Tuesday 16th May 2017

The Toyota GT86 is more relevant than ever: TMIW

Stop moaning and just go and buy a GT86, says PH's in-house curmudgeon

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Funny, isn't it? There has been a lot of rage directed at Porsche for the 718 Boxster and Cayman, mainly from those who haven't actually driven them. Perception matters though and to many the 718s represent all that is wrong with modern sports cars, which is to say turbocharging, an excess of weight, over complexity of driving modes, overgearing, too much rubber on the road and a general sense of isolation from the joy of driving.

Small, simple, and superb fun - come on!

Yet all this time there's been a car on sale - two, if you count its identical in all but badge sibling - delivering on exactly the attributes these self-affirmed purists say are being eradicated from the motoring landscape. Namely, affordability; rear-wheel drive through a proper limited-slip diff; a lovely manual gearbox; a naturally-aspirated motor that thrives on revs and size and visibility that you can exploit on a British B-road. These plus skinny tyres that let you play with its cornering attitude on the throttle at speeds that won't get you into trouble.

This car is the answer to pretty much all the complaints we throw at modern performance machinery, from hot hatches to supercars. And yet is written out of the argument by virtue of 'not having enough power', and costing a bit more than turbocharged hatchbacks with more impressive 0-62 times. Mainly from those who haven't driven it. Spotting a pattern here?

(Less) power to the people
You'll have guessed from this I'm something of a GT86 advocate, the more so having driven the facelifted 2017 version you see here.

Indeed, my heart lifts on the (disappointingly rare) occasions that I see an '86 or Subaru BRZ on the road. Choosing one of these cars is a deliberate statement, one that proves the owner gets it. It also means another in the stock of used examples from which I will one day buy one. This brings me cheer.

Accessible fun at roads speeds? Yes please!

So what has Toyota done to this new GT86? Well it's not added a turbo or anything like that for starters. Nope. Engine, transmission and performance stats are all exactly the same as before. Some will see this as a crushing missed opportunity. I happen to view it as a rather amusing up yours to those who the project boss told me "don't get it".

Because to my mind the GT86 strips away the crap from modern cars and focuses on the important stuff. So it doesn't have a bunch of driver modes, damper settings or other distractions. What you get out of the car is merely as good as what you put in. So if you can't rev-match you'll get jerky gearshifts and rear-wheel lock-ups. If you're afraid of revs you'll miss out on the engine's real sweet spot. If you can't steer smoothly it'll feel over-sensitive and twitchy. If you secretly get scared carrying speed round corners and prefer a point and squirt driving style to demonstrate your masculinity it WILL feel slow. And if 200hp isn't enough to overtake slower traffic you're simply not reading the road or planning ahead.

In the zone
Thankfully everything about the GT86 is geared towards you doing all of the above properly. It's in the detail too. The boxer engine means a low centre of gravity and a low dash for great visibility. The pillars are thin and your ability to place the car accurately helped by the shape of the front wings. The driving position is spot-on, your legs stretched out, the wheel to your chest, the gearstick's relation to it perfectly judged and the pedals positioned and weighted for easy footwork.

Low seat, central tacho, round wheel - all here!

In that wonderfully Japanese way Toyota proudly boasts of a steering wheel that's 3mm narrower in diameter and shaped to turn your arms inward for what it claims is a "sportier feel". Me neither but I like the fact it's small, round and the response to it is sharp, precise and uncorrupted by nose-heavy dynamics, driveshafts or anything else. OK, it's electrically assisted but the weight is well-judged to that of the car and tweaked suspension settings emphasise the enthusiasm to dive for the apex.

Details are frustratingly sparse but the gist would seem to be slightly softer damping, less friction in the struts, a slightly stiffer rear anti-roll bar and some additional body stiffening around the suspension mounting points, rear arches, body and transmission tunnel.

Which would tally with how enthusiastically it turns it. Even just rolling it into the turn with your wrists has it changing direction in an instant. Lift or trail the brakes a tad and it's already starting a subtle rotation which you can then hold in a lovely neutral balance or play with on the throttle, the instant and uncorrupted naturally-aspirated response from the throttle pedal such a breath of fresh air in this turbocharged age.

Point and shoot
Driven at pace on dry tarmac you can provoke enough oversteer with the weight transfer to then maintain the slide on the throttle if you wish, though such antics are probably best kept for the track. Indeed, the transition from neutrality to oversteer is so clearly communicated it makes everything else feel inert and desensitised. On the road you can just enjoy the same sensation with barely visible corrections, so clean is the feedback.

