Archetype - Project

Quinn here! Welcome to project Archetype! Before we get into the meat of it, I'd like to share a little back story:

I've owned a lot of Corollas. 28 to be approximate? 13 of those AE86s, and many of them were E7's modded to be similar to AE86s. 16 years ago, Corollas were what I learned to drift on and to this day are still my favorite cars to drift in.

The Backstory:

Earlier this year I was given a 2017 Subaru BRZ for free. It seems wild, but free cars are a common part of my life and a big part of why I've owned so many cars in my life so far. I often like to make use of other peoples junk to make my life better. This BRZ had a problem.

The engine had dropped a valve, and the dealership refused the repair. Thomas a local driver had bought the car, cash outright in 2017, purely to learn performance driving in a RWD car. This was the cheapest RWD with the best reputation of motorsport versatility so he went to the dealership and purchased it.

For 3 years it spent every weekend at a different track day: Auto-X, Lapping days, drag racing, drift days, and all other events he could participate. In between it was a rolling office for his work. So within those 3 years it racked up nearly 80,000km. Much of it on limiter. It was inevitable that it would drop a valve, and inevitable that the dealership would reject the repair. It was well used and the owner wanted to move on rather than repair it.

It wasn't long, and really serendipitous that I received a facebook ad sent to me for a 2017 BRZ engine with only 17,000km on it. It seemed too good to be true, but after investigating thoroughly it seemed to exactly...I mean...exactly what I needed. We hopped on the next ferry immediately.

After leakdown testing it in the carport, we pulled the doors from Liams Corolla, fit it where the backseats should be and wandered it back home.

It wasn't long to get the motor in, bolted up, and running. It was also comical at the ease of it.

Understanding Archetype:

One stipulation of getting the car for free was I am expected to help others with their drifting. It was a request of the previous owner that I use this to improve drifting in whatever way I can.

After drifting so many cars in so many places of the world, and being poor for my whole life, my personal experience has led me to know what I like and dislike about drifting and how to improve vehicles on the cheap.

Archetype began with the idea that we'd take a stock BRZ and make it drift like an AE86 for as cheap as possible. To make the path for another owner just getting into drifting, on an extreme budget, able to follow an easy path to a great feeling car.

Feeling is the important part. It's not about numbers. It's not about bragging measurements, it's about feeling more in control and more connected to the car to ensure confidence and agility. It's about seat time at low costs with fun and confident results.

Part 1:

Our first step was to revert the car back to stock. I worked hard to find even the original tires for the car as best as I could as I wanted the car as showroom stock as possible.

It's important to drift the car as stock as possible, as we want to modify as little as possible, as minimally as possible to focus on the core of our Archetype goal. One complaint I have with current modifications of the car is their aimed at people with deep pockets and high resource pools.

After doing a few track days with our stock setup it gave me a good idea of what I liked about the car, and what I didn't. I can say, it doesn't drift like an AE86.

To sum up: Transitions, off throttle, and gentle initiations were tricky with the car compared to an AE86.

I spent some time doing a think about why these things just didn't feel quite right. I managed to sum this up in a pretty simple list: