However the bad news for fans of sportier Toyotas is that Killmann told us that the GT 86 Coupe was flagging behind its sales targets in all major markets

Read more: http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/toyota/...#ixzz2txssPjB5

Auto Express has learned that the company has agreed a deal with BMW to use "a whole family of transverse diesel engines" on various different platforms.

Get a behind the scenes look at Super Street's April 2014 issue cover shoot featuring the a 2013 Scion Racing FR-S built by GReddy and featuring a Rocket Bunny Version 2 kit and almighty 2JZ-GTE built to an estimated 700hp. The car was built for Formula Drift driver Ken Gushi.

In your quest to become a car knowledge lvl: expert, you'll need to know these 11 bizarre GT 86 facts. How did you score?

At the 2013 SEMA Show, GReddy Racing officially took the wraps off their new 2JZ powered Scion FR-S prototype. Go behind the build to see how the team prepped it to become the ultimate drift car, and be sure to stay tuned through the end for a sneak peak at what's coming up.

Full Story and Specs in Issue #141 of DSPORT Magazine.
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Buildup for 86 & BRZ World

Nothing creates a greater sense of urgency than an event invitation, and the "Options Magazine 86 & BRZ World" exhibit, scheduled for the 2014 Tokyo Auto Salon, proved a great motivator for the SARD development team. We spoke to the division manager of Lexus Team SARD, Takafumi Kondou, to get insight about the build. "To create the greatest impact, the original plans involved a V8 engine swap to go with the more aggressive aerodynamics and aesthetic enhancements," he said. "However, given the limited amount of time before the show, we decided to shelf the V8 idea and work with the FA20 engine that comes with the car. But, in order for the engine bay to be remotely impressive, we needed to increase the FA20's output with some sort of forced induction."

While a good number of Japanese tuners have leaned toward supercharging the FA20, SARD's relationship with BorgWarner made building around BorgWarner's top-of-the-line EFR turbocharger the logical move with the project. Many surmise 300 ps to be close to the threshold for the stock FA20's internals, thus the team to choose the EFR6758 turbocharger for boost duty. A SARD prototype, equal-length manifold positions the turbocharger in the engine bay, front and center. SARD fabricated a custom downpipe and exhaust that channels the spent gasses to the rear, while custom aluminum tubing joins the compressor discharge to the SARD front-mount intercooler.

Since just about any performance increase results in increased engine temperatures, measures were taken to preempt overheating issues in the engine bay. A SARD custom radiator increased the capacity of the cooling system, while a SARD oil cooler helps extract heat from the oil in the crankcase.

After a long Formula Drift off season, the new GReddy Racing Scion FR-S is finally ready to launch. Watch the video to see Ken Gushi shakedown the 2JZ powered FR-S as the team gets ready to kick off the new season on the Streets of Long Beach.

First look at Scion Racing's Formula D cars for the 2014 season at Irwindale Raceway, CA. Interviews, car breakdowns and drift testing action from Ken Gushi, Fredric Aasbo and Tony Agelo included! See you at Long Beach Round 1.

Nissan Skyline specialist Abbey Motorsport has supercharged the Toyota GT 86 and Subaru BRZ to 270bhp



Bags of power and character, drifts on demand

Needs care in the wet

What is it?

The Toyota GT 86, or its Subaru BRZ twin, tuned by Surrey-based Nissan Skyline specialist Abbey Motorsport.

The back-to-basics formula for the Toyota GT 86 and its Subaru BRZ clone was meant to shift the emphasis away from tiresome modern obsessions such as power and cornering grip and return us to a time when joy was an affordable, front-engined, rear-driven coupe with skinny tyres, and a damp roundabout.

Mission accomplished? Kind of. To drive a GT 86 is to reconnect with an earlier paradigm when peak engine outputs weren’t just lower but had to be mercilessly hunted down with a pack of revs – which, in turn, made a slick, short-throw gearchange pretty much a necessity to keep the thrill of the chase alive.

The regular GT 86 has one of those, and a nice low centre of gravity, too. It changes direction alertly and feeds a constant news stream to the seat of the driver’s pants, all the better to act on should any gratuitous oversteering opportunity present itself. It’s this kind of old-school, rather frenetic involvement that the Toyota and Subaru deliver in spades.

It’s the prescription for good old-fashioned fun that Toyota and Subaru obviously conceived from the off. But prescriptive it is. And it sells the car’s potential short. Thing is, the GT 86 only needs a bit more power (and admittedly quite a lot more torque) to broaden its dynamic repertoire and become a steelier steer without compromising its playful spirit. As such, it’s something of a gift to the aftermarket tuning fraternity.

Technical highlights?

Abbey Motorsport’s Stage 1.5 will set you back £1249 and comprises a re-map, HKS air filter and Cobra de-cat exhaust system. Power jumps from 197 to 212bhp, with torque a little fatter at 161lb ft (up from 151). ‘Most customers go for this first as a sort of toe-in-the-water exercise,’ explains Abbey Motorsport director Mark Gillam.

But for our morning on the roads around Surrey’s picturesque Box Hill he’s brought along a GT 86 with the rather more serious Stage 1.5+SC conversion, which adds a Sprintex supercharger/charge-cooler kit (running 0.9bar boost) plus an oil cooler and sundry ancillaries. And that gives you 270bhp and 206lb ft. It costs £4452 as an upgrade from Stage 1.5, but you can have the whole lot done in one go for £5441. The result is an estimated 5.5sec 0-60 time – putting it in the same ballpark as a Lotus Evora, Nissan 370Z and Porsche Cayman – as does its 155mph top speed.

What’s it like to drive?

