Lauren

The tyres are not that bad to be fair. A stiffer sidewall should help here.

As Steve points out, quite a difference between a performance road tyre and a track orientated tyre. It's okay messing about with pressures but they will increase less on the road than they will on track for obvious reasons.

Uprating your springs will mean your dampers may feel underdamped. Wtih a heavy wheel this may make your problem worse or at least it should do. Uprated dampers matched to the springs taking into account your heavy wheels is what you want really.

Rays Engineering, Volk Racing TE37s. 17x8 ET38.

11.36kg is heavy. For comparison standard is 9.2kg (mine are 7.4kg). You could leave as is, get lighter wheels or uprate your suspension. It's unlikely to cause you to lose control.

But if you want stiffer sidewalls..... Road compliance as it turns out seems just fine with the higher load rating. I did come from stretched Primacy's though which seemed to have no compliance at all. When I put these tyres on I could feel the flex in the sidewall on the first corner I turned into when I took it on the track. I think the slight increase in sidewall height proportionately ensures that it's not too much for the road really.

Meister R's like BC's are made in Taiwan. This doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing, but I prefer stuff that is made in Japan or Northern Europe as a rule when it comes to suspension. Personal preference and all that. I've heard it said that Meister R's are essentially BC's, but then I have had views from other sources that they are not, so who knows. If it's any help at all, I'm running 5/6kg rate on my Tein Flex's. The ride is mostly better than stock to be fair, though I do have the EFDFC Active Pro which doubtless helps in this respect.

Any idea on the weight of your wheels. Bigger wheels mean more unsprung weight which may cause the damping to struggle to keep up.

Go for the higher 'Y' rated ones as they will have stiffer sidewalls.

Paul (Thomas) tried running 888's on stock suspension. He was still slower than my car on V105s. The stock suspension didn't look too good on track with this setup. I think it just shows you need to balance out, i.e., not too much grip on a stock setup, but you can of course run grippier tyres when you've upgraded your suspension. If that's what you want of course.

Too grippy for the stock suspenders. It'l roll a lot.

Maybe just put on Yoko V105s and use them on the road and track? If you're running stock suspension I don't think AD08Rs are going to work too well anyway.

What have you got in mind? The stock spring rates are 3/4kg. But on the flipside more expensive coilovers can work just as well or better with higher spring rates to a point anyway.

People have a wide-ish variety of coilovers on here. Budget is the main factor really.

I know the gauges will be bright, I guess what I was saying is they just don't fall to the eye in the position they are in. 4 front and 6kg rear. I know that Maz is running 6kg front and 4kg rear, but I think it's better to run the rear stiffer as per the standard setup. I have driven Maz's car with the 6/4kg setup and I felt it rolled over on outside rear a little too much. I run 5/6kg, stock is 3/4kg. Will be interesting to see how you find your setup as I don't know anyone else with those spring rates.

The trouble I've found when driving cars with these gauges on the passenger side is that you just can't really see them. They're just too much out of eyeshot to really keep an eye on. I think putting them somewhere else on the dash would be a better option. What spring rates did you go for on the coilovers?

Welcome along, Kev. What rear lights are those?

Happy days. These are courtesy cars after all they get repaired at cost I should think, probably not a big deal.

Welcome aboard, Kevin. So what bits and bobs have you changed so far?

What time is the news in your garage?

Happy Birthday all.

Apparently my TRD aero fins (the ones on the wings) give increased stability at speed. They were a pressie and they do look rather good though.

Twas a bit of a shame. Was a bit of a mix up when Yukiko booked it. To be fair she's done a lot more than Toyota GB seemed to want to do, but maybe we'll try some gentle persuasion to get a peek at the GT86/BRZ factory when we are there. I'm also a little relieved I haven't filled every day in Yokohama with stuff as it gives as more flexibility for whether we feel like going and driving some Touges or getting the train into Tokyo or exploring Yokohama for an alcoholic afternoon.

Okay not long to go now and we are fairly sorted. There are a few things that didn't work out, but more of that later. Our intinerary is as follows; 2 nights in Tokyo to start with. We know this isn't enough but we will likely day trip from Yokohama at the end other end of the trip. From there we start using our train pass to go to Nagoya. We will experience the full might of the rush hour with our 6.53am train from Shinjuku station which might be a bit crazy. Here we will visit the Toyota museum which should be pretty cool. If we have time we will try and fit in a trip to the famous Carland where there are some rather nice AE86's. The next day another bullet train and we go to Hiroshima. We are staying near the peace gardens, so will do that, but doubt we'll have much time to explore much beyond that. Maybe some nice beer and relax. Then it's on the Nozomi (fastest bullet train) to Kyoto where we are staying at a Ryokan hotel, so traditional Japanese style. These are really supposed to be smaller family run inns, but we are staying in a posh one so to speak. The next day is a bit mental as we will have to take the train to Yokohama, pick up a GT86 hire car and drive 100 miles to Gunma. Again another Ryokan hotel set in the mountains with hot springs. This will on Mount Haruna which was of course immortalised in the Initial D where it is called Mount Akina (Home of the Akina Speedstars!). We have a factory tour at Subaru, but unfortunately this doesn't include the GT86/BRZ, which I'm a little bit gutted about. So we will get to see various other Subarus being built. We are hoping to have a little time to take in the Initial D locations and drive Mount Haruna on the Touge even if it does have speedhumps now. From there we have a long drive over the mountains to Mount Fuji where we are staying in a hotel on Lake Yamanaka with a view of Mount Fuji. The next day we drive to Yokohama, maybe taking in some of Odawara and the mountain train. Then we have 6 days in Yokohama to do various things. We couldn't get a Tein factory tour in the end and contacts with Japanese Facebook friends has not been as helpful as I might have hoped, so we have nothing planned apart from 86 day at Fuji on Sunday the 3rd August. We will go to Super Autobacs, likely spend another day in Tokyo and also do some driving around the Hakone area for more Initial D heritage. We were going to hire an AE86 and Hakosuka from Initial Drive (7 Tune) but they've been totally useless so I've given up on that. So we'll drive it in the GT86 instead. We do of course expect to find other areas of interest so having a bit of flexibility to change our plans in Yokohama is probably a good thing.

The stock tyres take track abuse extremely well. They go off after about four laps or so, but then stay consistent so you can hang the rear end out as much as you like, they just seem to last and last.