DanJ

I've got Cosworth Streetmasters on at the moment, I think they're a good compromise for road and track use. After a smoky bedding in on the first run they were fine for the rest of the day at Bedford. If I get the Brembos on in time for Japfest you can have the Streetmaster pads.

Overall it wasn't too bad at all, the main issue with the instructions is that some of the photos showing you what to do aren't very clear. Agreed that familiarity helps, having done one we could easily do another in about 6-7 hours I reckon. If anyone else is considering self-fit then I wouldn't advise against it if you're used to working on cars in general, but if you're a relative novice then you'd be wise to pay for Abbey to install it.

Thanks for sending that through, I wish I'd had that as well for reference over the weekend as some steps are very similar. For the most part the Cosworth instructions are better than Harrop's but I was surprised at the lack of tightening torques. I've only got a paper copy of the Harrop instructions but I'll bring them to Snett so you can have a gander. We had a fair few "what the hell do we do here" moments, but if you're mechanically minded you can work it out after sufficient head scratching! After my Bedford experience we also hose clipped everything we could. http://www.mtecbrakes.com/brake-discs/subaru/impreza-2007/impreza-2-5-turbo-wrx-sti12-07.html £118 for the discs, £25 for PCD change and £12.50 for the extra anti-corrosion coating, all with 10% then taken off at the checkout, absolute bargain :-)

did Subaru replace it with the same battery or an upgraded one like the Toyota? I think I've just about survived this winter of cold starts but if it survives the summer/autumn I'll definitely be needing a replacement when the cold mornings arrive again.

Bugger, MTEC have sent me the wrong front discs, brakes will have to wait until another day

Probably a new casting required for the blanks so they need enough interest to justify the tooling investment. In other news, it lives! No water or fuel leaks, start map flashed fine. Time for a test drive and log some data to send back to Mark.

They seem a friendly bunch, I'm sure if we can demonstrate there's sufficient demand they'd start making and selling them.

Refurbed calipers and new MTEC discs waiting to go on.

glad to read that, slamming the car like your Golf would kill the best aspect of the car, great handling!

I'd be interested to see the Cosworth instructions, the Harrop ones are vague in places, I've taken lots of pics of key stages to fill in the gaps for others. The intercooler plumbing may cause a rethink for the oil cooler ducting, time will tell tomorrow! Hope BCS deliver for you soon.

Yeah we could've done it all in a day if the intercooler was a better fit. Calipers are very good, bleeds have been swapped. Only adjustment required was alignment of the pad guides, were a little tight on two of them. Biggest issue is the second hand HKS coilovers, the damper adjusters are corroded to hell as are the nuts for adjusting the length of the strut. Solutions for that will wait, plan for tomorrow is to get SC and brakes done and mock up the oil cooler install.

Rather frustratingly we've had to call it a day, the cooler was a real bitch to fit, lots of fettling of holes required and a blind assembly of the top holes. After much swearing its in, so after a good night's sleep there's a little bit of plumbing to finish then the coolant goes in, ECU flashed with start map and the real fun begins :-)

3hrs after the last pic, just the cooler and pump left to go.

5hrs in the SC is on, time for a cuppa :-)

Just had an email saying my calipers have shipped today, I'm holding my breath until they're in my hands and I can confirm they did everything they were supposed to!

Thanks to @Deacon for measuring the stock ARBs so I could finish of my suspension calculation spreadsheet. In a past life I used to design suspension for a living so its been good to refresh my memory on how it all works and generate a tool that hopefully others will find useful. You can download a copy here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87478421/GT86%20and%20BRZ%20Spring%20and%20ARB%20Rate%20Comparison.xlsx My main reason for doing this was to decide what replacement springs to order for my HKS dampers that will complement either the stock ARBs or stiffer Whiteline ARBs. My car is a Daily Driver with occasional track use and I drive over some pretty hideous roads on my way to work each day so I was concerned that a 6kg/6kg spring setup would be too much, I also had to consider that HKS only recommend a +/-2kg rate change without re-valving the dampers. I've gone for 4.8kg F and 5.3kg rear in the end, which should have slightly more oversteer than my stock BRZ with the standard ARBs with consideration of the improved camber control at the front as well (the rear is pretty good already as its multi-link, but McPherson struts aren't great, especially when lowered a lot) and whatever I choose it to be depending on the setting of the adjustable ARBs. There's most of the popular spring combos on there and you can enter data for any aftermarket bars if you've got the rate, %change or just the bar dimensions. Most people neglect to consider the proportional share of the springs and ARB's when it comes to thinking about the change in handling. Looking at the sheet you can see that a 6/6 setup on a GT86 shifts the handling balance towards that of a stock BRZ. I understand why @Lauren went for 5/6, with consideration of the extra grip from the improved camber control at the front I can see why its more playful at the rear though! One important note is that all of this is best compared for steady-state (i.e. mid corner) balance, damper and alignment settings play a significant part in corner entry and corner exit characteristics. Carroll Smith's "Engineer in your Pocket" is a great read for this. http://www.carrollsmith.com/books/#pocketbook-detail Feel free to ask if you have any questions about how the spreadsheet works.

Not from Wales but another BRZ owner, always good to welcome another in to the fold :-)

No problem, easy mistake to make.

Does anyone happen to have stock Front and Rear anti-roll bars that are off their car? If you do I'd be very grateful of some measurements, I'm setting up a suspension calculation spreadsheet to work out roll stiffness distribution between the front and rear axles on the stock car and then use this to compare to changes in spring rates and ARB rates for possible mods. I'll happily share this spreadsheet for anyone else to use once its all done. Thanks, Dan.

Thanks Jeff, much appreciated. I think you've got the front and rear mixed up, the rest makes sense from pictures if switched.

Good point, looks like they are unfortunately.

ask them to swap it for the TRD one, much more subtle but still works well with the rest of the aero add ons.

Thanks, other than the bar diameters I need all the other dims shown in this file please: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2a8jk3cmx4d5sr/sway_bar_effective_spring_rate_calculations.pdf?dl=0

Yep that's right, but I need some other dims as well to work out the effective stiffness at the wheel.

I can imagine having one of these as a DD and turning the BRZ into a dedicated track car.