MY17 tweaks have made it better too

Toyota says the biggest change it's made to the car is in the electronics, specifically the ABS, traction and stability control based on what it's learned in its various GT86 motorsport programmes. You can progress through TC off to TC and VSC off (Toyota's branded stability control) via one button or choose the new Track mode, which puts both to a new 'minimised' background setting. All very nice, but the smoother intervention with everything in place on that wet roundabout on the way to work is more impressive. Because even motoring journalistss don't spend every journey on the lock-stops. The fact this is a 'soft limiter' rather than the rug-from-under-your-feet of before lets those new to rear-wheel drive enjoy the sensations without feeling they've had a ticking off by the black boxes.

For this and so many other reasons I think the GT86 - and similarly tweaked BRZ - are more important than ever. If you're fixated with mid-range torque, interior plastic squishiness and what the neighbours think, by all means stretch that bit further to get on the first rung of the front-wheel drive, turbocharged Audi TT ladder. Those who get it can - and should - enjoy a GT86 for all that it says about your priorities in life.

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TOYOTA GT86 (MY17)
Engine: Exactly the same as before
Transmission: See above
Power (hp): And again
Torque (lb ft): Guess what...
0-62mph: Slower than a Fiesta ST
Top speed: Fast enough to get you banned
Weight: Still a bit disappointing, truth be told
MPG: Nothing to get excited about
CO2: Worse than a Prius
Price: A bit too much, if you believe what you read

[anonymous-user]

The problem is, that in the real world, the GT86 simply doesn't work.


You can't hoon around corners, even if you aren't 'scared' (what ever that means..) especially when you drive on our crowded southern roads during rush hour, which, lets face it, is what most people have to do, and so you end up following someone dawdling along, and then you think "i'll just overtake them on the next straight" and blammo, their bl**dy TDi just scampers off into the distance whilst you wait for your asthmatic (and dull sounding) 4 pot N/A to wind itself up, meaning you can't actually easily overtake them.

This why they have only sold about 7 cars..............


(BTW, the boxer ENGINE may have a low CofG when referenced to its crankshaft centreline, but the CAR it ends up in does not, because that crank CL has to be much higher to get the necessary clearance for the exhaust system underneath! And the boxer layout is also why the engine is so lame (both in terms of BMEP and sounds) because it's not possible to leverage exhaust tuning from 4 cyls (because the heads are about 3 foot apart!))

[anonymous-user]

Olivera said:

Max_Torque said:

Stuff

Max_Torque, I love reading your technical posts, but you always seem thoroughly disillusioned with the enjoyment of driving. Perhaps a secession of diesel and ev vehicles is responsible along with your Ibiza never having turned a wheel in years? Cheer up man!

Call me a 'Practicalist' (i've been called worse...... lol)

I live in the south, i drive mostly during rush hour. I commute 16 miles a day (each way) on B roads. Back in 2001 that trip took 16min, with just one 30mph limit through a small village. In 2017, that same commute now takes 45min, and has huge swathes of 30 and 40 mph limits, double white lines to prevent overtaking and hordes of dawdlers, paying no attention what-so-ever to their driving, doing 40 as a maximum.

If lived in Scotland, or Wales then yes, perhaps i'd enjoy driving a bit more, but today, where i live, driving is a chore.....

(which is why i have an EV and a pokey diesel........ ;-)

[anonymous-user]

culpz said:

It's a pure, raw sportscar .

er, it really isn't you know. If they did a RS version or something then maybe, but as std, it's a fairly mundane, pretty low powered road car.

When you can get a Golf R on finance that is, imo, a better steer than the -86, is so much faster it's not even funny, and you can seat 5 people with a decent sized boot, that's why you can't move for GolfR's but hardly ever see a -86....... In effect the modern Hot Hatch has killed the low cost 'everyday' sports car market. These hot hatches are so good and fit so well with most peoples lives, why would you want an average sports car?

[anonymous-user]

daemon said:

Fours years on and just as it was back then really :-

Overpriced
Underpowered
Uncompetitive finance deals

Nail, head.

If you've driven one you will understand, if you haven't then you don't know any better.

HKS turbo kit installed and it's the car it always should have been from the factory.

[anonymous-user]

I used to own one of the last RWD Cosworth Sapphires, 220BHP out of the box and that wasn't enough even back then, so had a nice tractable 360BHP update. That was about the sweet spot for a RWD car of the kind of weight the GT86/BRZ carries.

I now drive a 500BHP/lbft STi as a daily driver, I would love a BRZ as the next car, but not with that kind of power/weight, its garbage.

