Vorshlag BRZ/FRS Project Development Thread

[Fair!]

BRZ Project Introduction - August 28, 2012: We here at Vorshlag have had a cautiously optimistic view of the FT-86 Subaru/Toyota RWD joint venture starting 3+ years ago when the car was first announced. As soon as the pre-production cars started circulating the USA (January-February 2012), we went to a local Subaru dealer and measured all sorts of things (which you can read about in my February 2012 post here).

We noticed several things about the pre-production car pretty quickly, such as the many similarities with production Subaru model parts and some notable exceptions. The placement of the engine was uncharacteristically far back for a Subaru, which helps explain its more ideal 56% front weight bias.



The basics looked good, but as with any production built car, it looked to have some compromises that we felt we can improve on. We had a quick pow-wow and came up with some plans, then the same weekend we took measurements on the blue pre-production BRZ, Matt here at Vorshlag placed an order for a 2013 Subaru BRZ Limited in the same World Rally Blue.



Months went by with his Dallas based dealer without any ETA for his order, while other BRZs were arriving for weeks at this same dealership. He lost patience with this process, cancelled his order, and found an identical car sitting on a lot in the state of Connecticut. His car finally arrived on July 18th and he began daily driving it while we worked on a Subaru build for Pikes Peak. Once that STi project was finished and the race was over, we finally got a chance to get his BRZ into the shop to corner weigh it, remove a few parts and scale them, and measure the suspension in more detail.

Purpose & Goals

Like we often do when a new chassis comes out, this particular BRZ is going to be a test mule for new Vorshlag parts. It will be primarily a daily driven street car, but also set-up to run in the SCCA autocross class called "STR" (until the Solo Events Board wises up and moves it to the STX class, where I think it belongs). The rules for that class limit the tire width to 255mm and the wheel width to a maximum of 9" wide. The suspension options are fairly open so we can do springs, coilover shocks, camber plates, bushings, some control arms, swaybars, and more - so long as we don't move any of the suspension pick-up points. Engine mods are pretty restricted, but full length headers are legal (with cat placement rules) as well as a lightweight cat-back exhaust, a cold air intake and engine tuning. We will either make these items or source them from other vendors.


Vorshlag camber plates for use with OEM springs require a new upper spring perch made with a modified stock or CNC aluminum perch

One of the first parts that we will test are our FT86 camber plates (which we've already sold for many coilover equipped FR-S and BRZ models). This car's front spring diameter is unique for Subaru and will require a new upper spring perch design to work with the FT86 chassis OEM front springs or OEM-style lowering springs. All of our camber plates include a new upper spring perch with a sealed radial bearing inside. Swift Springs has new Sport lowering springs coming from Japan that we will install as soon as they arrive. Whiteline has some bushings and bars that will be added to the car when they are available, too.


This weighing still had all of the "trunk junk", 3/4 tank of gas, and came in at 2775 lbs.

We don't plan on making this into a gut-crushing race car, but a better handling, fun street car and hopefully faster for autocross and track use. We had originally planned on testing the first pre-production AST 4150 monotube coilovers for the FT86 chassis, but they were sent to another dealer, so we're waiting for the second test set. As soon as we get coilovers on the car we will post in this thread with our impressions. The corner weight shown above shows 55.9% weight over the front axles, which is exceptional for any Subaru we've ever weighed. Many times their FWD or AWD models approach 60/40 weight bias, but the lack of AWD allowed the engineers to move the engine and transmission back (and low) for a better F/R bias and lower Center of Gravity (CG). We plan to lower that 2775 pound initial weight and will show the weight loss for each part we replace.

First Mod: Better Wheels & Tires


Look how narrow and "tucked" inboard the factory wheels and tires look on this wide sports coupe.

The first upgrade for Matt's car was a wheel and tire change, since any kind of competition on the factory rolling stock was going to be an exercise in frustration. This is a great handling car from the factory, for sure, but the one major deficiency of this car that almost all car magazines have agreed upon is the factory tires. The relatively narrow 215/45/17 Michelin Primacy HP tires are what come on the European model Toyota Prius, which tells you it is about as far from a performance tire as they come. This is a low rolling resistance tire, first and foremost.

I got a lot of grief earlier this year for calling the factory BRZ tires "Prius tires" (even though that's exactly what they were), and at the time it was from people who had never seen or driven these cars. I suspected at the time that these skinny, low grip tires would make the cars test poorly by the car mags (it did) and be a significant hindrance to the on-track performance of this new model. Once Car&Driver (article) got their hands on the car, they felt the same way and simply swapped the Prius tires for an identically-sized Dunlup Direzza Star Spec. They dropped over 2.3 seconds on their one minute and thirty second test course (article). These Primacy tires will help you eek out another ~1/2 mpg better on the highway than a wider performance tire, if you are a Hyper Miler. If you are an automotive performance enthusiast, you will very likely want to make a wheel and tire upgrade a high priority.



I've already seen dozens of BRZ and FR-S owners upgrading to 7.5" and 8" wide wheels, but we at Vorshlag have never been shy about stuffing as much wheel width under a car as possible. A larger wheel can support a larger tire and with a larger tire you can get more grip! Tire heights do have to be considered, but a taller tire can have an advantage in autocross situations where an extra 1-3mph in 2nd gear can make all the difference. I only stop adding wheel width when we get tire rub, and even then I'll roll a fender and try to get more if we can. After some early measurements before Matt's car arrived, then a bit of a gamble, we went with a 17x9" aluminum wheel that has an +42mm offset front and rear. These bolted on with perfect inboard clearance. The rear can take more wheel width, but the front is pretty maxed out until we can get some more negative camber with our camber plates. This is definitely a car where a "square" wheel set-up will be best for street/competition usage (same width front and rear).

Now I will point out that going from the stock 17" wheel diameter up to 18" wheel diameter gains you nothing performance wise but higher cost & weight on both the wheel and tire. If you keep the same tire diameter (to not alter gearing or speedometer) this +1 wheel diameter change would result in a shorter sidewall height, making the ride quality worse and the additional weight can adversely affect handling. That was failure number one in Car&Driver's article when they started messing with wheels and tires beyond just slapping better tires on the stock wheels. They used an 18x7.5" wheel (still too narrow) and a tall 235/40/18 Dunlop tire (almost a full inch taller in diameter) and slowed down 0.7 seconds from the 215/45/17 Dunlop tires on that same road course. Classic mistake where upping wheel diameter for no reason other than style bit them in the ass. Don't fall for the "+1" trap, just stick with 17" wheels on your BRZ or FR-S for the best performance. Competition racers might even look at 16" wheel diameters, which should easily clear the small-ish brake rotors, but trying to find wide performance tires in 16" wheel diameter is just about impossible these days, so back to 17's you go.



The tires installed were 245/40/17 Michelin Pilot Super Sport's. Personally, I would have used a 255/40/17 tire from Hankook (RS-3) or Dunlop (Direzza Star Spec), but Matt wanted to test this new PSS model. Since Michelin doesn't make a 255/40/17 in the new PSS yet, he bought the widest he could find in the right diameter (to not alter gearing), which was 245/40/17.

This 17x9 wheel is a big performance boost, being a full two inches wider than the somewhat heavy 17x7" stock wheels (20.4 lbs). The addition of wider aftermarket wheels and 30mm wider 245/40/17 tires was still a total wash with regards to weight: the original equipment 17x7" wheel and 215/45/17 tire was was 41.3 lbs, while the 17x9" wheel and 245mm PSS tire weighed 41.4 lbs. I've seen this same sized 17x9" wheel weigh as much as 2 pounds lighter per corner, so there could still be weight loss to be had here if someone makes an uber-light fitment for this car. This particular 17x9" is not a wheel we can sell (it is exclusive to another wheel dealer), so we will evaluate this sample set and come up with an alternative that we can market and sell, soon. From our search of many wheel catalogs there are barely any quality 17x9" wheels right now that fit this car (5x100mm bolt pattern is the tough variable), but I'm sure there will be if this car stays as popular as it is now.



I drove this car last week on the new rubber, which was the first time I have driven any car on the Michelin PSS, and I was impressed. They were MUCH quieter than Hankook RS3's or Dunlop Star Spec's (which end up being on about 80% of our customers' cars). Lots of dry grip, responsive as hell (it helped that these were 245mm tires on 17x9" wheel) and the ride was excellent. Matt didn't want to go with the RS3 or Dunlop in 255/40/17, because he's owned and driven on both of those tires and was tired with the noise and poorer street ride they tend to provide. However, for a "street tire" autocross class or track use I would use one of those other two models in a heartbeat.

The 2700 Calorie BRZ Diet

As usual, this car came in significantly heavier than the earlier claims made by the manufacturer, forum fan boys and magazine speculation. I'm not picking on this car in particular because this ALWAYS happens. Before the Honda S2000 was released many people bragged that it would only weigh 2400 pounds, but it came out at over 2850. It's an old story - the promise of a fly weight car that ends up being heavier when the actual production model hits the showrooms. Crash standards, luxury options, and emissions equipment all conspire to add pounds.

The FT86 chassis was supposed to be 2500-2600 pounds and it's nearly 2800, so we will focus some of our efforts on lowering that number. Each time we remove a factory part we will show the weight, as well as whatever goes on to replace it. Lower weight means more performance in every vector, be it cornering, braking or forward acceleration. 5 pounds here, 10 pounds there - it will add up.



Matt left his BRZ unattended when he went to lunch one day last week. It was on the lift so we could measure some things, so I pulled the exhaust off for a quick check (then sent him a text with pictures of his car in pieces - hehe!). The muffler was surprisingly light, as was the entire after-cat system. At a hair over 38 pounds, the after-cat exhaust is not a place where we are going to find a big weight loss. A typical exhaust on BMWs we work on can exceed 90 pounds, and dropping 30-40 out with a lightweight racing style exhaust and muffler on those is common... but that will not be the case here.



That suitcase-sized rear muffler is the heaviest part of the system, of course, but must not have much "heavy" inside. I was pretty bummed, thinking this was be a good place to lose weight. Most of the aftermarket mufflers we use are still 8-13 lbs, so there are still some weight savings to be had. The stock exhaust is quiet and could be restrictive - we shall see.

We did see a lot of steel in the control arms and such, which could be replaced with aluminum by the aftermarket or maybe a future, rumored "STI" model, like the STI model Imprezas often do. We will check what this stuff weighs and see what we can do. The factory exhaust manifolds might hold some pounds we can drop, so when we get a chance to pull those off we will get a weight and think about a custom header. Might unleash some power, too.

Initial Impressions

I have owned and driven a wide variety of sports coupes and roadsters and the BRZ does not disappoint. The normal complaint with a Miata that I run into with my height is a general lack of headroom, but that is not a problem on the FT86 chassis. The interior is roomy and the greenhouse has excellent visibility, with the exception of the B-pillar creating a bit of a blind spot on the left side (this can be mitigated with proper side mirror set-up). The chassis feels tight and has none of the cowl shake and rattle I always feel in a Miata or other roadsters. The car rides well and handles like a Miata (except less roll), with instant steering response and very neutral handling - especially on the 245 Michelins stretched out on the 17x9" wheels.

The interior quality is exceptional for a car in this market niche, and the radio sounds really good. The pedals, steering wheel and shifter are all placed perfectly, other than an unusual angle of the wheel relative to the dash when I have it adjusted so that I can see the gauges. It just looks a little off, but I don't notice it once I start driving. Exceptionally good seats that I would not be in any rush to replace, which is rare. The back seat area is more of a package shelf than room for even tiny humans, but this still makes the car more useful around town than something like a Miata. I like the fact that it has a trunk and not a hatch back, too.


We know nothing about this turbo kit, so please contact Dynosty with any questions! This is simply a reference for the stock power level.

Having driven it hard on the street I can say that I do like it, but of course I wish it had more power. The 200 horses that this motor is rated at are all up top, and you have to wind it up to get it really going. It doesn't help that my daily driver has nearly three times the horsepower, so I guess I am a bit biased when you hand me a car that makes around 155 whp. Drive it hard enough and around several corners on some grippy tires and you forget all about the lack of power, because horsepower was never what this car was about. It is a true driver's car, with a quick steering feel, easily darting around back roads or carving corners on a purpose built road course. Low(ish) weight and lower cost consumables, great controls with proper manual gearbox shift feel.



This car really is a blast to drive as long as you don't have a Viper or Z06 sitting in your garage, and I think Subaru and Toyota have a hit on their hands. The look and performance of the FT86 appeals to a fairly diverse audience and will likely turns heads for quite a while. After my very first drive in this car, I parked at a restaurant and had two random older gentlemen walk up and ask me "well, how is it!?" They couldn't take their eyes off the car and knew a lot about it, which was odd for "non-car-guys".

Some of the deficiencies I point to in my post exist because they have to sell it to just about anyone, from a grandmother to a teenager, so I get why it has the compromises it has. I am fairly confident we can improve upon the various performance aspects of this car for the true car enthusiasts that want to buy this car: to make it lighter, handle better, generate more grip, and maybe even accelerate harder.

Stay tuned and let's see what we can do.

Cheers,

[Fair!]

continued from above

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.

[Fair!]

continued from above

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.

continued below

[Fair!]

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?

continued below

[Fair!]

continued from above

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!

[Fair!]

continued from above

LOW PROFILE ELECTRIC FANS

One thing we always want on any street or race car is a radiator fan. Even with a massive radiator, you still need airflow to transfer excess heat from the cooling system to the radiator fins and into the atmosphere while sitting still or moving at very low speeds (under 40 mph).



On dedicated race cars we really only need the fan to move enough to keep the engine cool while the car is idling in the paddock - and these slimline, affordable, and lightweight Mishimoto fans have worked well for us. For a street driven car and especially one with air conditioning we need MUCH more airflow and tend to use OEM fans with a MUCH larger motor and CFM rating. We used this $90 Mishi 14" diameter fan for this race car.



Christian made some brackets out of some .080" thick aluminum sheet that was cut to size and bent 90 deg into some angled sections on the box and pan brake. The brackets straddle the fan and mount to the small flanges at the edges of the radiator core.



It is hard to see in these images but there are 1" wide x 1/8" strips of weatherstrip between the flanges and the radiator, to keep the metal brackets from damaging the fins on the core. That gives the fan 1/8" of clearance to the core as well - anything further apart impacts airflow through the core, and any less could damage the fins. This is fed power from a relay and triggered by the ECT signal in the Link ECU.

OEM FUEL TANK + DUAL PUMP UPGRADE

I really despise using big, boxy, FIA style fuel cells in race cars. Why? They are costly and tend to be very hard to mount as safely as an OEM plastic "saddle" tank - which tends to be mounted in the center of the car under the back seat. Those tanks in that spot CRASH VERY WELL, cost nothing (if your tank is good), and with a remote fuel surge tank they can work as well or better than an FIA fuel cell - without a bladder that only lasts 5 years, then rots apart and needs to be replaced.



