Ok Guys this is a very broad open ended question but here it goes. This weekend my mom thru me a graduation party for finally finishing college and I was able to get $300 bucks in cash. I also have a bit lying around and I am in need of some advise. My current setup is this

95 GSR with a kirl roll bar, 5 pt harnesses, ground control coilovers on koni yellows, cobalt friction brakes and a comptech intake. I am currently doing a lot of HPDE's and autocrossing and I am curious what should be next. Here are my thoughts.

1. Sell my interior including my front seats and buy 2 new race seats.
2. Finally buy a header and/or exhaust since my is still factory and ready to fall off
3. Buy stiffer springs for my ground controls
4. Go to another HPDE

I am a pretty firm believer in keeping your car as stock as possible and work on the driver, but I am starting to get a little anxious and would like some more hp.

What does everyone think?

 

Are your tires fresh? Do you use R compounds? If not, maybe time for new wheels with R compounds.

Don't sell the interior, maybe just the seats, but not the whole thing - too noisy, bumps you out of DSP, etc.

If your exhaust really is rusting away, then that's an obvious choice. I like the exhaust George Knighton uses (SMSP?). Look close to stock, not too loud, proven power gains. He also has the header, but that is lot more $$$.

 

http://www.autocross.com/evolution

will knock off more time than $$ spent on the car

 

My tires are fresh and they are not R compounds, they are azenis's. I want to continue to abuse these cheap tires, until I am good enough to not tear up expensive tires.

The exhaust is seriously rusting away, but I have always been a little weary about replacing it because the header bottle neck will stil be there unless I replace that too.

BTW- When I said sell my interior I meant my front and back seats only. The headliner, etc is still there. I am simply not that crazy yet!

 

I was looking at the evolution school and have heard great things about it. This is defintitely a good option.

 

Yeah, the Evolution school will be worth the money.

As for the exhaust, sure the header bottleneck will be there, but a good exhaust will still give a few ponies.

 

Too bad you have to change the exhaust first because of the rust, otherwise I'd say get a used header and an ITR intake. You'll get good power, but then your bottle neck will be at the B-pipe

Also, keep an eye on your tires. If in case your car pushes too much on a track, you'll get a lot of outer wear on the front tires and they may not last. So, a Skunk2 camber kit may be a good option too.

 

I would highly recommend the evolution school. I did it 6 years ago, when it was still the McKamey school, and learned a ton of stuff there. It can take months or years to really understand and use everything they can teach in a day. Very worthwhile.

 

you could also get a stock ITR exhaust for cheap and remove the bottleneck in it (its not very hard)

 

how about an ITR rear sway bar for some more rotation..?

 

I already have a UTR rear bar so rotation is not really a problem.

 

I think it really depends on your golas, if your focus is HPDE with an eventual goal of wheel2wheel, dont waste your money on an EVO school. AutoX doesnt directly apply to HPDE or on-track skills. If autoX is a priority, then an EVO school may be a good (although expensive) choice.

Also, if you do want to do w2w eventually, what are your goals for that? Plan to build your GSR into a ITS or HC car? Seat time at an HPDE would be #1, and after that a race seat(s) would be a good choice, since its something you will need eventually.

 

I think you should sell that HPDE car and buy this HPDE car and have more fun! https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=519758

 

god I'm having flashbacks to last year....
I sold my HPDE car (GS-R) and bought a cheaper (by-orders-of-magnitude-less-cheaper) car to play with. Put your car back to stock, sell the parts, sell the car, buy a new car and a cheap track car. In my case, new car + track car=less than Integra cost to daily drive/hpde. It isn't an easy choice, but the first time you have the car in the air, disassembled, and realize that you don't have part X, or tool Y, and you can just drive the second car to the parts store, soooo worth it. Not to mention that driving a roll barred car to work/school isn't exactly ideal. (for me it wasn't, anyway)

 

If you can find a SCCA autoX school that is cheaper than the EVO, I think it's worth it. I just did a solo2 school this past weekend in SoCal and the $90 were well spent. First day was a bit boring, as we practiced just a small section at a time. But the second day where we ran the whole course over and over was great.

Maybe it doesn't directly apply to track driving, but it sure helps with learning car control and handling, which in turn I think will help me on a track, especially short tight courses. Things happen fast in autoX, so it helps sharpen the reflexes too. I'm going to sign up for the practice later this month just for that---more practice.

 

There's no such thing as a cheap track car.

Even if you buy an older car, all that means is you're going to run into problems earlier - axles, brake calipers, master cylinder, suspension bolts/bushings, clutch, wheel bearings, etc, etc, etc....

Now, if you are paying cash for the car and doing your own work on it its still probably cheaper to buy an older car and replace all that chit.

 

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It's all relative. He could sell the GSR and buy a '91 Miata for the track and a '91 B2500 pickup to tow it with. Both would be very close in reliability to the GSR. And probably cost less to insure.

 

Ok guys we are getting a little off topic here... I am keeping the GSR as it is already full of holes and past the point of no return. Now that that is past us I am much more focused on HPDE and I am definitely interested in ITS if the HC is not in the NorthEast in a couple of years. With that being said, I called today looking for prices on seats and I can get a Corbeau FX1 and Corbeau Forza II for the passenger with sliders shipped for $640. That sounds like a pretty good deal. Any thoughts?