I used to drive a gsr for a long time, I especially went autoxing wth it a lot. Well my new car is rwd and boosted as opposed to fwd and n/a lol. In my last autox I had a lot of problems keeping my turbo spooled. Whenever I would start to get it spooled in first I would have to brake for a turn. Well that pretty much killed all the boost I had coming. Sticking the car in second like most everyone does is no good either because it places my car at like 3500 and it is hard to spool up the turbo from there as well. LOL well if anyone has any advice for me I would love to hear it. I will have a 3' exhuast from the downpipe back soon so hopefully I can spool thr turbo a little faster. Also my crap all season tires were sliding me around initial d style. What are some good bang for the buck tires I can ride around in on the street and that will still have some grip in autox, or the strip.

 

Turbos are not ideal for autocrossing for the reason you experienced.

 

You just have to learn to compensate. There is no direct connection between putting the throttle down and getting power, so you have to adjust, and put down the throttle early. Most of the time I get right back on the gas as soon as Im done braking.
A good 'trick' to keep the turbo spooled is to left foot brake. in the sweeper type corners where you maintain a pretty constant speed, you put down full throttle use your left foot to brake and control your speed. That way when you exit the turn and get off the brake the turbo will be fully spooled.

Falken Azenis. Good for autoX, and they wont burn up too fast on the street
Once you get better tires you should be able to maintain more speed through the corners which will also help with spool time.

Evan
-wishes he could slide around initial D style

 

doh! lol well stupid scca seems to think so with its placing of my 16 year old car in class B stock. Eh oh well I really want to go for some open track after doing many many autox's.

yes I learned about that, I need to practice that a lot more. I was REALLY uncoordinated braking with my left foot

also a LOT of guys were on the azenis at the autox. They looked like they would grip pretty well, and I think they have a cool tread pattern


[Modified by fcdrifter, 7:45 PM 6/24/2002]

 

Elgorey said it great. You just have to get on the gas earlier. The power will come on a turbo car, just not right away. RX7s have quite a bit of turbo lag at low RPMs (below 3.5K). The 3rd gens with the small first sequential turbo are better, but still not good at low RPMs. In tight turns, downshift to 1st. On 8/10 courses I never have to drop lower than 2nd gear which is great, but once this year there was a course with several tight sections and I used 1st gear 3 or 4 times each run to jump out of the turns better. In slaloms especially do practice left foot braking. If you are comfortable, left foot brake everywhere possible and always stay or get on the gas early.

After getting used to it I find the talon very easy (and effective) to autox. Just leaving it in 2nd for most courses is very convenient! The disadvantage of turbo cars is the lag, the advantage is having really great low (if under boost) and mid range torque. Autocrossing a peaky car like an ITR requires many shifts (which does keep it more fun), but not having to shift is always a plus. So if you try to counter the disadvantage of lag by getting on the gas early enough, downshift to 1st on really slow turns and left foot brake on momentum sections to keep the boost up, the turbo will work for you and not against you.

There are always pros and cons to everything. Good luck and have fun in mastering your rx7!


[Modified by Hracer, 5:20 PM 6/24/2002]

 

gotta drive that thing like a momentum car. i know a guy with an fd in asp and he says he has to drive it like a miata becayuse it just can't get spooled.