This car had been parked since 2018, and in early 2026 we needed to drop the tank and see how funky the fuel was. The car was never parked outside so the tank wasn't seeing crazy high or low temps, and the gasoline didn't turn completely into varnish. We drained the fuel and disposed of it with our used oil tank, that gets pumped out and reused as fuel oil in ships.



The fuel wasn't too nasty, and both the drop-in fuel pump assembly and the float on the other side were in pretty good shape - even the suction sock was perfect (they will rot over a long enough time period). That meant we only needed to buy one more fuel pump assembly, not two. The tank was dusty from 13 years of life on planet earth, and my 'Tism took over from there.



I was going to pressure wash the inside of the tank, but after draining it and wiping down the surfaces, it was spotless inside. So I just washed the tank with Dawn and a brush in our oversized shop sink. After drying the tank I got out my WD40 and sprayed down the outside plastics and metal under shield and wiped it all down clean.



The 6-pin factory connector feeds the single factory fuel pump assembly and there is a 4-pin connector on the other side for the second float. All we had to do was find the extra female pins for the 4-pin side and add them to the stock connector. It took some doing, but once we had the 2 extra pins it was an easy fix. Now we have two wired, OEM pumps - one on each side of the saddle - to act as lift pumps to the surge tank.



Brad used Fragola hoses and fittings to plumb both pumps into a "Y" fitting, that then feeds back to a bulkhead connector in the trunk. One side has this bulkhead connector with a 90 deg bend for the "overflow" return flow from the remote surge tank - which will be explained in the Surge Tank and Fuel Plumbing section below.

ADDING AN OIL COOLER

Now we haven't run one of these J-series engines on track to "KNOW" if it needs an oil cooler, but we are taking advice from people who have and just pre-emptively adding one up front, to be safe. We're running the lines through a remote oil filer with a thermostat that won't let the oil go through the external cooler until it is above 185F, so we will keep an eye on oil temp data to see if we even "need" this.



There are a lots of oil cooler brands out there but we have had great results with the 10000 series Derale "plate and fin" coolers, and they make these handy bolt-on bracket kits that make them so easy to mount.



I chatted with Christian about location and this wacky "carbon" front nose has two MASSIVE side inlets, both larger than the cooler itself. We were originally building this car for a nasty 700 hp LS V8 and were going to run two large oil coolers (in parallel), but for what we are doing now this single cooler should work. Again, we will watch the oil temp data after we get it on track. This cooler was mounted at the top with two isolator mounts to brackets and one aluminum tube "strut" mount (to an isolator) at the bottom. The isolators are key to allowing the coolers to last.



The cooler I chose fit the upper opening on this side inlet perfectly, so Christian blocked off the lower opening and some other bits that we weren't using, to cut down on drag and unwanted airflow going under the hood.

RADIATOR DUCTING

The radically rolled, narrower, and thicker radiator we chose needed some real ducting ahead of the rad to get airflow through the core. Without these side and lower panels, air will take the path of least resistance and go around the core, lowering the efficiency and cooling capacity.



As always we start with our cardboard (Ram Board floor covering that comes in rolls) and start making templates. Christian tackled this job and it tied into the CAI work above. The goal is not a 100% air tight seal, but a pretty close fit with tight gaps, to which we can add weatherstrip seals at a later date to clean up details (after venting the hood to let all of this pressure out).



One by one the cardboard was turned into aluminum sheet - the same .063" thick we use on almost all radiator ducting. Thicker is heavier, and thinner is weaker and too easy to lose its shape. We are ducting the front side of the radiator for now, and might ad after-radiator ducting to hood vents at a later date (much smaller potential upside vs the time needed).



All of the duct panels and block off panels bolt together into one big assembly, shown above. A whopping 5.4 pounds is all it took to do complete these many tasks.



Here the front nose was attached along with all of the full perimeter of radiator duct panels and the grill block off plates at the front. We will take these panels and add semi-gloss black powder coating when we have a break in the race schedule.

MAKING FENDER LINER EXTENSIONS

With almost every widebody / big flare kit we add to any track car, we need extensions on the factory fender liners. Why bother with fender liners at all? Well why do we put a hood on a car, or an undertray, or cover unwanted openings on the front of the car? Answer - to reduce drag and nudge unwanted airflow where we want.



The gaps we had were several inches wide at the front and about 6" wide at the rear - a lot of surgery was done to make these fender flares fit with 12.5" wide front tires at high steering angles. Like with many things that we build, we start with templates. The cardboard "RAM BOARD" material is our de facto template material for sheet metal brackets and covers - and in this case, we will template for some plastic "race roll" fender liner extensions.



When we're happy with the fit of the template, it is transferred to the plastic race roll material - we keep lots of the black stuff in stock. It goes by many names but its about .070" thick, durable, pliable, and we make air dams out of this stuff also. You can cut it with a sharp box cutter or scissors, then holes were drilled and Clecos were added as it was being built (above left). Self tapping screws were used to install the final cover. No more gaping holes in the fenders to catch tire klag, rocks, or stray airflow.

JDM ENGINE SOURCING

It came time to find the "real" V6 in February of 2026, as the plumbing was wrapping up and the exhaust was done. I was trying to time it so the "90 day warranty" that most salvage yards give you would not "time out" before we fired up the engine. That was probably still a little premature but we did get it fired up and running in early April.

I tried sourcing an identical J37A1 from Marketplace, eBay and local salvage yards, but the engines I found almost all had 150-250K+ miles and were just covered in oil and goo. The salvage yards wanted $1650+ for ragged out 200K mile J37A1 engines. Nope! So I called the four "JDM Import" dealers in Dallas/Ft Worth area - shops who import low mileage Japanese market engines. The J37A1 was just too old to find from them. Nobody had even one.



I had been by Garland JDM Motors before looking for the RX8 transmission (they had a pallet of them - all S1 versions from 2004-08 cars, so I passed) and they were easy to work with. They let me take some pictures and start looking up differences. They had racks of JDM engines and several J35s, but only two J37s (the 3.7L displacement was what I was after). They had a J37A2 and a "J37A" - which could be one of two engines JDM only engines (which are harder to know about what they have inside).



I quickly reached out to the only J-series expert I know - Sean at P2R. He convinced me that while the exhaust port would be different and require a change, the J37A2 was the closest to what we built around. The J37A2 still makes 300 hp and $1800 later I was loaded up with a low mileage J37. That might seem like a lot to pay, but with under 45K miles and not a single oil leak, I as done looking. The super high mileage stuff I was seeing on eBay and Marketplace was a horror show.

J37A2 CLEANUP AND MAINTENANCE PREP

It's early February 2026 here and we have a race at the end of April, so it was time to push! We got the J37A2 unloaded and Christian started the disassembly of all accessories, engine harness, intake manifold, etc.



As soon as the lower intake was off he showed me how much sand was sitting in the valley of the V6. Well.. maybe the owner lived on a beach? The aluminum also had a lot of external discoloring - from salt air? For a low mileage engine it sure looked kinda nasty, but I knew this when I bought it. Again - it has no oil leaks, like the high mileage J-series engines always do.



With vacuums and careful cleaning the worst of the crud was removed and turning the engine over it had great compression (a later compression test proved this) and a quick bore scope showed clean cylinder walls with no scoring and good cross hatching.



The intake valves looked great - this is not a Direct Injection engine, but Multi Port, so the typical deposits on the backs of the valves weren't there like you see on straight DI engines. The J37A2 exhaust port is only slightly smaller than the A1, but the bolt holes are different and it will need an all new exhaust starter, which P2R makes.

RADIUM SURGE TANK

We have been adding these remote surge tanks to cars for years, which make OEM "saddle" tanks work down to the last drop - as long as you do the dual OEM pump trick shown above (one pickup and pump on each side). This was an older Radium Engineering surge tank that didn't have a sport for their optional "float" kit. The float is a simple two wire switch that lights up a light on the dash if the surge tank volume starts to drop - letting you know to COME INTO THE PITS NOW, as the fuel gauge has likely been on "E" for a while.



Christian drilled the top of the surge tank for this float, which we wired to a light we added to the center gauges (see next time). Then the Deatschwerks DW200 pump was wired in and installed, and the surge tank assembled with the included O-ring.



We chose -6 AN (3/8" line) for the plumbing for this 300 hp engine and I picked this Deatschwerks FF110 10 micron fuel filter, which is to be mounted in the trunk. A large list of Fragola fittings was ordered about a week earlier for the oil and fuel systems, and Brad got to work plumbing this while Christian did the updates and maintenance to the J37A2 engine.



It might look like a bag of snakes but the plumbing is fairly easy - the two OEM pumps in the saddle tank are joined with a "Y" (they cannot back flow to each other, as there are internal check valves in the pump assemblies). This feed line from the tank then goes into the inlet port of the surge tank. The two unregulated "lift pumps" in the OEM tank keep the surge tank full, their only job. The DW200 pump in the surge goes to the engine bay, and the regulator there sends excess fuel back to the surge tank - keeping it full. Any excess fuel in the surge tank is the "overflow" that goes back to the saddle tank (one bulkhead fitting on one pump assembly).



The two 3/8" aluminum hard lines travel under the floor in the factory brackets and attach at each end to Fragola -6 AN fittings and flex lines. I will show the regulator and fuel rail connections in another section.

continued below

[Fair!]

continued from above

BIGGER J-SERIES THROTTLE BODY

In our quest to make the most power within the very strict rules of SCCA Max4 and fit this taller V6 under the very low FRS hood, we've had to make some adjustments along the way. The class rules allow us to modify or replace the intake manifold, throttle body, etc. Likewise we can change the exhaust from the exhaust port back.



The Drive By Wire throttle body on the J37 is pretty small (67mm) but the one above is from a J35 in an Acura TLX 3.5L and is 70mm from the factory, and uses the same 6 pin connector. P2R also makes a ported one with a 73mm throttle body blade, but I am tempted to modify the inlet flange and try a 75 or 80mm throttle body from another car maker if the intake seems to be backing up at higher RPM (if we see a MAP drop). So I decided on the inexpensive TLX 70mm throttle body for now.



When we went to put this on the car there was a chunk of aluminum that interfered - after we chopped .700" out of the plenum height. So I cut that off on a band saw, and left it open. It is simply a coolant warm up circuit that we will never use. I also chased down the 90 deg silicone bend / adapter to go from the 3.25" dia throttle body OD to a more common (and bigger!) 4" tube. The rest of the Cold Air Intake will be 4", as going bigger there helps.

WEIGHT CHECK DEC 1, 2025

The first day of December 2025 we had the mock up J37 + RX8 box in the FRS, the front end was on, and the exhaust was done. I had the crew take a quick weight check and it was a good number - 2462 with no fuel or fluids. It will only get heavier from here, of course, but it was a good sanity check at this point.



HOOD CLEARANCE WOES & SOLUTIONS

This was a big step we fought with off and on for months. Back in November 2025 when we first mocked up the J37 and P2R intake we had hood clearance issues. The image below left is link to a quick video I made showing the issues in early December 2025. It only got worse when we put the TLX throttle body onto the P2R plenum.



In late January 2026 I asked Christian to cut out the section of hood bracing where the interference exists, which gained us another 3/4" of hood closure.



We still needed a LOT of room, so it was time to proceed with the intake plenum chop in the CNC machine. We asked Sean at P2R and he had seen customers cut as much as 3/4" out of the lower "straight" runner section of his P2R upper plenum. Shorter runners will also push peak power up to higher rpms.



So we fixture'd up the plenum upside down on the table of one of our CNC mills. Using a face mill cutter and a few slow passes we took .700" of height out of this plenum. Made it a hair lighter, too.



This cut - along with the P2R fuel rail, LS3 injectors, and P2R off set fuel rail brackets allowed the plenum to drop down to within .008" of the valve covers. This was without a .030" thick plenum gasket or their plastic spacer.



There were casting protrusions on the throttle that were touching next, so Christian ground those off. We were pretty close to having the hood close - but for marketing reasons, we HAD to make the hood close without chopping a giant hole in it. Lots of folks will be turned off of any swap that has a hole in the hood for the engine to stick through.



We then triple checked our engine placement - can we lower the engine to gain some height, without running into the oil pan, steering rack or front subframe? The steering rack was already as close to the J37 oil pan as we were comfortable with, so time for Plan D.



And "D" is the first letter of "DROP", as in: we dropped the subframe with 0.25" thick spacers. That is not what I wanted to do, but we have seen other engine swaps use as much as a 1" spacer on the 86 subframe to make room for engines. But even with 1/4" drop the hood STILL did not close. It as close, but at this point I wasn't going to give up.



Middle of March 2026 and it was time to fire up the engine and close the damn hood - and at this point we kept adding shims until the engine cleared. At 1/2" thick we had the hood closing and not touching. So I asked Brad to machine the 4 spacers shown above from .500" thick aluminum plate we have that are "drops" from our CNC operations. This effectively drops the engine, steering rack, swaybar, and front subframe - that plus all of our other tricks got the hood closed. We will test the handling on track with this subframe drop and go another route if we feel it is hampering handling. It should be fine.

NOCO "LITHIUM IRON SULFIDE" 5 LB BATTERY

I could write pages about batteries, the trials and tribulations we've had with tiny AGMs, full sized "O" branded AGMs, wet cells, and this latest craze - Lithium Iron Sulfate batteries (LiFePO4), specifically from the company NOCO. I don't sell these things, and I am hesitant to change battery brands or styles, but we jumped into the NOCO world back in 2024 and we have them in 5 cars now with great success.




We started with the 4 pound NOCO NLP20 ($179, 600 amps) and have moved to the NLP 30 at right (5 pounds, $199, 700 amps). The costs and the stats are circa late 2025, but I bought the NLP30 for the FRS on some sort of flash sale for $156 on Amazon.

We used the NLP20 in our 1995 M3 for a season and yes, if it sits for more than a few days, it wants to trickle down (that car does not have a CarTek battery kill switch tho). We just keep all small batteries on a NOCO Genius tender in the shop, and it is a nice chunk of weight savings.



When we built around a certain series that required you use a GIANT heavy battery we used to put them in the trunk, to positively alter front-to-rear bias. These NOCOs are so light we don't even relocate them to the trunk anymore, and that saves us money and more weight with 00 gauge copper wire running from the engine bay to the trunk. Win-Win!

TRAKTUFF COOLANT PARTS

This is one of the swap products that make the swap possible. You see the FWD layout of the J-series means the radiator hose connections, thermostat, and internal bypass hose routing are all in weird places. To make this engine work for a RWD chassis with a longitudinal orientation, you have to make / buy / machine a bunch of cooling re-route parts.



We could have pieced something together with P2R parts, but Jason was convinced this TrakTuff supplier would be a better solution.



The basic parts are machined and fabricated beautifully, and ties both rear coolant passages together from both heads. There is also a piece that plugs into the back of the water pump, which does a 180 deg turn forward. We spec'd out an inline thermostat housing there, then it has the normal AN fittings for coolant bypass front to back and at the front to tie into a remote reservoir. It will make more sense when I show the radiator hoses. But there was a mistake, the front side port ran into the timing cover. After talking to the supplier his solution was just "notch the timing cover". That ain't happening.



