4k GT86 Gets a Rocket Bunny Kit & LS3 V8 Swap!

4k GT86 Gets a Rocket Bunny Kit & LS3 V8 Swap!

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Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Wednesday 1st July 2020
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Just got it back today, so without trying to be too much of a tease here's a little preview to wet people's appetite!

Going to take it out over the rest of the week with my younger brother who has a DSLR and small drone to try and get some good looking video footage and shots of it before posting it up in full colour along with a little reveal video.

I'll still be down at Fuel this Saturday come rain or shine so if you want to head out for a coffee, catch up and to see the car I hope to see you there! ??


Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Wednesday 1st July 2020
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Butter Face said:
Looking forward to seeing it! Happy with the wrap??
Yeah I am! really pleased with out it turned out and seeing it all back in one piece and in one colour for the first time really made it feel "real".

There are a couple of areas that have already caught my eye in terms of being a little rough around the edges but to be fair to it is areas which i feel would be particularly complex in their geometry such as the rear ducktail spoiler which i'm still in two minds whether i'll finish it off with some sealer to bond it and smooth the transition between it an the body (that was the original plan) or just keep it removable, because of that I gave it alot less attention and prep than the other body panels.
It's definitely not as refined as a glassy paint finish but considering it's a total change of colour all over with exception of the underside and engine bay and won't chip, scratch or stonechip as easily as paint i'm more than happy with it as it was exactly what i was after biggrin

defblade said:
Had a strange little thrill* when I saw this pop back up in My Stuff... turns out you're a tease weeping

*Yes, I am maybe too invested in this thread, but, tbf, I have no actual life of my own wink
Haha Sorry! I didn't really want to post a teaser but I couldn't help myself and i don't think a few snaps in a halfords carpark would really do it justice. Going to go on a few little photo trips over the next couple of days and come back with something that really shows it off well (Really praying for some sun down my way as it's meant to be terrible all week!)

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Saturday 4th July 2020
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Well without wanting to bore you lot with silly words.
Here's the reveal video and a few of my favourite pictures!

Edit: excuse the video's music if it's not your cup of tea, wanted to just have some fun with the editting laugh









Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Saturday 4th July 2020
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TheJimi said:
Looks awesome!

Cam we see a few photos with the car at road-going ride height?
Sure thing, i'll get a few next time I can. As you can imagine it doesn't lend itself to the look as much but it's still not that terrible. I keep it a bit higher than some as the undulations and sudden dips in the road are where the shocks will compress more and you risk scraping the kit along the ground.

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Saturday 4th July 2020
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MrsMiggins said:
Looking great. smile
Do some pics when it's dark please. Want to see the lights at the front.
Will do! I actually still need to wire them in wink
I put it off as I wanted to re-do the way all of my aftermarket accessories are wired in and give them all their own little fuse box to tidy it up so that's a job for next week.

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Saturday 4th July 2020
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Definitely! Wanted to experiment getting some with my brother's little DJI drone but it was far too windy that day for any flying antics.

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 6th July 2020
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Thank you all!
A couple of posts on facebook and instagram have had insane feedback as well but it's really cool to hear from people here and over on the GT86 owners forums that have been following since day 1 that they like the car or enjoy seeing the results of my work.

It's not a style for everyone which a few people have made clear be it the widebody/rivet on arches look or airbag suspension etc but they still appreciate the car for the journey/story it's had.

biggrin

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 6th July 2020
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Ben Lowden said:
That looks sensational, hats off to you. What a thread this has turned out to be! Hope you can bring it along to a PH event in the future when we get things going again.
Definitely will, i was just mentioning it to someone yesterday actually about getting out to the next PH event or PHSS when they're on again!

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 13th July 2020
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Still been getting out and about in the 86 going to a few small car meet or coffee meets, meeting new faces and chatting alot about cars!

During the week I also got another little job done which was to install a mini fuse box to remove all the various accessory connections I had hanging off the battery. I covered the install process in my latest little video:



I'll also be at Caffiene & Machine this Wednesday for their first Daikoku night's event following lockdown. I'll be there from 4pm-6:30pm so if anyone's there and spots me feel free to come up and say hello! biggrin
And as well as that i've got plenty more pictures of the car either taken by me or from various other photographers at a couple of little meets i've attended, but here's a few of mine:








Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 20th July 2020
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ZX10R NIN said:
It looks great in those shots, are you happy with it?
Very much so! it's just got me more excited to begin tinkering on the v8 but i really need to save a chunk of change to begin ordering any parts for that.



