[MUSIC PLAYING]
MATT FARAH: "Tuned" is officially
back with this clap.
I know you've missed us.
Now, if you were with us when we ended last season, we had a
focus on balance, with the Turner
Motorsports M3 race car.
Now while we will be bringing you ridiculously over-powered
vehicles this season, I wanted to start with a car that damn
near every single one of you emailed me and said, Matt, you
need to drive a turbocharged Scion FR-S.
I love the FR-S. And that's why I was so excited when the
guys from team VCMC in Canadia--
that's Vancouver, Canada--
called me and said, Matt, wherever you want me to bring
this car, I will bring it.
So they have driven 22 hours to Chuckwalla, here in, well,
damn near the middle of nowhere.
We had to do what we had to do, which is why we're sharing
a track day with a bunch of LeMons race cars.
This should be fun, too.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CAR ENGINE]
MATT FARAH: Here we go.
Turobcharged FR-S track car, on track, with a whole bunch
of $500 race cars.
Now I have about six laps total of Chuckwalla Valley
raceway, so still trying to figure out where I'm going a
little bit.
Fun track, way out in the middle of the desert, very
fast, a lot of sweepers.
Here's what I can tell you about this car.
It was built in Canada by VCMC and Shift Autosport for
Canada's Scion Turner Challenge.
You may have seen some of those cars at
SEMA, the US versions.
And in case you can't see the smile on my face right now, it
is very nice.
They have taken a stock FR-S and turned it into the
ultimate weekend at the track car.
It sounds great.
It's got a full-blown motorsports turbo kit on it,
feeding the 2 liter Boxer engine 9 pounds of boost,
which provides 320 horsepower at the
wheels, in current trip.
It's a stock bottom end, so they didn't want to run too
much boost and risk blowing it up.
Then they gutted the interior, so this car is down to 2,400
pounds right now.
They replaced the suspension with KW Variant 3 coilovers,
full polyurethane bushings.
And then they put 17 by 9 wheels on it, super sticky
Hoosier tires.
I'm going to pass this '84 Supra.
With those square stands up front that it's got, it's got
245s all round, completely square, the
turning is really amazing.
Very direct, amazing steering wheel.
They put a bushing in the shifter to give it a little
crisper feel.
I like that they haven't ruined that.
And then they put a light flywheel assembly, so it revs
up a little quicker.
The original flywheel is pretty heavy.
What I really like about this car is that they've managed to
keep the FR-S's character.
They haven't ruined it.
When you're building a car like this, it would be very
easy to ruin it, and they have not done that.
Everything I know about driving a
stock FR-S, still here.
It's just better at everything it does.
When building a Tuner car, especially one for the track,
the tendency is to go overboard in a mishmash of
assorted aftermarket parts, without a cohesive theme,
thereby ending up with a car that may be fast but drives
completely unlike the car you started with and, often cases,
much worse.
Here, they haven't done that.
Most importantly, it feels like a complete package, with
no single element overshadowing
the rest of the build.
RICHARD BASFORD: Our goal was building a car that was
completely versatile for the enthusiast or the grassroots
motorsports guy.
So he can use it on a daily basis, but mainly it goes out
on the weekend and wins and does really well and drives
fast and is easy to use.
The overall grip level has been so high, as soon as we
started to delve in to suspension and upgrading to
the different tires and so forth.
But it's just been a super easy car to work on.
Every single modification we do just makes it faster.
So it's not like, say, an S-2000, where you have to do
the right thing perfectly just to get it fast.
Because everything we throw at it just makes it better.
The weakest link that we found from the FR-S from factory was
definitely the power.
That's something we addressed with our last upgrade, which
is the turbo system that you're driving
today from Full Blown.
When you're trying to build a balanced race car, you want
every piece of it to be strong.
And that's really where we've focused lately.
[CAR ENGINES]
MATT FARAH: [INAUDIBLE]
are sticking.
The suspension is doing it's thing.
I can feel everything that's going on through
the steering wheel.
I love that about the FR-S. This one, they have not
changed that.
This is a fan-frigging-tastic track car.
It's brilliant to drive.
Everyone in the paddock loves it.
It's not crazy expensive to build.
I mean, the car's $25,000.
They said they've got about another $20,000 into it.
So $45,000 isn't cheap.
But we're talking about a track car and a fast one, so
pretty reasonable.
I like the brakes a lot.
The rear rotors are still stock, but the front rotors
are AP Racing.
And they really do a great job of bringing this thing down.
Also got some aerodynamic things going on.
We got the big APR wing in the back, diffuser up front.
I'm not sure how much of it is due to the suspension and how
much is due to the aero, but it feels
really, really planted.
It doesn't want to tear my face off.
And as we learned in the last season of "Tuned," at the end,
the importance of balance.
And this car definitely is balanced.
Not really a complaint, just a little observation.
The throttle is kind of like an on-off switch.
So like any other race car, it's much happier being flat
or off than it is being somewhere in the middle.
It's getting a little hot.
I think I might have to go to the pits.
The problem with this car is that it gets hot.
I don't think they've fully dialed in the cooling system.
They did say I'm the first person to ever
track test this car.
If this super Scion suffers from one
issue, it's heat stroke--
more specifically, a tendency to overheat after a few laps
on the track.
This is a common theme among cars on "Tuned." As many
builds are literally finished the night before our shoot,
others value our testing as important in
their development process.
In this case, it was a bit of both.
And we learned that the FR-S, when turbocharged, needs some
extra airflow by opening up the front air dam.
RICHARD BASFORD: So with Matt driving the car today, one
thing that we definitely learned was we've got a bit of
a heat issue.
So we're going to have to open up the front compartment a
little bit.
We're going to have to look into ducting away some of the
turbo heat and just keep improving.
I mean that's one of the things about this challenge is
that it's 18 months long.
We're not going to get it right the first time.
It's always going to be improving, always looking to
make the car faster and better.
The turbo just went in to get it here for you today.
Love it or hate it, the Scion FR-S is bound to become the
next generation of spec racer.
It's roomier than a Miata.
The aftermarket for it is expanding
unbelievably quickly.
And when prepped for the track, its handling limits are
absurdly high, and power is easy to come by.
Furthermore, as we are now officially into our third
season, the VCMC Turbo FR-S reminds us that, throughout
this season, we must always keep balance in mind.
[MUSIC]
[CAR ENGINE]
[LOUD WIND]