So we had to cut that part off, extend it forward, and weld it back together. We had a hell of a time welding the aluminum, probably had the wrong rod for the alloy he used. Having someone who knows the weird J-series coolant routing helped us get something that seems to work.



In the end we got it all together and clearing everything, but there were some hours burned fixing the fitting that ran into the timing cover. We got it to work better than it ever could have, otherwise.

CUSTOM RADIATOR HOSES

As I have stated before, this extremely rolled and custom ordered radiator is NOT necessary for this swap. In fact after we get this race car running, and if there is sufficient interest in this swap, we might go buy another 1st gen 86 with a blown FA20 engine (they are all too common) and do another J-swap with less radical, less racey mods. We should be able to make this work with an OEM style radiator, and then we could base a J-swap kit around that.



Any engine swap always requires custom radiator hoses, and we have shown these steps in many builds. Basically you have to make a list of what goes where, what diameters you have to match up, and ordering supplies. We use aluminum tubing that we bend to shape and spliced them into the TrakTuff bits with short runs of silicone hose couplers or silicone bends (the 90 deg hose at the front of the engine).



We added rolled ends to the hoses so that the hoses can clamp to the tubes and hold pressure, and we have pressure tested these all to 25 psi without any leaks. We have also added clamps to each junction (see sections below), of course.

REMOTE COOLANT RESERVOIR

We have been using remote coolant reservoir style cooling systems for quite some time, just like the OEMs. This moves the radiator cap from the radiator to this tank, which is always mounted higher than the radiator. This helps remove air from the cooling system and gives you a bit of expansion in the system to allow coolant levels to equalize with pressure.



On the last few dozen race car and street car builds here at Vorshlag we have settled on a series of Canton fabricated aluminum reservoirs. They come in several sizes and the 2 quart size shown here is on the bigger side. It comes with some flanges to use for mounting, the radiator cap flange, a welded threaded bung at the top (for steam venting, which we didn't use here) and a larger bung underneath for tying into the heater hose routing - the main connection to the coolant system. We will just "Tee" into a heater hose to feed / return coolant to this tank.



Christian made this bracket above, with a few dimple dies, to mount it up front on the passenger side. I wanted it at the back passenger corner where the battery used to be, but when we moved the tiny battery back to the engine bay, that corner got tight. Plus there were a lot of electronics back there that don't need to be sprayed with coolant if there is an over-pressure situation.



A few tubular aluminum tubing struts tie the mounting bracket he built into the chassis at the top, and the bottom bolts to the frame rail. Then the Canton tank bolts to this. The image above right shows the line tapped into the coolant hose routing that feeds this tank. We used a simple Stant "lever-r-cap" style cap with a 22 psi rating.

BUILDING A PROPER COLD AIR INTAKE

One of my pet peeves is seeing high end race or show car builds with a tiny air filter just slapped onto the throttle body, sucking in hot air from a radiator's hot exhaust airflow. That nasty short cut will not happen in my shop - NOT UP IN HERE!



For over 35 years I have been making Cold Air Intake on almost every modified car I have owned, and always try to use a larger-than-necessary cylindrical / conical shaped K&N style (washable / oiled style) filter. And the filter gets mounted into a sealed box AWAY from radiator or other heat sources, with cold air ducted to that box from a high pressure area off the front of the car. If the air box is open at the top it is then sealed to the hood with weather stripping, and if it is in another area it is in a sealed box, too.



On this J37 CAI layout I measured and ordered all of the bends, tubing, hoses, and filter. The silicone hose at the throttle body was what they call a "transition" style bend, with a 3.25" to 4" ID sizes at the ends of the 90 degree bend. That then feeds some 4" OD aluminum tubing mandrel bends, which we keep in stock for these air filter kits.



I picked an immense K&N filter that is about 14" long, because "bigger is better" here - and it doesn't impact weight or cost enough over one with half the surface area. Buy once, cry once - properly cleaned and maintained this filter can last 10+ years. We then put the carbon fiber nose onto the car to see where the filter box needed to end up, and how it would be sealed and fed.



While a chunk of the aluminum tubing passes behind the radiator exhaust wash, it cannot be helped. We will coat that tubing with thermal coated film to cut down on heat transfer. The routing was then wrapped up and the filter ended up under the driver's side headlight. A cardboard template shows how we will seal this area off from the radiator.



This aluminum heat shield is more visible above, and routes incoming air to the radiator and seals to the grill opening. That then forms the wall for the sealed airbox that we will complete around the filter when we make the splitter. The openings are HUGE on this aftermarket bumper cover and we will block off a portion of that - the filter doesn't need THAT much air, and sealing part of this off will cut down on drag.

continued below

[Fair!]

continued from above



Another bonus for the P2R upper is a larger ~80mm throttle body opening, but the J37 throttle body we had with the J37A1 mock up engine was only 64mm. We found a solution for that.



This pair of pictures above were from November 2025 - with the P2R upper bolted on, the hood would not close. It wasn't even close. We ended up chasing the solution to this for a while, which is covered below.

BUILDING A DRIVESHAFT

We needed to build the driveshaft next, so we could build the exhaust around that. Sounds easy - just connect the RX8 Aisin 6-speed to the 86 chassis' differential flange, using a 3" dia aluminum driveshaft and U-joints. The distance wasn't too far so a 1-piece driveshaft would work fine.



Of course we have matching and opposite angles on the transmission output flange (above left) and the axle flange. There is also ample clearance for a 3" shaft (we check this with a piece of 3" OD PVC pipe for mockup).



The output flange for the RX8 box was something we had never done, but we bought one from a Rotary shop. We also had a rear flange from one of our LS / T56 swapped 86 kits. To make the shafts we rounded up some of the "Returns" we have laying around from various screw-ups from a former driveshaft supplier.

Long story, but we used to sell driveshafts for specific drivetrain swaps, but when a key employee retired they messed up 90% of the driveshafts they made for us - with drawings and detailed specs. Too short or long, wrong flanges, etc. It took about 6 months to find this out, and we have stopped using this driveshaft supplier.



We put together some u-joints and one of our salvage driveshafts, and that was about 3 inches too short. We had to buy some more U-joints to make a different driveshaft we had in stock work, but eventually...



We found another driveshaft center section that was the perfect length, and after a couple of orders of adapter U-joints we were able to put this assembly together without having to have a new driveshaft built. The finished 3" driveshaft assembly weighed 12.5 pounds with the front yoke, rear flange and both U-joints.

FABRICATING A CUSTOM EXHAUST

After writing about all of the challenges of this J-series swap - and there were many! - one of the saving graces of the later 3.5L and 3.7L versions are these "monoport" exhaust ports cast into the cylinder heads. Does this improve exhaust flow? No, it does not - but it does save a LOT of fabrication work when making a custom, long tube exhaust header. That can take 40-60 hours on a V8, and on an earlier J-series V6 it might have gobbled up 30-50 hours.



With the MASSIVE troubles we have had with custom exhaust header suppliers (we have been through FOUR production shops over the years) we looked forward to not making the prototypes or working with a supplier to perfect the production header version. So we reached out to P2R Performance and bought a pair of these "exhaust starters" for the J37A1 we originally started with. These are cast stainless flanged exhaust parts that have an O2 sensor and you can either mount a turbo or build an exhaust from. We cannot add boost in Max4 class, so we're just going with a straight flowing race exhaust.



For the rest of the exhaust we did some math, then rounded up, and jumped up even more in size. The two exhaust starters will have 2.25" mandrel bent tubing that merges into one 3" exhaust. We used 409 stainless steel tubing (because we ceramic coat all exhausts and wasting the extra $$ on 304 stainless seems silly) from Summit and a Vibrant merge collector.



The exhaust starters turn more than 90 degrees and point the exhaust closer to the block - well that would interfere with our engine mounts (see above left). So on the weekend I mocked up the starters and marked a cut with the bandsaw. HO LEE COW this was tricky to cut. I made a real pigs ear out of the first cut, and after it was mocked up I realized it needed a much larger piece cut out.



So I left this work to a proper fabricator - Christian cut both starters on our mitering band saw with coolant (duh, I didn't think of that!) and got them trimmed to the correct angles. This required a piece of 2.5" exhaust tubing, ovaled slightly to fit the now larger opening. This should actually improve flow, as we have SO MUCH WIDTH in the massive 86 engine bay with this tiny V6 - which you can see above.



If you look below left at the RX8 transmission and reverse mount starter on the driver's side, you might realize that there is NO WAY to run an exhaust tube down that side of the tunnel So we made a crossover to the passenger side, and joined the two 2.25" tubes with the merge collector. Subaru does this on virtually every car they have built with a flat 4 engine, and GM did it for decades on V8 powered cars and trucks. Just deal with it.



The crossover tube runs along a huge channel in the J37 oil pan made for exhaust routing, so it's all good. There's even plenty of room for the J37 oil filter (which we will remote mount in a later step). Nice mandrel bends tack welded together at this point.



We had planned for the 3" tube at the transmission crossmember on the passenger side (as we saw the choke point on the driver's side tunnel long before) and Christian even shrunk it down a bit with a piece of oval tubing. This is to keep the ENTIRE exhaust above the bottom of the floor, to keep from damaging the tubing in event an adventurous 4 wheel off. For the muffler, I picked this large case Magnaflow 3" in / out unit. Why? Because I'm a grumpy old many who HATES loud exhausts on slow cars, or even fast cars. We don't have sound limits at our 4 local tracks (yet) but I'm not going to let Amy be "that driver" that ruins it for everyone.



I had to order some more 3" mandrel bends and some straight pipe, but those arrived in a day and Christian kept the momentum going. He got the exhaust routed through the only spot in the rear subframe that has clearance, on the driver's side. Then it was time to mock up the muffler.



The muffler is LARGE but there is plenty of room for a proper unit back here - just not with "dual tips". This isn't a vanity exhaust, it is just a proper one. The main tube that runs from the engine bay is pretty long and we have 3" V-bands at both ends, before the muffler.



After it was all seam TIG welded we laid it out in front of the FRS and got the picture above. You can see the P2R exhaust starters, the single 2.25" V-band for the crossover in the engine bay, the 3" V-band aft of the merge collector, then another 3" V-band before the muffler. This even uses the OEM exhaust hangers to secure it under the 86.



The rear valance is still in place but that might come off - it can act as a parachute at higher speeds. But for now I asked Christian to go ahead and set the top in the right side outlet and he got it angle cut and placed perfectly. If someone came to use to build this exhaust it would be roughly $3500 with parts and labor. This is a bit on the extreme side of almost being "too nice" for a race car, but that's just how we do fab work like this.

REMOVE REAR SEATS

This is a simple step, in preparation for the 4-point roll bar. Since we are going the "Level 2 Safety" route we can remove the interior panels behind the main hoop, so that includes the back seat lowers and backs, rear seat belts, rear carpets and rear interior panels + the trunk interior bits.



I weighed all of that in stages, but once we added it all up there was 42.2 pounds of interior removed from the back seat. The Walker Pro Motorsports 4-point roll bar weighed in right at 50 pounds, so the interior removal almost offset the 4-point bar's weight.

STEEL CRANK ADAPTER

In our last update we showed a mockup aluminum crankshaft adapter we made from a piece round bar we had as a drop - it was the wrong material and diameter for actual use. In January of 2026 we had purchased a huge chunk of 4340 steel in the right diameter and got to work on making the actual crank adapter.



Myles had designed this in late 2025 and by January he was transitioning to his new gig and only here 1 day a week, so we made sure to have the CNC lathe free on one of those days. He machined this in 2 steps on the lathe and one more step on the CNC mill.



The final design is 3.8 pounds and has an RX8 pilot bearing pressed into the end - which is what the transmission input shaft inserts into. The outer 6 bolts are made to the RX8 automatic flywheel pattern, and the inner 8 bolts are for the Honda crank pattern. The two bolt circles are far enough apart that the hardware doesn't overlap.



In February 2026 when I finally found a low mileage, JDM imported J37A2 (above) Christian was able to get this bolted to the back of the crank as he moved our bellhousing adapter over to the new V6. More on that below.

P2R FUEL RAILS AND LS3 INJECTORS

On virtually every race car build at Vorshlag we swap out the OEM fuel rails and injectors for aftermarket bits. This is because I really dislike the single fuel line / regulator in the tank / "dead head" style fuel system routing that the manufacturers all moved to around 1998. With a set of billet rails we can route the fuel system with a "return style" system, with feed and return lines and a regulator in the engine bay we can adjust for the tuner's preferences. And we can use higher flow motorsports injectors for air - fuel ratio and tuning reasons as well.



Sean at P2R Racing has been a huge help on this swap and I went to him for the fuel rails. There are other options but he uses the style of fuel rail I much prefer - ones with integral brackets that are meaty and strong, not sheet metal brackets that can bend under pressure and cause fuel leaks (which we have seen happen on many popular brands!) The image above right is the stock injectors and rails next to the P2R rails.



We had a secondary reason for using P2R rails - as we had plans to shorten the P2R upper plenum we are using, for hood clearance. As you can see above right, with the stock (tall) injectors installed the rails nest up under the plenum. But we want to chop .700" out of the runner height...



Sean at P2R let me know the trick to lowering the plenum - using GM LS3 length injectors (much shorter!) and his offset fuel rail brackets made for that injector height. I will show that work in a later section, but it was key to gaining hood clearance.

LINK ECU G5 GT86

The Sales Manager for the Americas for Link ECU (George Lowe) happens to be an old racing buddy I've know for 15+ years, and he lives about 20 miles from our shop. He has helped guide us through the jungle of TOO MANY good EFI systems out there - we have used Holley, HalTech, Motec, and many others - and we have now put Link ECUs on 3 of our shop cars: Amy's 1995 M3 (below left), my 1988 Mustang with an LS, and this 86 chassis.

On the E36 S50 engine, the Plug-in Link was a super simple install - the factory engine harness was used unchanged, we got the engine to start pretty easily, and our tuner got it dialed in (after we went back and upgraded the fuel system!) on our second tuning appointment in no time. Link had a base map and knew all of the sensors and wiring pathways.



What is amazing about this GT86 plug-in kit they have, is this ECU can interface for the factory gauges, electric steering, ABS and everything just works. This is a super popular unit for doing FA24 swaps, as well as for tuning FA20 powered 86 chassis.

This G5 ECU can run the Direct Injection + Port Injector 4 cylinders, or up to a V8 with port injection. George even made a custom engine harness for the J37 that plugs into the factory 33 pin connector at the firewall, making this an easy swap with minimal wiring additions needed.



Were there challenges on this, the first G5 plug-in J37 swap? Of course, but it was expected, and we've gotten through all of that with George's help. The main thing was our FRS here will be the first one in the world using the Link GT86 Plug-in ECU for the J-series Honda, and they had no base map for this Honda V6 engine. Everything we did had to be learned from research and using trial-and-error during start-up, including the wiring harness.

continued below

[Fair!]

Project update for April 14, 2026: A lot of work has been going on here at Vorshlag on the J37 V6 swapped FRS, and we've actually started the engine and driven it now - and it sounds great! I will post again after the dyno tune and first track event, but let's catch up on about 3 months of the intense work that led us here.



