Vorshlag BRZ/FRS Project Development Thread

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MAINTENANCE ITEMS + A LITTLE BLING!

This section covers a lot of gaskets, lugs, sensors and other maintenance items we replaced - which is a good idea before taking an unknown engine to be dyno tuned. and there is some bling, too. This first one might seem trivial but the P2R billet piece covers up an opening in the timing belt covers that normally has a big cast aluminum engine mount bracket there.



We removed the 1.8 pound "engine mount" - which was on what we now call the front of the J-series and replace it with this P2R billet cover. It seems extravagant but his prices are amazingly low.



The stock piece was 1.8 pounds and this P2R cover was 0.5 lbs - and it looks a lot like what the IndyCar Honda V6 used, as you can see above (a derivative of this Honda V6 was used from 1994-2002 in CART & Champ Car with twin turbos). Look at the front timing covers and exhaust ports and tell me that is NOT a J-series!



I ordered a new water pump, NGK spark plugs, serpentine belt (a stretch belt without a tensioner), and a lot of water pump and valve cover gaskets from various suppliers. The water pump is behind the timing belt, so its a damn good idea to do both at the same time - especially on a used engine.



The timing marks were lined up and the old timing belt then water pump were removed. We ordered a new timing belt, tensioner, pulleys and lower plastic timing belt cover from P2R. The old timing belt looked OK but why risk it?



Here the P2R front cover was added, then the Gates blue timing belt, new pulleys, and new OEM tensioner. The P2R sourced lower timing cover makes the engine look brand new.



The valve covers are cast aluminum and always look pretty bland - so Christian bead blasted them in our cabinet and I had them powder coated "Bengal Red" - a color we use for many tow hooks and other items we regularly powder coat. They came out great!



Last piece of engine bling were these red translucent upper timing belt covers. Yes it is a little JDM Yo but it ties the whole engine together.



Last bit of maintenance is an OEM style replacement balancer. The old one looked a bit rusty and the rubber was starting to crack, plus it never hurts to have a fresh balancer on any engine. This was a RockAuto special that was inexpensive.



After the A2 valve covers were powder coated we realized that the P2R upper plenum - which we had chopped .700" out of the lower straight section - now contacted the bolt shown above on the driver's side. We did all of the plenum work on the A1 valve covers which are totally different. A little clearancing on the plenum and we were good to go.

FINAL PARTS TO ATTACH + INSTALLING THE J37A2

The last things we needed to attach to the J37 were the clutch, the bellhousing adapter, steel crank adapter and the rear TrakTuff cooling parts.



With these bits installed (see the Clutch and Cooling system sections above for more pics) it was time to install the RX8 transmission. Then they removed the plenum, to get the engine hanger installed.



The image above shows a lot of the research, engineering, machining, and hard work needed to get these parts to mate up, and the mounts bolted to the block for the mounting into the engine bay.



On March 12, 2026 the guys were stuffing the J37A2 and RX8 transmission into our little FRS for the last time before the new engine fired up.



That was a nice moment - seeing the actual engine in there, and not the mock up lump. Now it was time to get to work getting it fired up. We were quickly running out of time to make the April time trial event, and my stress level was peaked.

REMOTE OIL FILTER + OIL SYSTEM PLUMBING

Our oil cooling work consists of three main components and several hoses. The first item is really two things you should buy together form P2R. Took us doing it wrong to realize we needed this special 90 degree fitting Sean makes.



The P2R relocation adapter is also reasonably priced and takes the place of the huge oil filter housing - which sticks way off the "front" of the J37, and both J engines we had (the junker A1 and the fresher A2) had bashed up oil filters. It just sticks way out there in the way, easy to be bonked when transporting or removing engines.



Christian removed the oil filter housing and replaced it with the P2R piece using the bolts they include and new gaskets. Then we added a -10AN ORB to straight -10AN adapter... and that was a bad idea.



As you can see above left, the silver "straight" adapter was very close to the balancer. We then sourced the P2R 90 deg fitting (above right) made exactly for this spot, which gained us a lot of clearance the serpentine belt.



We already had sourced an Improved Racing remote oil filter kit with a thermostatic bypass set to open at 185F - this way engine oil doesn't go through the cooler until it is warmed up. This is the same remote oil filter housing we have used many times, and that has let us settle on a single oil to keep in stock filter for many cars - a giant filter that dwarfs what the OEM J-series uses.



Then it was time for Brad to build -10 AN hoses to connect the two lines to/from the P2R oil filter adapter to the Improved Racing filter mount, then 2 more to/from the filter to the oil cooler. Done!

NEW MOMO RACE SEATS

I ordered a pair of MOMO Safari Daytona seats in November and they arrived in early January, then they sat for 3 months as we were busy on too many other aspects of this build.



