frazer

it's been awhile. i won the SCCA DC Region C Stock Championship and MWCSCC (another DC Region) C Stock Championship in '97 - then i was off playing mr. road racer. anyway... here's what i had (as best as i can remember). make minimal changes. just get used to driving the car. the only upgrades i had were tokico illumina shocks and kumho v700 tires. i ran the shocks set at 3 in the front and 5 in the rear (helped remove a lot of the understeer). the tires were 205/50x15. went a bit smaller. stuck real well and virtually changed the gearing helping me accelerate quicker. i believe i ran the tires at 42# front and #37 rear, but i'm not positive. run as much negative camber as you can (turn the upper strut mounts). i ran 1/16" toe out in the front and 0 toe in the rear. also, when you're sitting in the car, sit up. don't do the big recline thing. either way, have fun.

good luck,

mike
'90 gxl

Mr. Eccentric

Post in the Racing section, a lot of the guys there autocross and or road race. They'll be able to sort you out.

Matt22

iTrader: (10)

Hey Jerkracer
As it turns out I will be using the suspension off of a
88 GTU. It is the original but only has like 60,000 miles
so it should be good, oh I will probably get some new springs before long anyways. well back to work
later Matt22

No7Yet

I know that. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear - I would run an 87/88 Sport which has "magically" gained an LSD. A small number of anomolous Sports did come with the N/A LSD.

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As far as tire pressure just remember this, lower presure = lower grip, higher pressure = higher grip.

Uh, no. Hell no.

Tire pressure depends on the tire and its characteristics, and is mostly determined by sidewall stiffness and contact patch maximization. You should run higher pressures in a tire which rolls over easily, as your sidewall has less grip than your tread, but don't overinflate, because that can concentrate friction (and thus heat buildup) on/around the center of the tire's tread, which leads to less grip.

A good rule of thumb is to raise your tire pressures to the max listed on the sidewall. Then get some shoe polish and draw a few stripes on the tire going from the edge of the rim (on the sidewall) to the middle of the tire's tread. Draw 3 or 4, and spread them evenly around the tire. Make your first run, and see how far down the tire the polish was scrubbed off. If you've scrubbed it off of the sidewall, your tire is rolling over and you need to run a higher pressure. If it's okay right up to the tire shoulder, you can lower your pressures a little bit. After getting a good baseline, tune, tune, and tune some more.

A good example is the Falken Azenis vs the AVS intermediate. Both stick like hell, but you have to run the AVSes at a higher pressure, since their sidewalls are softer. If you ran an Azenis at 38-42 psi, you'd murder the center of the tire and lost peak grip.

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I've auto-x both NA and TII FCs, they usually understeer like mad, hard to get the tail out. Run the higher pressure up front, lower pressure in the rear. If you run street tires you'll need to pump them up to 40+ psi. Running race rubber you'll be in the mid 30s depending on the type of tire.

I wonder if that understeer is the car or the driver.

While I wouldn't term my TII "tail happy", it will trailing-throttle oversteer whenever I need it to, and I find that the throttle can neutralize the car very well in turns. I also find that it will turn in hard enough to make the **** end step out when at neutral throttle and 30ish MPH. My biggest gripe is with the power steering - it kills all feeling, so you can't feel when the front tires are past their slip angle.

For the record, this is an 89 TII with a battery relocation, running 38psi AVS Intermediates on a factory-original suspension.

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You'll get absolutely waxed by everyone your first race, you'll get better as time goes on. Mods to the car don't really help much.

Hope to see you out there. Have fun and remember everyone sucks when they start.

Very true.

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FCs won't really be competitive in stock or street prep classes. While the FC won't be the fastest there are plenty of cars that are much worse. You can have a ton of fun and learn a lot about how to really go fast.

Jeff

I'm still convinced that a well-prepared, well-driven GTUs in ES can kick some serious ***, and with the support could vy for a national win. But what do I know?

Brandon

Matt22

iTrader: (10)

Damn Brandon
That was a hard core post.
but infomative. lates matt22

dre_2ooo

I dunno who Dre_2002 is, but I auto-x

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

Typically NA FCs haven't been close to competitive, but what do I know. When I started auto-xing they were in CS, maybe since they are getting closer to HS they can be competitive. What they are is pretty cheap, fun safe auto-xers.

As far as tire pressure, yeah it does depend on the type of tire and it's characteristics. I used to run the old BFG R1s, they worked the opposite of the lower pressure=lower grip. But BFG hasn't made them for years. Most all street tires need to be pumped up to ~40psi to keep them from completely rolling over on their sidewalls, that is what I was talking about. This doesn't mean that you can pump up a tire to 100psi and have great grip.

As far as the understeer thing, if you don't think FCs, especially stock ones, understeer I wonder if you've ever taken a run in a FD (especially a 93) or driven a Miata. Both of them oversteer, drive one back to back with a FC and you'll notice the understeer that FCs have. It isn't the driver, it is what Mazda tuned the suspension for. Positive camber up front, negative in the rear= understeer. Worse yet is that you can't easily adjust the camber on a FC. Turning the strut mounts and biasing all the bolts up front will give you ~-.3-.5 degrees camber. Slotting the strut towers will give you another little bit, we had ~1+ negative by doing this.

Here are some pics of my cars.

http://community.webshots.com/user/turbojeff

Jeff
Local ASP class champ '00, '01... Not for '02, damn C5 vettes...