Getting the Honda V6 and RX8 6-speed MOCKED UP into the chassis (last time) was only a very small part of the overall task list. There was a lot of plumbing, exhaust fabrication, machining parts, production worthy engine and transmission mounts, a driveshaft had to be built, custom Link ECU engine wiring harness was made, lots of other wiring work for the swap, and so much more.



We've also knocked out a 4-point roll bar install, two new seats, a fire system, a remote fuel surge tank install, and more. All while working on two other all new engine swaps for us, customer cars, suspension development work, and more. This update ran long so we won't cover all of this in this installment, but there is a lot of tech covered here. Let's catch up!

PICKING A CLUTCH AND PRESSURE PLATE

I will be the first to admit that I am not the clutch expert, and we almost NEVER recommend clutches for customers. This is one of the ONLY things I don't mind a customer ordering and bringing to us to install, if they have any experience with a particular brand and style. There are SO many personal preferences that go into picking a clutch with the right effort, grab vs slip, and power handling that we usually ask our supplier for help.



We picked this ACT clutch assuming this little J37 would make about 300 whp at the outer limits - since we have to use a stock longblock with stock cams, valve springs, pistons, and internals. To handle this power potential we chose an ACT 2004 Mazda RX-8 HD/Race Sprung 6 Pad Clutch Kit. This was a sub $500 setup that should be a bit lighter and racier (read: grabby and easier to stall) than we would pick for a street car, but not something for big turbo RX8 power.



One thing we researched early on was that the RX8 manual transmission flywheel is weird - it is held onto the crank with a single huge nut. We needed a traditional flywheel that could bolt to an adapter that then bolted to the Honda crank. There is an ACT lightweight flywheel made in a rotary automatic trans 6 lug pattern (above right), called the ACT 1987 Mazda RX-7 XACT Flywheel Prolite (about $350). This is often adapted to race rotary engines, and that's what we purchased the clutch to fit. It has the same ring gear needed for the RX8 starter and bellhousing.



I neglected to include weighs on the "S2" 2009-11 RX8 Aisin 6 speed box, which is shown above left at 100.2 lbs. This is hefty for an Aisin, but light compared to a Tremec 6-speed (125-140 lbs) we use on our V8 swaps. We picked an ACT Ford Probe / RX8 clutch release (sl4ve cylinder) to actuate the clutch.



This clutch sat for some months while we worked on the J37A1 mock up engine, and was later installed into the final J37A2 engine (shown above) with our production Vorshlag steel crank adapter and Vorshlag billet aluminum bellhousing adapter.

BUILDING ENGINE MOUNTS

There is a lot that goes into engine swaps, and one of the most crucial decisions is deciding WHERE the engine and transmission should sit. I am not going to spill ALL of the tea, but this is where production engine swaps can be wrecked or done right. We have several criteria we use to place the engine, but a lot has to do with the crossmember, firewall, hood height, and width constraints. It almost never sits "dead center" in the engine bay, for instance. I worked with Myles to help set the J37 and RX8 transmission into the 86 chassis.



These engine mounts on this swap were trickier than normal for us - and we have done dozens of unique engine swaps, more than most shops will ever tackle. This subframe was already slightly modified to remove some factory bits back in 2018 (you can scroll up to see that in our LS V8 swap development). One of the first things we CNC cut were some plates that bolt to the subframe - the lower angles shown below. These mount to the subframe the same way as our LS swap mounts do (proven over 11+ years of use).



With the lower plates bolted to the subframe, next we make a plate that bolts to the block on both sides of the V-series engine. Then add a poly bushing (for vibration damping) and then run a tube to join the engine plates to the subframe plates. The "passenger" side of the J-series block was easy enough to make a plate to grab, but the driver's side (see above) had a HUGE bracket that holds the A/C compressor and alternator that was blocking ALL of the good threaded bolt holes on that side of the block.



Engineer Myles was working on this one night after 5 pm, and I went out and helped him come up with a game plan. There was a big untapped boss on the block that we were able to tap with an M14-1.5 tap (we used a regular tap and a bottoming tap to get threads all the way to the block). That let us install the "front" bolt for the block side plate + two M12 tapped holes at the "back" of the driver's side of the block. This way the A/C / alternator mount bracket could stay in place.



This tapped hole was a slightly tricky thing to do, but it didn't need to be drilled - just tapped. We will include this tool for any potential production swap kit with copious instructions (these pictures above). Once the plate was formed, a spacer added, and bolted to the block, Myles added the two semi-circle plates that our bushing section bolts to.



The passenger side of the V6 had plenty of threaded holes and that plate was easy to design and fabricate. Then it was time to join the block plates to the subframe plates with tubing. The passenger side had a bend to it, but these will likely make it to production like this. This was our most difficult set of engine mounts to make - until we got to the S65 V8 swap in the E46 (my Max4 car for 2026).



Of course to finalize the engine mounts SEVERAL other items had to be locked down - the starter, portions of the exhaust, transmission mount, driveline angles, and more.



We painted this prototype set red to make them easier to see in pictures, but the production bits are normally powder coated black. We'll see if this design works on track before moving forward with any changes, fixtures, or production schedules.

FITTING AN RX8 STARTER

The single most challenging part of ANY Honda J-series V6 swap into a Rear Wheel Drive chassis is the rear mounted starter. This is because the starter is BEHIND the engine, as the J was made for FWD cars - and that is a common trick to package the starter with the transaxle. This is what drove the RX8 transmission choice on our swap - as it is one of the only RWD transmissions made for a rear mounted starter. As you can see below, the start sides fairly low on the driver's side.



To make the starter fit the chassis with the engine shoved as far back as the oil pan & 86 subframe allowed, we had to massage the floor pan a smidge. This is not unusual for drivetrain swaps, and it only took a few minutes.



This happened late one evening when Myles and I were working late. A number of wacks with the Nylon headed hammer did the work, with the starter being test fit a few times while we were finalizing the drivetrain angles. Basically with the engine placement we settled on you first mock up the drivetrain, try to fit the RX8 starter, and move the floor sheet metal until you have a gap from the starter motor to the floor.



We ended up with more than enough room, as you can see above. But this effectively blocked the driver's side of the engine bay for any exhaust routing. We re-routed the exhaust around the front of the V6 to rectify this - not a big deal, as many OEMs do the same thing. I guess the dyno numbers will tell us if this was the route path or not.

MODIFYING THE 86 CLUTCH MASTER

The J37 engine ended up where it did thanks to the factory oil pan's "hump" in the middle + the confines of the 86 subframe. Either making a custom oil pan or hacking up the subframe would have been a bridge too far and we would have looked at another engine to swap in. So the rear placement of what we have is locked in, so we have to look at options to fit the clutch master cylinder.



The factory FRS clutch master has a plastic reservoir that sticks out from the firewall and hits the J37 valve cover. This is because the original FA20 sits SO obscenely far forward. There is only about 2.5" of room at the back of the head to the firewall, and it is just will not fit. Again, modifying the valve covers (and there are several versions) is another mark against this swap, so we needed to come up with another option.



In 2015 when we made our first LS swap for the 86 (above left), we also needed to increase the Clutch Master's bore size (7/8") so we made this Tilton adapter kit. We had some left in inventory and we stuck that onto the FRS' firewall with the J37 (above right), but the hydraulic fitting would never fit. So we ditched the Tilton kit we had and looked at different ideas...



Christian came up with an idea - why don't we just rotate the clutch fluid reservoir, which snaps into the top of the clutch master. It normally had a bolt that keeps it attached and pointing forward, but we clocked it about 45 degrees to let it sit between the J37 oil fill cap and brake booster. Then he made a small sheet metal bracket to hold it in place. A remarkably easy fix.



The clutch hydraulics were a bit trickier, connecting the 86 clutch master to the RX8 clutch slave on the transmission. But four Fragola custom spec'd clutch lines later, we now have a setup that clears the brake booster and works. On to the next challenge!

TRANSMISSION CROSSMEMBER DESIGN

One of the last challenges to mounting the drivetrain was getting the transmission we picked to fit the chassis, deliver the right driveline down angle (opposite match of the diff flange's up angle), and then mount it to the chassis. We already had removed the factory 86 sheet metal mounts that allow for a transmission to sit further back in the tunnel, which you can scroll up to our LS swap work in 2018 and see.



As I have written before, the oil pan of the J37 set the front-to-rear placement of this engine more than anything. That left a couple of inches of room at the back of the engine, which we needed for the complete coolant system re-route kit (see below) and still pushed the back of the engine back nearly 10" closer to the firewall than the dreaded FA20 Subaru flat 4. At this point, we had the engine mounted with the two red mounts (above left) and the RX8 transmission held up on straps (above right).



I wanted to run a 3" exhaust tube above the lowest part of the floor, so that became a design constraint (see above left). Then we took two of our production CNC cut plates that bolt through the tunnel in the same holes and shape of our LS V8 / T56 swap kit. With those bolted in place (see above right) we mounted a single chunk of polyurethane (a production mount we make for another swap) and that let us mount a crossmember.


Christian made the cross piece from a single piece of plate, with a number of bends to accommodate the 3" exhaust clearance. He then reinforced that piece with triangulated plates on the top side, welded into the side plates.



This bolts into the car with 8 bolts, and 2 plates go on the inside of the tunnel as reinforcements, just like our LS V8 / T56 crossmember. An unusual Tie Fighter shape, to be sure, but it works. The shifter is a bit further forward than we like, but we solved that with a custom shift lever - which will be shown next time.

LOW PROFILE P2R UPPER PLENUM

The Honda J37 upper intake plenum is made to point the throttle body to the rear, and has a butterfly valve inside to change runner length and a bunch of other nonsense that we neither need nor want. We were pushed to the P2R upper plenum early on, as our J37A1 mock up engine's plenum was 'esploded. But the OEM intake could have worked. To rotate that you have to flip the lower intake runners 180 degrees - which re-aims the throttle body to the front.



It is a shame we didn't test with the stock plenum unit, but it was destroyed on our J37A1 mock up engine from a huge backfire. And I really liked the looks of the P2R intake, and felt it would help open up some top end power, with the complicated internal butterfly bits not being present.



We mocked up the P2R upper several times and it looks outstanding. The design is tuned for higher rpm power, so if you're doing this swap for a daily driver maybe the stock upper makes more sense? I don't think I could live with myself doing this swap without the P2R upper. It transforms the look of the whole engine bay.



Normally the P2R runner just bolts to the J37 lower intake, which is in 2 pieces - one piece for each cylinder head bank. We also incorporated the P2R billet fuel rails, but I will show that more in detail below.

continued below

[Fair!]

continued from above

The early RX-8 box is rated at 220 Nm (162 ft-lbs) and the later box is rated at 400 Nm (295 ft-lbs). The later RX8 box is the one we are using. That's all that Mazda sells for warranty / repairs, and this newer / stronger unit can still be purchased new. The flywheel that these use has the starter ring gear in the same diameter as the J-series engines, too.



The direct-mounted-shifter RX8 box is much closer to the ideal "bellhousing to shifter" distance we want. This 31" distance lines up to the hole in the floor and console, and RX-8 box was 29". We can make up some more room in the machined 1.5" thick bellhousing adapter, so it will end up almost perfect.



Looking at other swaps we knew the RX8 flywheel would work. I bought an aftermarket RX-8 flywheel and it fits inside the "bell" at the back of the Honda engine. The adapter for the crank to this RX-8 flywheel will be easy to make, because the J-series 8-bolt crank and RX-8's 6-bolt flywheel bolt circles are far apart. From the adapter back, this drivetrain will all be RX-8: the aftermarket Mazda flywheel, RX-8 starter, RX-8 clutch, RX-8 TOB, RX-8 pilot bearing and even RX-8 slave cylinder.



I've driven RX-8s (we owned and raced a 2005 RX-8 when new) and the box shifts very nicely. The "clocking" of the starter in the bellhousing is low and fits inside the 86 tunnel without any modifications. We were very happy with an early RX-8 6-speed mockup in the tunnel on our car, and after seeing this we geared up to machine the bellhousing and crank adapters.



I picked up this transmission from a buddy's shop in September (along with 2 litters of kittens, 10 fosters!) and have since gone back and picked up an RX-8 for another buddy, which might also get a J-series V6. We put this 6-speed box into the 86 along with the J37 - not bolted together just mashed up - and they fit very well, and that is what pushed us to continue with this swap.

SOURCING THE CORRECT J-SERIES ENGINE?

After a lot of research and questions asked to experts on these engines, the J37A1 we happened to start with is actually the best option for us. There are smaller variants (3.0-3.2-3.5L) and newer engines up through 2025 models (this engine has been made for 30 years), but for the class we want to build for in SCCA Time Trial, the 2007-09 Acura MDX 3.7L is perfect. It is 300 hp / 275 ft-lbs and fairly abundant, because swapping these FWD engines into a RWD car is a challenge.



We're tracking down a "real" engine in the next couple of weeks, and I plan to go back to 1 of the 3 Japanese engine suppliers in the DFW area to buy a lower mileage J37A1 unit. Most of what we find used on Marketplace are very worn 250K+ mile engines, but the importers have lower mileage options. I found a warehouse full of JDM engines when I was looking for the RX-8 transmissions in September, shown above.

EXHAUST IS EASY - FOR ONCE!

The biggest pain point on any engine swap is usually the exhaust (with wiring being a close second!) Most swaps involve buying expensive (or making) custom engine swap exhaust headers. We have done this on about ten chassis in the past 20 years, and it is NEVER easy. We have all of the right tools, know the tricks, and on a typical V8 it still takes us 40-60 hours to tack weld up a proper prototype set, when built for production.



On our other engine swap kits, exhaust headers are our single most expensive part - and the one that credit card scammers rush to steal from us. This problem got so bad we had to stop selling most of our engine swap parts online.



Luckily the later J-series V6 engines use a "mono-port" exhaust in the cylinder heads. This means we can buy a pair of simple adapters (like this one from P2R) for the exhaust. This literally bolts onto the head and has a 2.5" tubing size at the bottom, to which we can build the rest of exhaust system from.

No custom headers! Some might complain about flow restrictions, The J37 is the most powerful variant (other than the supercharged 3.5L and the latest Direct Injected ones that are problematic). Huge time and cost savings here!

PLUG-AND-PLAY EFI SOLUTION

Word spread after posting on socials about possibly doing this J-swap, and Link ECU has committed to help make this swap easier for the 86 community by taking their plug-and-play ECU for the 86 (which allows the stock harness to control an FA20 with their advanced EFI, while keeping all CAN functionality like gauges, EPAS, and ABS) and making a harness and firmware for the J-swap. That is super exciting, as wiring is always the a daunting task on any swap in modern cars.



Wiring guru George who works for Link lives near our shop, I've known him for a decade. He already used our little FRS for development of the LHD 86 model plug in Link ECU back in 2024 (3D printed fitments), and now he's making the engine harness for the J37 for this G5 ECU to work on the same car.