I picked this Halo style seat for many reasons, including the fact that these were on crazy 20% off sale for Cyber Monday, but mostly because I wanted to see how these Daytona seats looked. These FIA rated seats fit both Amy and I in their "XL" size. Any Italian made seat is going to "run small" so always try to "test sit" in any Sparco or MOMO seat, heck ANY racing seat, before you buy.



We installed these with our Vorshlag 86 "seat bracket base" kits, our ultra-wide side brackets (made just for the 86 chassis), and two Sparco sliders.



I took this seat install opportunity to video the steps it takes to mount racing seats in the 86 chassis with our parts, which you can watch above.



I have since driven the car in these seats and they feel great. I can't wait to get out on track with this car to see how it feels strapped in and driving in anger!

FINAL FUEL SYSTEM PLUMBING

All we lacked to finish the fuel system was in the engine bay - connecting the regulator to the fuel rails. We used an adjustable Holley regulator (which we had on hand, normally we used a DW regulator) and ran a single -6AN line out, then a "Y" to two lines into the back of both fuel rails.



Normally we would run one hose into the back of one rail, have a crossover hose, and then a hose back to the regulator - but we had a clearance issue with the plenum up front, so this is how it has to be to fit our unusually tight plenum setup. The ends of the P2R rails are simply plugged.

OIL PRESSURE ACCUMULATOR

Any time we have a wet sump oiling system we pause and ask - what do we need to do to make this engine not starve for oil in high g corners? Nobody had a trap door baffle kit for this oil pan (we might have to make that).



With these fresh 315mm A052 Yokohamas + aero we will see north of 1.5g on most road courses, which can make oil slosh away from oil pump pickups. We know almost nothing about the factory oil pans on the J-series so we're pre-emptively adding an accumulator for oil, aka: "Accusump" - but we're using one from MasterLube.



Why not use the Canton branded Accusump? Because we had one of these units sitting new and unused from another project, and it packages much better than a 2qt or 3qt Accusump. We mounted it on the included bracket as shown above, and after some plumbing challenges settled on this -6 to -10 AN fitting stack. I will watch oil pressure LIKE A HAWK on my first track laps, of course. And our first test will be without aero.



Brad built a -10 AN sized Fragola hose from the MasterLube and T'd that into the oil pump output line to the remote filter, ahead of the thermostat. We can also precharge the system from a switch on the dash to prelube the engine before we start it, or wait until after it is running to arm the system. To keep the tank charged we have to "close" the solenoid before the engine is shut off. Like with an Accusump, if oil pressure gets low enough it will send pressurized oil from the tank into the oil flow path. Then recharge on the next straight.

WHAT'S NEXT?

I've been writing on this off and on for 3 weeks, this post ran super long, and I have to stop here. We probably lost the short attention span folks 100 words in, but there were a LOT of little things we did to make this J-series swap work. Then even more work to make it run and drive right, with remote tuning and some wiring re-work.



The car runs and drives and goes to the dyno tomorrow for final tuning steps. Hopefully soon after I can put in some track miles to test various systems. We will cover the final swap work steps from March - April 2026 in the next post.

Until next time,

Thanks for reading!

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Project Update for April 22, 2026: We didn't get caught up to date on the progress of Amy's 2013 FRS with the J37 Honda V6 swap last time, so this will be a quick catch up post.



We have also made a good bit of progress since that post last week - the Honda V6 engine is running, we've done an initial dyno tune, and even one track test so far. Lots more to cover so let's get to it!

VENTED CRANKCASE OIL CATCH CAN

As we do on most builds that won't see street use, we added a vented Peterson oil catch can for crankcase venting on this wet sump engine. These have gotten a bit spendy but we can still find deals on them. We had a pair of them this time, and one of them had two -12 ORB side ports + the -6 ORB drain hole at the bottom (comes with a plug for that). This can was mounted to the panel that was ahead of the tiny NOCO battery, and the Car Tek battery kill went next to it.



I wanted a 1/4 turn ball valve for the bottom and I rounded up all of the parts shown below left from Amazon. No brass (that material used on race cars makes me cringe) but instead aluminum and stainless steel. I chased down two sizes of silicone hose as well.



For the drain we went from the -6 ORB port to 1/8" NPT, which is easy to find for these ball valves. Then out of the valve to a 1/4" nipple, to which we added a length of hose to drain the can after track days into a pan under the car.



The J37 valve covers had two ports for crankcase venting, which normally went through a PCV valve and pumped those vapors back into the intake. This ain't a diesel and we do not like burning oil vapors in the engine, so we ran silicone hoses from each valve cover to the catch can. One side was rather large and close to the can, so I found a 90 deg formed hose for the passenger side. For a 100% emissions legal street car you can't use a vented catch can, but this isn't a street car.



The driver's side had a longer run and we ran a smaller diameter silicone hose that fit the factory nipple through a couple of P-clamps to the other port on the catch can. This worked out nicely and no used oil was sent into the engine during our first track test.

