Saturday 7/20 - Mid-Atlantic FT86Club meet at Pure Automotive in MD

After meeting a Mid-Atlantic FT86Club member at Katie's cars and coffee last week, he let me know of a large meet taking place in Maryland, and that some on the NoVa members were meeting in Langley in an organized drive.  Sounded fun.  And it worked with my schedule, so why not?

I showed up at Langley and there were already ~10 FR-S and BRZ there. A few more showed up after me and I think we had about 13 or 14 cars overall for the convoy.  We rolled out at 11am with an eclectic mix of modified cars, at least one of each color from the combined color palette of Toyota and Subaru, and clear but hot weather.  We hit the beltway and that's when it got entertaining.  Keeping a line of cars that long together on 495 is comical at best, but when they are lined up and snaking along the 495 turns on the Maryland side it is quite a sight to behold.  I was pretty much in the middle of the procession and it was funny to just look forward and backward as I've never seen so many of this car out in the wild, let alone all at once.  I often found myself staring into the rearview mirror a bit too much, only to find out the convoy was slowing a little late... oops!

Once we got the hang of signaling intentions and the people in their mommyvans and SUV's around us finally realized that its not a coincidence that all of these "like" cars are driving single file and maybe its not a great idea to cram their people-hauler into the middle of it, things went pretty smooth.  Much smoother than I expected.  In some of the various merging instances though, it was pretty obvious that the guys with the superchargers had a pretty good advantage getting up to speed for the merge.  I didn't realize how much of a safety issue my lack of horsepower was.  Just like the airbags, ABS, and traction control, it looks like I'm going to really need to consider adding a supercharger.  For safety.  Heh.

We rolled into Pure Automotive around noon and settled into parking along one of the buildings.  There were already some from Pennsylvania and Maryland there.  The Richmond and VA Beach folks rolled in a little after us, if I remember correctly.  Parking was well coordinated and the shop was set up to handle all of the folks no problem.  Other than the oppressive heat, it was a perfect day for the meet.  Big thanks to Brady at Pure Automotive for hosting this meet and dyno day!  I'll be back out in a few weeks to pick up the Five Axis lip spoiler!  Below is a good shot of the event site, with the NoVa contingent backed-in against the building.

It was great meeting folks.  I had no idea the Mid-Atlantic section of the forums was so active and had gotten so organized.  I had popped in there a couple times when first joining and it was not anything like it is now.  So, if you're a FR-S or BRZ owner, especially in the Mid-Atlantic region, check out  http://www.ft86club.com/forums/

There was a solid assortment of suspension set-ups, wheels, turbos and superchargers there for window shopping.  I don't believe any of the turbos got on the dyno, but some of the Vortech and Innovate kits went up for some initial tuning.  All of these kits have only been out a short time, so there is more upside to all of them.  I'm keeping my eye on them for sure, especially the twin-screw Innovate kit with its clean install on top of the engine.  Maybe once Innovate releases the intercooled version.  Maybe.

Below are some pics of the forced induction setups.  Somehow I missed snapping a pic of the Vortech Setups.  I believe the highest Vortech reading was ~275hp at the wheels, and the highest Innovate was (I think) ~240hp at the wheels.  And these are on stock injectors and still preliminary tunes.  Another Innovate kit went on after I left, and since that BRZ had a straight through exhaust I would expect higher numbers still.  The torque curves showed good bump across all kits and were nice and flat for a broad RPM range.

Innovate Twin Screw Supercharger

Turbo - 

Turbo

The cars were lined up for a shot taken by the shop.  Below is a front shot that could have used another 5 feet of elevation to make it better.

Reverse View

And here are just a couple of the red ride.  All in all a nice day and good to meet enthusiasts and window shop future modifications installed onto someone else's ride, to either move them up the "to-do" list or scratch them off entirely.