Perrin Performance starts to evaluate mods for the FT86/BRZ

The FT86 Club forum has an interesting post with lots of highly detailed pictures of the start of a pre-buildup evaluation of a Subaru BRZ by Perrin Performance. To tech-heads like us, the pictures are fascinating and they show a mix of familiar Subaru engineering, and some unfamiliar new variations.

Here’s a picture of the BRZ exhaust system from underneath the engine. To us, very familiar with wrenching on our comparatively “conventional” S2000, the mechanical design here is frankly bizarre and other-worldly. But this design is all business-as-usual to Subaru types.

The top of the picture is the front of the car. The converter (now on the opposite side from the usual WRX practice) and the “up-pipe”, which caries the exhaust up and over the crossmember, is very restrictive. The turbocharged version of this same engine, not yet offered in this car, has the turbo mounted low and forward of the engine. You can see it would be a natural fit here… let’s hope it is offered one day soon.

Keep an eye on the FT86 Club site… now that Perrin has their own BRZ and has started taking it apart, interesting results will be quickly flowing. Prototype intake and exhaust parts will be flowing (no pun intended) very soon. We know the car was very well-engineered in stock form, now we’ll see what the aftermarket can do for it. And keep in mind that some considerable work is being done in Japan as we speak… this will be one of those cases where the best minds of two continents are working to similar goals. Japanese companies are ahead with the development of supercharged and turbochargers (or both at once in the case of Gazoo).

We’ve said it before, the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ is the rebirth of the Japanese car aftermarket. Small, light, affordable, well-engineered – and so well that even more horsepower and corresponding handling dynamics are just waiting to be exploited.