Well today was my first time doing autoX! My god it was a blast. I watched it once and I just had to do it after seeing what was going on. My set up is a 91 civic si w/ lsvtec. I dont have much suspension, just strut tower bars front top, back top and bottom. The front bottom wouldnt fit over my 2.5 inch collector on my header.

I admit, I was more of a straight line kind of guy. BUT NOT ANYMORE! I was just shittin myself with how much fun I was having!!!! My tires are bridgestone potenzas 205/50 R15 on Rota Slips. I dont think they are high performance. But they arent bad. They hook up pretty well. Im looking into getting different tires. I was looking into the Kumho Tires Ecsta MX. They looked pretty nice and had some pretty good reviews. And they are only 74 bucks each!!!

Now Im all new to this game. I was never focused on suspension and I was trying to get as many tips/pointers as I could from the seasoned drivers. Oh and there was a Lotus Exige there!!! Omg those cars are so damn sexy and so damn fast its crazy! But anyway. Im all new to spring rates and the good shocks. Im pretty good on sway bars. I need to pick up a pair, or maybe just the back one. But like I said before, Im new to all of this. Im trying to search in this forum but most of it is for road racing, which I hope to get into one day. But any tips and info would be great guys. I cant wait to go back! The next event is next month, so I have a while to try and work on my car. Thanks.
jake

 

i'm glad you had a good time, be prepared to eat sleep and dream cones for a while.

now, here's my advice:

don't worry about modding the car for a while. don't go out and get azenis, or buy suspension bits or any of that. drive the car as close to stock as possible and cherish the time.

you'll be slow, and your competitive side will urge you to get the cool new __________ to help you win--but tell your competitive side to stfu and work on your driving, which is 10000000x more important than what you're driving.

the way it works is that a stock car doesn't have all the things that cover up your mistakes. you don't have grippy tires to mask the fact that you're not smooth, you don't have more power to mask the fact that you're braking too much and not getting on the gas at the right time. swaybars and stiff springs won't help you improve your transitions in tight slaloms...

you get the idea. don't worry about winning or being the #1 driver in your region until it's time to. concentrate on becoming a better driver everytime out.

second piece of advice: sign up for an evolution school and get as much seat time as possible. try to glean every little bit of information as experienced drivers are willing to share.

 

That is very good advice. I do need to work on my driving. I was getting bad times for my car. I dropped off 7 seconds from my first run to my 6th and final run. So I was getting better. Its just hard because the autoX events around here are only 2 times a month. And I cant afford any tickets by practicing in the streets.

I was getting the course down and the slolems were hard to time. But my big problem was not going into the corner fast and braking hard. I would let off the throttle going into the corner and slow down then not brake as hard and get through it. I was loosing major time on that. But I guess all that comes with practice. Ive never heard of an Evolution school. I know there is a couple day class at Portland International Raceway. Thats about 4 hours away from me.

 

Oh, and I was wondering, since I have a 4-1 style header which has little ground clearance, are there any springs that dont lower the car too much. Or am I just sol?

 

I run h&r sports on my DC2, not too low in my opinion.

 

See the problem is, I have hella bad clearance. And I think if I even go down an inch it will be too much. I think I would be scraping my header on everything.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jakscivic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Oh, and I was wondering, since I have a 4-1 style header which has little ground clearance, are there any springs that dont lower the car too much. Or am I just sol?</TD></TR></TABLE>
Just stop now. Save your money.

You don't want any lowering springs offered on the market, so don't waste any time or money looking at them.

Once you decide it is time to buy suspension parts, look into Ground Control coilovers. The reason you'll want coilover sleeves with linear-rate race springs is because you can choose your own spring rates and lengths, choose your own dampers, set your own ride heights and corner weights, and change springs easily whenever needed (there is a large market for pairs of used 2.5"-inner diameter linear-rate race springs). As you get more serious into autocrossing, you'll realize how important these factors are. Yes, they're double the price of most lowering springs, but the benefits far outweigh the cost.

Dampers are also an extremely important suspension component, so don't overlook them.

 

Oh man, thanks for the info. This is the stuff I need to know. Im really glad that instead of just saying get ground control coilovers, you also added why. Thanks a lot. That was a real help.

 

hey its a northwester like me. im in eugene. OR, just a few hours south of portland. i know what you mean about wanting to jump right in to some other events, ours are only every month or so, not even that really even in full swing. when i first started about 4 years ago i couldnt stop thinking about it, especially since i watched for atleast 3 before that.

i would heed the advice given already. if you really want to enoy winning, you have to enjoy just driving first. modding wont help you win necessarily. it will just serve to confuse what is making you fast, and what is making you slow. the best drivers win because they are good, and are connected to their car. and...possibly in the right class to begin with

the people that come in to autox or any other racing and emulate the setups of the top timers almost always fail, because they fail to see how they differ from the leaders; experience, and better driving ability are the keys.

i am going into this season most likely driving my stock gsr 4 door, i still have the miata, but i think i want to try stock class for once, and just enjoy the experience.

good luck, and uh, welcome to the club.

 

Yeah for sure. Im doing hella research into suspension now. It seems like the best way to mod a car. Eventually I will start buying parts. But not until I get better at driving.

 

There is a saying in autoX - "It's 90% driver and 10% car"

What that means is if you were 10 seconds behind the fast guys in similar cars then improving your car with all the class legal mods is only going to improve your time by 1 second. The other 9 is up to you.

The best advice I can give you is that you should do absolutely nothing to the car. Don't even think about it. Don't research it. Don't ask experts at the autocross how you could improve your car.

Instead, do everything you can to get experienced drivers in YOUR car. Get them to ride with you. Get them to drive with you riding. Pay their entry fees if you have to. Go to every novice school you can. Go to Evolution schools. Only concentrate on your DRIVING. When you are consistently within 1-2 PAX seconds of the fast NATIONAL-LEVEL guys then you can work on the car.

This is very hard advice to follow but it will give you the best results for the least cost and give you the most fun and satisfaction for your dollar.

Welcome to the club!

 

Welcome to the club!