J37A2 EXHAUST REDO!

Nothing makes me happier than doing the same task twice /sarcasm. Why oh why did Honda change the exhaust port flange size and bolt pattern between the J37A1 and J37A2? Nobody knows, not even scientists. But it sure made for a bunch of work when we had to switch between the mock up engine (A1, which was junk) and the A2 (the only version we could find with low miles).



I ordered another pair of stainless steel, cast "exhaust starters" from P2R and we got to work. First, the completely finished exhaust was removed and the two "A1" starters were cut off in the mitering band saw (see above right).



Then the "A2" starters were cut at the same angle we needed for more of a turn away from the block, which opened up the tight radius that these normally have. Christian cut these faster and cleaner on the same mitering band saw than I did on the first one with the vertical band saw. Stainless is tough on blades but we have coolant on this saw and they cut cleanly in one shot. The one above at the far right was the old one that we cut off - it was junk, so we let the blade go through the flange.



With the new "A2" flanges bolted to the block, Christian spent a good bit of time aligning and tack welding the vertical tubing in the car, then once it was all aligned properly, it all came off and went to the fab bench. There he TIG welded the two sides to the new flanges, reinstalled on the car, and now we're ready to go with the new engine.

CARTEK BATTERY KILL

We put a CarTek Electronics (UK company) "battery isolator" on every race car we touch. We are one of very few importers of these devices that are used to "kill power" in a hurry for safety and long term storage. There are no moving parts so nothing can spark when you cycle the switch, unlike the old "cracker box" switches used back in the day.



Since the tiny NOCO battery is now in the stock location in the back corner of the engine bay, the CarTek is mounted nearby. This is where the main battery ground wire lands - and that is what kills the circuit for most systems, breaking the battery ground. We tend to put the main CarTek kill switch in the center stack of the dash and the secondary switches at the sides, as shown below.



The way this is normally setup is with a primary switch (with an LED light when it is switched "on") and one or more secondary kill switches, which are just dumb buttons that be mounted in other locations. After a friend got in a bad car fire and a corner worker couldn't reach his fire suppression system pull handle (or kill switch) a few years ago we discussed this situation internally and agreed that we will put fire pulls and extra CarTek kill switches on both sides of the dash, next to the door windows - easily accessed by corner workers.



The interior of this FRS is still mostly intact, and I like keeping it this way when we can to make the car seem... more relatable and less "dedicated race car". So when we need to add things like fire pulls and kill switches, we take that job seriously. It needs to be sturdy enough to deal with someone on fire pulling on it as well as looking well integrated into the interior.



Brad started with cardboard templates and I sat in the car to get a feel for placement and reach. We settled on a design that would bolt to a side panel on the dash and hold the fire pull + secondary CarTek switch in each side + a rectangular cutout on the passenger side for a USB port that goes to the Link ECU (which we use in tuning sessions). These were hand cut from aluminum sheet and have a brushed finish - which takes powder coat very well.



When we have a break in the racing season these aluminum panels will be powder coated semi-gloss black and they will all but disappear. I'm very happy with how these turned out and with the interior as a whole.

WALKER PRO MOTORSPORTS 4-POINT ROLL BAR

We are building around SCCA's Level 2 Safety requirements, meaning we need a 4-point roll bar + fixed back racing seats and harnesses. Instead of spending a lot of time ordering material, designing a 4-point, and welding that up we hit the Easy Button and ordered this Walker Pro Motorsports bolt-in 4-point made for the 1st and 2nd gen 86.



It arrived a few weeks later and shipped flat packed via UPS - with a lot of packing peanuts. After sweeping up three 40 gallon trash bags of this stuff up, we got a weight with some car scales - right at 50 pounds. We removed 42.2 pounds from the back seat pieces we are allowed to remove in Level 2 Safety, so we should only gain about 8 pounds.



We pre-assembled the kit on the shop floor to see how this is laid out. There were two welded nut plates that need to be added to the rear sat cross beam, so Brad got to work and mocked up those pieces in the car - they can only fit one way.



With the holes marked, the 3 spots where welded nuts need clearance were drilled out to fit. Then the perimeter where this plate is welded to the floor were cleaned of paint.



Christian added some MIG stitch welds to the lower plate, which you can see above left. Then the main hoop section can be bolted down to the plates with the 3 bolts per side.



The rear downbar mounting plates are easier to attach, with holes drilled for bolts which are inserted from the wheel well side into the threaded nut plates. The forward rear shock mount holes are the 3rd hole for each side, Between the marking, cutting, drilling, welding, and assembly it took about 8 hours (most of a day) but that added safety will help if we ever have a rollover + gives us a proper place to hang shoulder belts for the 6-point harnesses.



The fit and finish were top notch and we would have spent more time and money trying to design and build this than it cost to just buy it.