CrippsCorner said:
Wow that looks great. It looks like you're not even running particularly stretched tyres? Considering how low you are, it looks great being a bit more 'chunky'

The only thing with those arches etc. I've always wondered, is could you not blend them in? So you can't see the rivets. Maybe it's just personal choice but I think that would look better smile
Cheers! My tyres are technically a tiny bit stretched, 255 on 9.5 on the front and 285 on 11 on the rear but it's not what most would call stretched which is pretty much how I personally like it giving off more of that chunky feel as you say while also fitting under the arches.
You definitely can blend in the body kit to the body but it's generally considered a bit of an uphill battle over time. As most people advise that no matter what space age bonding agents you use or what level of expertise you have either due to the different heat expansion properties of the materials or simply vibrations due to driving the join will eventually crack over the years and you'll have to fix it.
(Happy to be corrected on all of that of course but that's my basic understanding along with the general consensus on the matter)

It does look really good but personally I quite like having the bolts showing myself and I'm not confident enough that I could pull off the blended look well enough given the time frame i set myself.

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 20th July 2020
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House86 said:
Sure i sore this a couple of weeks ago either on the A24 or M23 cant remember now, but did think it looked good when I noticed it thumbup
May well have done! I've barely stopped driving it since I got it back, almost every weekend i've been out to a little meet, a couple of weeks ago I would've been going up to London or perhaps the Woking/Guildford area.

biggrin

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 20th July 2020
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joshleb said:
Wow!

I read your original post in this thread and straight to the end.

Top work, looks amazing!
Cheers! Always good fun to hear people that have started at the beginning of this roller coaster ride laugh
Will definitely have to get it out to the PH event in November!



TheJimi said:
Heartworm said:
Samjeev said:
It does look really good but personally I quite like having the bolts showing myself and I'm not confident enough that I could pull off the blended look well enough given the time frame i set myself.
I had a wide body kit on my Supra, I much preferred the bolt look myself, I think this looks fantastic.
Aye, me too - love the exposed look - think 993 GT2 yes

Besides, as has been pointed out, blending almost never stays blended for long. Stress & heat = cracks.
Yeah with a wrap I can only imagine it will lead to air bubbles when it cracks and with paint you'd be looking at resprays. The proper way to do a blended widebody is to fit the body kit, take a mould of the side of the car and then make a whole new widebody rear quater panel or front wing, etc
However i'm personally a fan of the bolt on look on almost any car when the arches are clearly aftermarket compared to say the slightly wider/boxier flares on a 22b compared to a normal Classic STI

There have been other people in the states that have started fitting their widebody arches by adhereing bolts/studs on to the inside of the flares and then bolting them on from the inside of the car. It's not totally seamless like blending them in would be but then you don't see the hardware either, it's a decent middleground but I can imagine taking the arches off would be a pain!

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Tuesday 21st July 2020
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Another Week and a load more meets/events and photoshoots done!

This week I gave the car a much needed wash which is fairly normal just making sure to be extra gentle when dealing near the edges of the wrap.
After that I headed up to Caffiene & Machine for their first Japanese Daikoku Nights event since Lockdown. This time there were a couple of time slots of which I went to the earlier one as the 2.5hour journey home can be a bit of a pain but it was a good evening overall. I've been a couple of times before but I personally find it to be quite tricky to mingle with people there as people often come in groups etc however last Wedensday was really good and of course the Widebody 4k86 was a good topic of conversation with anyone.

After that I was lucky enough to get a couple of photoshoots with a couple of photographers @Recropped and @Skelly__Photography on Instagram/Facebook.

All of this has been compiled in to my latest video but i've also uploaded some of my favourite pics. Check them out below and make sure to check the Photographers out on Facebook/Instagram for even more pics!
Also for anyone that wanted to see the car at ride height, check out the rolling pics!














Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Wednesday 22nd July 2020
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ZX10R NIN said:
I hate to be critical as I think you done an amazing job but I think the front could do with being set a smidge lower whilst at driving height.
Not at all, truthfully I think the same thing as well! biggrin
I did set it a bit higher after finishing the car as I thought my sideskirts were scraping over dips and undulations in the road but it tuned out to be my tyres rubbing on the arch liners, with that sorted I can likely lower it now and change the compression/rebound on my front struts to suit but my air suspension has been a bit finnicky as of late where it seems to rest at a higher pressure than the one I set it to.

