B-Spec build Norcal #86

[ysar]

I just turned 50 and my big plan for the milestone was to do a lot of SCCA racing culminating in a trip to the Runoffs at Indy. Well, my knee had something to say about that, and now I'm going to miss a big chunk of the season due to surgery and recovery. Enough about me, let me describe the car.

To begin, I wanted to build a car that was street, race, and rally legal. I also didn't want to spend a lot of money. I considered modifying my Lemons/Chump/LuckyDog Miata, but making it street and rally legal would be expensive. So I decided on B-Spec, and specifically the Yaris because it has the least expensive kit and has been around nearly 10 years.

I purchased the 2007 Yaris for $3040 from a woman who was driving it cross-country from North Carolina to California. I had a racer friend on the other side check it out for me. After taking delivery, I used it as a daily driver for about 6 months, during which time I took it to a few track events where I was doing some coaching. I found it to be a great commuter, getting over 40 mpg, and a surprisingly fun track car even in stock form. I even took it to a rally school (Primitive Rally) where it was one of the faster cars on the course. I really liked the car and part of me really didn't want to do the full B-Spec conversion...

The cage was constructed at a cage-welding class held by master cage-builder Jon Pagel of Evil Genius Racing. He oversaw the operation and did a little welding, but most of it was done by students. In the end, I got the cage built for about 60% of the usual cost. It doesn't yet have the A-pillar vertical bars, so it's not yet fully rally legal, but the rest of the cage meets rally specs. It's probably going to be at least a year before I do stage rally anyway, and in the mean time I can do RallyCross and RallyTrials along with road racing.

The performance mods for a Yaris B-Spec are: (1) suspension (2) exhaust (3) intake (4) tires (5) brake pads. The suspension is a TRD kit that costs about $650. The exhaust is just a 1 minute job with an angle grinder. The intake is optional, and I really don't know if a K&N filter improves much over a paper filter. In any case, all together, I got 101 HP and 105 TQ. It's more than I expected. Wheels and tires are SM-ish: 15x7, 205/15/15, 13+ lb rims, DOT slicks. I've got a set of Toyo RRs, Hoosier SM7s, and RE-71Rs. For rally, I've got steelies and Cooper Weathermasters up front and runflats out back. I'm using EBC Green Stuff for the front pads and something OEM-ish in the rear.

Safety stuff is the usual: seats, harnesses, fire system, kill switch, window net, center net, tow hooks, and various stickers. Other stuff include wide-angle mirror, quick-release steering wheel, fuel sample port, tachometer, extra fire bottle, extra electrical outlets, bluetooth radio, rally lights, and AiM SoloDL. A cool thing about the SoloDL is that it talks CAN bus to the Yaris ECU. It can be quite expensive to set a car up with telemetry, but all cars since 2008 (and sometimes before, like the 2007 Yaris) have loads of sensors and a high speed network built in. The Yaris reports RPM, vehicle speed, individual wheel speeds, steering angle, brake, clutch, throttle, and all sorts of engine stuff. It would cost thousands to put all this stuff in an older car.