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FS Autocross Setup

5297 Views 42 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Static_LV
I have been running FS on street tires and plan on sticking around this class for a while. That said, I am looking for ways to improve the overall handling characteristics of my 2011 GT/CS.

The rule changes for 2014 have been interesting and open up some possibilities.
I am currently running the 19x8.5" GT/CS wheels (Heavy) with the Pirelli PZero Neros 255/40R19 (also Heavy).

With the +/-1" rule this year this opens up the possibility of running 18x8.5 wheels and 18" tires. I have been kicking around the options and there are a number of sub 20lb wheels in this category. 18" tires are also several lbs lighter. If I am doing my math right it is possible to drop about 16lbs / wheel by making this switch. That is a lot of unsprung weight. Also all things being equal, a smaller wheel diameter is going to effectively lower the center of gravity for the car by about 1" between the two setups and acceleration will wind up being just a bit quicker, which would be really nice coming out of turns in exchange for a bit of top speed in each gear.
I am not particularly worried about that due to the course setups we have here in the vegas region being oriented to smaller, lighter, slower cars, I have yet to run into a course here where I can top out second.

So my question to all my fellow AutoX fanatics is this. Good idea? Bad idea?
Also do any of you have experience running anything wider than a 255 on an 8.5 rim? I would really like to get some R-S3 275/40R18 squeezed on there but I don't really know if that is feasible or effective with a big heavy beast like this.

-Static
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Looking forward to that one also!!! Gears probably would hurt me a bit since I'll be in 4th at 100.
Naw, you'll be good. You'll have more of a selection of gears to choose from on a big track like that.
I can't wait! I think that registration opens in about a month, and we have to pre-register, so we'll have to keep an eye on that. :)
Addictive doesn't even begin to describe it, but yeah I need to find a tire sponsor riki-tik. :)

Running on a bigger track has a lot of appeal for our platforms. Being able to take advantage of some acceleration out of turns and on the odd straight is really where the I could see my car come into its own.

-Static
Naw, you'll be good. You'll have more of a selection of gears to choose from on a big track like that.

I can't wait! I think that registration opens in about a month, and we have to pre-register, so we'll have to keep an eye on that. :)

Well my Torque Arm and LCAs come in today :)
Nice, sounds like your weekend plans are coming together :)

-Static
Addictive doesn't even begin to describe it, but yeah I need to find a tire sponsor riki-tik. :)

Running on a bigger track has a lot of appeal for our platforms. Being able to take advantage of some acceleration out of turns and on the odd straight is really where the I could see my car come into its own.

-Static
The club that I race with at Marina is infamous for setting up these, almost, insanely tight little courses. Lol. They're a Datsun 510 club...
I used to HATE some of the tracks that they came up with, but, now that I'm a bit more experienced they don't seem as tough anymore. They'll have at least one this year that will have me saying, "WTF was that?!?!?!??", though. They usually throw in a couple of fast courses every year as well. Ive still never bumped the rev limiter in second gear though.
I'm going to miss Marina. The people that run the show are very nice, along with all of the entrants. It makes it a fun experience no matter how the driving went that day.
Well my Torque Arm and LCAs come in today :)
AWESOME!!! :thumb:
I know what you mean about the tight courses. Even worse, the guys on the track team are all running little FWDs :) On the good side this means that some of the corners that they make tricky for them are a blast to trail brake into with just enough momentum to rotate clean and get right back on the gas as soon as the line starts to open back up. The bad side is some of their favorites like the decreasing distance slaloms just suck when it gets down to 2 car lengths and the car they are measuring off is a Civic EK hatch that I can put comfortably in my trunk or backpack. :)

I was watching some of Sam Strano's videos of his FS runs last year and I would love to run on some of the courses he was on. Its like they were made for the 5.0.

-Static
Lol.
I know it. Its those corners that we just can't keep the front end down all the way through that are the real challenge!
My first experience with a true slalom was just two weeks ago at Oakland. They set up walls of cones at Marina rather than the typical single cone. It was a challenge for me, I had to think about which side to start the slalom from for WAY too long...
Haha.
I didn't even notice if it might have been getting progressively shorter! There were two, a long and a short, but I think they were both evenly spaced... I'm going to definitely watch for that in the future!
There's another club, American Autocross, that has events at Marina as well. Their tracks cater more towards our cars. I guess that I'm a glutton for punishment because I've never even been to one of their events. Everyone that I talk to says that their tracks are fun but the way that the event is run is kind of disorganized and there's a lot of waiting around. Everyone seems to favor the 510 club events so I just drove with them last year. This year, I might give the American Autocross at Crows Landing a shot... providing it doesn't interfere with Marina.:)
I think that there are three big events at Crows Landing this year. I might try them all!
It's the long straightaways where you guys with the 5.0's leave me in the dust!
I'll get KILLED on those long runways... But it will sure be fun!!! :)
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I have only been on one course so far which could be considered a "long straight" but even at that I never hit the rev limiter in 2nd. I would love to actually hit third sometime :)
After getting burned the first time I encountered a decreasing distance slolam, I make sure to pace those things off every time I do a course walk. It seems like a little thing but you can definitely tell the people who aren't ready for it (they are the ones with the last cone in the slolam stuck under their car) :) Increasing distance setups are interesting too, same track but backwards in the afternoon runs. If you are tricky, you can come out of them faster than you went in, if not you wind up sideways coming out of the series and completely screw your time for that run, don't ask me how I know.

