Ansibe

I just bought a BRZ, and I've been driving a 2011 GT with the normal Sam Strano mods for a couple of years now. It's actually closer than you might think!

My GT has excellent suspension calibration on koni yellows, but there's no getting around that big stick in the back. Mid corner bumps upset the car big-time. But, you all know that! What the GT has on OE rubber is way more grip, and better balance (thank you Sam) than a brz. Now that I've lived with the BRZ for a bit, I'm amazed how good ... my Mustang is!

The stock BRZ has good balance, with a tendency to push, and fantastic suspension calibration. Very little body sway, and it deals with mid-corner bumps beautifully. It's amazing how easy it is to get this car near its limit. Very satisfying to drive. It is gutless, though!

It's hard to talk about 'limit' handling without considering the motor. The brz is weak, and has a huge hole in the mid range. Pretty much no chance you're using this motor to balance the chassis! The coyote 5.0, however, is a gem: free revving, with power everywhere! Best engine I've ever used. But you knew that too. My GT's gearbox is just as good as the subaru's (maybe I got lucky there), and because of the monster motor you never have to shift anyway. Less shifting means more attention to cornering speed!

I love my GT, but I'm in no rush to trade my brz. Life is good!

UPRSharad

If your Mustang is on stock control arms and tires, your mind will be blown if you upgrade them to quality parts. I'm on UPR control arms and Nitto NT05s. It's a daily driver setup, but MAN is it WAY better than stock!

Stang-aholic

+1 soo much better than stock! I havnt done the front lcas yet because I'm looking into doing a k member first, which I've been told helps out enormously!!!

Ansibe

Front control arms are on my "to do" list, but my car suffers from steering wobble under hard braking, I've got to solve that first.

I'm running Michelin Super Sports right now, 275/35/18 all around. These are great tires, excellent grip and very predictable. I think the OE pirellis on the Brembo cars have grip comparable to the PSS. I'm no Sam Strano, but I can run in the middle of the fast group at the track days I attend, so I'm pushing my car pretty hard. I think people are hard on the pirellis because they're OE, wear quickly, and cost a fortune. For grip I think they're great.

eolson

In my experience, the initial mods that made the car at a whole new level were springs, shocks/struts, the swaybars and after that the watts link for bumps for mid corner bumps, because the car is no longer sliding diagonally lower left to upper right on the lift bumps.

Rear LCR's. a new K-member, the UCA, new front LCA's are hardly the same difference as the initial top four changes above in my experience. Erik

Mike@Vossen

Congrats on your brz! Very good info. to tell someone I know that is looking into it. Thanks!

Andy13186

You sure its a wobble when braking and not just road imperfections? I have pilot super sports and koni sport dampers and at times i have a bit of a wobble under braking also, I was thinking it was just the front dampers compressing and stiffening up so i could feel all imperfections in the road. Try braking on a smooth surface and see if it still happens for you. If it does it on a smooth surface may be the rotors?

Also, anyone know how hard it is to install a watts link? How many hours would a shop charge?

Ansibe

Hi Andy, the steering wobble is fairly well known. If you search vorschlag, you probably dig up the best thread for it.Their 2011 GT could be made to shake with light steering input at highway speeds. Mine's not nearly as bad, only shaking (violently) under hard braking. It seems the cause is the "sophisticated" epas programming that makes our cars easy to drive in a parking lot as well as at highway speeds. Their fix was to put the 302r steering rack in their GT. mine goes in this week. I never get the $1000 back.

I've been through 4 sets of pads (3 different). 2 sets of rotors and 4 sets of tires. Wobbles on all of them.

Ansibe

Thanks Mike. I'm very happy with the car, even though I do my fare share of whining!

As I alluded to earlier, the BRZ handling is not worlds better than a well set up 2011+ GT. I'm also running the Boss Torsen diff, which makes a significant diff(erence). Groan.

The GT motor, however, is worlds better than the BRZ's. Admittedly, my GT has the boss intake, a cold air intake, and a tune (411 at the wheels. Yee-ha!). That cost me a grand, but I doubt a $1000 would do that much for the BRZ. $6500 for a supercharger, that sounds about right!

CMcNam

I did it in my garage on ramps in half a day. It's not hard, just tedious to line everything up.