Heya guys, I recently got my RX7 88 Vert, and I'm going to be taking it to an autocross, and some track days a bit later on.

I'm wondering what kind of preventative maintenance before and after these events I should do, considering I'm going to be running it pretty hard?

It's got 150k miles on it, and reportedly the engine's never been rebuilt. I have mountains of documentation back to 1992 on this car, and see no indication that the engine needed more than a little maintenance.

So, I'm worried about blowing the engine, I hear the apex seals can go and take the engine with it.

Going to be giving it an oil change, but what type of oil should I use, for really goddamn-hot weather with high revs?

Also. TRACK DAY BRO

 

Check your fluids and filters. Tires should be in top notch shape, obviously.

Generally speaking, apex seals fail as a result of care. If you keep the coolant temperature at a normal level and keep the oil filled and changed, you shouldn't have any issues.

Let me know how it goes, bro.

 

Bro, are you still running the stock radiator bro?

 

for an autocross you don't need to do anything, its like 50 seconds of run time...

for a track day, you need to make sure they will let you run a convertible and then

change the oil, 20-50, or straight 40 weight is good.

trans and diff can get whatever you like, they don't have to be new oil, but should be recent.

you want to look over the cooling system carefully, and replace any hoses/belts that aren't tip top.

you will need the brake pads to be more than 70% (you can be using more than half the pads in a weekend), fresh fluid is a good idea.

tires should be better than 50% tread, bring a tire pressure gauge, you want about 32-34psi HOT, this will be about 26-28psi cold.

 

Bring chicks, because there will not be any there.

 

I am, car is totally stock atm.

Check that too. Also my mom is coming. So that'll be interesting.

I'll be doing an oil change and checking the fluids. Tires are pretty good, probably 80% so far.

My biggest concern atm is that my clutch is... not great. The transmission shifts really rough between gears, luckily for autocross I'll be in 2nd like 90% of the time.

For track days I think it'd be smart to get an anti-roll bar I suppose. I dunno if anyone has recommendations on those

 

headlights go up

headlights go down

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Definitely check if you can run without a roll bar. Not that its recommended anyways, but many track day organizers require a roll hoop at minimum for convertibles in particular.

You should invest in some quality gauges before you consider taking it on a track. The stock (especially S5) temp gauge basically displays "COLD", "NORMAL", & "REPLACE COOLANT SEALS". A coolant temp gauge and oil pressure at a minimum. Oil temps can also get high if you're doing long stints, so you may want to monitor that as well. The stock radiator and fan are okay for a stock car and street driving, but may give you troubles on the track, especially of you get stuck behind another car and lose fresh air through the rad.

 

i've learned the hard way that gauges are useless at the track, nobody looks at them.

 

Bro, if the plastic caps on your radiator look like the backside plastic of you rear view mirror, you need to replace that ASAP...BRO.

 

AutoX is different than a track day. If you are going to autoX you'll be fine.

 

Bro, is your mom hot? Because that would be really interesting.

 

They're pretty useless on the street, too.

 

All the bro's thrown around in this thread keep making me think of this song.

 

Hey guys! I finished the autocross, and the 7 did great. It's squirrely as hell for me, I can spin out going 20 miles an hour, but finding that perfect balance was a lot of fun.

There were five runs. I spun out on 1 and 3, only captured the spin for the third run.
My best run was 5 by 2.5 seconds improvement.

Overall I got 23rd / 33 novices, and last in E-street : P Dang miata pros.
The guy behind me was a national trophy winner, in a miata, and I red flagged him twice with how slow I was. Poor guy, but he gave me tons of solid advice, and helped me look over the car for issues.

Here's my best run:



Here's some views of the others.

- This one I was trying not to spin out again, but I did really poorly. It's two and a half seconds slower than my best, which was run 5.


- Can skip to 3:07 for proper start of the run. The rest is just amusing stuff. Maybe just to me.


Let me know how to improve more! Like, not being a wuss, going closer to cones, etc.

