Thanks for the wisdom killerxromances.

So has everybody got it? Your tC is a POS! You should take it to the nearest junk yard and pay to have it destroyed! Then hitchhike to the nearest scion dealer and buy a "real performance machine! The XB! YEE-HAW!

The MAN(killer) HAS SPOKEN..........the rest is up to you

 

Also not what i said. All i said in reguards to the xb is the xb can out handle the tC. Also can pull better times in autocross providing theres not a long straight away. If that bothers you, then oh well. But i never said the xb was a real performance machine. Neither is the tC or xa. Which i also used other light weight cars to further explain this.

 

I think we should all relax now and take a breath, or is it the other way around

No Scion is a perfect autocross car, all have their faults but those same faults are what make them unique and fun cars, mostly;)

Since none of us bought our cars specifically for autocross(none I am aware of anyway) we just need to learn how to use what we have to the best of our abilities, in mods and our driving skills.

I agree autocrosses can have some what of a risk of damaging your car but far less than playing out on public roads at anywhere near the speeds(in tight corners, etc) than is even remotely safe out there. And you seldom risk hurting others and if you do they are there having signed a waiver knowing full well they are participating in a slightly dangerous event, not some innocent bystander getting hit by a very dangerous street racer.

You reminded me of something, back in the early 70's I attended my first autocross, just happend to be driving by, it really caught my attention so I came to the next one and watched as well. Then I got a rule book and studied it to see where my car fit in, made a few mods to comply, or be quicker as needed and started running.

I had a bit of advantage over most of todays drivers, I grew up in the country with snow, rain, gravel, dirt, twisty paved roads, etc and had a lot of practice before I ever entered an event.

I won 23 out of 25 events I ran that car in, one third place in my ex wifes wagon because my car was to far apart doing some mods to get it back together in time and a second place after working all night and driving 200 miles to an event, rushing to get registered, inspected and into line to run.

BUT, that does not mean I was the best driver in the world, I knew I was decent at best, I just prepared my car better than anyone else and practiced as much as I could.

I was then the PR guy for the club and had the keys to an old airstrip where we ran most of our events, it was big enough to hold road races on which we did as well. I burned up alot of tires there, dialing in the car and myself. Every single event I attended I had made at least one more improvement to the car and it was faster and faster and so were my competitors and I shared with them every single detail that worked, no fun winning by a mile, I usually won on the last pass in fact and barely!

At the last event I ran the car at we had a guy come out in an off the showroom floor Fiat X19 and he was very fast and smooth, he owned the dealership infact. I kept him busy while everone was leaving then snuck over and locked the gate and would not let him go until he drove my car(on the full road course) and let me know what he thought of it, which he was very impressed. BUT, he was a full two seconds faster than I had ever been on his first flying lap!!!

I had to really twist his arm to find our where he bacame so good, he was a prior SCCA Formula Ford National Champion, then I knew my true level as a driver and was ok with that.

Later that week we were putting together a deal to buy an incredibly well built 510 Datsun race car(it truely was better than the BRE cars, simply amazing construction) and I was going to a couple of schools to learm more skills then going on national tour as a paid driver and trainer, mechanic as well. The catch was his son was going to fly to all the events, except in the summer when he would ride along, and intern under me. After the first season, his son would become of age and be the driver, I was totally cool with that as knowing his father, I knew we would be wise to have him drive(he did gokart racing for years by the way;)

Unfortunately before the deal went through the car was raced one more time and totally destroyed in a very stupid "accident" caused by a vette driver that hated getting his butt kicked by a 510 Datsun, vette driver lost his license permanently over it.

Later on the young gun I was to work with earned national championships in FF and later numerous ones in what have become very sophisticated and fast D Sports Racers. He may not even know the story of how we would of worked together for a couple of years or more.

That was my one chance to go big time racing(big time to me!) never had another offer of anything near that but ok with it, just the offer was an honor to recieve.

OK, rambled on a bit but the real bottom line here is no matter what you drive, you can go out and in relative safety(very few autocross accidents occur) and learn to be a far better driver. You can become safer for yourself and others on the road and meet alot of really great people, most are that autocross

Rick

 

^
Honestly, no car is designed for autcross. Even cars like the mini and STi for example, amazing handlers but always can use an improvement.