George stopped by last week after an initial look, and brought a partial harness to check for routing. He took the OEM harness from our J37A1 to use for his final harness - which will connect to the two connectors on the 1st gen 86 firewall. That ties into the chassis + G5 Link, and then it should all work.

MAKING THE CRANK / FLYWHEEL ADAPTER

This isn't as big or as impressive as the bellhousing adapter below, and what I'm showing below is a prototype. We will make a production version from steel, and won't compromise the meat around the 6 outer bolt holes - we make the first pieces out of some scrap aluminum in a smaller diameter than we will make the stronger production piece.



We started with a stock RX-8 flywheel, which like all rotary engines uses a keyed shaft and a huge nut to attach to the crank. This is a chonky steel piece and the aftermarket versions are made to bolt to an offset end balance weight, that replaces the big nut flywheel attachment.



This is an aftermarket RX-8 flywheel, and uses the same ring gear, surface offset, and clutch plate mating diameters. It is a much lighter unit and has a 6-bolt mating surface, on a large diameter. I bought one of these as a test and was impressed with how it looked and weighed. We also have an RX-8 clutch from ACT we are designing around.



After many scans and measurements, engineer Myles designed this crank adapter - the smaller bolt circle of 8 bolts is for the J37 crank face. The larger 6 bolt pattern is for this RX-8 flywheel. We made this from scrap aluminum (the diameter was about .250" too small) but it will work for mockup and measurement testing.



After some time in two CNC machines, Myles got the 2nd version spot on and the fit to the flywheel was perfect.



A lot of hardware was ordered from some obscure suppliers but it all arrived as we were machining the big bellhousing adapter. That was tested on the Honda crank and also fit perfectly.



A proper RX-8 pilot bearing was procured and it press fit into the cavity of the crank adapter as well. This is what the RX-8 input shaft will sit into when installed. Again - from the bellhousing back it is ALL factory RX-8, with the clutch slave and starter also from this car.

MAKING THE BELLHOUSING ADAPTER

A little history here, just to let folks know we tried to BUY the adapter for the RX-8 to Honda J37 bellhousing. This is not a small task and one most shops would just wave off, but we can handle this engineering and machine work.



There are two very distinct bellhousings for the J-series V6 - and the engine we want is the one that almost none of the bellhousing manufacturers support, the Gen 2. From what I can find online, the 3.0, 3.2 and some 3.5L versions use the "Gen 1" bellhousing pattern shown above left. The later 3.5 and 3.7L engines use the more round "gen 2" pattern above right.



The Gen2 bellhousing pattern has 8 bolts on a specific bolt circle, with 2 in the oil pan - which we cut off for swaybar and steering rack clearance. We're not worried, as 8 bolts is too many. The 6 bolts shown above right will be more than sufficient to attach the RX-8 transmission to the Honda V6.



We invested in new 3D scanning equipment early in 2025 and this project has given us an excuse to test this out. The RX-8 bellhousing ans the J37 block have both been scanned. No, we will not just "give" anyone these scans, as this is valuable work product that we created - and we are using this to make a product, the bellhousing adapter. So many people asked, which is why I typed that out.



This second video linked above was a quick 2 minute update I made in October as we were about to start cutting a giant slab of aluminum to make the bell housing adapter, as well as the crank adapter.



In the 3 weeks since we decided to test fit this J37 into this 86 chassis for the first time we designed the bell housing and crank adapters. Making the bellhousing adapter was pretty challenging, and we started with a 39.2 pound slab of aluminum - 16" x 16" x 1.5" thick.



Before we dove into our expensive slab of aluminum, Myles made some CNC plasma cut templates out of some thin steel sheet metal. This was to verify his 3D scans and we're glad he checked this. The 3D scanner is only "so good", you know? And one of the patterns was shifted .010" off the centerline, which he verified with a 2nd CNC cut template. He took this data and updated our bellhousing adapter, then got to work on the tricky CNC programming.



This slab was machined between other tasks carefully over about 2 days. This single prototype fit the Honda bellhousing perfectly, as well as the RX-8 transmission bellhousing. Whew! That was a bit nerve racking.



I was pretty stoked when the bellhousing adapter came out as beautiful as it did. There was clearance designed in for the swaybar to pivot, for the RX-8 clutch slave cylinder to fit, and so much more. The adapter was bolted to the Honda V6 block and the crank adapter and flywheel were bolted up next.



We didn't have any of the RX-8 bolt-thru dowels in stock so Myles machined a pair from steel. These have a press fit into the adapter and line up the transmission as it is bolted on. The RX-8 clutch slave cylinder and RX-8 starter were bolted on next, along with an custom assortment of bolt lengths to get the right combination to attach everything together.



With a lot of good planning and design it all came together and we weighed the "mostly complete" J37 with the full RX-8 transmission, starter, flywheel but no clutch / PP. That 388 pound number was pretty amazing, but of course we have several things left to install. We will weigh everything multiple times before it goes in for the last time.

FIRST COMPLETE DRIVETRAIN MOCKUP

On October 22 the drivetrain was bolted together for the first time, an we wasted no time putting that into the FRS to start finalizing the placement. This involves shimming under the oil pan above the crossmember to leave the right gap, then we can shift the engine left-to-right, front-to-back, and getting the tilt back angle where we want it.



We used an engine bay hanger to hold the engine and strapped the transmission in place. This will work for the next phase, building the drivetrain mounts.



We have since started building the engine mounts, have ordered and installed a proper alternator + brackets, and have started on clutch hydraulics. We will have a lot more to show on the next update to this thread.

WHAT'S NEXT?

So some might be sad because this won't be some fire breathing 800 hp engine swap, won't have turbos or even a "built" engine. What it will be is a mild mannered, very lightweight, 300 hp, SOHC V6 from a Honda minivan, placed as perfectly as we can into an 86 chassis with the goal of a complete swap that can be done without taking out a 2nd mortgage.



This engine + transmission combo fits really well in this chassis, and should actually DROP weight compared to the FA20. Yes, I said what I said!

More soon!

[Fair!]

Project update for November 2, 2025: It has been another two years since I updated this thread and more than THREE years since we covered any progress on Amy's 1st gen 86, the red 2013 FRS shown below - in stock form as well as widebody, both with FA20 power. In that time a lot has changed, and we bought and then sold the 2023 BRZ. Again - this forum thread covers ALL of the 86 cars we have owned or worked on extensively, sorry for the confusion.



We loved the red 2023 BRZ, but we accomplished our goals in that - verified the differences between 1st and 2nd gen 86, Amy won her class for the 2023 SCCA TT season, and we sold that car for good money. We wanted to keep it but had too many cars in the stable, and Amy moved that money into a 2024 Mustang Darkhorse (T2), ran that for a year of TT use, won the regional series for 2024, and that has also sold.

The shop built up a 30 year old 1995 M3 (below right) and she ran it in the 2025 season in SCCA TT (Max5) and won her 3rd season of regional competition in a row. She's finally getting her 2013 FRS back for the 2026 season - but it is getting a new drivetrain with a +50% power bump over the stock 200 hp FA20 2.0L.



I still have a number of events and some development / test work to cover here for the '23 BRZ, but I'm skipping that because we've brought the 1st gen 86 (FRS) into the Vorshlag shop (October 2025) and we have started a new engine swap. And no, its not an LS V8, but rather a Honda J-series V6!



So without further ado, lets catch up on our little FRS and talk about the exciting 300 hp V6 we're swapping into this car.

WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO LS V8 SWAP??

We took the FA20 engine out of this FRS in late 2018 and used this car to refine many of our product offerings for the LS V8 swap, a swap we first completed in 2015. I then stole Amy's 7.4L V8 that HPR built and used it for 3 seasons in my S550 Mustang, starting in early 2023.



It is a monster engine (makes over 700 whp on E85 pump fuel now) and would have been wildly inappropriate for this little 86. In fact, the LS swaps for the 86 are just not a big seller for us. The 2700 pound 86 would be overwhelmed with that much brute power and torque, and it would have broken EVERYTHING - axles, differential, hubs, and more.

Then the brakes would need a major upgrade, and with the LS V8 + Tremec Magnum XL costs, it just becomes a huge money pit. I know this first hand, as even in my much heavier / stronger S550 Mustang chassis, we started to break many things: axles, differential, brakes, hubs, clutches, and more. And this car starts out 1000 pounds heavier and with a 480 hp engine from the factory, so it is not some dainty little flower.



We started looking at a Honda V6 swap in another chassis (our 1991 BMW E30 318is) back in January 2025, but the V6 didn't fit that car's engine bay very well. In the middle of September I got a wild hair, and we stuck this engine into the engine-less FRS, and it FIT! Let's talk about the J37-to-86 swap now, which has proven to be one of our most popular swaps ever.

HOW CLASS RULES DROVE THIS J37 DECISION

Ever since our shop has shifted our competition focus from NASA TT class rules (rule that admittedly work better for unrestricted swaps) to SCCA Time Trial rules, it has affected many of our decisions for shop builds.

Our 2006 Corvette campaigned in in 2022 was built around Tuner 2 rules, our 2023 BRZ around T3, the 2024 Darkhorse around T2, our 2015 Mustang around Max1, and our 1995 M3 was built around Max5 rules. Those cars all won Texas region championships and set track records. We can make small changes to these cars and still run with NASA TT, but that is always a compromise - we try to build primarily around ONE series and ONE class.



This is the advice we give to any potential client that will listen - find a series then a class you can afford to build to the limit, then build your car around those rules only. Maximize the power and grip, minimize weight to the limit of the class, and add as much aero as the rules allow. That maximization of engineering limits and pushing to rules limits has served us and our customers well, and we're applying that theory to our 2013 FRS. The V8 swap we originally planned did not suit these class rules well - it would have moved this little 86 way up into very spendy Max1 class, and after 3 years racing in Max1 in our Mustang, I'm tired of that cost level.

Since our FRS here was ignored for "a few years", the SCCA rules have changed quite a bit. After building several successful SCCA Time Trial "Max" category cars, we decided to look at a less costly and lower power engine swap (300 hp or less) to avoid having to replace the rear axles, differential, and so many things that big power demands.



New for 2025, the SCCA TT Max category now has a lot of "formulas" that racers build around. This pointed us at a 3.7L engine swap with an unmodified automotive engine. This 3.7L engine swap can be built with a 2700 pound min weight (with driver), which we feel we can hit that low weight number in this car.

That Max4 formula listing above has driven more than a few builds in our shop this year, and our 1995 M3 is likely moving up to Max 4 for 2026 as well. That will be covered in that car's build thread, here on the Vorshlag forums.



Why this J-series V6? Weight and external size. We had seen the J-series Hondas and weighed this complete J37A1 in January of 2025, just to get some real weights. Sure, there was published and "internet" data, but I only trust weight numbers shown on a scale by people I trust (me). Most people suck at weighing things accurately, and most of the numbers we've seen posted online for weights are just guesses and lies, which get repeated so often they become truth.



The video linked above explains how we chose this J37 engine, why we want to pair that with a 2009-11 RX-8 transmission, and a little about the class rules we will build around. It is "more than 5 minutes long" but it really explains a lot of what we have researched here.

This video also delves deeper into SCCA TT Max class rules, the 3 "safety levels" within SCCA TT we can build around, and the various other V6 engine options we decided against: Toyota 2GR, Nissan VK, and more. Please watch this video if you have a lot of questions, because this video answers a lot.

THE CHALLENGES OF SWAPPING THE J-SERIES HONDA V6 INTO RWD CHASSIS

In January-February 2025 we had found the Honda J-series 3.0-3.7L V6 engines and explored these for possible use in swapping into a chassis for SCCA Time Trial. The video below is our measuring session with external dimensions and weights of this Single Over Head Cam (SOHC) engine as well as the extremely compact LS1 OHV V8.



We thought we could fit this 3.7L into our little E30 and run SCCA Max5 class if we stayed 3.0L, and bump up Max4 class if we went to the more powerful 3.7L. After looking at more eBay and Marketplace ads for J-series engines than I can count, I found a "junk but complete" J37A1 engine from a 2007-09 Acura MDX for $180.



We even looked at a "running car" with a J35 that was wrecked, but passed on that. This cheap J37 lump could be used for weights, measurements, and even mockup in a car and potential design work.



Of the MANY variations of the J-series, this was the most attractive one for our uses. The J37A1 made 300 hp in factory form, but did so without the Cylinder Deactivation or Direct Injection systems that many later engines had (all cause problems). They are also somewhat abundant - who's going to want to buy a minivan V6?



After I power washed the longblock + the loose intake I purchased, we weighed and compared it to one of our LS1 V8 setups. Unlike DOHC V6 engines, this SOHC V6 was not very wide, nor as heavy as a V8. We were very encouraged with the size and weights, but there were some not so subtle challenges we could now see firsthand.

The real challenges were numerous and somewhat expensive to fix. The big one was finding a bellhousing to use with a RWD transmission + the weird rear starter location. Yes, the starter is located behind the back face of the block, and only a handful of RWD engines use a transmission with the starter nested into the bellhousing, and none of those would work on the J-series without some serious fab and/or CNC work.



One company we found said they could make a cast aluminum bellhousing for an RX-8, but we would then need to MODIFY that to possibly work. It takes them 6-12 months to make one after you order and pay for it. Waiting up to a year for a custom bellhousing for $1200, which then would then need more fab work, custom adapters, custom flywheel/ring gear, and more - heck they took three weeks just to respond to each email we sent (and never answered their phone).

The water pump was also on the back side of the engine, which is a another engineering + fab job. Then a weird upper plenum on the intake manifold that needs to be modified / flipped 180 degrees. It seemed like more trouble than it was worth for our E30, which had a very short hood line and would need a big hood bump to fit it.

J-SERIES V6 SWAP INTO 2013 FRS?

As the 2025 racing season was winding down I made a decision to let go of my mega powered Mustang, as the costs for building and running this one car could pay for 4 or even 5 others with more modest power levels. We picked a different engine for the E30, but that is a major task, and we already had another big engine swap + suspension project taking up shop time. Amy also complained about wanting her 2013 FRS back, so we looked at closer at that car in September 2025.



While contemplating another expensive LS V8 build and after Amy admitted that she was more comfortable in the 250 hp '23 BRZ than the 500 hp '24 Darkhorse, I looked in the corner and saw that J37 sitting there. We had done a ton of research and never gave up on this swap, so we again looked closer at some of the challenges we listed before.



One of the challenges with the J37 swap into the BMW E30 was the oil pan - the J-series has a front sump, but that is exactly what the 86 needs. I asked Brad to take the J37 oil pan and cut off the two lower bellhousing flanges from the back.



He got those flanges cut off this oil pan and smoothed out, and it looked great. Maybe an hour of work to make it pretty, and that impacted the function of the oil pan not one bit. We bolted that back on the J37 and stuck the engine into the 86 on September 15, 2025.



And that's when we realized we had found a perfect 300 hp engine for the 86. The engine fit GREAT with this one small modification to the oil pan. See the 86 is notoriously tricky to swap engines into, due to the weird placement of the front subframe, and then the steering rack and swaybar behind that, making a front sump oil pan a requirement.



