chimchim

Does anybody regularly autox or run the tracks with their car?

Particularly in the stock or touring class, which suspension do you have and if adjustable, what is it adjusted to? What's your experience with how your suspension has improved your times?

CivicSiRacer

I do about 30-40 autocrosses a year. I did a track day almost 3 years ago at VIR. I've been autocrossing for 8 years competitively for about 4.

Here's my list: http://home.dejazzd.com/mlouie/mikecivicsi.html

The biggest thing is corner weighing and making sure your car is NOT too low. Making sure FL to RR and FR to RL are 50/50 weight distribution. You can have the most expensive suspension in the world, but your car turns better left than right.

Also being too low means you can run into the bump stops upsetting the balance of the car in a corner. You can also have under-dampened shocks.

AND last point and I'll stop cause I can go on and on You can have a too stiff car for different tracks. I've found the front of my car likes to be on the soft side so the tires can bite the pavement better, and the rear of my car likes to be stiff to rotate a car in a corner.

chimchim

Please do continue, this is what I was looking for!

CivicSiRacer

Well my 1st question to you would be how long have you been autocrossing and what have you done to the car?

If this is your 1st or 2nd year autocrossing (with at least 10-20 events under your belt) don't worry about modifications or suspension settings. What you need to do is learn your car. Everyone thinks they know their car really well until a veteran drives your car. In most cases the experienced driver will always beat you.

chimchim

Actually, my situation is that I would like to try autox. However, my car's suspension (at 96k miles) needed replacing, so since I had to replace it I just went with some aftermarket stuff for a slightly stiffer (seems like better handling) daily driver. Autox was not my goal. I have H&R OE's (0.75" drop) and KYB AGX now.

However, now that that has been done, I'm looking into autox for my own enjoyment and learning my car. But since I have a CAI and the aftermarket suspension, I think that disqualifies me from the stock category, and pushes me into the STS. (true?) I'm gonna suck when I go out there. I'd rather start in the stock category, but I'm not going to put a broken stock suspension back on and change my intake back just to do it. So... do I just have to look like a fool in the STS category?

CivicSiRacer

Don't worry we all had to start somewhere. Yes you would be in STS if those are all your mods. It's the class I run and it has become very competitive, but all classes are like that anyway.

You want to be consistent for your 1st year or two. Trying to stay within the same times as other people in your class or if not trying to shave off time at every event.

Read the help page in my sig.