I didn't buy the box specifically for autocross, but i knew i was going to keep up the sport with my next car. Which is in part why i bought the box, light weight, saw potential, while it looked top heavy in reality it isn't and its paid off. Last year, and first year running in the box i finished first 6 of 8 events. Raam, you are far more experienced than i am so i could probably learn a few pointers from you. I'm not a professional, but i do consider myself better than average driver. For the fact i know how to control my car, i know its limits and how to use what i have to advance myself.

Once you master basics of your car, something also usful is when you do go to the track, study what others are doing. Study how their cars handle, when they brake, when they acclerate. This allows you to get a step up on the competition because you are in a sense pre-preparing for your runs. Another tool would be have someone record your runs. Study your own runs and see what the car needs or what it could do without. Study your actions and reactions. Always room to improve, and believe me, one slight, split second fault can cause your time to be slower. Its usually the little things added up that you need to improve on.

Ususally no one gets hurt in autocross, you are correct. But it can happen, and it does occasionally. People need to be reminded to use their better judgement on certain things because things can go wrong. Oh yeah, i've never been to a autocross event that didn't require people attending and drivers both signing waivers.

 

You have done very well with your car I will have to check one out more closely when I see one at an event this year, maybe I can drive one, would be fun

A video camera inside the car is a great learning tool as well. Things happen so fast autocrossing it is hard to be on top of it and learn from your mistakes, once you get fast that is, lol!

The best thing you can do is ask for an instructor ride, I had a few when I started running again in 2003 after not doing anyevents for a number of years. I learned alot about my driving and my car setup.

I have to agree on the little things, I have never made a perfect run in my life, close a few times, a few that had some segments that I was actually cheered for but still faulted during at least one part of the run or worse!

Two very key things that will help anyone become faster, one may be used less on the street, left foot braking. I have a heck of a time with it in a car but do it well right away in a go kart for some reason.

One thing you can practice on regularly, I do it all the time when safe to do so, threshold braking, maintain your speed as late as possible in a straight line, jump on the brakes just hard enough to not lock them up and then as you slow they will begin to grab so you have to match that with less pressure on the pedal. Most of your braking is done in a straight line over very short distances that way. This enables you to carry more speed more often, when coupled with proper corner entry and exit speeds and position for the next turn(s) can dramtically improve your times.

This is a rather difficult skill to learn for most of us and in a turbo car, with just enough throttle, you can keep the turbo spooled up, releasing the brakes as you start accerating, helps control wheel spin to better utilize your power potential. It prevents a sudden spike in power that can break traction and that is not good, then you just start drifting off line or have back out of the throttle, turbo cars are difficult to balance sometimes but sure fun learning!

Then their is ABS, once we get our car further dialed in I will focus on wether or not to keep it, it has failed my in two runs so far but that was with a BBK with pistons to large allowing to much fluid flow and tripped up the ABS. It went into four wheel antilook but not correctly, barely slowed at all and blew right by a tight turn before I could react. I have since replaced the calipers with a better piston size but have not had th4e chance to run an event yet, seems fine on the street but then again, I seldom want to be diving into corners that deeply and have to where to go it if acts up so I do not do so. I will wait for the proper place to do my testing.

Now it is time to back to work on our turbo manifold

Rick

 

^
All i can say is...agree'd!

 

"Unfortunately before the deal went through the car was raced one more time and totally destroyed in a very stupid "accident" caused by a vette driver that hated getting his butt kicked by a 510 Datsun, vette driver lost his license permanently over it."

Did the guy actually ram the car?

If I were getting my but kicked by something with 1/3 of the motor I had, i'd probably want to ram them too. Fortunately I don't know of any fast 0.8 liter cars.


killerx: I've read that slamming a car with coilovers can actually decrease cornering potential. Something about lowering the center of gravity too much and the car tries to corner on two wheels instead of four. That guy with the tc may have actually hurt his lap times with his mods.

Everything im reading/hearing/learning indicates that optimum suspension settings are a precisely balanced thing that has many contributing factors.

 

wow, os glad i found this thread, been wanting to try auto-xing the box for a little while now
didnt have time to read the whole thing so
does anyon know of any events comming up in the NY, NJ area any time soon?

