I'm getting springs for my 98 civic ex. Just haven't decided which ones, the height is the only thing stopping me. What is a good height to sit at for road race. I'm trying to make it to the march nasa event at california speedway but finding the right spring is proving hard. 1.8 or 2.25 is the two choices. The rates are quite a bit different but since it's the first time out at a road race event I will learn to drive it this way then change up as needed.

 

bring it to the track stock. being new to road racing, you are going to be the limiting factor, not the car. use the track time to find weak points and slowly upgrade as your driving improves

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chawski &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">bring it to the track stock. being new to road racing, you are going to be the limiting factor, not the car. use the track time to find weak points and slowly upgrade as your driving improves</TD></TR></TABLE>

X2

If you need to buy somethign buy a good set of tires before you go. Doesn't have to be R compounds just something good.

Will this be your first time on a track? Have you auto-xed?

 

Actually AutoX was my main event until the cost to drive time came in to focus. It will be cheaper road racing than doing autox events. I'm new to the civic i'm driving. I used to have a DA though and it drove a lot different than the civic. Yeah the tires were another thing on the list to buy along with a helmet now that you need and sa2005 and not just a s2005.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Meoshe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> It will be cheaper road racing than doing autox events. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I think you will find alot of people will disagree with you on this.

 

Yeah but seat time at the events here for me, road racing is cheaper. At the more expensive events maybe a couple dollars more.

 

Your question is not an easy one to answer. Ride height affects many things, geometry being one. And geometry will affect weight transfer. Lowering can actually cause more weight transfer, despite a lower CG.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chawski &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">bring it to the track stock. being new to road racing, you are going to be the limiting factor, not the car. use the track time to find weak points and slowly upgrade as your driving improves</TD></TR></TABLE>

X3

Get your feet wet and make changes later. You'll have a better idea of what changes you will want to make. Each change will affect the car differently.
You dont want to spend money on a change that makes the car worse than it was before.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Meoshe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yeah but seat time at the events here for me, road racing is cheaper.
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Cheaper per event or per minute of seat time?

Granted, road racing is cheaper per minute but you're still going to spend at least $1000 per weekend unless your name is Zephyr, Tom Lamb or Dave Gran.

-Chris

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chawski &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">bring it to the track stock. being new to road racing, you are going to be the limiting factor, not the car. use the track time to find weak points and slowly upgrade as your driving improves</TD></TR></TABLE>
X4

Do you mean real road racing, or HPDE events. If it's the latter, I agree with you about the cost vs seat time. It's the reason I gave up autox. $30-45 for 8 hours of "activity" but only 3 minutes of actual driving - eh, I'm just not into it that much.

HPDE, OTOH, $100-250 and hours of driving.

But if you mean real, wheel-to-wheel SCCA type racing, hahahahahaha, yeah, it'll be $1000s per weekend.

 

HPDE of course. Decided to just use the extra cash for a few days of HPDE here at fontana. The only things I will change is the rear drums to discs and a stock sway. Thanks for the input. I'll make sure to host the video for future input from everyone.

 

FYI the drums are a lighter than the drums. And there is no performance advantage.

 

Yeah don't even bother changing the rear brakes. About 80% of the work is handled by the front brakes on a FWD car. If you "must" change something, fab some air ducts to the center of the front rotors. Don't worry about the rears.

 

If this is you first event...

plan on doing NOTHING to your car excpet for changing the oil, checking the fluids, etc.

YOU DON"T NEED TO DO ANYTHING FOR YOUR CAR AT THIS POINT

You won't need to lower your car to make it better or faster or whatever for the track.

Dont touch your rear brakes. you won't even notice at this point.
The only reason to have rear disks is that is'ts easier to change pads.
but if you do any competition including auto-x this could mess up your classing

Don't expect to be fast...you will be disappointed.

Make sure you have a helmet and an open mind.



Modified by Crazydave at 6:33 PM 2/16/2008

 

Read this - https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=972109

 

leave your ego at home, and dont modify your car till you drive in several events.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Toad &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">FYI the drums are a lighter than the drums. And there is no performance advantage. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Hmm, now the question becomes: are the discs lighter than the discs?

 

another good reason to bring it to the track stock is that with each upgrade, you will learn how the particular piece works. if you do a lot of mods and then drive, you will see how they all work together, but not individually. this will help you later down the road as more modifications seem necessary

 

...did we get completely away from the subject?

 

1. Subject is moot. The question makes no sense w/out experience and a ton more details. (tire size, spring rates, bushings, etc.)

2. HPDE's can be cheap. I don't know jack about wheel 2 wheel (I time trial)

3. Don't mod your car. Yeah I know "better parts = faster car" seems to make perfect sense, but a stock econobox is far faster than most drivers can handle. Do the basic maintenance stuff, and just go to the track.

When you are ready to upgrade get coilovers - you can adjust the height. Also better tires and brake pads will make you faster than a set of springs, but don't worry about that even till you've been to the track.

EDIT: Also don't worry about the drums either. If you want discs for easier maintenance or purely asthetic reasons, then OK, but you'll need to swap your proportioning valve and spend a bunch of $ on something that won't make you any faster.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by meb58 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Your question is not an easy one to answer. Ride height affects many things, geometry being one. And geometry will affect weight transfer. Lowering can actually cause more weight transfer, despite a lower CG.
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I think what you meant to say was that lowering can cause more roll, not weight transfer.