T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

You gotta stop this talk! LOL! It's making me want to do some tire and suspension work on my car!

I know virtually nothing about racing, but I looked at the Speed Academy link and you pretty much tied the time of a Subaru WRX STI. Surely the STI would make significantly better times on the straightaways, so your little Yaris must be making it up in the turns. Of course driver skill would come into play as well. Is this a logical thought process? If so, wow, that is testimony to how well your car handles and the work you've done to get it there! If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me in my thought processes.

I don't know what it is about WRX's but that's the car - in its weakest and stock variant - that I'd love to be able to beat with my car. It looks like the average 0 - 60 for the various models of WRX is around 6s. I'd never be able to achieve that, especially without an LSD, but I did manage to raise the eyebrows of a WRX driver the other day. I noticed a (I think ~2012) WRX gaining on me in the distance and I was behind another car. I was cruising around 120 km/h, so with the Subaru a reasonable distance behind me, I pulled out from behind the car in front of me and matted it. I was up to 170 pretty fast. I slowed back to 120 and the Subaru cruised past me, the driver looking over with a grin on his face. He didn't speed up but I think he definitely appreciated how quick the little 'silver bullet' econobox in front of him took off. I think 7s might be possible in my car with better tires, but 6s? NEVER without an LSD, built engine, better trans and significantly more boost. As it sits, I lose time in first and second as it really wants to spin its tires.

lol definitely do tires first, but that of course will let you down the road of suspension. IMHO I would recommend 340TW BFG G-force sport comp 2's on your set up. You will never realistically (or safely) push past their limit on public roads and they are phenomenal and predictable in the wet. Anything more than simple lowering springs and slightly stiffer dampers would start to make you regret your decision over time...trust me I have been down that road and I was ok with it because my cars was becoming a dedicated track car but therre is no way I would have been dailying it much longer.

An LSD won't help you too much in a straight line at least not width typical Yaris tires. I still spin my tires if I take off from a dead stop with sticky tires at anything close to WOT. The LSD in my experience is the most beneficial when at the absolute limit of grip in the corners and you want to put down the throttle. It actually helps you pull forward and steer your car through the corners. Also really helps you control a snap oversteer by throttling out of it whereas an open diff will just spin the inside tire. The better driver I become the most I appreciate the clutch type diff.

Dave at Speed Academy is by far a better/more experienced driver than me so put those times in perspective...to be fair though he also doesn't have a ton of seat time in some of those cars he did laps on. The cars that they built he has a ton of seat time in, but some of the lap times are on viewers cars that he does a few hot laps in.

The 2016 STI no doubts pulls harder and faster in the straights however TMP is a track that is considered relatively low speed, very tight and extremely hard on brakes. It favours momentum cars or at least better drivers as there are less places to simply got WOT in a straight to make up for poor cornering and poor driver skill.

My car and myself are much faster on the infield at TMP as I can carry more speed through the turns and the Yaris transitions from corner to corner much better. Much of this has to do with the low weight of the Yaris compared to the STI - the Yaris is much more "flickable" side to side and part of which makes it such a blast to drive. Keep in mind my Yaris is still only putting down somewhere in the ball park of 138ish whp.

There is no doubt that the Yaris is being driven past its limits compared to many other big power cars at TMP. According to spectators they Yaris and cup cars are a blast to watch as they are screeching around corners and lifting wheels where as the other cars typically are much more cautious.