LINK ECU CUSTOM ENGINE HARNESS

In late March 2026 we were ready to wire up the J37A2, and George with Link had been working on a prototype J-series engine harness that connects to the big 32 pin connector at the firewall, which goes to the OEM computer AND to the Link ECU.



This is a proper harness with motorsport level connectors but not all of the goopy sleeving that some race teams love. We needed to be able to get into the harness if we have to make changes (there were a couple) and the braided sleeving is more than good enough for our uses. George had every terminal marked with labels and we only had to terminate a few things.



The guys here worked with George and we laid out the harness as he built it using our old J37A1 engine for placement of the various sensors and Honda items we needed to connect to.



The Link ECU was then added in the stock location, using the stock bracket. It goes in the right passenger side footwell, and the USB cable coming off is the programming cable.



We had all of the sensors we needed except two, and those were chased down over a couple of days and then it was time to start testing.

NEW J37A1 IGNITION COILS

One of the challenges we had was the new A2 coils had a different connector, and George had ordered the A1 coil ends months earlier. The used A1 coils looked pretty nasty (one was burned!) so I ordered 6 new A1 coils and George was able to keep the connectors he had built around.



A small change but it fires fine, and we kept a coupe of the old A1 coils as pares. Why does Honda have to change things so often?

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MOUNTING SENSORS + SOME INEXPENSIVE AUXILIARY GAUGES

If you have followed our builds for a while you might realize one thing - I'm kind of cheap (usually to my determent, then I learn a lesson, and don't make that mistake again). Hey, when you're building three engine swapped cars at the same time, you might start pinching pennies. But we still need some additional gauges for this J37 swap to save the investment in the engine itself. To keep the engine alive and well, we need to monitor Engine Coolant Temps (ECT), oil pressure, and oil temperature - at the bare minimum.



The factory 86 gauges work with the Link ECU, even on this J37 engine. And there are oil pressure and ECT sensors that we purchased from Link that tie into this engine harness. There was some ECT scaling we had to do and the factory temp gauge worked, but it has no numbers - just hash marks. The factory tachometer, speedometer, and fuel level gauge work. But I need more data - and before I blow $3250+ on an AiM Dash, we'd like to add some low cost gauges for oil temp and oil pressure.



I bought some inexpensive (ie: cheap!) 52mm gauges for Amy's 2025 season race car, the 1995 M3 above. This car also had OEM gauges driven by a Link ECU, but again - not enough data. So as sketchy as these gauges look, we have used them successfully for "temporary" use, and they even have alarms and a recall mode + they come with their own sensors. Digital readout and an "analog" light-up ring around the perimeter of each gauge. I've paid $300 each for AEM versions that look about these same as these $35 Alibaba versions...



The oil pressure is a duplicate, but there was no oil temp sensor - so we added that. There were not any 1/8" NPT ports on this engine so we came up with an in-line adapter solution with one of the -10 AN hoses that went to the oil filter block, shown above. We added this inline -10 adapter with a side port for the 1/8" NPT we needed.



The temp sensor that came with these no-name gauges was too long, and would have been bottomed out on the back side of this adapter. And we needed TWO ports of this size. I found this stainless extension with 1/8" NPT on both ends and one on the side. This then screwed into the in-line -10AN hose adapter. The long end of the tower took the long oil temp sensor and the side port took the shorter pressure sensor.



We mounted these two gauges in a custom center stack panel, which Brad made in cardboard and the guys CNC cut on the plasma table. We added 3 switches, a double USB port, CarTek switch, and a low fuel light indicator at the same time.



For the "real" oil pressure sensor that goes to the Link ECU (and uses this Haltech 0-150 psi sensor) we needed to thread into the block near the P2R oil filter bypass plate. That hole in the block was made for a Honda sensor with an M10-1.25 O-Ring Boss (ORB) end. We couldn't find an aftermarket sensor with that end, so we did what tuners tend to like, we remote mounted the good pressure sensor. A short run of -4 AN hose allowed us to adapt from an M10-1.25 ORB fitting to the -4 AN on the block side, and -4 AN to 1/8" NPT on the sensor side. The sensor is secured to a bracket with a cushioned P-clamp, and that is the most accurate data you can hope for.



George from Link had sent the list of sensors to the remote tuner we had lined up, and he wanted to see fuel pressure via sensor instead of the little manual gauge we had mounted to the regulator (which always has an 1/8" NPT port for this sort of thing). We ordered another 0-150 psi sensor (Link sourced) and that was added in place of the gauge, and that meant we were pretty close to starting this engine!

LIFELINE FIRE SYSTEM

Every car we build lately gets a full fire suppression system + small handheld Halon style fire bottle (for small grass fires). We deal almost exclusively with Lifeline Fire and Safety for these systems + racing harnesses. A gaggle of parts arrived March 25th that included one 6-point Copse Apex 6-point 2" harness, a Lifeline Zero 2020 FIA 3.0ltr Aqueous Foam fire suppression system. I added two tow straps to the order for this car, too.