I'm giving it this week while I work on the car to kind of "reset" itself with no air in the system etc and i'll re-calibrate the whole thing which often fixes such issues. I'll probably set up a "low driving height" too for rare silky smooth road I manage to find.

Edited by Samjeev on Wednesday 22 July 00:21

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Monday 27th July 2020
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So this week I took the car apart again to address some issues with the front suspension. Namely 2 issues:

1 - With the added cambera on the front my front anti-roll bar drop links are coming in to contact with the chassis on full-lock
2 - Bumpsteer

However the fixes or atleast the steps that I could take to help combat these issues were fairly simple.

For the first I went about doing a mod known on the US 86/brz forums as the "RSX mod" named after the Acura RSX or better known over here as the Honda Integra DC5. This mod basically consists of removing the from ARB drop links and replacing them with far shorter versions used on the Integra or S2000 in my case (they were easier to get hold of and the same part) and instead of the drop link going between the ARB and Suspension strut instead they will now go from the ARB to the Control arm, which is a fairly common thing on alot of cars and yet for some reason Subaru really love bolting their anti roll bar links to the strut which just means they have to move around with the steering, camber changes, etc which isn't the case when they bolt to the control arm instead.



The next solution to the bumpsteer issues was also a fairly simple one. Finally get the Whiteline Roll Centre Correct/Anti-bumpsteer kit i've had sitting around for ages fitted!
However rather than just go ahead and do this alone as it requires the front lower control arms to be removed I decided to get the front & rear lower control arm bushings replaced while I was at it as well as give them a lick of pain to smarten them up ever so slightly.s
With the replacement bushings the rear bushings offered by Whiteline are a simple polyurathene replacement however the front control arm bushings are actually offset to give some additional caster and anti-dive characteristics which all in all should give a much more compliant steering feel.







All in all I can say it feels like a pretty good change, the additional caster isn't particularly noticeable but the reduced bumpsteer i was experiencing definitely is when driven in the dry however the car still has a tendency to pull in to dips, camber changes or drain covers slightly when it's wet which I think is more down to an alignment/tyre issue and i'm glad to know that my drop links aren't slowly eating away at my chassis legs anymore thanks to a rather silly design choice on Subaru's part.
Hoping to get a full alignment done on the car next week as I very much need one!
Unfortunately I didn't get any in-process pictures but all of it is covered in my latest youtube video here:










Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Wednesday 29th July 2020
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rfn said:
V1nce Fox said:
You're on the latest AdamC3046 meet video.
Looked smart! Starts here: https://youtu.be/C9RIBsk2Wpg?t=235
Haha thanks, a few people had sent me the clip actually. I had no idea he was looking at it as you can see me talking to my friend at the time laugh
"Star of the show" gave me a grin though, well chuffed with that.

It does look pretty good in his video i must say, even if it was filthy from the drive up there on a rainy morning.

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Saturday 8th August 2020
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So another small update this weekend! smile

Hopefully they're not too-spammy, i get a bit worried about posting too many pictures but I guess more is always better!

So this weekend I went about doing some much needed maintenance on the car, mostly in the form of Oil changes for the engine, gearbox and rear diff as the car has just ticked over 50k Miles but also installing some supporting mods for the gearbox in the form of a gearbox mount bushing insert as well as the MTec Shifter spring kit which helps to centre up the gear stick when dropping back or passing through neutral.

I started off with the oils as of course that was a fairly easy task all round, even with access to empty and fill up the gearbox and diff oil it wasn't too bad as there's quite a bit of room to get the oil bottle up high for the oil to drain out. For anyone following a long at home i believe the gearbox takes 2.2L of Oil whereas the Diff takes 1.1, in my case i used 75w-90 and always be sure to use new crush washers! (Copper for the engine, Ali for the gearbox/diff) to avoid any leaks. Curiously the diff's sump plug is magnetic from the factory which is a nice feature but the same can't be said for the gearbox.

I then went about installing the diff pushing insert which again was a very easy job - Undo 1 nut, jack up the gear box, push the insert in and you're done! In my case it seems it is very much needed as the gearbox mount looks to have started to crack and even warp at the front. I don't particularly abuse my car but perhaps it moves around too much from the factory and doing the drift day last May or the odd wet-B road peel caused it to rattle around too much. Hopefully the diff bushing helps to avoid any further damage to it!
It's hard to see the damage in this picture but if you've seen a non-buggered one you'll know that mine looks a little worse for wear.



