Subaru fixed the 2022 BRZ's torque problem, says math | Revelations with Jason Cammisa | Ep. 02

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the internet seems to think the brz and 86 were marketplace failures and yet toyota and subaru sold more than 120 000 of them in the u.s alone that's within spitting distance of the total number of sports cars porsha sold here in exactly that same period of time so of course there was going to be a second generation but from the minute the brz debuted according to everyone with a social media account the only lightweight affordable rear wheel drive two plus two sports car you can buy with a manual transmission needed precisely one thing a turbo and for the second generation brz subaru gave this car precisely zero turbochargers and that's because subaru studied history and history tells us if you put a turbo on the brz you will kill it dead gone [Music] subaru calls this 2022 brz all new and that's not entirely true though it's not entirely false either it's more than a makeover but less than an entirely new car it uses the old brz's basic platform with a new bigger engine and all new sheet metal the brz looks like a honda an acura buick and a porsche it's not up to me to decide whether that's a good thing but it definitely doesn't look like the old brz it's still a joint effort between toyota and subaru and so there will be a toyota version some highlights include an aluminum roof hood and fenders for better weight distribution and an even lower center of gravity and this car also claims a 50 percent increase in torsional rigidity which also helps handling and steering and of course it has an all new interior with a digital gauge cluster this time subaru didn't fit the brz with crappy eco tires at least not with the optional 18 inch wheels they come with sticky michelin pilot sport 4 tires like the old performance package car and that addresses one of the old car's biggest flaws the biggest flaw of the old car was unquestionably the engine the fa20 was a grovely torqueless letdown which is actually not entirely fair because it made the same amount of torque as every other naturally aspirated 2-liter four-cylinder but it happened so high in the rev range that you had to beat the snot out of it to get there and it sounded so bad that you never wanted to worse it had what became infamous as the torque dip from 2500 to 4000 rpm where most engines start to come alive the fa-20 fell on its face by the time it woke back up at 4 500 it started to sound like a drain disposal with a fork in it and you'd already lost the race by that point anyway without even having driven the brz i know that subaru has fixed the torque problem and i know this because i have a calculator and no social life thank you very much kovid to illustrate i'm going to use the mazda mx5 miata a car that is the closest spiritual match to the brz but also it has a two liter four cylinder that makes exactly the same amount of torque as the original brz and yet no one in the history of the world has ever said an nd needs a turbo i fact checked it no one said it this is a graph that shows the old brz's torque deficit adjusted for weight and gearing relative to the nd2 miata as you can see at every point in the rev range the miata has a significant advantage averaging about 20 percent in the crucial daily driving two to four thousand rpm range meaning at those engine speeds the brz was some 20 percent slower than the nd miata this new brz has a 2.4 liter in place of the old 2 liter and that's a 20 displacement pump unfortunately it doesn't come with a 20 power bump it only makes 11 percent more power but it makes 22 more torque and instead of peaking at 6400 rpm it peaks at 3700 and that is a huge difference now let's look at that graph of weight adjusted torque versus the nd2 miata you know the car that nobody says needs a turbo this is now a completely different story at every single engine speed above 2000 rpm the new brz has a small but significant advantage meaning it will pull ever so slightly harder than the miata yes it still has a torque tip but instead of losing more than 15 pound feet it loses 5 and over a much smaller rev range and at the bottom of the dip it makes nearly 30 pounds feet of torque more than the old engine did at its peak torque turbochargers add more than just torque turbos add complexity turbos add weight and turbo's adds something else that everyone always forgets about and that's cost i am sick of every car i test costing a hundred thousand dollars there used to be an entire class of sports coupes that we could all afford there was a mazda rx-7 there was a nissan 240sx mitsubishi stereo chrysler conquest mitsubishi eclipse eagle talon honda crx prelude and del sol acura integra corolla ae86 ford probe and mazda mx-6 both mx-3 hyundai scoop hyundai tiburon volkswagen scirocco isuzu impulse nissan pulsar and the nx toyota celica mr2 pontiac fiero subaru xt mercury capri and they're all dead because you got greedy oh it has to be this fast oh it has to have that luxury feature guess what happens it gets so expensive you can't afford it that's what happened to the mark iv supra it was amazing but it was so expensive no one bought it because no one could afford it i don't care that this car can't keep up with a mclaren in a straight line i don't care at all because it's meant to be an affordable sports car in 2009 the world economy was in dire financial straits toyota had just increased its investment in subaru and so the two arch rivals put down their swords and played nice for one common goal there's a great irony here the brz and 86 are both companies anti-car toyota maker beige camrys wants a sports car subaru's entire image is all-wheel drive cars yet its performance car is rear drive these cars are both management issued hall passes they're the types of cars that neither toyota nor subaru would make because everything in this class has failed by pricing itself out of existence even the miata that paragon of lightweight simplicity isn't exactly cheap loaded up and financed it'll cost you nearly 40 grand and that's why its average buyer is 62 years old what 25 year old do you know that can afford a 40 000 toy without a trunk and a back seat to have sex stuffed tires in no this car benefits you the type of person who can afford to have one reasonably priced car that you have to live with every day adding a turbo at the manufacturer level adds a cascading avalanche of cost that's going to be passed on to you you add a turbo the next thing you need you need a bigger diff and a bigger drive shaft and then the rear subframe has to be reinforced and then you got bigger brakes in the back and of course bigger tires back there so then you have to completely reduce the suspension obviously fine i'll stop whining about the money but i will say that i don't think subaru went far enough we know subaru can build 8 000 rpm engines they do it now this brz should have rev to 8 000 rpm and thus made 250 horsepower without a turbo in addition to the cost putting a turbo on it would actually force subaru to completely scrap the brz and start over look this car was designed from the outset to have an extraordinarily low center of gravity for handling and so subaru mounted that pancake shaped flat 4 really low it's like ankle height the intake's on top the exhaust is on bottom where do you put a turbo on cars like the wrx and sti where the engine's already high up where you can route the exhaust underneath and around but those long runners are a recipe for turbo lag and let's think about what happens to a well-balanced car when you add turbo torque and turbo lag hello bmw m3 it goes from being a scalpel to an explosive disaster add too much to the brz's base price and another problem arises its interior would not be okay it's barely acceptable at this price point i mean the seats look gorgeous they look and feel like recaros but there's a lot of cheap plastic in here and that center screen it looks [Music] well at least it has apple carplay and the gauges they are gimmick free they're driver focused i really like this subaru also got rid of the intake resonance tube and is piping fake engine noise for the speakers which i normally don't like but that last engine sounded so bad that i'm fine with it here and i got a ride in one of these cars around a racetrack with a helmet on and what i did here sounded pretty good the driving position is still perfection and the back seats still fold down so you can throw a set of track tires in the back or you can engage in other adult activities that you can't do in the back of a miata like reading a book i will point out for the conspiracy theorists that the rear trunk lid is two pieces this is metal that is plastic which means this whole thing can be replaced maybe that's so toyota can do their own rear end treatment or maybe it's so that subaru can easily put a big spoiler on it for the sti version which would have a turbo and would cost 50 000 bucks listen if you want to walk into a toyota dealership and buy something that's not really a toyota has a turbo on it and costs 50 000 bucks you can buy a supra [Music] for half that money the last brz was already one of the most thrilling best handling sports cars at any price and before anyone's even driven this new brz math tells us that subaru fixed that car's one and only real flaw in a world of heavy complicated expensive supposed sports cars i am so happy that a car like this still exists and you should be too welcome back okay so you're just gonna keep the ferrari framed out the entire time right yep okay action i'm not some rich youtuber asking you to like and subscribe hey up up up up up up up up up up up up up up keep the ferrari out i'm an automotive journalist asking you to like and subscribe and that's because that's how youtube works if you don't click those buttons youtube doesn't know you liked what you've just seen and isn't going to show you any more of it and if you don't like what you've just seen well join the club and by that i mean the hagerty drivers club which gets you access to this award-winning magazine as well as discounts on amazing stuff and if if you still don't like what you've seen well then just leave a nasty comment because that's how the internet works i need to go clean that up