The typical fire suppression kit comes with both a 6' and a 12' fire pull cables, but we always order an extra 12' cable if we mount the fire bottle in the trunk. That lets us have the pulls on both sides of the dash, as shown above in the Car Tek section.



We started by mounting the bottle bracket in the trunk, and this was laid out weeks earlier before the Radium surge tank went in (with room also for the cool suit cooler). About a week later we had time to actually plumb up the nozzles, and placement of those is key. I need to write an article about this, but basically: we want a nozzle around any high fire point and two on the driver. The first nozzle you can see (above right) is mounted above the surge tank itself, which has lots of fuel line connections.



The two nozzles by the driver are shown above - one above waist height and the other just below, on either side of the steering wheel. You can see the two fire pulls and three CarTek battery kill switches in the illustrated image as well.



Two more nozzles are in the engine bay, both near the firewall on aluminum brackets. Each is pointing at a fuel rail and that gives the highest likelihood points of fire good coverage. The last image above right shows how easily accessible the fire pulls are from the drive or corner worker - with one on each side.



Last but not least we have at least a rear tow strap mounted. Brad and I looked at the factory mounting hole for a stock screw-in tow hook and he found the right bolt to fit that, then a heavy washer was used and the Lifeline strap attached. It protrudes out of the stock plastic square hole, and normally is zip-tied into a bundle that doesn't flap around. If we need to get yanked out of the grass, the track crew can yank hard and the small zip tie will split and they can hook up. We still need a solution up front.

MAKING A SHIFTER FOR THIS SWAP

The main sticking point for this swap in my view is the shifter location for the S2 RX8 Aisin 6 speed box. I was very very worried it would be cumbersome to drive on track, but in reality - it was a breeze. After my first shift in my first lap, I never through about it again, and I drove the heck out of this car at the first track test. We did have to so some real modifications to make this shifter land where it needed to be, as you will see below.



We started with a "short throw" RX8 shifter, but it contacted the climate control part of the dash in 3rd gear. We looked at it and promptly chopped the upper part off. This shifter needs to be pressed down to engage reverse, so we kept the lower section intact. Then Christian welded a piece of 3/8" stainless to the lower shaft, which has two holes drilled and tapped. Then we used a random offset billet shifter we had from another project to test with, but it wasn't offset enough - the shifter ended up still going too close to the dash in gears 1/3/5.



The folks at Sikky have published specs on their billet shifters, which is nice. This allowed us to order one with confidence that it would fit, and the offset worked great.



After the Sikky shifter handle arrived Christian bolted that on, I hopped into the car, and ran through the gears. 3rd gear is the one I worried about but it had the right distance from the dash and wasn't too far from me - the ergonomics worked in all gears. Yay!



We still had a massive hole in the 86's tunnel - from testing with the T56 Magnum XL (when this was our LS swap development mule) and now with the RX8 box. So Brad made an aluminum panel to cover that up. Fire and fume safety are important, so we added a Joe's Racing Nomex shift boot and their lower snap-on bracket to the flat panel he made.



With the Joe's shift boot in place the opening was now sealed from smoke and fire, but we needed the stock console in place due to class regulations. The front of the bezel and part of the console needed to be clearanced for the offset shifter, but we covered up most of that sin later with the second, upper shift boot.



I didn't have luck finding a knob that fit this Sikky handle with the correct thread size or RX8 gear pattern printed on top - and when you have as many different race cars and shift patterns as we do, it helps to see that. Jason found a shop called "Twisted Shifterz" who will custom make shift knobs with just about any thread insert, and for $38.72 I had a REALLY NICE black plastic knob with the 6-speed pattern embossed and it just went right on. The cheesy red MUGEN POWER shift boot was $15 on eBay and Christian got that to fit into the stock bezel and it finally looks pretty good.

ADDING FLUIDS & FIRST FIRE TESTING

March 27th and it is time to fill all the systems. The FRS diff fluid was at least ten years old, so in went fresh Motul Gear 300. The RX8 transmission used the same fluid spec, so in that went. And for the Honda J37, Motul 8100 in 5W40 was chosen. This should give us good cold and warm oil pressures and work well for track use. I marked each system with capacities and fluid types so there was no confusion.



The coolant system was vacuum filled and we used a small amount of anti-freeze and mostly distilled water. The in-line vacuum check valve I had ordered arrived and was setup from the P2R plenum to the brake booster (below right).



At this point the first SCCA TT of the season is less than a week away and I was beginning to lose hope we'd make that (we did not). Here is where Brad, George, Christian and a remote tuner Mike fought with a prototype engine harness, on a Honda engine none knew well, with a bunch of systems that had just been wired and plumbed. We had to check base timing, test crank triggers (there are two), cam sensors, and more.