 

scolarbb,
I posted about this a couple of times. Most cars when lowered alot end up with severly compromised suspension alignment, worst being the roll center, a point at which the car rolls in a turn.
When the control arms are not lowered in relationship to the drop of the car the roll center drops to a greater degree than the center of gravity. The resulting roll couple, distance from the center of gravity to the roll center increases which puts more leverage on the outside tires, sway bars do not fix this problem, they can actually make it worse to a degree as well.

So, FWD, outside front tire gets loaded with a huge amount of the cars weight and it is trying to stop, turn and accelerate and do most of the work of all the tires, the outside rear has it relatively easy so just goes along while the front tire is screaming for mercy and you are not usually heading in the direction you intend, understeer is increased dramatically.

When we had our car lowered to approx even with the tops of the tires/fender openings, maybe 1/4" clearance, we autocrossed and the car just did not feel right. We measure the roll center and it was on the ground!

Optimum is between around 2.5 to 5" above the ground depending on the car. We raised the car around 1/2" and the roll center raised right around 2" and the car handled far better, much more competitive times the next event out.

This can be cured without raising the car, if you want to modify all the pickup points for the control arms and or modify the ends of them as well, cut and welding, long shaft ball joints installed, etc. OR, as we would love to have, billet steering knuckes, know anybody what would make us some for cheap??? LOL, I wish!

Take a stock tC, install some very good tires and light wheels.

Take a fairly moded one(suspension wise) with a severe drop without modified control arms or pickup points, with the same driver the stock one just may be faster. Add at least a rear sway bar to the stock one, it will probably be alot quicker then.

This is a basic lesson guys, I have been doing this stuff for a very long time and continue to learn and feel like I am just a newb sometimes and I am an old dude now. I wish I knew what I now know back in my younger days and had the budget I do now. I have to rely on experience to go fast and sometimes my reflexes have a hard time keeping up!!!

Rick

 

So which wheels are choice? I like the Enkei RPF1's the best now. Reasonable price, supposedly tough, and pretty light. I've just recently coming into the available funds stage of life and $1000 wheels/$1000 dampers still kindof feel like throwing money away. Are there any good $100-$150 light weight wheels or are RPF1's the best entry level wheel?

 

I honestly feel the RPF1's are far better than an entry level wheel, very durable via personal experience, very stiff so do not flex(all wheels flex a bit).

I ran a set for 10k miles that was either on the way to or autocrossing or canyon running on 235/40/17 Kumho Excta V700 R compound tires. When a car is setup stiff, driven hard, on sticky tires, the wheels get a very hard workout and all wheels fatigue over time.

On the very rare occasion I do something stupid in a car I was woke up at 4AM by a mutual buddy that was in town for a visit with our other friend. They were on the way to the airport and he had been wanting a ride in the car but was to busy the whole time visiting. Ok, I get up, was up until 2AM working on the some mod or other, jumped in the car with him and headed down the road to a little off the beaten path one of the best corners I have ever seen, 3 linked corners, tight left, dive down a short steep hill, highly banked right hander the up a hill and a moderate left where you could really fly. It was my most favorite short demo ride road ever!

Anyway, I am half asleep, went bombing into the turn at the bottom of the hill, forgetting it was 4AM, near the ocean, a bit damp out, there was some sand on the road and he weighed 325 lbs, ooooppppppssssss.

We were heading sideways at a bit tree at 60+MPH, the corner is posted 25(really) and I had about 1,000,0000th of a second to react. I choose to keep my foot in it and go off roading, up over an angled asphalt curb, we launched a bit into the air, landed in a feild, I just keep the hammer down and drove out of it, best thing to do if you know how.

By the time we were back on the pavement the car was feeling just fine, I slowed, pulled over, no discernable damage in the dark. Limped home, he let out a big hollar about how much fun that was, lol!

Went to bed, in the morning I went about surveying for damage. The steel and the alumuinum plates for the pillow ball mounts on the passenger front strut were bent but repairable. One wheel had a slight bent out bead, three layer of masking tape, 8lb dead blow hammer and soft block of wood, let the air out, no more ding in the rim and not even visable.

