots) And in general for track use better to choose rotors that are blanks (non slotted, non drilled) or slotted at most. There is little to be had from claimed enhanced cooling of drilled rotors, and imho extra leading edges of drilled/slotted rotors don't offer enough gains to be justified with reducing reliability. Brakes are car system, and track is place, which/where you never want to reduce reliability. Drilled rotors are much more susceptible to cracking, and in general "show off" thing, not thing to be used in sports.

Sighe98: cold stops are not that much of an issue to care about. Yes, many track pads have noticeably higher friction when heated up to working temps .. but many of them have higher Mu then stock pads even when cold. Main issues with track pads on street are noise & wear. Mostly because of hard to bed them when driving on public roads (hard to get enough heat in them when driving within legal limits), thus they in 1-3 days after track with light braking of daily driving scrub off bedded layer .. and at every stop one becomes idiot with unbearably loud brakes and also rotors may get worn at increased rates. As for DS2500 with Cosworth street masters .. i never tried later, but from googled nfo they seem even less track capable positioned then former, but cheaper. None of these are proper track pads, but from these two i'd lean to DS2500 if (light) track use is planned too. Also .. "pedal sank to the floor" .. isn't it more issue of fluid with air in it, not pads? Flush it with some motul rbf600 or rbf660 with properly bleeding out air from system.

BTW, if one uses Brodit cellphone holders (on twins those are placed next to audio headunit), then it's shorter/less wiring clutter to run wire to 12V socket in glovebox then all the way to armrest covered centre console's socket with untidy sticking wire near shift gear.