One of the sensors was bad and had to be overnighted. Then there was a wire with the wrong voltage, another mis-pinned there, and it kept just gobbling up time. This is all to be expected on something so different and new to all of us, but it gave me some grey hairs as the clock was running out on the race. I refuse to take a car that is un-tuned, hasn't been on a dyno, and hasn't been on track to a competition event. That was the right call.

CHEAP STARTER PROBLEMS AND FIX

After a full day of cranking the starter, doing tests for timing and sensor, then trying to start the Honda V6, we killed the cheap Amazon starter. I bought this in October 2025 for $59, mostly to use for mockup with the new crank adapter and RX8 flywheel. Frustrating that it died but I was being cheap.



The starter died on a Friday afternoon so on Saturday morning I came into the shop, pulled the starter (which would spin but not engage the Bendix), and took it to a local O'Reillys store. They were able to order a replacement and it showed up later that day.



I took it back to the shop and installed it, then tested the starter (briefly - we weren't ready to start the engine with the tuner not logged in) and it worked. The video above right shows the testing. Oh well, lesson learned.

FIRST FIRE - FINALLY

The week of March 30th and we were thrashing, chasing down little issues and trying to get the dang engine to start. We checked spark, we checked fuel, we checked sensors and more.



There were a dozen little things that were fighting us, and I won't bore you with all of it. Just simple mistakes, oversights, and lack of knowledge with the J-series V6. Heck we weren't even sure we had the cooling re-route hooked up correctly, so we did a lot of little tests. The internet is not chock full of Honda J-series knowledge.



One issues we had was a bad ECT sensor - turns out we had a random sensor in the block that was giving us erroneous data. I order a Haltech overnight and that was wired into the Link ECU harness and scaled, then we chased a MAP sensor surge issue in the tune, then some mis-wired coils (two were swapped).



Finally, on April 1st, 2026 the engine fired up and ran right. The J37 fires up on the first crank, every time, and running on all 6 cylinders it sounds pretty good. The video above was one of those "hallelujah" moments.

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DRIVER COOLING SYSTEM, BRAKE PADS + RIDE HEIGHTS

We had some time to burn between when the car fired up and before we went to the dyno. I figured we were going to see Texas summer heat sooner than later, so I ordered another Paragon 19 qt cooler and mounting bracket for this car. We keep selling cars with these installed, so I keep having to replace them.



Just like with our 2023 BRZ, Brad made a nearly identical aluminum base to attach to the back wall of the trunk (thru-bolted) and the threaded spare tire nipple. This gives us a flat plane to mount the mounting tray to, and leaves room to thru-bolt the cooler bracket to that. As you can see, we had room to spare with the fuel system bulkhead connections, as this placement was planned many weeks earlier.



The Paragon bracket is then bolted down to our aluminum bracket, then the Paragon cooler is strapped down with the included Velcro straps. We have dual 8' quick connect lines that go to the driver area, and it is wired to one of the paddle switches on the dash. We will likely use this starting in May, as things heat up here.



The pads from 2018 were pretty hammered so we ordered a fresh set of G-LOC R16 pads up front and R12 pads out back, which were installed. The hope was the dyno would go smoothly and we could go track test soon after (we missed the April 4-5th SCCA Time Trial).

We are using the OEM calipers front and rear for now - the Powerbrake motorsports front brakes were swapped to Amy's 2023 BRZ and sold with that car, so these were actually the 2023 BRZ front calipers (2 piston sliders - not great). We could bed these after the dyno pulls and before our track test.



During the 8 years the car sat after we last drove it, we swapped the "Whiteline" coilovers for MCS Remote 2 Way (RR2) dampers and upped the spring rates to 650 #/in front and 700 #/in rear. Ride heights were set (too high in hindsight) and we were ready for a test drive.

BIG (AND FRESH) TIRES, TEST DRIVE + FINAL WEIGHT BEFORE DYNO

We had the FA20 powered FRS on 18x11" wheels and 315mm 200TW tires on the last track test in 2018, where it dropped a huge amount of time over fresh 215mm tires - our biggest single time drop yet. But during the 8 or so years the car sat, the tires aged out. The fronts were 10 years old and the rears 13 - they had to be replaced.



I had some A052 Yokohamas in 315/30R18 but they were well worn scrubs, so I ponied up for a new set at $550/each (ouch). At the same time we ordered some 295/30R18 Bridgestones for the Pontini endurance team, who were going to 18x10" wheels with the more popular 5x114.3 bolt circle.



We have a relatively new tire mounting machine but nobody here is skilled enough (yet) to mount the really wide stuff, so I hauled them to a local tire store and had the fresh A052s mounted up. The wheels are 18x11" front and 18x12" rears and we had to put a small spacer on each end to clear these massive 12.5" wide section width tires.



