Suspension
it's my D in a B
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 24,787
Likes: 1
From: Your Mom's House
h:Another thing to keep in mind is the f/r spring ratio. Its popular (read: cool, trendy, accepted) to get a higher number in the rear, but that really all depends on your driving style. Most, if not ALL of the aftermarket springs & coilovers out there have a higher rate in the front and handle just fine. If you are a fast-in, hamfisted sort of driver, the higher rear bias will just make you oversteer and scrub off a lot of speed, or just spin (I spun my car a lot in my first and second season). If you're a very controlled, slow-in, fast-out sorta driver, then the higher rear rate is fine. BUT if you choose a higher rear bias, NEVER drive at 10/10 (or even 8.5/10) on public roads. There are too many uncontrollable variables to be safe. :edit: Really, this applies to anybody in any car. I've come too close to disaster... keep it on the track
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Last edited by white_n_slow; Mar 7, 2008 at 07:29 AM.
it's my D in a B
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 24,787
Likes: 1
From: Your Mom's House
I'm going to stop right here and give the age-old "getting into autocross" rant. If I were in your shoes, I WOULD NOT modify my car at all (or at least any more than H-stock rules allow). If you want to be any good, learning in a crap-box will teach you MUCH more about car control than learning in a prepped car. If you start out in a car with sorted suspension, it will just mask your mistakes and make it harder to improve on your technique. Same goes for big-buck sticky tires.
Modding your car also takes you down a long slippery slope. If you do the suspension stuff you've been talking about, you'll find yourself in STS, competing against newer, better cars with twice the power of your econobox. So you decide to add a little power to keep up, well guess what, now you're in SM, competing against thoroughly prepped, high-dollar race cars... if you're just in it to mess around, go for it. If you want to learn, and eventually get halfway decent, here's what you do:
Take your stock 100hp beast, put on some decent brake pads and shocks (both of which are allowed in stock classes, and are very helpful), take out the spare tire, and drive in H-stock for a full season. Take all the advice you can get, take lessons, show up to as many events as you can manage. At the end of that season, you will be a much better driver, you will have had a lot of fun, and you'll still have that $1000 in your bank account.
After your first season, re-assess the situation and decide whether you think you can keep up in a different class. You also might want to consider ditching your DX for a more autocross-friendly car (4th gen Civic/crx Si, 5th gen Si/EX, Sentra SE-R, etc... something that wasn't built strictly with economy in mind). The way the rules are set up, you're really much better off starting out with a better model and only doing light mods as compared to starting out with a gutless econobox and over-modding it.
/rant
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