Under the bonnet, the little supercharger sits proudly atop the four-pot boxer motor with no obvious giveaways to betray its aftermarket origins. The engine fires up instantly and apart from a deeper exhaust burble, you could be in a regular GT 86. You sit low and snug, the stubby gearlever snicks satisfyingly through its short-throw gate, the ride is unapologetically firm and the steering feels direct and precise.

Initial throttle response is characteristically crisp and linear, but Mark warns that this car has a slightly more aggressive throttle map than he, personally, feels is ideal, though it’s simply a matter of plugging in the laptop to soften it – whatever the customer wants. If that was me, I’d be happy to keep it as it is, especially if I craved reassurance I’d spent my £5.4k wisely.

Push a little harder and suddenly the GT 86 wakes up and goes for it in startling fashion, the need to wring its neck to feel you’re going fast replaced by a sustained lunge from around 2000rpm and a sense of urgency – heightened, it must be said, by the swelling buzz-saw shriek of the supercharger – that would make a Porsche Cayman S feel tardy.

Keep the stability control in Sport mode and you can go remarkably quickly while nibbling amusingly at the neutral/oversteer interface. Switch it off and, well, you have to concentrate that bit harder, especially in the wet. That, of course, is a good thing. The GT 86 you thought you knew becomes the one you hardly dared imagine.

How does it compare?

Add the price of the Stage 1.5+SC conversion to a well-specced GT 86 and you’re looking at around £33,000, pricing it against the new 266bhp Peugeot RCZ R, the 326bhp Nissan 370Z or a plethora of second-hand Lotus Evoras. The GT 86 is probably the least ‘premium’ of the lot but it’s possibly the most fun, too. It certainly makes Toyota’s official effort, the £31,495 GT 86 TRD (lots of styling additions but no more power) look overpriced.

Anything else I need to know?

Started by Mark Gillam’s father 40 years ago, Abbey Motorsport today can lay claim to being the longest-running tuner of Nissan Skylines and GT-Rs in Europe. The company’s tuning philosophy is ‘useable power’ and it claims that whatever the modification – from 350 to over 800bhp in the case of its GT-R work – ‘all start, run and drive with the docility of a standard car’.

As well as developing power upgrades for the GT 86 and Subaru BRZ, Abbey Motorsport has also infiltrated the British drag racing scene and re-engineered John Bradshaw’s Project GTST Skyline, which currently has a best standing quarter-mile time of 7.68sec at 178mph.

Toyota Motor Corporation will launch the "Sports Drive Logger" onboard telemetry recording device, an exciting new way to enjoy driving by fusing the thrill and adrenaline of track driving with the comfort and fun of home gaming. Designed specifically for the Toyota "86" sports car, the Sports Drive Logger will be released throughout Japan on June 2*1 with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of 91,800 yen*2.

The logger collects data passing through the vehicle's controller area network (CAN) and also positional data from its dedicated GPS, and formats the data for easy copying to USB memory. CAN data can include GPS data, accelerator pedal strokes, steering angles, brake operation signals, shift operation signals, engine speed and vehicle speed.

The first application compatible with the data is Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s racing game Gran Turismo 6*3*4 (GT6), a PlayStation®3*3 (PS3) exclusive. On April 2, a PS3 firmware update (version 1.06) will enable the input of driving data recorded at certain racing circuits into GT6's GPS Visualizer to let users replay track runs and race against their own or their friends' data.

Furthermore, by using the GPS Data Visualizer in conjunction with GT6's GPS Data Logger, users will be able to compare their own driving data against those of professional drivers, enabling study and improvement of driving techniques by practicing in concert with model braking, acceleration techniques and racing lines.

Initially supported racing circuits are the Fuji Speedway International Racing Course, the Tsukuba Circuit 2000 Course, and the Suzuka Circuit International Racing Course, with additional circuits planned for the future.

*1Limited release the GAZOO Racing 86/BRZ Race planned for April 2 through Toyota Technocraft Co., Ltd.
*2Includes eight percent Japanese consumption tax; excludes installation and other costs
*3Registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
*4Developed by Polyphony Digital Inc.

Toyota Motor Corporation will launch the "Sports Drive Logger" onboard telemetry recording device, an exciting new way to enjoy driving by fusing the thrill and adrenaline of track driving with the comfort and fun of home gaming. Designed specifically for the Toyota "86" sports car, the Sports Drive Logger will be released throughout Japan on June 2 with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of 91,800 yen.

Scion unveiled the FR-S Release Series 1.0 alongside the xB RS 10.0 at the New York International Auto Show today, with the FR-S RS 1.0 drawing on track heritage and the expertise of Toyota Racing Development (TRD).

Only 1,500 vehicles of the FR-S Release Series 1.0 will be built, with each featuring updates including a custom-designed aero kit with a rear spoiler and side fender garnish, TRD Quad Tip Exhaust System, TRD lowering springs and Smart Key with Push Button Start. The special edition model also comes with a unique bright Yuzu exterior paint and HID headlamps with LED daytime running lights.

On the inside, the special edition model brings TRD steering wheel, TRD shift ****, black seats with T-pattern, dual auto air conditioning system and TRD logo cargo mat. The Scion FR-S Release Series 1.0 will come with either a six-speed manual transmission or a six-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters and Dynamic Rev Management technology.

“It’s fitting that the first Scion FR-S Release Series draws on the rich motorsports history that inspired the FR-S design while standing out in new ways that will excite our drivers. FR-S enthusiasts will appreciate the side spoilers and lowered stance that deliver a look and feel meant for the track, at a price meant for them,” said Scion Vice President Doug Murtha.

Each vehicle will feature its sequential release series badge (1 of 1500) inlayed on a brushed aluminum shifter surround plate. The cars are expected to arrive in dealerships in August.