What have you done to your car today?

[On Holiday]

lost a lot on it ?

Nothing on the car itself fortunately, as I bought it from a friends garage at mates rates I suppose, he wasn't too bothered as he can sell it on and make more from it now I expect.

Thought I would lose out a bit on insurance fees but doing a change of vehicle rather than a cancellation and they've somehow pulled a good deal for my lightly modified Civic Type R, hundreds cheaper than what comes up on comparethemarket anyway..

A months tax, petrol and listing fees for the Civic.

 

[grudas]

Nothing on the car itself fortunately, as I bought it from a friends garage at mates rates I suppose, he wasn't too bothered as he can sell it on and make more from it now I expect.

Thought I would lose out a bit on insurance fees but doing a change of vehicle rather than a cancellation and they've somehow pulled a good deal for my lightly modified Civic Type R, hundreds cheaper than what comes up on comparethemarket anyway..

A months tax, petrol and listing fees for the Civic.

good stuff! what exactly did you not like about the BRZ?

was it simply "harder" to drive fast/have fun in?

I'm moving from FWD where I feel very safe in to a rwd next so I wonder what your experience was like.

 

[Akagi]

I bet missing VTEC and revving the nads off of it is a part of it...

 

[On Holiday]

 

[acemastr]

Keep it below 1500rpm? Why would you need to keep any vehicle below 1500rpm when cold?

 

[On Holiday]

 

[acemastr]

1500rpm seems a little low, I'm anal about warming up an engine correctly but that's a bit OTT.

 

[agw_01]

I don't think he's doing it to warm the engine up (even then, keeping the revs that low will no doubt cause the engine to labour which isn't good for it), he's doing it because when the oil is cold and thick, the oil pressure is too high (the pressure drops as the oil thins out).

Out of interest P O'T, what oil pressure were you seeing after a cold start?

 

[grudas]

I much prefer jumping in the Civic and being able to drive off, wait a couple minutes *maximum* before we're at such temperatures I can kick that VTEC, y0.

With the BRZ we're looking at 3-5 minutes for the oil to get up to a temperature so the pressure isn't too high, so it's either wait for it for a few minutes or try to keep it below 1500rpm. I'm fairly sure it's on 5w30 so it's not as if it's anything crazy like 10w50 race spec oil.

I'd like to say mpg doesn't worry me to a certain respect, but not being able to maintain at least 22mpg when I'm feathering the power-pedal like miss daisy on a daily drive (or 30mpg on a motorway cruise between 50-70) was somewhat disappointing from a 280bhp car, I'd not mind so much if it were running mad power, in fact I think my 400hp Impreza had better MPG and that was not driven slowly by any means, guess it's the devil of supercharged life.

RE: Supercharger, from the cabin, you don't know it's there unless you're at 6000+ and at that point it's really not that distuingishable at all, so yeah, I think I prefer the induction noise of the HKS RSK on VTEC It's also very linear, again obviously a characteristic of SC so that's not that entertaining (or not as much as VTAK), though I'm perhaps biased as I've had faster turbo cars that you really feel.

In summary, I suppose the BRZ isn't a great daily car at all, not that it was built nor intended to be, I was probably naive in thinking I would be okay in running it daily when I bought it. It's a shame I never really got to push hard with it on a proper track, but there's no way its track performance would've outweighed the cons of daily driving.

Also, I wouldn't say this is a major contribution towards returning the BRZ, but it was certainly there; I had a niggling worry in the back of my mind when pushing on that it's RWD and therefore death, crash, bendy metal due to a rather bad experience with my WRX STI last year
Saying that, I am tempted to pick up a cheap Mx5 to have some fun and destruction on track with if insurance allows it in a few months.

The one thing going from FWD (and AWD) to RWD is that I definitely wasn't expecting the levels of wheelspin or rear wheel traction loss that existed when hitting the loud pedal.

What are you looking at getting next grudas?

all makes sense to be honest! I'm very much tempted by vtak, want to see what all the rage is about!

current cars I'm looking at are -;

350z HR
s2000
330 BMW
z4 3.0
mx5 - probably mk3 or 3.5.

I'm a bit scared of s2k to be honest, hearing/reading all the horror stories and all that but how else are you going to learn car control if you don't jump and live with one of those, mx5 is tempting because it seems/feels more like a good intro to RWD cars being lower power/na.

