BRZ Rally Car

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I think it's the rearmost line not being far enough back that really throws it off, how about this sketch?

The thin line at the rear looks out of place in everyone's version of this regardless of rake IMO... why not make the final line thicker still, possibly taking it all the way to a solid black rear bumper?

Just saw a different striped BRZ on Dirtfish's Instagram page. Thought it might help to see really similar stripes on a real live car. I think it's pretty sweet. 

In reply to thatsnowinnebago (Forum Supporter) :

Hmmmm....not as impressive as I had thought. The black doesn't "pop" enough but I can't think of a colour that would go well with the copper of the car other than black. I think the car looks sharp without any stripes because of the contrast between the copper paint and the white wheels.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

The vinyl we ordered has sparkly gold glitter in it. That's as loud as I wanted to be . Rainbow glitter was definitely considered!

Spent the evening cutting some square edges onto the MRFs I rallycrossed on last year:

Also stuck a RAM mount under the dash:

Rallysafe uses a standard RAM ball so we can run a phone mount at events that don't have it, and the Rallysafe screen at events that do:

RAM mounts are great. I think we have three in ours :)

Half tank of gas:

I was hoping to stay under 2800lbs, nice!

EDIT: As of 2023, I've actually weighed the car on decent scales and determined this weight is about 150lbs under reality- whoops.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Half tank of gas:

I was hoping to stay under 2800lbs, nice!

Why are you so heavy to the driver's side?? Or is this with you sitting in the car?

Mine, for comparison (tho I had a full tank of gas). I figured yours would end up lighter than mine

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Honestly, I only really trust these scales for ballpark numbers- I wasn't sitting in it.  One theory is that most of the gas is in that side of the tank, it has two sumps and I think some system of moving fuel to the driver's side where the pump is?  The electric power steering is also heavy, and all on that side.

Don't know, at some point I should probably corner weight it with our equivalent weights in the seats.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

If it's like Subaru, it uses return fuel from the fuel pump to siphon fuel from the other side of the tank.  There are no moving parts, just some plastic hoses, which is kinda neat.  The upshot here is that fuel is used from the non-pump side first.

Finally got my real skid plate!

It's 3/16" 5052 aluminum, should be good enough.  The wider part at the front will hopefully protect the control arm studs, which I've heard like to catch on things and bend:

Then I discovered that this plastic airdam piece aaaallllmossst fit, so I trimmed down the back foot things so it sort of snaps in over the lip of the skid plate.  If it gets hit hard enough it should break away and go under the car, rather than into the radiator:

I was debating whether to bolt the plastic thing to the plate, or just zip tie it- Sara very correctly pointed out that if I have to work on it during service, I'll want to just rip it off, so zip ties it is!

wow, those are what the factory LCAs look like? interesting.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

The cutout pattern on the bottom is mine, they got reinforcement over the summer.

ah, that makes more sense. Must have forgotten you did that. Not worried they'll get snagged on stuff with all those openings? My first thought when I saw that is "I'd put some thin HDPE sheet over that to make it a smooth bottom"

Maybe I missed it but got a first event in mind?

Might be at the first DC Rallycross, will definitely be at the Rausch Creek Rallysprint.

Southern Ohio Forest Rally should be the first "big" event.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

That rallysprint seems like an awesome first event. Bummed I can't make it. 

Washed the car and got the paint as spotless as possible before rolling it out in front of the shop for its' logbook photo:

Then it was vinyl time- I apologize for taking no pictures of the process, I was doing a lot of swearing and there was a steep learning curve.  I tried to save some vinyl by just cutting stripes and laying them down one at a time, which was a mistake on a car this curvy, and for the stripes at the back I actually used knifeless tape instead and it went much, much better.  If you do something like this just get a roll of knifeless tape and buy that extra $20 of vinyl, it's worth it.

Came out pretty nicely though!

It's hard to capture in photos but the stripes are black with gold metallic in them- just like the oil from the original engine.  

The other neat thing about the metallic is that the car's paint has gold sparklies in it too, so it all looks like it has the same treatment even though this is satin finish vinyl over gloss paint:

And yes, it's getting more stickers, but ARA hasn't released their new graphics package yet, the GRM decals are in the mail, and Josh has some other ones that he cut for me.

Looks great! I think the adjustment to the angle of the stripes really came out perfect. 

The wheels need decoration. I know it's kind of dumb to do that since it will just come off, but I think the big slabs of white need to be visually broken up somehow. Other than that, dope. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The spokes have enough surface area to put something on one of the five, maybe a decal or a stencil...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

The spokes have enough surface area to put something on one of the five, maybe a decal or a stencil...

I will print you out some purple Volk stickers. Lol

On the white slipstreams on my neon, we used a vinyl neon sticker on one of the spokes. Mimics the factory badge on the back, and breaks up all the white.

Maybe a Subaru badge?

The Rausch Creek Rallysprint has been moved back a month- that's a little bit of a bummer but better than them running it anyway and having to deal with a mud bog, if an offroad park says the course is too waterlogged I'm inclined to believe them.

There's a DC RallyX next weekend which I'll sign up for as long as I get the steering on the truck back together in time.

We're also signed up to run Combo Car at Bristol Forest Rally so that should be fun, I think I'm going to move the radio from the truck to the Impreza for that one.

Have my tool roll mostly put together- I need to get to the junkyard and pull some extra hardware and hose clamps and stuff:

It all fits nicely in the spare tire: