will300

Thanks James, the wheels are selaed using G-Techniq W5 Wheel Armour and overcoated with G-Techniq Exo V4, this will hopefully stop any dirt and brake dust from sticking to them, for atleast 18months. I'll spray them with Citrus wash, jet wash them and then wash them with car shampoo and they'll clean up easily. On my 949Racing wheels the G-Techniq coating was starting to deteriorate, so I purchased some Bilt Hamber: https://www.bilthamber.com/auto-wheel, which I was very pleased with.

Having once had white wheels you'd think I'd learn.... Guess I'll be doing weekly wheel cleaning from now on. Thank you, I had to try the traditional Subaru colour scheme atleast once.

That was all the rust from the brake discs after going for a quick drive to get the above photos. I've now ordered some Atom Mac to try.

There is loads of brake caliper/disc clearance with those wheels and my AP's. The Reyland AP kit is good in that aspect as it'll work with the majority of wheels, front disc are 330mm.

Thanks @Kaltorak, yeah I was quite surprised at the weight of these as I know some of the GramLights aren't actually that light. 😄 Also this was meant to be my secret Spa setup. Thanks @spikyone, wheel design does make a massive difference to how big they can look. I think the fitment could do with some minor adjustments, specifically to the rear camber. Thanks @MartinT

Would also make less mess on my new wheels 😄

TRD Fender fins:

Pictures of the full car:

Pictures of the wheel fitment on the car:

Update 10/04/2020 - Easter Weekend Jobs - Part 2: Fitting Wheels In february this year I posted my car goals for the year, the first goal was: 1. Order a set of forged wheels. I must have spent 18 months looking for a new set of wheels to swap over from the 949 Racing wheels prior to this, as I wanted a new look. I've always wanted to fit a set of forged wheels to the car and there are a couple of sets that I really like, these are: 1. Rays Volks TE37 Saga in Bronze, size: 17x9 +42 2. Rays Volks ZE40 in Bronze, size: 18x9 +40 3. Titan 7 TS5 in Satin Titanium, size: 17x9 +37 Owning a set of Rays would be the dream as they are highly regarded as the top wheel manufacturer in the JDM market and being a massive JDM fan this means a lot to me. I'd originally spoke to @Lucas@PartBox a while ago about a set of Rays, he informed that a set of Rays Volks (either wheel) would mean spending atleast of £3K on a set, which I wasn't keen on. I therefore looked into importing a set from Japan, however with shipping, taxes and import duty they'd probably end up near enough the same price, plus should there be anything wrong with the wheels it'd be a massive pain to sort out and I wasn't going to pay £2K+ for a set of wheels with no UK contact. Because of this, it basically put an end to the idea of ordering a set of Rays. The third option is from a relatively new company in the form of Titan 7, they sell a wheel called: TS5, these looked ideal however I wanted something vibrant after running a black wheel for a couple of years. Whilst Titan 7 offer a Bronze finish, they only do this for selected fitments and weren't prepared to offer this on the 86/BRZ fitment, typically they once did a limited run of the bronze in the past, which I missed out on. This left a Satin Titanium finish, which is extremely nice in itself, however it wasn't what I was really after. Whilst I could get these from a UK seller I wasn't 100% sure on them due to colour and my thoughts being if I'm buying forged wheels I'd rather buy Rays. This ultimately left me with a dilemma, do I spend over £3K on a set of Rays or do I bin the idea? In february I decided to ask @Lucas@PartBox what Rays wheels Partbox had instock for the 86/BRZ or could get relevately quickly. They had a set of blue Gramlights 57DR in 18x9.5 +38 wheels in stock, again this wasn't what I wanted but Lucas did say they could get a number of 57CR's in various colours in within a month, colours being: Sakura Pink, Gold, Bronze, Semi-Gloss Black, Black Chrome and Gunmetal Blue. Knowing several other members are running these wheels I wasn't sure on the idea, as I wanted something different. After some google-fu I found out the 57CR's in 17x9 only weight 8.2KG, this changed my mind on these wheels and I realised they actually make alot of sense, it's a wheel in a size I've run before, no-one else in the UK 86/BRZ community was running this wheel in that size (that I'm aware of, at that time anyway) as everyone goes for 18" version, they are relatively light for a cast wheel and good value at only £1200 and once I've added tyres and accessories it'd come in at under £2k, which was a much nicer figure. Now the choice was which colour do I go for, I'd looked at the 57CR's in the past and wanted them in either Gold or White, as white wasn't available this left only one colour choice Gold. A quick confirmation with Lucas and the wheels were ordered. Less than a month later, to both our surprise Lucas informed me the wheels had arrived. I then sealed the wheels using G-Techniq W5 Wheel Armour and overcoated with G-Techniq Exo V4. In the mean time I ordered some Rays Dura-Nuts L42 wheel nuts in Blue, Gramlight 57CR center caps in blue & black chrome, Rays metal spigot rings and Rays blue valve caps from Nengun Performance in Japan, along with a set of black (D4S) TRD fender fins. I've wanted a set of fender fins for a while, ideally in carbon however they stopped producing these a couple of years ago, this left black as the next logical colour. Typically these parts took much longer to arrive than the wheels as there was a delay with the production of the fender fins. I also had a shipping issue, I ordered the parts before the CoronaVirus fully hit and used a work address, when I found out the parts had been shipped I had to get this swapped to my home address and yet typically the courier still tried to deliver it to the work address despite being expressly told to change it. A few days later the parts arrived and I could begin fitting them. Now from some photos, firstly the wheels and tyres:

@vanko25 hmm a rust repellent would probably be a better option, something like ACF50. I've not coated mine though.

Update 10/04/2020 - Easter Weekend Jobs - Part 1 I recently ordered some new wheels from @Lucas@PartBox, so before fitting them I decided to give the wheel arches a quick scrub down to remove the majority of crud and clean my Tein Coilovers. Whilst I had the wheels off I noticed my calipers were looking abit sorry for themselves and caked in brake dust and brake fluid. Normally this wouldn't bother me to much, however as I was fitting new wheels I thought I'd tidy them up and reseal them with a coating of G-Techniq C5 Wheel Armour. Several days later they look as good as new. I also gave the exhaust a quick polish (before, during and after photos). I really need to get some Bilthamber Atom Mac that @sam534 recommended to stop my disks rusting when washing them.

Update 29/03/2020 - Car Cleaning I gave the car a quick wash over the weekend. Whilst I was at it I thought I should probably give the engine bay a quick clean to remove any winter crud:

@GravelRash I reacted to that photo thinking, good man you've finally fitted my old bonnet vents. Then I noticed the Splitter, so have another 👍

Sorry I was trying to highlight his comments on the oil weight used by Toyota/Subaru and bearing clearance. I've now circled this section.

This was posted on Facebook, which seems relevant (Chris Elek builds race engines, so he know's WTF he's talking about):