The next day I moved on to the Mtec Shifter spring install as I figured that would be the hardest bit, it wasn't easy that's for sure but not particularly taxing either simply just slow due to the access to the two bolts that need to be taken out there's little more than an allen key can get in one side and it's best to take your time in general as the aluminium threads of the bolts can easily cross thread or strip if you don't clean the old thread locker from them. Once the two Ali plugs were removed and the old springs retrieved they could be swapped for the new springs and tightened back in.
Not many pictures as it's such a tiny viewing window im afraid but i covered it all in my latest video here:




The weekend after that I went over to Chelmsford to attend the SlammedUK meet which was a pretty good turnout, the closest thing we've had to a proper car show all year it feels like. I got chatting to alot of new people or people that follow me in various forms and the 86 got alot of great attention all round!
Here's a few little pics from various photographers on the day:


@Ryanhudsonphotography


@all.kinds.of.cars




@Sammjoey







Edit: needless to say I have no shortage of Desktop or Phone background images laugh

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Tuesday 18th August 2020
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Another Small update and mod for the car, this time for the interior.

With a load of spare wrap i wanted to do something about the horrible interior panel duo the 86 features. Seeing as it doesn't serve any function and has a horrible plastic-y fake "Wannabe" carbon fibre look to it i've always wanted to do something with it but without the funds to buy a nice 1-piece alcantara or leather one I decided to join them together, fill, sand and wrap it!

It started off alright getting the two pieces glued together while they were still in the car. After this I was able to take them off as one piece, further glue them and eventually fill the gap between them.





However the issues started arising as I sanded and filled them further I found that no matter what I did the panel join could still be seen once the wrap or any shiny surface was applied.
I Applied further filler and with further sanding it didn't get much bigger, part of the issue was that the plastic of these panels is real pig to sand as in some cases it won't get knocked back as easily as the filler did and in other areas it will delaminate and create big scars in the surface which look and feel horrible.
I had further issues once i started applying primer as it reacted with the plastic filler I was using. After leaving the primer to dry I was able to sand it back slightly and apply more to neutralise the surface as well as fill any tiny gaps or cracks that had appeared thanks to handling it so much.

In the end I applied a few layers of primer, sanded them back to a wet 600 grit finish and with the help of some friends we got it wrapped. The finish in the end isn't perfect as the join can still be seen perhaps the filler work I did cracked as I popped the panel in to position or perhaps the transition wasn't smooth enough. I'm happy with it for now but I might re-visit it one day, use different filler and re-wrap the piece.





I also covered all of this in my latest youtube video biggrin




Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Wednesday 19th August 2020
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A double bill update this week!

Just a small one this time as it's something i've already talked about here but In my latest video I go in to depth talking about the future plans too LS engine swap my car (yes i still have it!)

If you're interested in the subject or my plans for the engine swap give it a watch!
Unfortunately as much as i'd love to dive in to it this very moment it's not something i'm likely to start until next year as I'll need to save quite a bit in the way of funds to get started on it but it's giving me plenty of time to research and plan my angle of attack! biggrin




Edited by Samjeev on Wednesday 19th August 14:04


Edited by Samjeev on Wednesday 19th August 14:04

Samjeev

Original Poster:

728 posts

122 months

Thursday 27th August 2020
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So another silly tale in the saga of the 86 - It failed it's MOT last week!

Nothing serious.. only the fact it burnt through it's front set of tyres in 3000 miles.. How? you ask? Well simple.. the alignment was screwed.

It's all my own fault ofcourse! I put such an emphasis in to the rear alignment after a load of toe totally scrubbed my rear tyres clean last year that I went about carrying out a string alignment on them which went pretty well but I totally neglected the front end after doing the recent steering arm and bushing replacements, that along with the fact i've never truly done an alignment on this cae meant it was totally out of wack!

So after having the tyres replaced and the alignment sorted the car drives a thousand times better, it's night and day with pretty much any and all bumpsteer/tramlining totally gone it feels so much nicer to drive and more importantly safer.

Here's a look at my before/after alignment settings, but you've been warned the front is a train wreck! (This isn't the print out i received from the alignment shop, i just simplified it for my video and the original bit of paper has a coffee stain on it now thanks to me!)




I go in to much more depth in to this in my latest youtube video where I talk about the effects of Caster, Camber and Toe on a RWD car - I do know these things, I'm just stubborn and tight when it comes to paying people to work on my car. Don't be like me, get your alignment sorted!