Also! My battery is ULTRA wiggly, tech almost failed me but I looked so sad they didn't. I'll make a video on it, but I need to fix it before I go out again, any thoughts to really nail it down proper?

Edit: Also, sorry for the wiggly camera. It's just a galaxy note 3 suction cupped to the convertible glass window.

 

 

Congratulations!
You've done what 99.99% of people never do...actually test their driving skills.
Everyone thinks they're Fangio till they hit a track and find out how unskilled they really are.

 

Obama looks loaded..hahhahaha!

 

Your car is stock? What kind of tires are you running?

I autox'ed my vert for the first time this past Sunday (third time autox'ing) and it has all poly bushings up front, poly sway bar bushings in the rear, DTSS eliminators and 195/50/15 Bridgestone Potenza RE-01r's. My car lost traction up front when pushing past the limit and I would have to really try to get the back end to slide like yours did. There was one other FC there, a turbo that had its rear sway bar removed for that event. The owner heard it would make the back end less squirrely and said he did notice a difference. Maybe something to think about for your car.

 

I've worn that face before!

 

Autocross advice for newbies:

Tires: MOAR Pressure! I'm running 46 PSI up front and 40 PSI in the rear on Yoko S-Drives and stock rims. General rules - Higher pressure in the front will decrease understeer. More pressure in the back with increase oversteer. 2nd gens are heavy pigs that won't turn on a tight autocross course. Inflate your front pressure as high as you can and then increase the rear tires till the car starts to get loose. That's about as good as it gets in stock classes...

Rear sway bar: if you're having traction problems and the car is loose out of the corners, disconnect the rear sway for more grip. This is more of a problem for Turbo cars. If the car is understeering and pushing bad in the corner, then leave the rear bar connected to help reduce body roll.

Front sway bar: Bigger is better. A Turbo II bar is an upgrade over stock NA. If you can drill holes in the sway bar arms to move the mount points away from the ends of the bar, do it to increase the bar leverage.

Turn off the radio when on course. Its distracting!

Another freebie: Make sure all the suspension parts move freely and don't bind. Front arms and rear suspension should move freely up and down when disconnected from the struts/shocks and sway bars. If you disconnect your front strut and the lower arm doesn't fall freely, its binding...

 

Radio was on 'cause the timing trailer broadcasts a short range signal, with important information like "RED FLAG" and basic commentary.

I was wondering about the tire pressure, I was at 37 PSI in all tires, it advises 32, but no one really had a good idea for my tire type. I need to go copy down what it is, I didn't buy them myself so I don't remember off the top of my head.

Sway bars definitely seem like something I need to take a look in.

Also any technique advice I would love, I'm total novice to driving hard at all. I know the look through the corners not at them, cynch your belt to hold you in place, and "Smoother is better" but didn't know if there was some 7 FC specific advice to be had.

Thanks everyone for the advice so far!

 

I don't want to hijack your thread and I'm not sure if its useful for training, but here is my last attempt at autocross:


Now this course is about as far away from a typical slower parking lot course as you can get, but there are a few key things that I learned from autocrossing this summer:

1) Speed - On my first couple of autocross events, I didn't brake enough before entering a tight corner. I'd come in hot, yank the wheel, and expect the car to turn. What I got was massive tire squeal and understeer as the car kept going strait. It felt fast but I was actually scrubbing speed and making the course bigger. I found that proper braking before turning the wheel allowed the tires to work and tightened up my radius. I shaved seconds off my times by using the brake more and not overdriving.

2) Braking - I received this tip from a person more dedicated to the sport than me: Ride the brake hard all the way to the apex. This keeps the weight of the car on the front tires right up to the point where you need them to turn. (Often referred to as trail-braking.) Complete the turn before getting on the gas otherwise the weight will move off the front tires causing understeer.

3) Entry angle. You have to setup your entry. In the video above, the course had 3 boxes at the ends of the slaloms made of cones with a right side exit. I didn't figure this out till later but all of the fast cars never even slowed down going through them. I was braking and turning when I should have been coming in from farther out and drawing a strait line though the cones.

4) Beyond that? Google, research, and practice!