If they brought out a 330BHP STi version, they couldn't make them fast enough.

[anonymous-user]

culpz said:

Both of your comments prove that you don't actually fully understand the fundamentals of a sports car.

Cripes, harsh. Funny how i run an extremely successful business as a consultant on sports and high performance vehicles to the OEMs............

[anonymous-user]

havoc said:

So if everyone on here rates the older MX-5s, why the criticism of the GT86???

I think the Mx5 is a more successful low cost / low performance sports car for the following reasons:


1) It has a better fundamental layout (the GT-86 suffers from it's engine location (as a result of it's width and high CofG) so to put back in a "'Pointy' feel to the car (something the Mx-5 has from it's natural architecture) they needed to make the rear suspension include significant kinematic tuning, which can make the car feel nervous in-extremis

2) The Mx5 isn't really marketed as a performance sports car, so it doesn't need to try so hard, and is therefore judged less harshly

3) The Mx5 is a convertible. A significant 'feel good' advantage for an everyday sports car where you can't hoon around like your trousers are on fire all the time.

4) The Engine. Despite the MX5 engine being no ball of fire, i think it is a better match for it's target audience. The Gt-86 feels very much like a sports car pinning for a better engine to me. A 4cyl normally aspirated Boxer engine is always going to be a bit of a boat anchor.

[anonymous-user]

culpz said:

Not really. That just makes you look more of a plonker in my eyes.

Fair enough, i'll take you off my christmas card list then.... ;-)

culpz said:

It's all an opinion and a subjective matter at the end of the day.

Not really no. There is plenty of solid engineering reasons as to why the GT-86 isn't a very good sports car.

culpz said:

I just struggle to see how enthusiasts can't seem to find any appeal in this car at all.

So, YOU are struggling to understand something, and that makes me an idiot / plonker?


Let me try again:

You have, lets say around £30k to spend.

You want an 'exciting' and fast' car, but need real world practicality. Do you buy that Golf R or the GT-86. Despite you being not able to understand it, the real world has voted with their wallets, and hence you see a lot of GolfR's and very, very few GT-86s, and the reasons for that are, imo, really pretty simple to understand........

[anonymous-user]

CABC said:

havoc said:

The core issue seems to be the asthmatic engine that doesn't enjoy revs,

important to correct this - it loves to rev 4.5-7.5
below that there's little torque, exacerbated by the emissions dip and it sounds coarse.

OK, i don't know the provenance of this curve or the correction factors applied:



but it's hardly a rev monster, with a terrible dip at 4krpm (just where you want it to come on well when tipping in, due to the fundamental lack of exhaust tuning from the boxer layout) and torque starts to fall at just 6400rpm. Sure it'll rev to 7.5k, but there's not a lot of point (other than when in 1st gear).

And with just 140lb.ft (190Nm) you're toast at low rpm the moment those pesky TDi get on boost (which these days is about 1600rpm......) So in the real world, sitting at 5krpm, in 2nd gear, hoping some overtaking gap might just open up in the train of follow-my-leader commuter sheep, quickly becomes an effort with little reward......

[anonymous-user]

CABC said:

I 'get' the hatchback thing that Max likes

Who says i like GolfR's etc?? I have explained (and can understand) why they are so popular, but that doesn't make me like them in the slightest. I wouldn't drive one even if you paid me too....... ;-)

[anonymous-user]

Gorbyrev said:

why would a n/a 4 cylinder boxer inevitably be a boat anchor? Don't remember that being the case in an Alfasud?

I think you'll find ICE technoloygy has come on rather a long way from the days of Alfasuds etc (wiki tells me most powerful 'sud was 1.5l with 105bhp, (70bhp/litre))!!


The reason a low cylinder count boxer engine is not a good N/A engine is for a couple of important reasons:


1) The opposing cylinders are about 3 foot apart, which makes exhaust or intake 'cross tuning' pretty much a non starter (ie, using one bank of cylinders to charge or scavenge the opposite pair)

2) You have to get the exhausts out the bottom, meaning it's tricky to get good port angles without ending up with the end either skyhigh in the engine bay, or with the exhausts poking out the sides and hitting the tyres! Poor port angles = less power

3) Two cylinder heads, means two separate camshaft drives, with more friction, but crucially a long stretchy belt or chain being needed to drive them which makes precise/accurate valve control tricky, meaning you can't use aggressive, high lift profiles. And for modern engines with VVT, you need two separate control systems which need to be synchronised etc

[anonymous-user]

JonnyVTEC said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It's nearby wheels don't steer (much) or have the primary crash structures adjacent.