@Stutopia buy some coilovers FFS! 😄

@Tweedbean its this one you want: https://www.japanparts.com/parts/detail/49037

Update 20/03/2020 - Bucket Seat Fitting At the start of the year myself, @Deacon & @Keethos were lucky enough to get some very cheap tickets for the AutoSport International show at the NEC. Normally we wouldn't bother going as the show can be very hit and miss, however as the tickets were cheap we thought why not. Whilst we was there, we heard that Cobra Seats were doing a special show discount on all seats ordered at the show. There was one particular seat I was interested in, the Cobra Nogaro. I'd seen this seat fitted to Paul Cowlands BRZ back in 2015 (https://twitter.com/paulcowland_/status/556138688988864512), and thought it worked really well with our stock interior. I particularly liked this seat as it's supportive but shouldn't sacrifice to much daily comfort, should be easily to get in and out of due to the low bolsters and you can also use the factory OEM seat belt with it. However due to the price and the fact I would rather have a Edirb 023/033 seat I basically ignored the idea, that was until I heard about Cobra's generous discount offer. After speaking with @Deacon at the show we both agreed to buy one seat each, and would sell the seat to the other person if we didn't like it once fitted. A simple specification was given to Cobra, alcantara center, leather sides and red stitching, to match the OEM interior. Now the next hurdle would be sourcing some seat mounts, I didn't specifically want a fixed mount and I wasn't happy with the aftermarket options available, due the reports of flexing and various rattles/creaks they can make. This is another reason why I didn't consider buying an aftermarket seats before now. However about 6 months ago a post was made on the FT86Club forum by an owner in the US, who found a company which manufactures seat mounts in house that utilize the OEM sliders for multiple different cars and had just developed a set for his BRZ (link: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137015), these looked like the perfect solution. I showed the guys at Rogue Motorsport this seat mount design and asked them what they thought about this design. They basically said, that it looks like a functional design, but was concerned about whether it'd fit with the Cobra Nogaro seats. They also said they'd probably be able to make them cheaper (once you've added on shipping and taxes, etc). Two months later, the seats arrived at Rogue Motorsport, by this point they'd come up with a seat mount design but needed a car to test on, fortunately @Deacon had his car booked in the following week, so they used his OEM sliding frame mechanism to test their first prototype, which @Deacon ran for a few weeks before he suggested a couple of changes to the seat position, so he's now running V2 of the seat mount. I was booked in a couple of weeks after this, rather then Rogue making a new prototype they asked if I could try the V1 prototype mount for a couple of weeks and report back my findings. I'll update the thread in due course, unfortunately due to everything thats going on at the moment, I haven't driven the car alot. Whilst I was at Rogue they changed my brake & clutch fluid along with replacing my dodgy coilpack, which they then covered with a heat resistance/reflective material (all four coilpacks were covered). Which should hopefully stop the issue from happening again, if not they will try fabricating a metal plate to try and block the heat. They also might have found a couple of blows on my ACE CS400 exhaust manifold, however they won't know this until they can remove it, they didn't want to do this as my manifold has been on about 4 years and thought the gaskets might disintegrate, I need to source some replacements. Here are some pictures of the seat and the seat mount:

Hi @Tom21 The only way to remove it is through the doors (it won't fit through the boot), you have to have the front seats folded and as far forward as possible, then bend the bottom as you pull it out (like an L shape). It will look like its creased but due to the type of material it's made from it doesn't show once you flatten it out. (I wouldn't leave it bent for long though). Then reverse the process to put it back in.

Event Title: Midlands Lunch Meet - Sat 21st Mar (Smokestop BBQ) Event Author: will300 Event Date: 21.03.2020 Hello Everyone Myself and @Deacon have decided to host another Midlands lunch time meet, as it's been awhile since the last one. We'll be returning to the Smoke Stop BBQ restaurant which we attended in June last year. It's an ideal location for a meet and to grab some good food, think big juicy burgers, melt in the mouth steaks, succulent fried chicken, etc, you get the idea. We're planning to host the meet in a couple of weeks time, on Saturday 21st March. If you are interested please confirm below, final numbers need to be confirmed a few days before hand. The car park is of reasonable size, however we expect it to get rather busy. Please can we all aim to get there for 11:30 (no earlier please), this will allow us to park up together. Here's the menu: http://smokestopbbq.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Menu-for-web.pdf Thanks for looking. Will Location: SmokeStop BBQ Welshpool Road Shrewsbury Shropshire SY5 9LH Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/RJUi2Req3QQi1pZ79 Date: Saturday 21st March From: 11:30 with lunch booked at 12:00. Here are some photo's to get your mouth watering: List: 1. @will300 2. @Deacon 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Midlands Lunch Meet - Sat 21st Mar (Smokestop BBQ)

For anyone thinking of attending the meet has now been cancelled.

This might also be an appropriate garage accessory: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VALVOLINE-OIL-BARREL-MINI-FRIDGE-VERY-RARE-LIMTED-EDITION/202938974725?hash=item2f401b0205%3Ag%3ArA8AAOSw4GdeZPBr&LH_ItemCondition=3000

Is that a coffee machine and tv that I can see? 😄 If so, looking like a very functional workshop indeed.

Facelift bumper does look really cool like that, I like how it highlights all the extra creases compared to a pre-17 bumper.