This SOHC V6 is very narrow and very light, and it fit into the 86 very well. We still had a lot of engineering challenges ahead of us, but I knew if there was any shop capable of handling this, our engineering heavy team could research, measure, plan, design, machine, and fabricate our way out of any potential problem. Let's explore the challenges and show our solutions below.

THE TRANSMISSION (AND REAR STARTER) DILEMMA

There are only a handful of factory transmissions (one of the restrictions of the SCCA class we're building for, it must be a production automotive transmission) that allow for the rear mounted starter, which the J-series requires (there is no boss or opening on the block to mount a starter on the engine side). This comes from the fact that the J-series only came in FWD cars, and turning it 90 degrees brings all sorts of little challenges - but we have fixed every single one.



The Aisin 6-speed manual in the 1st and 2nd gen 86 are both *extremely* long, as shown above. This is because the back of FA20 and FA24 flat four engines sit 11" ahead of the 86 chassis firewall. Nobody knows why Subaru and Toyota did this, but the high mounted rear starter was likely a reason. The starter is at the back, way at the top - and that starter would not fit in the tunnel if we shoved the engine back that 11".

As shown in the pictures above, the silver case of the 86 stater is high mounted, behind the FA20 engine. The 86's shifter would also not line up with the shifter hole if we shoved it back to better fit the V6. The factory Aisin 6 speed from these 86 cars is also only rated at 185 ft-lbs of torque, and the J37 puts out 300 hp / 275 tq in stock form. Not a good fit.



To improve the notoriously "not great" front to rear weight bias of the 86, we shoved the J37 engine back as far as possible, with only 1.5" of space to the firewall. This moves the center of gravity rearward and leaves us GOBS of room in front of the engine.



After looking at literally hundreds of manual transmissions we found 5 that had a rear mounted starter that was built into the bellhousing. Digging into those options led us to the obvious answer - the Aisin direct shift 6-speed manual found in the Mazda RX-8. This came in two torque ratings - the early 2004-08 models (which are known to break), then and Mazda upgraded to a stronger unit for the 2009-11 models.

continued below

[Fair!]

continued from above



So after the first TT session that Amy drove the BRZ in, I also took it out in a different TT sessions twice (they have "Red" and "Green" TT sessions, split based on classes / speed). The times going CW are usually about 1 second slower than CCW, so we should have been in the 1:23 range. But the times not comparable when you are struggling to learn a new course! I was way off the pace in the 86.



Stan Whitney offered a co-drive in his 2022 GT500 to me in the last session - who himself was winning the Max1 class, while I was sitting in 4th with my lackluster BRZ times. Well this GT500 (having never driven one) fit my driving style very well - I went out and in 2 laps set the Max1 class winning time and scored maximum points for the season opener, just missing FTD by a couple of tenths. Of course the 2790 lbs BRZ handled much nicer than the 4100 pound GT500, but having 760 hp is a lot more fun than 240! I was FIVE seconds quicker in the 2 ton pony car with OEM dampers... #powermatters


I used my rented AMB transponder from the C6 on Stan's GT500, so the results wouldn't get too wonky. My best BRZ time in 2 sessions was 1:25.163, which would have been good enough for 2nd in T3 class (which Amy was running in) - so not a promising start to the season, but again, I was completely lost on the CW course. Amy placed 3rd in T4 in the BRZ, with a best of 1:28.981. We both have some work to do.

NASA TT ECR 2.7 CCW April 2, 2023

We brought the Corvette back to the shop Saturday evening and unloaded it from the trailer, swapped the "big" wheels onto the BRZ (she drove it back on the Flakens), then loaded that car up in the trailer for an early start Sunday morning at Eagles Canyon Raceway. NASA was running their 2 day race weekend and we entered for one day only. Amy and I both drove the '23 BRZ as a "Team Vorshlag" entry at this NASA TT event, which we ran on Sunday.

Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-...27-CCW-040223/



I ran the BRZ in TT4 class and Amy ran it in HPDE4, to get more seat time in the car and at this track. We got the car annual teched (again, after doing it in December, but that was for 2022), checked in, went to the TT drivers meeting, then I had to head to grid.



NASA has finally followed the example of SCCA TT and Apex Lap Attack by also SPLITTING their large Time Trial group into two differing heats, which should go a LONG way towards removing the traffic problem we noted in the December 2022 event. This was a great idea, and since I was entered into TT4 I ended up in the "fast" TT group (TTU-TT4 in group 1, TT5-TT6 in group 2). Since I didn't run Saturday and had no times to grid off of, I had to start at the back. No worries - this is really a TT5 car with street tires, so I won't catch the back of the field? HAHAHAHA! - Yea, I'm never that lucky.



I backed way off on the out lap and built a big gap going into hot lap 1, but as you can see in the video above I had a Corvette spun off the track in front of me in Turn 2, so I had to lift and move around as he came back on track (lap 1 borked). Heading into lap 2, I quickly caught the TT4 cars, which were gutted TT4 race cars on race tires (lap 2 borked). I kept catching more and more traffic and eventually had a clear track on hot lap 5. LAP FIVE - which is "less than ideal" for A052 tires, but that proved to be my best lap of the day - as it got much warmer in Session 2 (where I gridded better but once again was stuck in traffic) and rained for sessions 3-4.



After doing that 2:11.0 lap (my AiM showed 2:10.8, but close enough) it moved me up the grid order a tick, but the traffic was still bad (I always wonder why people go so slowly on their first 1-3 laps?) and I couldn't get a clear track until lap 3, but by then the tires were smoking hot. My best time in session 2 wasn't even quicker than my 2nd best time in session 1.



Amy had a rough day and was way off the pace in both HPDE4 sessions she drove in - so much so that she kept pulling offline to let cars pass, and that led to some serious tire klag pickup when she was driving offline. The HPDE3-4 session she ran in was actually a mess with 50+ cars in those run groups, including some of the fastest TT and W2W race cars using it for practice sessions. That was less than ideal.

I was riding right seat with her in her 2nd session and the vibrations from rubber stuck to her tires was so bad we thought the car had a loose wheel or bad wheel bearing, and she came in after 2 laps. Turns out she wasn't driving fast enough to burn off the balled up rubber pickup, and when she'd go offline to let cars pass she would pick up more. Lesson learned - if you hear a wheel imbalance, DRIVE HARDER and burn that stuff off!



In the end, my best lap in the 1st TT session was quick enough for 21st out of 34 TT cars and 3rd out of 5 in TT4 class. HEAVY rain was rolling in right after lunch, so NASA made the rare call to award trophies before the last two sessions even happened (it was the right call - nobody even went out in the downpour). It was a fun if frustrating event, and in the future if we only run 1 day with NASA we will try to do that Saturday, so we're not stuck gridding at the back again. With the SCCA TT series as our primary event held the day before, though, we didn't have much choice.

LAP TIME COMPARISON

Let's add some more lap times and video links for the 2023 BRZ for both MSR-C 1.7 CCW and ECR 2.7 CCW.

MSR Cresson 1.7 CCW

• https://youtu.be/Cs6AF436ykE - 1:31.90, baseline stock - 2013 Scion FRS Test #1
• https://youtu.be/_I4ltM6plFQ - 1:29.630, with camber and front brake upgrade, FRS Test #2
• https://youtu.be/Bn-B3CfBKps -1:28.638, stock 215mm Michelins, '23 BRZ Track Test #1
• https://youtu.be/_NynP6vt4Yg - 1:28.889, Whiteline/AST coilovers and bars, FRS Test #3
• https://youtu.be/CU72_RGfC2Y - 1:28.565, retest above setup, FRS Track Test #4
• https://youtu.be/Zo6y6tD8nQQ - 1:26.376, 225mm Falken RT-660, '23 BRZ Track Test #2
• https://youtu.be/SUCBbM3v6Po - 1:25.978, with 315mm Rival-S tires, FRS Test #2
• https://youtu.be/sEL1fwtqf84 - 1:25.174, 225mm Falken RT-660 + camber, '23 BRZ Track Test #3
• https://youtu.be/CWErvhQnTew - 1:23.498, 225mm Falken w/ MCS, '23 BRZ Track Test #4
• https://youtu.be/1kfCUq8neeo - 1:22.730, 255mm A052 with MCS + RacerX arms, '23 BRZ Track Test #5

ECR 2.7 CCW

• https://youtu.be/VixGegVZQjQ - 2:22.987, stock 2020 GT86 with 245mm Hankook RS-4, Equalizer Attempt #1
• https://youtu.be/_-eGk3bP258 - 2:19.771, 2020 GT86 w/ camber plates, 245mm RS-4, Equalizer Attempt #2
• https://youtu.be/RWEP7H0iHno - 2:16.451, 225mm Falken RT-660, '23 BRZ Baseline ECR Test #1
• https://youtu.be/F9z81XM_Pu0 - 2:10.87, 255mm A052 with MCS + RacerX arms, '23 BRZ, ECR Test #2

We will keep adding links and ranking the laps for both of these "home track" layouts, and will post them in decreasing lap time order, with any recent tests in bold.

WHAT'S NEXT?

There are 4 more events already in the books for this car (3 TTs + 1 autocross) that I failed to cover here, but I better stop here before this post gets too long and boring to readers!



We did a bit better at some of these later TT events, racing in the correct classes and on the right prep levels. The first autocross in STR class also went very well.



We have a number of cool upgrades to cover next time including the 18x10" wheels we had custom built for T3 class (which fit VERY WELL), long wheel stud install, some lug nut challenges, a pair of new fixed back racing seats + harnesses for our BRZ, and a few other products we have developed. I will also show Jon's seat install next time as well.

Thanks for reading!

[Fair!]

continued from above

RACERX UPPER REAR CONTROL ARMS

We would normally go straight to SPL Parts and get their adjustable arms, but they don't make the upper arm for an 86, plus their arms are all bushed with metal sphericals - which makes for a class rules problem on our car. We got a tip from Jon Miller that these RacerX arms were the only adjustable upper arm offering out there for the 2nd gen that are SCCA Tuner class legal, as they came with poly upper bushings (the spherical ball joint is allowed).



The class allows "one adjustment camber method" per axle, so out back we could trade the Whiteline lower arms for RacerX upper arms and be legal - and slightly narrow the rear track, to make our 10" wide wheel search work better (more on this next time). We ordered these RacerX upper arms (in their -1 to -4 deg range), but also their oil catch can kit and battery hold down kit.



We actually ordered this stuff in early January (right after dropping the car off at Dotson, then the eccentrics FIRST slipped) and the parts arrived more than 2 months later. The BRZ sat undriveable and sitting in our barn for two months. We missed a lot of events in that time period, but such are the sufferings of "supply chain" woes.



The day the parts arrived we brought the BRZ into the shop and Brad began the upper rear arm swap. He removed the stock uppers and we weighed them along with the lighter / tubular / fabricated RacerX bits. Jason and I both noted that these single axis poly bushings needed a grease zerk added - to prevent squeaks and potential bushing "sticktion" - so Brad got to work on that lengthy extra step.



It is always baffling when companies sell control arms with poly bushings and DON'T add these grease zerks, but we're used to it. This extra work would add a bit to the fabrication and ultimately cost of the parts. And frankly, most people don't do any proper greasing or suspension maintenance anyway. Still, we do this maintenance, so we always go to this solution. I just hate sticky and squeaky bushings! It never helps handling, that's for sure. Brad checked for access and marked the zerk spots then drilled and tapped them for 1/4"-28 threaded, 90 deg angled grease zerks.



The 2-piece polyurethane bushing shells were made to touch internally, which isn't great - now we need to add a pathway for the grease to travel to the inner steel sleeve, which Brad did in the above steps by drilling a hole through the two bushings butted together. These cylindrical cuts also help "key" the bushings in place when the zerks are threaded in, ensuring a pathway for the injected grease to get to that inner steel sleeve.



With these zerks and bushings added to the RacerX arms, they were ready to be installed. Just know that adjustments of the outer rod ends makes fine tuning camber side-to-side "difficult".



To adjust camber the alignment tech needs to UNBOLT the outer spherical (with a stud you can slip in and out, it essentially becomes a rod end), then make 180 degree turns to adjust camber - each half rotation changes camber "more than a little bit". Brad got these pretty close (close to -3.5 deg on both sides) before we went looking for an alignment shop with an opening in their schedule...

REAR LOWER CONTROL ARM BUSHINGS

As the RacerX upper arms went in, we had to remove the Whiteline adjustable lower arms. Again, mostly for class reasons, which only allows one camber adjustment per axle, and the upper arms were it. But now we'd lose those poly bushings that were in the WL lower arms, compared to the stock arms going back on.



Legally we could still add poly bushings in the OEM lower arms, so that's what we did here. We ordered a Whiteline bushing kit for these inboard lower arm locations and Brad got the old bushings out of the stock arms. After we installed and tested all of these, we added these items are on our website.



He had to make a tool to press the stock one-piece rubber bushing out, but with some tubing drops and a little lathe work he had the press tool that worked. The sloppy stock rubber bushing is softer but there is also a lot of "void" (ie: air) in that design. The new Whiteline "elastomer" 2-piece bushing will help remove some deflection under lateral load (they don't use the word "polyurethane", but it essentially is made from that).



With the new Whiteline bushings in place Brad also drilled / tapped / added grease zerks to keep them lubricated, again for squeak free and sticktion free function for many years.



The bushing swap on the OEM lower arms wrapped up the bushing & camber upgrades out back. Now with proper coilover dampers, swaybars, bushings, and proper camber adjustments, we can likely leave this end of the suspension alone for a bit.

FRONT CONTROL ARM BUSHING UPGRADES

This was one of those "while we are at it" scope creep jobs, but we had always planned to change all of the sloppy rubber bushings for polyurethane. The front lower control arms have two bushings but they work, but oriented in axis 90 deg apart.



Let's look at the forward bushing first, which is an unusual "off axis" bushing that has a lot of voids and slop, as it needs to pivot to allow suspension articulation. Polyurethane HATES to pivot, but this is a Whiteline "elastomer" 3-piece bushing also with a good bit of additional caster adjustment built in. You can rotate the bushing within the arm to change the caster position here, which we did to add maximum caster (along with our caster adding top mounts, it is now sitting at +8 deg!)



Above you can see the 3 Whiteline bushing pieces plus the center steel sleeve. Brad started this task by removing the arm, then pushing out the 1-piece rubber bushing - taking care to support the somewhat frail stamped steel arm.



The rotation of the offset center bushing was marked and matched to both sides, then pressed into place. Finally the extra upper and lower portions were installed to allow the entire assembly to pivot smoothly, and the center tubing section pressed into place. This bushing does NOT "rotate" so it did not get a grease zerk installed.



Next up on the lower front arm was the rear bushing, which DOES rotate like a traditional suspension bushing. This is a 2-piece design + steel sleeve, which DID have a gap between the two halves (proper). The grease zerk was drilled and tapped to squirt the grease between the two sections and feed the inner steel sleeve. The front arms were now rubber-free, and reinstalled - it was now time to tackle a persistent oil leak.