During testing with the wheels off the ground I heard a funny squeak, and it turns out two e-brake bracket bolts were a bit too long and contacted the driveshaft "at speed". Those were shortened, and some rush ordered bolts of the proper length and strength arrived for the driveshaft to differential, which replaced some shadier stuff we had on there "temporarily" but forgot about.


LEFT: Weight from 12/11/2018 with FA20 engine + widebody and coilovers RIGHT: Weight from 4/8/2026, with J37 engine + roll bar and coolers

The night before the first test drive we added 5 gallons of fresh 93 octane and got a quick weight check. The 2733 pound weight was heavier than I had hoped, but still about the same as it was the last time it was driven with the FA20 engine in 2018. The new setup had heavier (stock) brakes, oil cooler, roll bar, giant radiator, surge tank, and many more items than it had.



On April 8th all of the loose ends were buttoned up, the car was given a quick test drive (with zero throttle - as set by the tuner), and I made it back to the shop unscathed. I loaded it into our small 36' trailer that night for a dyno tune the next morning.

DYNO TUNING (2 ATTEMPTS)

The morning of April 9th we had the car unloaded at a dyno shop we were renting and Brad and i got it strapped to the dyno. Mike from Sakura Garage was on deck ready to remote tune the car.



We had the car on the dyno and it was bouncing - was a wheel bent? The lug nuts not seated? We had to abort, but luckily I had another car with a Link ECU that was there that Mike tuned instead - the Ocho, our 1988 Mustang test mule. With a fairly mild 6.3L built LS1 it made 497 whp that day, which was encouraging.



At first we thought we had a bent wheel - so I swapped one 18x12" Forgestar for another I had from a new set. But in the short term I borrowed some itty bitty 17x9" wheels and 255mm tires from the Pontini endurance car, as they had left 5x100 pattern wheels behind.



We thought that this was maybe a lugnut issue, as these Forgestars in 5x100 have to use a 20mm OD or smaller tuner lug. The lugs we had on hand were 22mm, and we had cut them down, but maybe they weren't seating right? I bought more 20mm OD lugs and we modified them (to make them open ended to work with our 3" long ARP studs) and they were fine. Test drives on both sets of wheels showed no hooping.



Fast forward to April 15th - tax day - and George from Link ECU is back in town and Mike at Sakura Garage is on deck for remote tuning again, and we have another dyno rental session scheduled (all of these folks require us to juggle schedules).



Brad and I were there early, and we had the FRS strapped to the dyno and warmed up by 9:45 that morning. George arrived soon after and he again ran the laptop and the dyno. They saw the same bouncing, but after all of the wheel changes, test drives, I knew it was a tuning / MAP surge only. At a certain RPM the untuned engine would surge like mad. They worked on that and about 20 minutes later we were making pulls!



After about an hour of work and 9 pulls the engine made a lot of 300 whp numbers, with the highest being 302 whp. There were still issues to improve on, which I talk about in the video linked above.



The Link ECU triggers the VTEC (which affect both intake and exhaust on the J37A2) but it made no difference on the dyno, so that isn't working. We also do not have enough fuel injector flow, and it was going lean at 6500 rpm (and these should be good to 7000). So the 302 whp number is with those two things we need to attack. It was deemed safe to drive on track under 6500 so

OUR LAST GARMIN CATALYST INSTALL

We have been using a Garmin Catalyst in Amy's track cars for several years now, but this was our last installation. We have kept the same main head unit and bought another camera and RAM branded Garmin mounting cage for this car - as her 1995 M3 was sold with the cage and camera for the new buyer, as was her 2023 BRZ.



This RAM cage is a more secure mount than the "magnetic only" mount that comes with the Catalyst. It mounts to a RAM mount ball that was already on the dash, and the video camera is up by the rear view mirror. It is all wired up correctly with a dedicated USB power port and a new cord. It worked when we set it up in the shop...



This was Amy's M3 above left, and you will notice that next to the Catalyst is an AiM SOLO. We ALWAYS have a backup lap timer in any car with a Garmin Catalyst, because they are notoriously flaky. The pic above right was the Catalyst fighting with her 2023 BRZ trying to sync Bluetooth for the speakers. If its not that it is losing GPS signal, or losing camera connection. When anything goes wrong, the Catalyst is a brick - no video, no lap timer, worthless.



And at the track test below, the Catalyst let me down one final time. "Please check camera connection", which is all new cables, perfectly routed, with good steady power. I lost several minutes of my first session trying to get this to work to no avail. Luckily I had a SOLO in the car for lap timing and some basic GPS + accelerometer data. I installed my trusty SONY HDR video camera for my second session... which never happened. This will be our lap timer + video camera setup for this car for the foreseeable future.

TRACK TEST # 7 - MSR 1.7 CCW - APRIL 17, 2026

We arrived at MSR Cresson on a beautiful Spring Friday morning at 7:45 am and unloaded both 86s for some 8:30 am laps. Other than having no video for the FRS, this shake down test went remarkably well for our FRS - a car that hasn't run in 8 years.



