By Fourteen years. That’s how long it took for Toyota to bring an affordably priced, manual transmission, rear-wheel-drive performance car back to the market in the US. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s made by Subaru! The good news is the Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S/Toyota 86 is a great example of what happens when you ask a world-renowned builder of the Subaru WRX and STI to create a completely new, lightweight, RWD sports car platform. The ZN6/ZC6 platform might not carry Subaru’s legendary rally heritage or one of Toyota’s impressive turbo-4-cylinder engines, but it’s still an incredibly successful little coupe. They’re well balanced and zippy, and there are tons of parts available on the aftermarket to make the FA20 boxer engine much more powerful, but stopping is important too. Let’s take a look at how you can get your ToyoBaru ready to slow down on the track or in your daily commute.
Health Check
The first step to making something better is making sure nothing’s wrong in the first place. Your car’s braking system is capable no doubt, but very much designed for the street. It will suffer in high temperatures and after extended use; the stock brake pads on almost every streetcar are designed for soft, gradual deceleration from city street speeds at best, and one panic stop on the highway at worst. They aren’t built to hold up to repeated, hard slowdowns while racing around a track or up and down mountain roads, and this has caused a fender-bender in unprepared FRZT86 on a track day. Maintenance is key: if you’re doing any sort of spirited driving, make sure your pads still have plenty of life left on them, your rotors are straight and surfaced, and you’ve got the right amount and type of brake fluid.
Additionally, proper cooling goes a long way for all the components of your vehicle on the track or in the canyon. It’s safe to say that making sure you can stop should be a higher priority than having to take a breather after 10 passes. Brake ducting makes sure that cold air can be smoothly fed from the front of your vehicle against the brake rotors and calipers, and can keep you on-track longer. If you’re looking for a good brake cooling solution, check out Verus’s brake ducting kit. FRZT86s are already fairly efficient, but this takes it to the next level; this kit is almost exactly what is used on the official TMG Factory race cars!
Rotors
Now that your stock brakes are working like they’re supposed to, let’s talk about upgrades! Like most cars, ToyoBarus come standard with smooth rotors, but some packages offer larger or differently-cooled rotors. Upgraded rotors by themselves won’t do much other than help your car look and stay cool, so the most important thing is to find rotors that you like. As a blanket upgrade, StopTech and EBC make great rotors with a ton of different finishes. We’re a fan of slotted rotors in bare metal (link to product), but there are also cross-drilled and combination options like EBC’s 3GD Series or just flat blanks like their RK Series (link to product).
Calipers
95% of the time, caliper upgrades mean new rotors too: larger calipers are components of a “big brake kit.” For a full-on aftermarket caliper upgrade, StopTech offers a big brake kit that includes much larger two-piston calipers and rotors an inch and a half bigger than what comes from the factory on the ZN6 or ZC6 chassis. If you want to go bigger, AP Racing’s massive 14” kit gives you an extra inch of the rotor diameter and two additional pistons in the caliper. If you need to stop the fastest FRZT86, this is the answer. Keep in mind, with almost all big brake upgrades, you’ll need to switch up to a larger wheel and new tires to fit around them as well!
Pads
No matter if you’re running an otherwise-stock setup or the biggest, baddest brake kit on the market, you need brake pads! More specifically, if you’re actually running your car to the point where you need better brakes, you need performance brake pads. From the factory, your Subaru BRZ, Scion FR-S, or Toyota GT86 comes with semi-metallic brake pads. These use a combination of synthetic materials and up to 60% metal materials. The metal component makes semi-metallic brake pads relatively resistant to heat and wear, meaning they will create less brake dust and be more consistent in their performance even at high heat levels. However, this component also causes the pads to wear the rotors faster, especially when the pads are in need of replacement. Like ceramic rotors, ceramic brake pads are a significant upgrade over steel compound semi-metallic pads but are only truly necessary in extreme applications. Ceramic pads are so good at dissipating heat that they likely won’t even warm up to their normal operating temperature during street use. This will create an incredible amount of noise and make everyone around you think your car’s broken. Riding around in a racecar is all fun and games until you have to hear “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK” at every stoplight in town on your way to the grocery store.
If you’re planning on using your car mostly on the street, standard OEM-replacement semi-metallic pads are still more than enough for your FRZT86. If you want to go higher end, EBC Red Stuff is a good start, offering better street performance and minimum brake dust. For autocross and occasional track day use, EBC Yellow Stuff; if you’re going any faster than that regularly, high-end application-specific race pads are a worthwhile upgrade to eliminate brake fade and stand up in the face of full race weekends and endurance championships.
Improving Braking Distances
Upgraded pads, calipers, and rotors will do a whole lot of good for stopping your car consistently, but what makes the most difference in stopping quickly is your tires and weight. Weight reduction makes your ToyoBaru faster at everything. You’ll have faster 0-60 times, faster cornering speeds, and shorter braking distances. Think about what you do and don’t need in your car, as the easiest weight reduction is getting rid of your big subwoofer box and amp, the bag of frisbees in the trunk you never use, your spare tire/jack/toolbox (at least while on the track), and so on. Beyond weight reduction, good tires make a world of difference in braking. The better they stick, the less you slip, the less ABS has to kick in, and the faster you stop.
No matter if you’re an auto enthusiast driving your modest Subaru BRZ to work every day or a Hoonigan sliding a wild Scion FR-S around the canyons every night, it’s important to know what’s going on during braking, and it’s important to know that the hardware you’re using is up to snuff. For OEM replacement and performance brake rotors, pads, and kits, head over to the Motoroso Marketplace and take a look around!