And six cylinders are a lot nicer to scavenge as two pairs of three (in fact, most 6cyl inline engines do precisely that) and tbh it's taken Porsche a huge amount of time and money to get their engines up to really high specific outputs. No way are you going to get that in a sub £30k car (take a look at a Gt3 RS engine for example, and the amount of tech it needs to get those sorts of outputs)

[anonymous-user]

Max_Torque said:

I think you'll find ICE technoloygy has come on rather a long way from the days of Alfasuds etc (wiki tells me most powerful 'sud was 1.5l with 105bhp, (70bhp/litre))!!


The reason a low cylinder count boxer engine is not a good N/A engine is for a couple of important reasons:


1) The opposing cylinders are about 3 foot apart, which makes exhaust or intake 'cross tuning' pretty much a non starter (ie, using one bank of cylinders to charge or scavenge the opposite pair)

2) You have to get the exhausts out the bottom, meaning it's tricky to get good port angles without ending up with the end either skyhigh in the engine bay, or with the exhausts poking out the sides and hitting the tyres! Poor port angles = less power

3) Two cylinder heads, means two separate camshaft drives, with more friction, but crucially a long stretchy belt or chain being needed to drive them which makes precise/accurate valve control tricky, meaning you can't use aggressive, high lift profiles. And for modern engines with VVT, you need two separate control systems which need to be synchronised etc

You have a point with 1, but 2 and 3 I don't think so.

If you stood the engine up on its side, its no different to a normal inline OHC engine with cross port heads. The turbo versions of the EJ engine also prove you can get good gas flows from the basic design, my own uses 100% stock heads and is flowing enough to produce 500lbft/500BHP with a very large torque curve from 2.1 litres.

Valve control is easy, high lift cams are easy with solid bucket lifters, the EJ series engine has been doing this since 2000 firstly with just inlet VVT, later with inlet and exhaust VVT. My own engine has an inlet valve swing of 40 degrees mapped in. This is all closed loop controlled.

[anonymous-user]

The problem with the GT86/BRZ as an enthusiasts/modifiers car is they are expensive to modify for power. Because of their NA engine, to get any meaningful uplift in performance you are into expensive supercharger or turbo packages.

Compare that to the majority of sporty cars enthusiasts now buy, most are turbo because of the emissions regs, so you can get significant uplifts in performance for not a lot of money.

[anonymous-user]

300bhp/ton said:

jsf said:

The problem with the GT86/BRZ as an enthusiasts/modifiers car is they are expensive to modify for power. Because of their NA engine, to get any meaningful uplift in performance you are into expensive supercharger or turbo packages.

Compare that to the majority of sporty cars enthusiasts now buy, most are turbo because of the emissions regs, so you can get significant uplifts in performance for not a lot of money.

What sporty cars and what enthusiasts. If you are meaning things like Golfs and Audis. Then that's a complete fail on both counts.

Ultimately power and speed only play part of the equation in an enthusiasts vehicle.

Whats a complete fail?

An example, a young lad at work has a new Fiesta ST as his daily driver he does a few trackdays with, he has a Mountune package, that's relatively cheap tuning by comparison to fitting a turbo/supercharger.

I'm well aware power isn't everything, I've been building and modifying cars for 35 years and have gone through a very broad range of performance and enthusiast options. I'm just putting across a particular point of view as to why this car isn't the sales success it could be, based on the other options available.

[anonymous-user]

Konan said:

jsf said:

If you stood the engine up on its side, its no different to a normal inline OHC engine with cross port heads. The turbo versions of the EJ engine also prove you can get good gas flows from the basic design, my own uses 100% stock heads and is flowing enough to produce 500lbft/500BHP with a very large torque curve from 2.1 litres.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure how radically different the angle of the port is on a boxer - mention of 'hitting the tyres' to get a good one but I can't think of when I last saw the manifold bolted on where you'd expect to see a spark plug.

He did say it didn't make a good N/A engine. Turbos do tend to push traditional gas flow tuning to the back of the queue a little (see the castings on the stock EJ parts!)

They've only managed 100bhp/litre out of it N/A, after all.

Think about a typical combustion chamber layout.

if we take the piston crown as horizontal, then there is small range of valve angles in a pent roof chamber than result in a proper combustion chamber shape. We also need to get sensible access to the valve stems / tappets for the cams with a decent enough base circle to accomidate a decent amount of lift, and what that does is ends up pointing the ports towards the horizontal, but still facing upwards. On a normal engine, there is space for the exhaust manifold to continue to loop upwards for a bit, before gradually turning downwards to meet the other headers.

