Suspension Tips, for those who want to lower this car.

[Moto-P]

Tips for Scion FRS owners #1:

For those who are contemplating on suspension upgrades to make that horrible ride height reduced to handsome looks of many tuner upgraded ones. Take a serious consideration and heed to my advice.

The Scion FRS/ Subaru BRZ (and Toyota 86) has a fairly stiff suspension already from the factory to cater well to the owners who visit the race track. The car is a very refined, -low gravity, center-mass balance car that requires a pretty hefty load of weight shifting to make it whip and turn (a trait of a true sports car, but at the same time, takes a pretty advanced skill set).

Now having said this, installing shorter stroke, stiffer set of suspension will easily overload the stock tires, and the result will be a car that is really difficult to rotate well, and more prone to initial under-steer, making it less entertaining to drive, and a bit more risky.

My advice is therefore, to purchase a proper set of higher grip tire if upgrading the suspension all at the same time, and to choose a spring rate that is mild and soft, so that the agility of the car is not lost due to unwilling suspension, that might be too stiff. Set your shocks very soft if it's adjustable and increase it only if you can drive it without much "push" or initial under-steer. The FRS and BRZ needs all the suspension travel and shifting of the weight to flick vectors under braking (dive), and depriving it will reduce the fun factor and increase the efforts for the driver to drive it faster.

Stiff, low, suspension and stock tire is about the worst combination you can have in the FRS. Soft compliant suspension and mild drop and healthy set of fairly grippy tires is the only way to NOT ruin a great car, if this is a mild build. 235 width Yokohama S-Drive, Falken FK453, etc equivalent level grip tires, come to mind on a good balance to use for mild street suspension upgrade from most reputable firms.

Full race suspension will almost guarantee you will have a really slow, unwilling car, if you are not a really seasoned driver, and riding on nothing but appropriate RACE compound track slicks.

It's a really well balanced car, an excellent platform, and because of that, it's just that much easier to completely ruin it if you don't do this RIGHT. Needless to say, choose your suspension kits wisely, as the FRS/BRZ is a VERY difficult car to re-tune properly, and the manufacturers must take very careful R&D unlike most others, to properly design a suspension that will actually improve on the platform for this application.

Have FUN!!

Moto-P,
Club4AG.com

[Moto-P]

Summary, if you are not very versed in dynamic tuning of a sports car like the FRS.
I can elaborate on definition of soft as "compliant, well damped, and allowing enough stroke at low loads" OF course that can be had in different combinations of factors but generally, the suspension on this car needs to MOVE.

Stock Tires + Stock Tires = pretty darn good.

Low+ Stiff+ Stock tire = bad, hard to rotate, easy to understeer (plow)

Soft + mid-height -20~30mm (or plenty of stroke built into coilver) + medium grip street tire = FUN, Fairly quick, easy to handle, and close to original setup.

Low+Stiff+Race tires = proper race car setup, but requires a lot of driving skills to make it go fast.

[Moto-P]

I'd also like to add that STICKY tires on STOCK suspension REALLY DID WELL at the race track... (but that won't solve most people's peeve of ugly ride height, right?

Just keep in mind though, the peculiar trait of the stock FRS/BRZ is that it comes with already stiff suspension, enough to take on demands of most raceways with really nice stability. This is very different from most previous stock car. SO upon lowering this car, one needs NOT stiffer setup, just lower is the cosmetic element is what's bothering you. Any stiffer and the car will ABSOLUTELY need very grippy tires to balance, and with that, some really good driving skills as well.

[#87]

The PRIMARY reason I got this car is because I wanted a car that would handle well in stock form. This is because my last car I knew was slow and knew it would cost too much to make fast so I bought some coilovers to make it fast in turns. Well this started the rabbit hole and I knew my next car must have a stock suspension I wouldn't need to modify for the street. So even though it may need a small drop for aesthetics, I won't do it. I am only going to modify for power and upgrade the drivetrain and brakes/tires to handle it.

I agree with you OP.

[tdoggy57]

Thanks for the tips, I was considering springs or coils down the road. Don't like the wheel gap at all but I might just deal with it to avoid messing up a great thing!

[Fussy08X]

Great post moto. I agree with all the thoughts in here. I too have thought about lowering this car to make it look better but dont want to risk ruining a very well engineered and set up car. Hopefully TRD can release some coilovers that will drop the car by the recommended 20-30mm and still retain its perfect factory balance.