 

[On Holiday]

Was actually looking at 350z myself last year but insurance was largely unreasonable for me.

Same boat re: s2k, seeing people bin it during "normal" driving conditions isn't confidence inspiring, the mk3 mx-5 is nice imo, hadn't really experienced any other than Wills but I'd definitely consider one, very nice inside and if I did want an RWD daily then that would probably be my choice.

 

[acemastr]

all makes sense to be honest! I'm very much tempted by vtak, want to see what all the rage is about!

current cars I'm looking at are -;

350z HR
s2000
330 BMW
z4 3.0
mx5 - probably mk3 or 3.5.

I'm a bit scared of s2k to be honest, hearing/reading all the horror stories and all that but how else are you going to learn car control if you don't jump and live with one of those, mx5 is tempting because it seems/feels more like a good intro to RWD cars being lower power/na.

The 350z is far more likely to send you facing backwards than the torqueless S2K

 

[GhostWKD]

all makes sense to be honest! I'm very much tempted by vtak, want to see what all the rage is about!

current cars I'm looking at are -;

350z HR
s2000
330 BMW
z4 3.0
mx5 - probably mk3 or 3.5.

I'm a bit scared of s2k to be honest, hearing/reading all the horror stories and all that but how else are you going to learn car control if you don't jump and live with one of those, mx5 is tempting because it seems/feels more like a good intro to RWD cars being lower power/na.

From your list S2000 every time The LSD helps no end with controlling any RWD fun you induce.

I've got a Z4 3.0 currently but wish I'd bought myself a 3rd S2000. The only issue with the S2000's is the prices getting stronger and people who don't check the oil on them often enough

 

[Akagi]

The 350z is far more likely to send you facing backwards than the torqueless S2K

Do you have experience of this? Because S2K's seem to love going into a spin in fairly sedate driving with little warning, and I've heard no such complaints about the 350Z, and in fact, not ever seen or heard about one spinning at random. Whereas there are loads of videos of S2000's doing a full 360 for seemingly no reason.

Its not to do with the power and torque, its all about the balance of the car and the chassis dynamics.

 

[Skillmister]

and I've heard no such complaints about the 350Z, and in fact, not ever seen or heard about one spinning at random.

Not sure really what happened, I was only going 50mph, and the back end kicked out. I've been driving 10 years, but in all fairness this was my first RW drive car.
I used to play a lot of need for speed underground 2, so I knew how to hold the back end, however my hundreds of hours gaming didn't prepare me for the "NO NO NO NO NO NO AHHHHHH CRAP"......."OUCH" moment.

but he just wasn't expecting it to snap like that but he did basically applied too much pedal too early round a corner. !

 

[Akagi]

I used to play a lot of need for speed underground 2

basically applied too much pedal too early round a corner.

 

[grudas]

oh I'm sure you can spin out both no issues, any RWD car to be fair.

350z doesn't have such bad press in regards to snap oversteer though.

S2K is very much on my to own list but is my foot light enough to keep it in line?

 

[acemastr]

oh I'm sure you can spin out both no issues, any RWD car to be fair.

350z doesn't have such bad press in regards to snap oversteer though.

S2K is very much on my to own list but is my foot light enough to keep it in line?

You know it needs huge rpm to get power? hitting VTEC would cause you issues but just don't hit VTEC in the wet on a corner?

 

[Akagi]

You know it needs huge rpm to get power? hitting VTEC would cause you issues but just don't hit VTEC in the wet on a corner?

I'm now convinced that you don't really know about this issue. If you jump on youtube, there is literally a video of someone going slowly round a right hander, in the dry, not giving it any throttle, and it just looses the back and he ends up back to front in the gutter.

 

[Rainagul]

Parked up my car at work today, came back and someone hit my rear widearch

Luckily they only took out the fiberglass section and didn't do any damage to the rear quarter, but I'm still pretty peeved.

Car looks odd now with half the arch missing, and I have no idea who did it

This has fast forwarded my plans to do the bodywork, and Ive just ordered a new ridox widebody rear end for the car.

Should look somewhat similar to this:

 

[grudas]

You know it needs huge rpm to get power? hitting VTEC would cause you issues but just don't hit VTEC in the wet on a corner?

There's very little weight on the back, low rpm will get it sliding... I've seen videos, I spoke with people who owned them etc

350z is harder to get going for sure.