So you want ports that are very downdraft, and look like this:



But on a boxer, you simply haven't got the space. You NEED the crank CL to be as low as possible to make the engines low CofG to work for you, but in reality, by the time you've added in sufficient ground clearance and clearance for things like steering racks and sumps and stuff, the exhaust manifold ends up compromised. It really needs to continue out sideways towards the front wheel arch, before turning down and around to try to meet the headers from the other bank, but there just isn't space to do that.

So you end up with "flat" ports like this:




Not for nothing are all F1 cars V layouts rather than flat layouts you might expect from a pure CofG perspective!

[anonymous-user]

RenesisEvo said:

I see in many places a reference to this dip in the torque, and emissions gets blamed for it. It's tedious to me, because it's trotted out so often and yet seems completely unfounded. Are emissions requirements to blame? I'm not convinced. I'm certain the NEDC doesn't require 4k rpm anywhere. I haven't got time now but with the gear ratios to hand it could be easily calculated what rpm the car would achieve over the test cycle.

I would be more inclined to point the finger at noise legislation. I won't go into the detail here as it will be dull and complicated, but I'd suggest anyone familiar with the second revision of UNECE transport regulation 51 (the third revision is rather different) might appreciate how useful it would be to back off the power for an in-gear run to reduce the noise at the tailpipe - especially at 4000 rpm for a 4-cylinder engine (a key combination). I believe Porsche have employed a similar method with some models, but I never hear anyone complaining about those having a dip in the torque curve. I'd love to have access to a GT86/BRZ to prove or disprove my theory.

The original UK Impreza Turbo has a function in the engine map that is there to cheat the noise emissions regs. If you hold the car at constant speed and part throttle for a few seconds at a certain speed range, then go full throttle, you only get half boost.

It's bloody dangerous actually, as you tend to hit this scenario when sat behind slow moving traffic and want to make an overtake. To disable the feature you just need to come off throttle then straight back on and you get full power.

[anonymous-user]

If you are comparing to S/H, then you need to factor in depreciation on the new car, which i suspect will be fairly harsh?

[anonymous-user]

Max_Torque said:

Call me a 'Practicalist' (i've been called worse...... lol)

I live in the south, i drive mostly during rush hour. I commute 16 miles a day (each way) on B roads. Back in 2001 that trip took 16min, with just one 30mph limit through a small village. In 2017, that same commute now takes 45min, and has huge swathes of 30 and 40 mph limits, double white lines to prevent overtaking and hordes of dawdlers, paying no attention what-so-ever to their driving, doing 40 as a maximum.

If lived in Scotland, or Wales then yes, perhaps i'd enjoy driving a bit more, but today, where i live, driving is a chore.....

(which is why i have an EV and a pokey diesel........ ;-)

This is how I feel about driving now. If anything the GT86 is more irrelevant than ever. In most parts of the UK I question the point of owning a car like this as all of its qualities cannot be tapped into. I've been thinking of selling my Type-R for the same reason. A few track days in a cheap mx5 and a boring car for daily driving seems to work best on our overcrowded island.

[anonymous-user]

300bhp/ton said:

Totally disagree. I too live in the SE and commute in rush hour. But there are times of good driving and you haven't always got to drive in rush hour. There are other days in the week and other points during the day.

And other parts of the UK are far far less busy. So a blanket statement across the whole country is just stupid IMO.

I'm currently driving a nice, but somewhat boring car daily. And I crave for a daily sports car or fun vehicle again. The best commuter car I've ever owned or driven was my smart Roadster. And tbh it was utter rubbish for town driving. But sublime on open roads. The GT86 might be bigger and faster. But both are "sports cars" to me. And I'd rather a fun car on a crap journey than a boring car.

Edited by 300bhp/ton on Wednesday 17th May 21:39

I don't live in the SE. I live in a less crowded area of the country, on the edge of countryside with decent roads. I guess I would get MORE bored commuting in a boring car, but I'm still bored commuting in an EP3 where the national speed limit roads here are certainly not open roads with the volume of traffic moving at 40mph or less. There's no point overtaking as there'll be another slow mover further along, or more often than not I am 20 cars behind the obstacle.

Yeah I could go out for a late night drive right now, but I don't really want to. I want to have a bit of fun on the journeys that have a purpose. Obviously I know that some people are in less crowded areas of the UK, as the post I quoted pointed out. Feels like it's not rush hour now, but the entire weekday is rush hour.