Subaru BRZ Time Attack budget build

Hi Guys,

I'm in Sydney Australia and I have been building this car completely self taught, solo in my garage for the past 4.5 years. It was originally purchased as a shell with panels straight off the production line in Japan, its never been built into a complete car and contains no sound deadener or seam sealer, I was told it was used to set up the robotics for painting on the production line.

I already have an extremely detailed build thread over on https://www.ft86club.com/ and an Instagram account for the car @brzdiy but to give a quick overview of the main features of the project so far it has:

Honda K24A3 engine

AT Power Dry Sump

BMW ZF320 5-speed manual trans (PMC Motorsport Adapter)

Double wishbone front suspension conversion (Mazda RX8 uprights)

Tube chassis rear suspension incorporated into the roll cage

Rising rate pushrod front suspension (not finished yet)

I've just started on the cooling package and my wheels have also arrived so soon I will be starting some work with composites as the car has been lowered significantly and I need to re-design the body panels to accommodate the new ride height and large tyres (295/35/18).

I've just enrolled in some HPA wiring courses with the idea of completing the wiring harness myself even though that is still a long way off.

cheers

Joel.

A couple of photos

what a great project Joel

Looks like a massive amount of work. Well done.

Thanks guys, things are really coming together now I got my new wheels this week.

They look massive! Going to be a very aggressive looking car once it is all together.

They are 18x10.5 with a 295 tyre.

I have been following you on Instagram for a while, the build is awesome!

This thing is awesome! Nice work.

time attack has been getting my interest lately. It doesn’t seem as popular here in NZ compared to Australia and the states which seems a shame.

can’t wait to see your car out on track.

Thanks guys,

Lots more progress has been made. I have finished adding all the strength back into the front end, lots of tube work in there now. My heat exchanger cores have arrived and also my new turbo so I have a lot of fabrication to do, I will be building my first ever turbo manifold.

Huge amount of work and awesome project man! Looking forward to seeing how you get on with that manifold 😎

My turbo ended up being rather large and didn't fit where I had initially planned so I had to move the shocks to a horizontal position. It was a lot of extra work but I didn't want to high mount the turbo.

The turbo is a EFR 9174 with a IWG that will be controlled by an electronic actuator, this is a newly released kit that should be out soon from Full Race Motorsports. It was used on the car that just won unlimited class at Pikes Peak.

I should be starting on the turbo exhaust manifold very soon.

The turbo manifold is finished.

There are so many hours in this, such a small piece but so complex to fabricate. If I had my time again I may have just bought one but that is not in the spirit of this build. Having never welded stainless steel before, this was probably not the best starting point and I was certainly outside my comfort zone. I have followed best practice throughout the fabrication, everything was back purged during welding, fit up was tight, some of my welds probably got a little hot but nothing too extreme. I am confident the manifold is going to hold up to many years of abuse even though it is never going to get featured on weldporn.

What valve cover is that?

Also what are your thoughts on the AT Power dry sump?

Hi Mark,

This is the OEM K24 valve cover that I cut up and welded back together to replicate the dry sump specific valve covers you can buy from Honda HPD racing which are very expensive.

I can't say too much about the AT Power dry sump yet as I'm still a long way off driving the car, the quality of what was supplied looks really good though.

I didn't buy a complete kit, it was just the pump and pulleys with belt and adapter for oil return into the engine block. I had to make my own oil pan, oil pump mounting bracket and I will also need to buy or make an oil tank and do all my own oil lines. Saved me a lot of money doing it this way.

Joel.

Radiator and intercooler are now mounted, well lower mounts anyway. There will be another set of tubes coming down to support the front splitter and these will also tie into the bumper and provide support for the top of the radiator/intercooler.

I have purchased 2 more HPA courses so I am finally able to come back here and update this thread. The car is still a work in progress, I had some big plans this year but then broke my leg snowboarding in Japan so currently I am not able to work on the car.

I have been making use of this time by starting a YouTube channel and doing some retrospective videos on the build so far, please check them out.

https://youtu.be/RG394uyOFio

https://youtu.be/dQkzkUFesEU

https://youtu.be/9kShWbz8Uic

Sorry about your leg, but glad you're enjoying the courses and your build!

Have a great day,