That was it, no other damage, I checked the entire frame for alignment, then the suspension alignment, etc, etc, that was it, no cost, easy to fix.

I already knew I really liked the wheels, besides they have the same spoke pattern as their real Formula 1 wheels, and they have proven to be dang tough. That same set has been on another car for 2 years, autocrossed, track days, alot of street miles, still working just fine

There are some decent low weight wheels available but I do not know how they compare. I am sticking with the RPF1, have a sweet spot in my heart for them, have them on our car for the street/rain tires and will have another set soon for slicks

Rick

 

They come recommended by several people as do the falken rt-615's. I plan to call hankook this week to get some exact tire weights on the 212 line. 16" hankooks are probably going to be lighter than falken 17's. Bet I end up with 17's tho. Still not sure on tires; 615's don't sound like very good daily drivers. I hit triple digits alot sometimes even on wet roads like this morn. (and to all the drama queens :no one else was around when I did it)

 

You may very well want the 212's then, I am more than happy with them on our car. In one tire test they came out rated as grippy as the 614's but less accurate on turn in , which I think I can agree with but still dang fine tires.

Rick

 

Hankook R-S2 Z212

225/45/16 21.7lbs 23.9diameter
225/50/16 23.9lbs 24.9diameter
225/45/17 23.6lbs 25.0diameter

245/45/16 24.6lbs 24.6diameter
245/40/17 24.7lbs 24.7diameter

What kind of mileage are 212's capable of ? I still feel BFG KDW's may be a better choice for the other 355-360 days of the year.

 

you guys got so lucky being in Hstock

 

Since ours is not a daily driver, not even sure how we got 6k miles in a year as seldom as it runs or we take it anywhere so milage is not a concern in our case.

We went with 235/40/17 for the best fit on the 8" wide wheels, great shoulder support, better response, if I remember lower weight, more tread width, whatever we figured out at the time. Maybe gear lower by a bit but ok with that as well.

Today I picked up a set of scuffed Hoosier AS303 in 245/40/17, man they are WIDE!!!! They were taken for two laps around a course, baged and stored in a the right temp for 24 hours then have sat for 2 years. A bit hardened now sadly but for $100!!!!!!! I am now going to search high and low for tire treatments to see if any can soften them back up a bit. At the very least this gives us something to test fit, tweak and tune on a bit, maybe they would hold up for a track day, etc. Considereing new they are over $200 a tire, can't go wrong!!

It was Christmas only better today, UPS brought us some cool goodies, full exhast and S pipe, gauges, catch tank, quick release hub, FPR from our newest sponsor, Megan Racing and I tell you guys, all this stuff is dang well built, the guages are especially fine, now to fit 5 guages and look clean!

 

Rick, I have to admit I follow all your threads. There aren't many (any) other racecar builds on this forum, especially that concentrate on suspension and suspension tech. Sadly most people on this forum either concentrate on the visual appeal for their car or blindly follow the standard upgrade path wihtout realizing the why's and wherefor's to actaully making everything work well together.

Thanks for the constant updates and advice. When are you gonna start a blog?!

 

good luck with those tires.. they're at least 2 years old hope you can bring them back to life! i had a set of 1 yr old hoosiers and never really brought them back around. i'm currently using Toyo RA-1's.. like they say, they suck.. but they suck for a loooong time durability counts when you're racing on a budget.

 

good luck with those tires.. they're at least 2 years old hope you can bring them back to life! i had a set of 1 yr old hoosiers and never really brought them back around. i'm currently using Toyo RA-1's.. like they say, they suck.. but they suck for a loooong time durability counts when you're racing on a budget.

 

Have you seen the last two F1 races? The announcers noticed that M. Schumacher and Massa both used left foot braking, but Alanso never used the throttle and brake together. I guess it's all car setup and personal preference.

I, too, have tried LFB but never got the hang of it--I do just fine without it. The best way to learn is in the snow. It makes a HUGE difference. Years ago I was out driving my Mazda 323 around the neighborhood after a snowstorm, and I just couldn't get the car to turn. Then I remembered LFB and tried it. It handled like it was dry pavement.

What about ABS? Is it an advantage or disadvantage in autocross or road racing?