OIL LEAK - RTV REDO, OIL CHANGE, & CATCH CAN INSTALL

Now if you were reading along you would know that the FIRST thing we did on this 2023 BRZ was add the oil pan baffle and clean out the oil pickup. But the technician that did this work skimped a bit on the RTV and we had a decent oil leak at the back of the oil pan.



Now I will be the first to admit that the design of the FA24 oil pan interface is TERRIBLE and the back portion at the block is barely 1/8" wide, so you have to slather on the RTV back there or risk the leak we encountered. This wasn't a problem on the FA20, but Subaru being Subaru had to take a proven design and make it worse. Baffling.



This time Brad tackled the oil pan seal work and took extra care there. Once again the oil pickup tube was inspected and it was clear, so the pan and baffle were cleaned before re-applicaiton of the Great Stuff RTV. Instead of rushing this job, the sealant was allowed to set for an hour before going back together.



Since the oil pan was off obviously we did an oil change (after letting the RTV to set overnight), once again using Motul 8100 series 5W40 synthetic, which has worked well for us on this and many other street / track cars. The old oil looked perfect - no glitter or bad color.



Finally, the RacerX oil catch can kit was installed along with the RacerX battery hold down (above left). After using the oil catch can on track it DOES work, and after every track day the drain hose Brad added (above right) is used to release the captured oil with their 1/4 turn ball valve at the bottom of the tank.

ANOTHER (SEMI-FAILED) ALIGNMENT

We had made all of these suspension changes here and really needed to get a "laser" alignment before going to the track, so I printed off my "requests" and tried a new shop. Once again our main alignment shop we work with and trust was booked out for weeks. It did not go as smoothly at the new shop, but we got "some" numbers, even if they were in degrees / minutes / seconds, and the technicians themselves didn't trust the front camber numbers.



Oh well, it was "something" and we scheduled Track Test #5 with... the "big" 17x9" wheels and 2545mm Yokohama A052s.

TRACK TEST #5 - MARCH 23, 2023

After months of waiting, then parts arriving and being installed, then chasing an alignment shop, we finally had a good chance to test the BRZ for the 5th time at MSR Cresson. We had the rear camber set with arms that couldn't "slip" and the proper 17x9" wheels and 255mm tires on for the first time - which was supposed to be our autocross tire set, but we missed most of the early autocross events waiting on these dang arms.

Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-...-test5-032323/



We loaded the car into the trailer and Amy once again joined me for this track test. We both had a much better time with the car than in test 4, where the rear end was too twitchy. It still wasn't perfect, and we have since gotten the car properly aligned and found some small issues they fixed, which made the car even easier to drive at the limit.



As you can see in the Lap List (above left) I went out first in a 7 lap stint right after the track went hot. In a rush to get the car out in this session I forgot to check shock settings and we had the full soft Street settings. The car felt weird and was a FULL SECOND slower than my next stint, after I set the knobs correctly. In the 2nd stint I set the new Personal Best for this car at a 1:22.730 on hot lap 1 - but the Yokohama A052 tires "fell off" after that. This is a proper "autocross" compound and doesn't deal with heat well, but it is FAST. You can see the lateral g spikes in the 1.4g range on the measures graphs (above right).



The car cornered pretty flat (especially for our modest 450/500 #/in spring rates) and the tires had excellent wear, even with "so much camber". We are only using what the tires ask for, and the tire wear, grip numbers, temperatures, and pictures of the car loaded in corners tells us we are in the right range.



Amy drove in two stints and actually took more laps than me, for once - which was the goal. With the car behaving more predictably she felt more comfortable and set her fastest laps in the BRZ that day as well. She used to run lap times in the same second as me in several previous cars, and would often out pace me in autocrosses, so we still have some work to do to get her sea legs back.



The in car YouTube video is linked in the picture above, as always, and it was a fairly OK run. I honestly felt like the 255mm A052 tires would have been worth more than a second over the 225mm Falkens, but it came down to tire heat and traffic. With some more experience with this setup, later on I got better on my "first hot lap" driving. At this point we are 5.9 seconds quicker than Track Test #1.

PRE-TRACK CHECK, WHEEL MEASURING, & CLASS DECALS

Later the same day, after we got back from Track Test #5, we unloaded the BRZ and brought it into the shop to check everything. We had a double header Time Trial weekend coming up a week later, with both SCCA and NASA TT events we would enter the BRZ into. This was also right after running the 255mm tires for the first time and I wanted to make sure we had no witness marks anywhere from tire rub (we did not). I also wanted to get the car in the air to measure for 10" wide wheels and 275mm tires.



With the 17x9" wheels and wider 255mm tires, and the RacerX rear arms with what we felt was a pretty good alignment - we could finally measure off of this setup for a 1" wider wheel and tire package. Nobody believed we could pull this off without cutting or pulling fenders, but I had faith.



While it was in I asked Brad to mount the battery powered AMB transponder. We had a quick release mount but it is made to mount to a flat surface, so Brad built this angled mount from some scrap Delrin we had in the CNC shop. It matches the angle of the lower grill, has a "cross" machined into the back to align with the grill, and mounts with some zip ties. That in turn can hold the transponder, and allow for it to be quickly removed and swapped to another car (which came in handy this next race weekend!).



Stephen's wife made some decals for both the C6 Corvette (which I would run for the first time in SCCA TT Max1) as well as some STR / T3 / TT4 decals for the BRZ, as this would be the first time competing in the 86 with something other than blue tape!



The night before I ran the NASA classing calcs and the 86 technically fit into TT5 class, but only just. The wider 275mm tires we had planned later in the season (our "T3" setup) would move the car into TT4 class with NASA, so we ran it in that class for the Sunday NASA TT. After this round of prep we swapped on the stock wheels, so Amy could drive it out to both events. Then loaded up the C6 (after a major round of work on that). The next morning we headed out to Motorsport Ranch 1st for their 1.7 CW event...

SCCA TT MSR 1.7 CW - APRIL 1, 2023

This was day 1 of a 2 day / 2 event weekend for us. We're trying to make ALL of the Texas Region SCCA Time Trial events (a series we sponsor) and this was their first event of the year, running at MSR on the 1.7 mile CW course (of their 8 events in 2023, each one is on a different track / configuration). We took the BRZ and C6, and swapped on the new 17x9" wheels and 255mm tires when we got there.

Gallery: https://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-...MSR-CW-040123/



Amy had never driven this CW direction and I had only driven it a few times in the distant past. And as luck would have it, the C6 lost drive-by-wire throttle control immediately (tuning issue) so that car never made a lap (I was pretty disappointed, as this was to be the last time I ever drove this car on track - it was just painted and will be for sale soon).

continued below

[Fair!]

continued from above

TRACK TOW HOOK - MULTIPLE ITERATIONS

Most of you reading this already know that most track event orgs strongly advise or even require you to have a "trackside extraction hooks" on both ends of your car. This helps the track workers pull your car into the pits or onto a trailer if it runs out of fuel or has some other mechanical problem that keeps you from moving under your own power.



The factory Subaru tow hook is an all steel part that can be installed after you remove a small plastic cover at each end. We utilized this stock hook for our first few events, and even used it to winch the car into and out of the trailer. I just hoped that I never needed a hook on the back if there was some situation where the front wasn't accessible. We looked for an aftermarket solution to get tow hooks for both ends, and accidentally ordered this garbage below from Perrin.



DO NOT USE THE PERRIN "SHOW HOOKS"! As we later found, their own website says these are for car show use only, and shouldn't be used to actually tow the car. They are 100% aluminum (even the threaded portions!) and like aluminum lug nuts, are NOT used by racers with any technical knowledge. These can and will break EASILY if you yank on them with a tow vehicle or winch cable. As soon as I picked one up, we immediately asked for an return, which was honored.



Conversely, these all STEEL tow hooks from Cusco are quite well made and not much more expensive. When there is something like this on the market there is no NEED for the fake parts that Perrin peddles. These come in two lengths (to fit front or back) and work well on both 1st and 2nd gen 86 models.



There is just a small plastic panel that you remove (without the need for tools) to put these Cusco hooks in the factory threaded holes. A pair of these or something similar should be on EVERY TRACKED 86.



Now for when we tow the 86 we can utilize the front tow hook to winch the car in, and there are two factory "tie down" hooks on the chassis - which are likely used for sea transits - that work great for trailer straps, too. But out back we had no good options... so we made some.



We make these 1/4" thick steel CNC cut tie down hooks for several cars and will have these as an option for the rear of an 86. These go under the heads of the massive bolts that attach the rear subframe to the chassis. Meaty, reinforced, strong mount. These can then be hooked onto to hold the rear of the chassis down.



We have towed this way many times since we purchased the car and will no longer be using "through the wheels" straps, as doing that caused a rear alignment eccentric to slip (more on that below). We also added the Cusco throttle pedal extension, shown above right, which was worth every penny. If you have trouble doing a heel-toe blip shift with your shoes, try out one of these beauties.

MAJOR SUSPENSION UPGRADES - MCS RR2, SWAYBARS & MORE

In late December we made time in the hectic shop schedule to tackle the first big suspension changes beyond just the camber plates from before. Before we tackle the wider 9" wheel and 255mm tire upgrade, we needed to get the MCS dampers on and conduct a 4th track test using our "control" set of tires, the 225mm RT-660s. It was time to install the MCS remote doubles, Whiteline bars and adjustable lower rear control arms.



This was started immediately after track test #3, with the goal to get back out to the track a week later. We had these dampers on hand for nearly 2 months and I was chomping at the bit to get them installed!



The front struts went on fairly quickly. Normally these ship with an offset slug (see above right) and that gives you a "decent" camber setting set up outboard, but inboard it makes for OBSCENE camber (minimum negative on his setup as -4.6 deg). We noted this on Jon' Miller's 2022 BRZ MCS install, so we ordered the centered slugs for our car (and his). This takes up the slop in the slotted upper strut bracket hole, instead of needing an eccentric bolt.



The rear dampers went in without any fuss, and then it was time to install the remote reservoirs. Now we can typically route the hoses under the front frame rail on the front struts, but on the rear dampers we often cut a hole in the trunk area to route the hoses and reservoirs through. BUT I leanred after posting these pics that some racers have found that these can be passed through the rear "vent panels" inside the trunk. So just know that you DO NOT have to cut the trunk floor up like we did below!



Live and learn, right? Oh well, we usually use a 2.5" dia hole saw and 2-piece Seals-It grommet with a 3/8" hole to seal around the hose. The grommet is unbolted from the car and the entire reservoir can pass through without the need to depressurize the nitrogen charge, disconnect a hose, add fluid or any of that mess.



Once the dampers were all mounted it was time to make reservoir mounting brackets. Now we sell these simple MCS brackets that can be riveted / bolted to flat metal or tubing, then zip-tied to the reservoirs. But I like to make our reservoir brackets for any car we build in the shop, and these aluminum brackets were made the way we have done them many times. One piece is cut out that runs the length of the reservoir, then rolled through the sheet rollers to match the curve of the reservoirs. Then those were welded to some flat brackets that then were bolted to the chassis.



Up front the brackets bolt to the strut tower brace studs, and put the Compression adjuster on the remotes right next to the Rebound knobs on top of the struts. Out back we keep the reservoirs just inside the top of the trunk area for easy access while still giving full use of the trunk. Needlessly fancy? Sure it is, but when you spend this much on dampers another few hours to make fancy brackets isn't much extra.



Virtually every build we do in the shop gets adjustable swaybars both front and rear. Due to some supply chain issues we went with a relatively new (to us) brand with this Hotchkis kit. These tubular bars include a 25.4mm diameter 2-way adjustable front and 19mm dia 4-way adjustable blade style rear. They came with rear end links but we utilized our 2" shortened Whiteline adjustable front endlinks for the front struts.



We had to wait a few days but these Whiteline adjustable lower rear arms finally arrived. We wanted these to be able to adjust rear camber, which as we saw in Track Test #3, we had more front camber than the rear could keep up with. These Whiteline arms are made for the 1st gen 86, and as such the mounting holes for the rear dampers are in the WRONG PLACE. This isn't a big deal (a slight change to motion ratio / wheel spring rate) but for Rules Weenies it is an easy protest.



To fix this rules issue, Jason and I measured the stock 2nd gen arms and transferred the hole placement to the Whiteline 1st gen arms. That is literally all you have to do to make these "legal" for the 2nd gen. An affordable rear adjustable lower arm kit which we sell for both 1st and 2nd gen cars. They also have their stiffer elastomer lower bushings for the inboard side already installed.



With these Whiteline arms in place, Brad adjusted them for a decent chunk of negative camber for the first time. We had the front camber set to -4.6 deg and -3.5 deg out back, to start with. YES THIS IS A LOT OF CAMBER but we do a lot of testing and after 20 years running Vorshlag and 34 years of track and autocross competition I have a good idea of what a particular car / tire needs.



There were a few other small details that were specific to the MCS remotes, but Brad got all of that sorted and the alignment dialed in. We couldn't get into the schedule of our normal alignment shop for a "Laser" alignment, so we used our SmartCamber tools and toe plates.



We did the alignments with the new 17x9" Enkei wheels and the 255mm Yokohama A052s - and boy, I *REALLY* wanted to do track test #4 like this. But that wouldn't show all of you a good A-B test of the MCS dampers (minimizing variables).



So the 225mm RT-60 control tires from Tests #2 and #3 went back on. These later became our "transit" tires after the A052s became our main track tire. The BRZ was then corner balanced with driver weight (the ~175 pounds of ballast we use) but the image below shown both with (2955 lbs) and without driver ballast (2779 lbs).



This round of suspension work was wrapped up on December 28th and we loaded the BRZ into the trailer for Track Test #4 the next day.

TRACK TEST #4 - DEC 29, 2022



This was a chaotic day with some iffy weather, but we had a lot of fun. Amy came with me and we both drove the BRZ, we brought the C6 Corvette to verify some brake cooling changes (Track Test #12 for that car), and then Scottish Joe let me take his C8 out for some laps. Let's dig into the data and videos!



For our 2023 Subaru BRZ we both ran the car over a total of 37 laps in 4 sessions, wet in the morning and dry after lunch. We ran the same 225mm Falken RT-660 tires, Vorshlag camber plates and G-LOC R10/R8 brake pads and Motul RBF600 fluid from test #3 - but now we have added MCS RR2 remote double adjustable coilovers with 450/500 spring rates, the Hotchkis swaybars, and a Whiteline rear lower adjustable arm. Alignment was set with -4 deg front / -3 deg rear camber, zero front and 3/16" rear toe in.



Amy went out with me right seat coaching with radios for a long 10 lap stint in the wet, then I drove the C6 in the wet for another 10 laps. The rain was moving out so we took a lunch break and came back to a green but dry track. Not ideal conditions to be sure, but we were here so we took more laps.



After it dried out I took a 6 lap stint in the BRZ chasing a new Personal Best in this little car, and got it on lap 3. The RT-660s do take a few laps to come up to optimum heat and grip levels, and the 1:23.498 lap is shown below.