Channel: Hagerty

Views: 764,511

Keywords: BRZ, 86, Toyota, Toyobaru, FA20, Torque Dip, FA24, Torque, Torque curve, power curve, dyno, GT86, Torque dip, Dyno chart, ND Miata, ND2, ND, MX5, Physics, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, Honda CRX, Prelude, Acura Integra, Hyundai Scoupe, Hyundai Tiburon, VW Scirocco, Isuzu Impulse, Nissan NX, Toyota Celica, MR2, Pontiac Fiero, Subaru XT, Mercury Capri, Merkur XR4TI, Mitsubishi Starion, Chrysler Conquest, Ford Probe, Mazda MX-6, AE86, FR-S, camissa, blow me, 240SX, RX7, Mazda, MX3, ND1, blown

Id: ZsTc2rhipwk

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/italia06823834]

Current NC2 Miata owner. Looking very seriously at getting an ND2 once I have some more student loans and whatnot paid off.

Will have to give the new BRZ a serious look as well. I know so many people wanted a turbo, but I'm so happy they kept this car Naturally aspirated. 50% increase in rigidity over the previous car is a pretty huge amount too.

[u/mr_duong567]

That montage of Jason naming all the deceased cheap sports cars made me sad.

But as always, superb work by /u/JasonCammisa!

[u/daft_twit]

They took out the sound resonance tube...then put in fake engine noise? That's not good imo. Hopefully you can turn it off easily.

[u/jaketurd]

Jason Cammisa is my auto industry super hero. I have the biggest man crush on him and his work. He’s probably one of three people I would freak out inside if I met irl

[u/andrewjaekim]

While I agree with Jason that buyers demands have increased causing overweight and expensive vehicles and the death of so many great cars. But I think wage stagnation also plays in part of the death of the sports car.

As people lose their buying power, the idea of an impractical sports coupe is less appealing. I believe this is seen in the meteoric rise of not only SUVs and crossovers but specifically performance SUVs and crossovers. Joe Blow wants a sports car but can only afford one vehicle. So the family goes out and buys an explorer ST.

Of course. It’s not solely due to this but I think it plays a large part.

[u/EntroperZero]

Changing the standard tire is a long overdue move. This car will now be faster than the ND2 in a straight line and at least as fast around corners.

[u/shadysnorlax]

Why does he group the rx7 with the cheap sports coupes when it was over 40k in 1993? lol.

[u/Mayjaplaya]

The "BLOW ME" on his shirt just lit up when he talked about the car not getting a turbo in the beginning. That's so cheesy, I love it.

[u/harshith436]

i agree the subaru brz doesnt need a turbo