I had tire pressures on the new A052s set at 28 psi cold, all of the timing gear going, brand new MCS RR2 shocks set at a "best guess" of +6 compression and +8/+6 rebound front and rear. I was going to go out and JUST make a few shake down laps to listen for bad sounds, watch gauges like oil pressure like a hawk, and try to pick up on any smells that could mean tire rub, coolant leak, etc.

SESSION 1

Normally I'd link in-car video here but it was a bust. The AiM data was still valid, and you can see I made about 10 laps with a brief dive into the hot pits in between. Jason reset all of my tire pressures to 33F/32R, checked rotor temps (low), and I reset and went back out for more laps. I saw a 1:20.X predictive in there but botched it with traffic and some other factors.



Best I could managed in the first 30 minute session was 1:21.8, and fuel level got VERY low so I came in to check the car over before the next session. It would by unusual for the first shake down session in 8 years with a new engine / trans, new suspension, and new pads that needed bedding and new tires that needed to be scrubbed to be my best session of the day.

After I came in, I immediately added 5 gallons of fuel then tweaked rebound settings on the dampers (+16/+12) to dial out some bounce. I checked over the car but everything just seemed to be working well. Gearing was amazing using 3rd and 4th on most sections and 5th gear in 3 spots! The shake down laps were almost matching the best the Max5 M3 ever did (1:21.0), so I was excited to go back out an hour later for another shot at breaking into the 1:20 range.

DRIVING IMPRESSIONS

The car drove very well, with neutral handling if a bit under-damped (just need another session to adjust knobs). The shifter was perfect, never missed a gear. Brakes felt pretty unimpressive, so a BBK is in order. The power level was PERFECT for this car, with a bit of tire spin in 3rd gear in one slow corner but otherwise very manageable. I really really like how this car feels with this power, weight and grip level. Can't wait to see what its like after adding 500 rpm, VTEC, some suspension tuning and aero!

SESSION 2

I make it out and on my first shake down lap I smell fuel. With no bulkhead panel behind me that was easy to smell (we're working on that). I dive into the hot pits and Paul sees the leak.



Came into the paddock, cleaned up a tiny bit of fuel, tightened the fitting above the surge tank where the leak was, strapped back in and went back out. Half a lap later I smell it again. Back in the paddock, the leak is still there. I have no way to fix this here so I pack it in.



It felt good to knock the rust off after 7 months away from driving anything on track. After driving the Pontini BRZ in the 3rd session at 11 am, we loaded up both cars, had a good lunch at the trackside BBQ joint, and got back to the shop by 2:30 to unload and a list of things to tweak, finish, and upgrade on both cars. I will talk about the Pontini BRZ in that car's forum thread.

LAP TIME COMPARISON

Back to the tradition of pointing out the various stages and lap times of our 2013 FRS to date, all at MSR Cresson on the 1.7 CCW course. There was a bit of a gap in there (8 years) but who's counting??

• https://youtu.be/Cs6AF436ykE - 1:31.90, baseline stock 2013 Scion FR-S, Test #1 (2016)
• https://youtu.be/_I4ltM6plFQ - 1:29.630, Agent86 with camber and front brake upgrade, Test #2
• https://youtu.be/_NynP6vt4Yg - 1:28.889, coilovers and bars, Agent86 Test #3
• https://youtu.be/CU72_RGfC2Y - 1:28.565, Agent86 Track Test #4
• https://youtu.be/SUCBbM3v6Po - 1:25.978, Agent 86 with 315mm Rival-S tires, Test #6 (in 2018 )
• Lap Time Data - 1:22.53, 2023 BRZ on 265 A052s, MCS RR2, that car's Test #6 (July 2023)
• Lap Time Data - 1:21.860, J37 powered FRS, 315mm A052 tires, Test #7 (April 2026)

I also added the best lap we ever turned in our red FA24 powered 2023 BRZ in there too, which was on 18x10" wheels and MCS RR2 coilovers with the Powerbrake BBK that used to be on this FRS (among other mods). I need to catch up on the coverage of this '23 BRZ soon also. Anyway, with all of the issues we had at this single session shake down it is already quicker than our '23 BRZ, which is cool.

WHAT'S NEXT?

It was apparent when I looked at the FRS pictures that we had the ride height WAY too high so we have lowered it one inch. Driving the Pontini BRZ on CSG Brembo front BBK was an eye opener so I've ordered STi front and rear rotors and Brembo calipers, DTEC 5x114.3 hubs, and STi rear hubs for our FRS. We'll also move to forged Apex 18x12" wheels all around - leftover from another project.



The ID 1050 injectors have arrived and been installed, and we're re-tuning for those shortly + tackling aero, another track test, and many other small changes. Stay tuned here for more!

Thanks for reading.