Now this video shows a bit of a learning curve for me - like Jon's car the speeds are now high enough to need 5th gear on the main straight, and I botched a 1:22.9 lap hitting the rev limiter at the end of the straight into Little Bend. In a later lap I botched a 1:23.0 lap in traffic, then the rear tires got greasy so I came in. I felt guilty and really wanted Amy to get as much seat time as she could that day, and I also needed to get laps in the C6 and C8...



I had my hands full testing the C6 Corvette's brakes in another long dry stint, then in Joe's C8 Corvette in my first laps in this chassis. Wow the MagRide dampers are just junk at the limit in this car, but that DCT is amazing and I wish we had that transmission option in EVERY car. I struggled a bit with traffic in the C6, also missing a new Personal Best in that car (1:19/6) with a predicted 1:19.3 and 1:19.5, which I missed from traffic and driving mistakes.

My goal here was to find 2 seconds from Track Test #3 (1:25.174), and if I had locked down the 1:22.9 or 1:23.0 predicted laps that would have happened. Still, the new PB was a solid 5.14 seconds quicker than the Baseline Stock Lap in Track Test #1. We will be adding more tire width in the coming weeks and will head back for at test 5 looking for more time! Most importantly, after my short stint in the BRZ, Amy took two more full stints in the car - getting some much needed seat time. She didn't get much track driving done in the last few years and is playing catch up.

ECUTEK TUNE AT DOTSON TUNING

In Late December Stephen joined us as our Operations Manager at Vorshlag - and his daily driver is the blue 2023 BRZ below. One day when Jon Miller came by I was loading up the BRZ to take to the tuner, and we had a quick "car show" at the shop of 2nd gens. There are also two 1st gens in the shop, with Amy's 2013 and our CNC operator Steven.



I dropped our red '23 BRZ off at Dotson Tuning in Ft Worth on January 10th, 2023. I've known the owner / tuner Calvin Dotson for a while, as he tuned our 2008 EVO X MR when he worked at COBB. He has his own place now, next door to Kraken Motorsports. And as we unloaded the BRZ I realized that the eccentrics on the Whiteline lower rear arms had slipped - big time. This was before I had the rear tie down hooks, and was towing with straps run through the rear wheels. The right rear wheel had MASSIVE toe out as a result, but the folks at Kraken aligned it well enough to get it on the dyno at Dotson.



Then Calvin was able to make a baseline pull on his Mustang dyno, then used the newly released EcuTek tuning to tweak the programming slightly. The peak numbers didn't change but some area under the curve improved, and he was also able to add a SOFT REV LIMITER at 7400 rpms. This way if we ever hit the rev limiter, it doesn't have that violent and hard set "fuel cut", which is what upset my best lap at Track Test #4.

We have used this tune for several months now and the rev limit is perfect, and you barely know you hit it - the car just stops accelerating. How it works is the drive-by-wire throttle blade just starts to close slowly between 7200-7400, so you can "sit on the limiter" for a while and nothing bad happens. No violent shutter or hard fuel cut. REALLY helpful on track and autocross! We will head back to Dotson as we make exhaust and cold air intake changes to allow Calvin to unlock the extra power in the tune.

MORE CAMBER & BUSHING CHANGES

A couple of weeks later (1/23/23) I had picked up the BRZ from Dotson and unloaded it from the trailer, then brought it straight into the shop for some wheel measuring. But as I drove it around the parking lot it was "crabbing" sideways a lot, and even visually the rear alignment looked wonky. Brad and I checked the rear toe.



Somehow the left rear was VERY toed out. Either the techs didn't tighten this eccentric during the alignment, it wasn't set right, or it somehow slipped again when I towed it back (this time I strapped around the subframe - it WASN'T from the tie down straps). We had run 37 laps with these lower arms on the car in Track Test #4 and they didn't move, so it was a real mystery.



Fearing another $200 alignment every time we drive the car, it was time to try something different here. We also had challenges finding a 10" wide wheel for this car that would fit with the existing rear track width. This WL arm pushes the bottom of the tire out to get camber, but we knew of an upper arm that pulled the top of the tire in, to get to the same camber - but with a different track width and potential wheel offset.

continued below

[Fair!]

Project update for May 16th, 2023: The start of 2023 only ratcheted up our business volume, so after nearly 4.5 months since my last update, today I am trying to catch up to the progress on our 2nd gen 86 chassis. I made a good dent and got this build thread caught up to early April 2023 with the many parts changes, track tests, Time Trials, and autocrosses we have run.



We tackled a number of major suspension upgrades on the '23 BRZ (including MCS remote doubles, Whiteline bushings and bars, RacerX rear arms and more), a fixed back racing seat / harness upgrade in Jon Miller's '22 BRZ (and we are doing the same to our '23 soon!), and even two new wheel and tire packages. We had a gap there of about 10 weeks with no driving on our car, waiting for control arms, but we stayed busy the entire time working on other aspects of this build.



My personal 2015 Mustang (below) had a bit of a hiccup with the 383" LS engine we had originally slated for Phase I of that car, and we "borrowed" the HPR built 454" LS7 slated for Amy's 2013 FRS. It is a "temporary loan" and we plan to get her V8 swapped 1st gen 86 back in the shop soon, but for now you can read about the exploits of "Amy's Engine" in my S550 Mustang in this thread. That engine is a little nuts and we might tone things down a little for Amy's FRS, depending on how this 7.4L engine dynos (very soon).



That's the last mention of the Mustang build here, and we have lots of 86 content to cover this time, so let's get started where we left off: mid December 2022.

RAM MOUNT FOR PHONE + AIM SOLO + CATALYST

If you have followed any of our build threads over the years you will note that I am a bit of a fanatic about adding a RAM base, arm, and 3-axis phone holder to every vehicle we own, both street car and track vehicle. This is to hold our large form factor iPhones - which keep them in view for cars without an Apple CarPlay / phone mirroring LCD screen, which makes the cars much safer for street use with phones and SAT NAV. These can also be quickly swapped out to hold an AiM SOLO, video camera, or Garmin Catalyst.



When there is a "no drill" metal bracket available for a car from PanaVise we will immediately buy that and install. They tend to mount between interior panels to some fixed mounting holes in the dash, often around the radio. But PanaVise has nothing for the 86, so we had to mimic their design and make something of our own to mount the round RAM base and 1" ball.



Brad and I looked at the dash structure after he pulled the dash partially apart Dec 12th 2022. We couldn't find any structure to mount to and slip this bracket around without cutting some holes. There is a portion of the dash cover that sits above the glove box door - and looks easily replaceable. So we agreed to mount to the left most side of that where it comes next to the radio (see above right pic and circle). This small section sticks out past the surface of the radio/LCD screen and gave us enough room to bolt a bracket to.



Now this bracket needs to be rigid and thin, so steel plate was the right material here. Brad started with a cardboard template that mirrored the face of this plastic panel and included a circle for the base of the RAM mount. That was cut out in steel and two angles bent to match the face of the dash as well as to move the RAM mount away from the radio, at about a30 deg angle.



Brad then drilled mounting holes for both the bracket and RAM mount, mating holes in this plastic panel, then added some nuts and bolts to mount the bracket. The nuts are hidden behind this panel and it can be removed with the bracket and RAM mount attached. That gave us the 1" ball, then some RAM mounting arms gave us the distance for the various device mounts.



Amy has been driving the BRZ to most events and we change to her race tires there, so the phone mount is used on those transits. Then at events we add the AiM Solo mount or (after April 2023) the new Catalyst mounting bracket.



After using it the Garmin Catalyst is a GREAT investment for any track driver. We sprung a little extra for this RAM catalyst cage mount, which holds it into a RAM mount better than the magnetic mount it comes with, and it can still be quickly removed for track-side analysis. Takes seconds to swap the Catalyst mount out for the RAM phone holder, so this little mounting solution is getting used a lot.

TRACK TEST #3 - MSR-C 1.7 CCW - DEC 15, 2022

A few days after the phone / AiM lap timer mount, and with fresh G-LOC pads and camber (from the OEM spring style Vorshlag camber plates + "crash bolts") I headed out to MSR Cresson once again on a member day, so see if we can improve on the times from Track test #2 (1:26.376), which was stock with the same 225mm Falken RT-660s that I drove out to the track on this day.



Jon Miller joined me in his MCS equipped 2022 BRZ on some 245mm Hankook RS4 tires he daily drives on. First session was on a green track (rained earlier in the week) with lots of traffic, and pretty cold. I ran a 1:25.7 on the little RT660s and Jon a 1:24 on his wider RS4s. With the mega front camber in our '23 the front grip is GREAT but rear grip did not improve - so it's a bit loose. After that session I came in and realized I had the pressures too high, so I tweaked them to try to improve neutrality.



It warmed up in a later session and I shaved time off to a best of 1:25.1 best lap. I came in during that second session and Jon and I swapped cars in the hot pits. Driving his car on MCS dampers with added power was enlightening, and I had to shift sooner and use 5th gear in a couple of spots. He and I both had hot tires and traffic in those handful of laps, and didn't improve on each others' times, but I could tell that with proper dampers and spring rates the BRZ was going to be a lot faster - and the added power won't hurt, either!



Almost cracked a 1:24, but had to settle for that 1:25.174 best. This was a little sketchy with ALL the front camber but only stock rear camber and toe - it wanted to turn in a little "too well" (it was loose). A bit of negative camber dialed in out back would have settled down the rear and improved both stability and track times. It was still a great improvement over bone stock test #1 (3.5 sec) and even from test #2 (1.2 sec). The front tire wear after 25 laps looked great - camber is a real tire saver! I almost ran the BRZ out of fuel before I gave it to Jon, and it hiccuped with a low fuel starvation before he could get a clean lap, but we made it to the gas pump and called it a day.



As you can see, the car hasn't racked up 800 miles yet. This current the setup is what I would consider the bare minimum track prep on these cars (if your class allows): real track worthy brake pads + DOT4 brake fluid, proper camber plates up front, and some slightly better rubber than the OEM stuff.

WEIGHT CHECK - DEC 15, 2022

After driving it back from Track Test #3, I arranged to get it back into the shop with minimal fuel, for our first "low fuel weight" for the 2023 BRZ.


The stock "full of fuel + trunk junk" weight on this 2023 BRZ Premium was 2805 lbs (how we picked it up from dealer). Today with stock sized 225mm Falkens, camber plates, and "low fuel + no trunk junk" = 2761 lbs (how I tracked it)



We immediately began on the MCS RR2 remote reservoir double coilover install. These have been here since before the car arrived! Days before I had the 255/40R17 Yokohama A052 tires and Enkei TFR 17x9" ET45 wheels mounted and balanced.

SCCA TT CLASS + SECONDARY COMPETITION PLANS FOR '23 BRZ

If you have read my forum posts for the past 25 years you will have noticed that I have increasingly moved away from SCCA autocrossing to Time Trial events to showcase both our products as well as to get my "competition" thrills. NASA Time Trial was my main competitive outlet from 2006 through 2019, but also Optima series events, plus a handful of others. In the last two seasons I ran in NASA Time Trial in my 2018 Mustang (2018-19), we tested out some theories with 200TW street tires vs Hoosiers - and I learned many things.



First, NASA TT has pretty much turned into a one tire class - HOOSIER. Whether R7 or A7, this is what it took to win. When I first started with NASA TT in 2006 there were lots of tires that were used to win, from Toyo to hot street tires. But as time progressed it was all swept away and Hoosiers took the lead, and we were part of the "tire wars" that made this happen between 2012-on. There was also a jump in tire costs during the Pandemic, with some Hoosiers going up in price $100 each or more.



Second, the delta between the modern (2020+) 200TW tire and a Hoosier R7 or A7 isn't as big as I thought it was, but it is still significant. NASA tried in 2022 to make some parity with two levels of power-to-weight bonuses to make street tires and the painfully uncompetitive Toyo/Nitto family of tires equal in lap times to cars using Hoosiers. I think it is noble but futile gesture that will only bring chaos and expense to racers (who need to prep for and test both setups at differing tracks). With a lot of events in SCCA Time Trial in 2022 in our C6 on 200TW tires, we noticed that even the "latest" 200TW tires still show a marked increase in tire life over R7 and especially A7 Hoosiers.



There are some other stark differences - NASA allows for significant aero changes in all classes, and you also have to try to meet a "power-to-weight" ratio limit for each class. This generally drives competitors to remove all street going equipment (window glass, interior, air con, emissions equipment) to try to meet a target weight, then tackle power mods to meet the power number, and a lot of time and money is spent chasing the class ratio limit. This means that actual full interior street cars are rarely on the podium at NASA TT events.



While I ran almost exclusively NASA TT for several years, the SCCA TT rules makers had been busy in what I felt were poorly setup classes and categories in their Time Trial series. They adopted the popular theory that Global Time Attack, Grid Life, and Redline Time Attack pushed for years - focus the categories of classes on the tires, and bias the classes towards 200TW rubber. I even wrote in with what I felt were some obvious tweaks to some rules - and they adopted these changes, refreshingly quickly.



SCCA TT now has 4 tiers of classes, starting in the 1st tier where you can't do almost anything (Street) but camber and tires, to the 2nd tier where you can do a good bit of bolt on suspension and tiny power mods (Tuner), then another tier that allows more power mods and aero (Max) - but all 3 are on 200TW tires. Only in tier 4 - Unlimited classes - are Hoosiers even allowed. This makes for a lot more parity between classes, as almost nobody has Hoosiers or even real aero across the SCCA TT field.



This move to classing that is almost completely on 200TWW tires, and ranks classes based on tire width within that category, seems to take a big chunk of the budget sting away from Hoosier clad racers. After 2 years of Time Trial events exclusively on 200TW tires I feel like that maybe they are onto something. We decided early on that we will build Amy's '23 BRZ towards the SCCA TT Tuner category, class T3. This Time Trial class will be the primary class, but will also crossover to SCCA autocross Street Touring class STR as a secondary, like we ran in Jon's '22 BRZ last year.




I had a lot of fun running the 2022 season in SCCA Time Trial T2 class in our 2006 Corvette, and both Amy and I are building our cars around SCCA TT classes for 2023. We will still run a few NASA events - mostly because we want to see my friends in NASA. At those events we will run the BRZ in NASA TT4 class - where it will be hopelessly outclassed because we won't be gutting the car, adding aero, or running Hoosiers.



So for 2023 at least we will instead focus on the suspension and other upgrades to this car and shoot for these two SCCA classes in a true "multi-purpose" street / autocross / time trial car, with NASA TT4 as the backup class we will never build to the limit of.



Within the same SCCA TT "Tuner" category that I ran the Corvette last year (T2), the BRZ ends up in the "T3" class. There are some strong chassis that will make for real challenges within the T3 class, which I have circled above. But luckily, with the 3 events we have run the BRZ in T3 in late 2022 already, it has held its own. We still have narrow tires on the car for T3 class (255mm now vs 285mm T3 class limit) but we have some plans to address that, which you will see later in this post!

continued below