We were a bit skeptical on how much we could improve what was already a very good handling car. We had taken it out to Buttonwillow for a track day right before we installed the suspension just to recalibrate ourselves to the car so we could evaluate the Wisefab suspension better.
When driving the Wisefab equipped car on the track all we could say was wow. Our body roll which was minimal before was now almost non-existent. The car was very responsive to steering input to the point where you didn’t need to move the steering wheel nearly as much as before. Corner exit traction was noticeably increased and there was no sign of any kind of twitchiness or instability due to toe steer in high-speed corners. The car was rock solid. The lower ride height looked cool too!
The front grip is amazing, the car will absolutely not understeer in a way reminiscent of the Honda S2000. Even if you ham fist it, there is no plowing of the front. If you are delicate and trail brake the rear will rotate around very slowly. There isn’t really a need to trail brake due to the amount of grip in the front. The car takes a set very equally front to rear and very smoothly. With its powerful brakes, tons of grip and low power, our car is so fun and easy to drive. Your mom could drive this well on track!
We had noticed that the spherical bearings and Heim joints were all very tight during installation. This made the steering feel like it was binding and the suspension feel stiff and non-absorbent. This improved throughout the day but we still had to manually unwind the wheel because the steering felt sticky even with six degrees of caster. This resolved after the second day at the track as bearings broke in. We also think the too low lowering of the rear uprights and lack of droop travel should be addressed and we don’t like how the front upright needs an adaptor for the strut.
Overall we think the performance gains are worth the downsides and the Wisefab kit is better than any other on the market for advanced features. We hope that Wisefab might consider some of the issues we have with the kit and makes some small improvements to it. Faults or not, the kit is still better than anything out there and we have proven it with Unlimted Class time attack and Pikes Peak victories with the Fastest 86 in the country and maybe the world.
The Falken RT660’s were truly awesome, grippy, fast, not requiring warm up and long-wearing seems to be their traits. Look for a full evaluation of them soon. We found them to be as grippy as the king 200 treadwear tire, the Yokohama A052 but longer-lasting. We did find them to be more sensitive to tire pressure and car setup than the Yoko but we will get into that in the near future. We think with their low price, the RT660 is going to be a game-changer. Falken hit a home run with this one.
More is coming with our project car, stay tuned!
Read all about Project FR-S
Souces
Wisefab USA
Falken Tires
22 comments
This sounds like a weird consideration but I wonder if that adapter for the front upright is to save costs – it looks like if that was made as part of the same machined upright, the billet would have to be an inch or two “taller” and everything but that one mount would have to get turned into chips.
It seems like the geometry changes the Wisefab kit makes make a lot of sense but I’m with you in feeling weird about the whole idea of going down in rod end sizes, plus the skeletonized arms… I don’t know.
I think they used the same upright as their drift kit possibly.
“We hope that Wisefab might consider some of the issues we have with the kit and make some small improvements to it.”
It looks like the current kit on sale has already improved on some of these issues. The rear lower control arm and the bent toe arm look signficantly beefier.
About the front adapter, perhaps it’s for the guys who want to run massive offset wheels so they can attach the strut to the outer mounting points and have less radial load on the shock absorber shaft.
That’s great that the parts are beefed up! I still don’t see why the adaptor is needed. The strut hits the wheel without it. Why cant the upright just be made with it incorporated into the design? One thing is that Wisefab has great customer service. Our kit was missing a few small parts and they had them in our hands in two days with one email!
I do a bolt on strut mount on the Evo uprights (SSB Designs) for 2 reasons. 1, its a 3″ tall block to machine instead of a 5.5″ tall block. 2, Flexibility in offset, height, and camber. I get requests for a bunch of different flavors like a reduced ride height version for a Mirage Proto in Singapore or my Extremely long version to push the strut to the inner wall for max tire clearance.
Single piece is fine, but there’s very little drawback in separate parts in practice.
I need to talk to you about Evo parts!
It is great that you saw even more improvements in the handling of the car- it really has been a fantastic project car (followed closely by the cayman). It is equally valuable to hear of the challenges with the installation, and the concerns over aspects of durability. Hopefully further design and component refinements are made by WiseFab- the adjustability of this setup really makes it an appealing option for any 86/BRZ that sees regular or dedicated track use.
Regarding the bearings and the decreased self-centering of the steering- is it an issue of the small bearings binding under a load that would be distributed more evenly with a larger bearing? Do you know if they use a bearing with a low friction liner, or grooved liner designed to be used with lubrication?
Disclaimer: I went straight to google after reading this article – the SKF bearing website had a great “principles of selection and application” section, which lead me to ask about the type of bearing, and whether that could be an issue. Prior to that search, my knowledge was limited to “yep, that is a spherical bearing (heim/rose joint)” 😀
I think higher quality bearings would help and when these bearings break in. After one day at the track, it was getting much better so I think another day at the track will do it.
y’all should ditch the front and make your own double wishbone setup like HKS did with their “look what we can do but we’re not gonna sell any of these parts” time attack 86.
IIRC it’s RX8 based?
based on the pics I saw it looked completely custom
https://youtu.be/fqf0Os5xoao?t=420
Looks like custom mounts, uprights and RX8 control arms.
my memory has betrayed me… I was remembering a fab’d A-arm out of small diameter tubes…
It is not RX8 parts, if anything they are similar to VA Impreza parts. The RX8 has upper control arms, this is McPherson strut.
We’re talking about the HKS car which did a double wishbone conversion (well, added an upper arm). see youtube link Rich posted.
Yeah that has nothing to do with this car and it confused me!
well… nothing other than you should do the same 😀
Placing rods so the stud is in bending stress is bad engineering. It’s a common error and just makes me cringe when I see it on suspension parts.
your exactly right
I wish the wisefab kit wasnt so $$$. Do you have any experience or knowledge regarding the quality and design of the Partshop Max kit for the FRS? It looks like it offers similar features as the wisefab.
This article should be named “Hella flush done correctly”
Just a question: why didn’t you keep the 8 degrees of caster you used to run before without wisefab kit?
I have been running less caster with wider wheels and tires as of lately. I have been finding that I don’t like the weight jacking that a lot of caster causes, especially with strut cars.