While the just-launched Toyota GR86 may share many parts with the Subaru BRZ’s doppelganger design, underneath it lies a bespoke tuning by Toyota’s Gazoo Racing engineering team, led by chief engineer Yasunori Suezawa .
Although Subaru actually built the new GR86 alongside its own BRZ sports car, Toyota’s contribution to the next-generation version of the twins has extended its own development program for the car by almost a year. a year – this goes a long way to explaining why Toyota launched the car more than seven months after the BRZ hit the road.
More importantly, it was none other than Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who ordered additional tuning improvements to be made to the GR86, after taking it through the steps at Fuji Raceway.
He told the engineering team on the GR86 that much more work was needed on the second-generation sports car to prepare it for the right race-track capabilities and worthy of the GR badge.
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That’s according to Suezawa-san who talked to CarExpert exclusively at this week’s car launch at Phillip Island in Victoria.
“Regarding Toyota’s contribution to the production of the GR86 from the new BRZ, that period is about a year. We had to make changes to the BRZ’s dynamic performance,” he said.
“To tune the GR86 with the level of dynamism we expect from the car, ended up as a six-month program, independent of the BRZ.
“After Akio Toyoda took the car through the steps in Japan at locations including the Fuji Circuit and the Hakone Skyline, he came back to us with more changes he wanted to make to with the car from an enthusiast’s perspective, this pushed the GR’s development window to almost 12 months.
“Those technical changes have tripled. First, we look at the suspension, specifically the springs and stabilizer bar, which have been changed to match the higher level of dynamic performance that Akio demands on the car.
“On the important side, we also enhanced throttle response and EPS (electric power steering) following feedback from Akio Toyoda, who wanted the car to behave like a genuine GR engine car, on the road and On the race.”
Turbocharged has been a topic of discussion around the Toyota 86 even before its debut in 2012, when the brand revealed its FT-86 Concept at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show. has been an ongoing debate with owners and enthusiasts alike and one that is likely to continue.
In fact, Suezawa told us it was also considered at the very beginning of the development program with the GR86, but again it was ignored.
“We discussed the turbocharger option for the GR86, but decided to continue with the naturally aspirated (albeit larger) engine for two reasons.
“The addition of a turbocharger to the 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine would increase the weight of the car by 30kg and since the GR86 has a light weight limit of just 1287kg in the base GT Manual, we don’t think that’s the case. want to add it. weight.
“Secondly, turbocharging means lower lag in the rev range and we prefer the linearity of power delivery from the aspirated engine, which is why we decided not to use it. Use turbochargers again.”
Interestingly, there is also no rotation adjustment for the new GR86, which we think could be a feature on the latest generation, given its hardware and software are available to our engineering team. Toyota.
“We don’t have rotation matching on the GR86 and we don’t have it on the 86 either, but both the module and the software are available to us,” Suezawa replied to our question.
The rotation matching software is so good these days, that even if you prefer heel-and-toe shifting (as the author of this tester certainly does), you can simply revert back to automatic processing, simply because it’s so good and never misses a beat. That’s why we’d like to see it as a dealer option, perhaps.
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