[Hanzo]

What springs do you recommend if I just want lower it slightly with stock shocks (btw I have a brz).

[ZmZMWagon]

I say those wanting to lower their cars wait for Swift Springs to release theirs. They usually do it the right way and actually do extensive R&D to make sure the right spring rate is chosen to work with stock shocks/struts.

[Imti]

Originally Posted by Hanzo

What springs do you recommend if I just want lower it slightly with stock shocks (btw I have a brz).

+1. What he said except I will be needing advice for the GT86.

[dvlnsyde]

Originally Posted by Hanzo

What springs do you recommend if I just want lower it slightly with stock shocks (btw I have a brz).

RCE has developed some springs that lower 20mm but do not diminish the OEM handling and suspension. Check out the thread

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...?t=8823http://

[Moto-P]

I've sampled Cusco Street, RS*R Sports-i, and both of them were extremely well behaved and designed for medium grip to high grip tires. Both worked really well at FULL SOFT setting on both ends, even with track radials like the Azenis RT615K. So going stiffer is only needed perhaps, to compensate for wear of the dampers, and also to settle the car at really high speed tracks where stability is in order over quick vector changes.

Both do come at a price of nearly $2000 but with the ability to be 30mm lower, and unlike lowering springs on stock shocks, that allow maybe 20mm max on short rear shocks of the FRS/BRZ, the fully-tapped coilovers can go a full 35mm lower with all of the original stroke range, and has adjustability to actually make the ride more comfortable with more sophisticated valving that is not cost-constrained like the stock shocks.

So if budget is the key, Racecomp's 20mm drop springs are really ideal.

If ride qualities of the stock is a bit harsh for you, you can use either of the more expensive setup to improve that while retaining all the of the nice handling capability with much lower height around 30~35mm drop.

I've also found that 20mm drop is ideal for dynamic alignment (as designed), and 35mm still retaining pretty good alignment as well.

[Moto-P]

Originally Posted by dvlnsyde

RCE has developed some springs that lower 20mm but do not diminish the OEM handling and suspension. Check out the thread

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...?t=8823http://

Yes, that should work fine.

[Moto-P]

Originally Posted by Hanzo

What springs do you recommend if I just want lower it slightly with stock shocks (btw I have a brz).

Most of the major difference (which is still very slight) between the BRZ and FRS/86 is in the shock valving, especially at the rear. While the spring rates are not far off.
So the modification for springs should be approached similarly for both cars.

The BRZ shocks at the rear seems to be slightly softer, giving a better ride and less wilder enthusiasm at the track, but because of this, ride height alteration on the very short stock shocks should be approached with a little more care, as you tend to run out of shock travel faster on the BRZ over rough terrain. (ironic huh? since Subaru is the one who's famous for WRC? However there is a GOOD reason. Subaru wanted a more mature ride and less peakiness in the handling for the BRZ, which makes sense for their target audience of slightly more adult fan base than Japan's AE86 drivers who are wild drivers, and Scion's younger crowd who don't mind the slightly stiffer ride...

For those who haven't test driven both, the BEST way to tell the difference is not from driving these cars like you stole it during a dealer test drive, as you really won't notice much on what you can do in terms of handling on public roads as you don't usually have enough silky smooth asphalt where you can dice the car into a lift-throttle drift into an apex and hammer out in total control...

The difference can be felt much more easily by something much more mundane. Just roll the car over a large bump like parking lot speed bumps or on/off a steep driveway ramp. You will find that the BRZ will soak up the bump slightly more compliantly than with a FRS, where the BRZ will tread over it, while the FRS feels like it wants to hop over it slightly. And if you are not sensitive enough to feel this, then there is no need to push the car to it's limits as that won't really help you feel this either at speed.

[ill86]

Originally Posted by dvlnsyde

RCE has developed some springs that lower 20mm but do not diminish the OEM handling and suspension. Check out the thread

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...?t=8823http://

Imo, it's not that simple. At first glance I noticed the spring rates were increased both front and rear. The front has been stiffened and now match the rear. Stiffer front springs will generally create more understeer. This is why toyota designed it to have stiffer rear springs than front.. To oversteer.

It's all personal preference.. But I believe that until the end user makes his/her own educated decision, making blind recommendations is not good advice.

I am going to first try some Tein H-tech springs and go from there. They keep the oem f/r balance and increase spring rates slightly. More so they keep the front softer sprung.