-Static
Well, after a couple months of waiting for my new wheels and tires to come in, I finally got to run them last weekend and what a difference! I am still trying to find the new traction limits and it is going to take a while to go through the data that I was able to collect from the last event but the difference is night and day. This last event was out in Utah on an old airport with 3 different surfaces, asphalt, flat smooth concrete, and heavily grooved concrete. The new tires performed very well on all surfaces and the lighter unsprung weight definitely helped minimize lateral shift on high g transitions between surfaces. This was a bigger track than I have run in the past and it was nice to be able to use 3rd gear for once. All in all, very happy with the new wheels and tires. Will update throughout the season with further experiences.

-Static
Well don't keep us in suspense... What kind did you get?
Ah sorry, I thought I posted what I ordered up above. I went with the Enkei Racing PF01 18x8.5 and Hankook RS-3 v2 200TW in 255/35R18. It's kind of an odd setup and they look tiny on the car but it does have the advantage of lowering the CG by over an inch without changing any suspension components or ride height.

-Static
Haha
I find that pretty isn't always fast.
I'm glad the new setup is working well for you. Going to 200 tread wear is a big difference from 300's. I don't think that I could go back...
It will take you a bit to work up to the new "edge" of those tires but the confidence level that you feel on 200's is incredible. And they will get better by about the fourth race. I had my Dunlops dismounted and turned around on the rims after about 7 races and they are still in pretty good shape.
Well, my year was a giant misfire! I bought a set of Hoosiers and raced on them one time before the series that I was in got cancelled. Not only that, I installed a new Torsen differential 3 days before I heard of the cancellation. :(
It was too late to be in the points contention in any of the other series so I'm going spend the rest of the season putting together a new car built specifically to run in ESP on the Hoosiers. I've found a loophole in the rules that should even up the playing field and get me closer to the Coyote powered cars, as far as power to weight ratio goes.
Where in Utah did you race?
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Sucks to hear about the series cancellation, it sucks to do mods getting prepped for something only to have the rug pulled out at the last second.
One the good side, it sounds like you are well on the way to ESP greatness. What new car are you building?

We were racing in St. George at the old airport. I am digging the new setup, and I am definitely the weak link in the equation so it is time to do some data analysis to figure out what I can do better.

Here are a couple of links to the final run of the day for me on day 2.

Inside view with with telemetry and reference lap overlay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1aTY7Ztz78

Outside view

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnF6VCVAwXI


-Static
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I'm trying to look at it the same way. I'm going to focus on doing mainly SCCA championship events next year and, hopefully, in 2016, I'd like to do the entire SCCA National championship tour. It's usually 5 west coast events and 5 east coast with it ending in Lincoln, Nebraska for the National Championship.
Greatness? I don't know... Probably more of a reality check. :lol:
I bought another True Blue Bullitt. It's exactly like the car that I already have. It spent it's life in San Francisco and was backed into by a big truck so its pretty beat up, but I paid so little for it that I'm going to be able to fix it and not be under water on it... Too bad. lol

As you know, it can be helpful to ride with faster drivers, and better yet, get faster drivers to drive your car with you as passenger. A lot of times, guys get to thinking that the car is maxed out and the only way to get any faster is to start modding. It helps to have someone that can show you, first hand, that there is more left in the car.
I don't think that's you though.
Just gotta go do it. Keep pushing yourself and the car harder and harder.

I'll watch the vids when I get moment.
:)
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That looked real smooth!

So what kind of setup are you using to do the telemetry? That's pretty neat! Although it was a little distracting, I had to watch the vid a few times to see a complete lap. Lol.
I can see where that would be useful information, though...
I am using an application called Harry's Lap Timer. The OBDII data is being collected with a PLIX OBDII wireless transmitter. GPS and GeForce data are from the iPhone internal sensors.

The info is better than nothing but it is far from good. The sampling rate are not nearly fast enough to really get a full data set for analysis but on the good side major mistakes I make do show up in the analytics. It's hard to see in the video but the series right before the slalom on the back side I have a major hesitation which puts me off the line for a good slalom entry which in turn screws up my break point and downshift point for the hairpin.

I lose almost a second there vs my reference lap and then go on to make it up and then some on the last third after the hairpin.

The nice thing is that I can see the things I need to work on for my driver mod but it isn't really sophisticated enough to do more than rudimentary car setup analysis. That does remind me, I really need to find a set of scales like badly.

-Static
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That's pretty cool!
It's amazing what these phones will do. I haven't looked into it but there must be something similar for my Galaxy.
I should just start off small though and get a Gopro... lol
That's pretty cool!
It's amazing what these phones will do. I haven't looked into it but there must be something similar for my Galaxy.
I should just start off small though and get a Gopro... lol
Yes, GoPro definitely.
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