Not forgetting that at all! Getting the power down on corner exit is your biggest concern, everything I said was related to that.

Seems like an awful lot. My personal approach is to minimize toe all around, even with my AP1 (some insist requires a ton of rear toe, I disagree). Any rear toe works the rears against each other to some degree, I wouldn't want more than 1/8" total, preferably 1/16", or even zero (which a lot of FD guys run). I've run 1/4" and more on my 240Z and S2000, intentionally and inadvertently, and it's *never* worked right. Eats rear tires and gives wonky handling characteristics, generally hurts both turn-in response and straight-line stability. I hate hate hate a lot of rear toe, and 1/4" is, to me, a lot.
With more front weight bias, you might try stiffer front bar and a stock rear or no rear bar. But first i'd bring the rear way down, to more even with the front. That will gain you rear grip.

What do you consider "perfect"? "Even across the tread" is generally not the ideal fwiw.

That's no reason to have the rear sitting that high. If you lower the rear evenly, you won't change corner weights. Chasing corner weights should not have led to jacking the back end up like that.

Setting up for the tracks you run makes sense.

Worried about wider front tires hurting aero, with the rears sticking out half a foot Love of Christ get some rear flares, please! FWIW, wider front tires isn't going to hurt your aero enough to slow your lap times at the speeds you should be running at just about any track, given your 650hp. Not saying you *need* wider than 295, though, but with all the front roll stiffness bias you're going to need to get your car working right, you're going to need as much front grip as you can get.

If the car is somewhat balanced-handling now, but having difficulty putting the power down (somewhat going to be the case no matter what coming out of slower to mid-speed corners with your power/weight!), I'd say you *do* need relatively more front grip, and more front roll stiffness.

I assumed the stagger was a lot more than 295/335 based on how much the rears stick out vs. the fronts. 20mm front fenders explains some of that. Can you bring the rears *in* any at all? For aero and also a wider rear track, while reducing left/right weight transfer overall, does put more of that weight transfer on the rears, => less rear grip (relative to if they could be brought inboard).

There's more than one way to set up a car, of course, but a few wrong turns can drive the rest of the set up in weird directions. First thing I'd do would be to bring the back end down to get the car somewhat level.

What does the car handle like now?

 

I personally found the 1/4" toe-in on the rear gave me the most stability and predictability, not really sure how to explain it. I've had a few suspension guys comment on that too.

I have managed to make the rear have a higher weight bias with a full tank of gas. I have to run my tank over 3/4 all the time so when I scale it, I make sure its full. This is with my fat *** (220-230 lbs) in the car and the tank full to the brim...



I think the picture gives an illusion of a really high rear but I think that is from the way I cut the fenders to get more tire clearance when it squats. It's actually not as high as it appears if I had proper fenders LOL. Take a look at the second picture I posted originally comparing the setups, look how the rear squats.

I actually softened the front bar to make the car handle better. I had a Racing Beat sway bar in the front which is really stiff at the beginning of the season. The front did not want to turn at all. So then I got the softer tri-point bar and set it in the middle. It was better but still not good enough so then I popped it one setting soft and it now turns much better.

The rears are tucked in as far as they can go with 7.5" backspacing. There is less then a finger to the coil-over so it definitely can't go anymore. When I was running the 12" rim, the tires were touching the shock until I added spacers (which I then removed when I went to the 14" rim). I want to tuck the fronts in 1/2" and stretch them from 10" to 11" to stiffen the front tire and give me more use of the tire. But budget was a limitation this year on everything I wanted to do.

Personally I'm getting really comfortable with the last setup the car has which is what I've listed. I can come out of corners on power and hold a smooth slip angle. The only thing I don't like is at turn-in, it doesn't want to turn in until I put my foot in the throttle. After which is turns in beautifully and reminds of my old 13b setup where I could steer with the throttle on easily. Basically, it doesn't want to coast and wants the suspension loaded for the car to work which works great as a motivator to keep pushing cause the car doesn't take any slacking haha.

thewird

 

Marco,
For the love of God, buy some Pettit flares. They're cheap.

Cool car. There MUST be a way to make an FD work with the staggered wheel setup, because Pettit raced it that way in SpeedGT. I can't imagine though, even w/ a square set up, I want more turn in.

 

For track use i intend to go to a square setup. A lot of understeer with my current tire combo, especially low speed. 255/40 NT01s will be my track and auto-x setup.

Jason

 

I damaged my left rear quarter panel when pulling the fenders the first time thanks to some bondo so I need complete panels like the Ronin Speedworks one.

More turn-in can be achieved with alignment settings.

thewird

 

Marco,
Everything about your setup says PUSH. You must be rolling in hard on the brakes and then hard on the gas out because there's no other way to make that car turn which means the car is never flat and thats SLOW because your are not balanced or aren't using all four tires at once.

I might be completely wrong though but given the info at hand:

Fat rear bar soft front bar (oversteer)
Jacked rear (oversteer)
Heavy rear (push)
Fatties in the back (push)
Lots of rear toe in (push)
More spring in the front (push)


The only things helping you turn are big bar in the back and the soft front bar along with jacked back.

Here's a cool simple setup chart:

A driver's guide to oversteer

 

As we know this car is so balanced it's easy to for the driver to manipulate so you can make it do pretty much anything with fresh tires and no doubt a high powered FD will need more rear tire but it will always come at a cost to corner speed. Tires equal grip loose some front tire and you just lost some grip however as mentioned loose some front tire and you just lost some serious friction/aero issues going down the straight so it's all give and take.

However for us amateurs it just makes more sense to run and equal setup both for tire wear and ease of setup.

 

My setup

f 2.5 equal camber
f 5.5 caster
Toe zero to 1/16

r 2.2 equal camber
Toe zero to 1/16

Flat car with slight rake. I have pretty big tires so I can't go as low as I'd like with out rubbing pretty bad.

Very little aero: GTC wing and GTC front bumper with no undertrays anywhere on the car this is the place I could improve the most. The car is low power (300 to 350) though so adding aero would slow it down on the straights.

Tires wear well and I've never taken temps, I also don't use a torque wrench so clearly science isn't my major (it's all feel and gut) so take anything I say with a grain of salt LOL

275 40 17 hoos R6 or Hankook c51s on 9.5 wheels. Cold pressures start at about 22 to 24 but obviously vary a bit front to rear right to left and hot out or cold etc..... Come in around 33 to 34 hot so probably 34 to 36 on track. Seems low on pressure but the car is pretty light (2800 with me in the seat) and if the pressure go above 36 it gets really greasy and I smoke the tires.

784 spring rate all four

Shocks Tein Super Racing 4 stiff rear (out of 16) 6 front (out of 16) and rebound the same because I don't know what I'm doing LOL

93 rear bar and tri point front bar set in the middle or 3rd hole from soft.

With all that said the proof is in the pudding as they and I can say unequivocally it's a very fast 8.5 to 1 powered car.

Here's a TT from VIR on the North course this year and it ran a 1.341. If you know this track you know how fast that is and it's mostly corners

 

My car isnt completely stock but still extremely quiet and emissions compliant. I would just love to see how it does against some of the other cars on track. I list the mods and hopefully Gordon's car is sorted and life allows me to be there for the event. Like I said, I will be glad to provide some wheels and tires for us to run on to see how equal the sequential 2 rotor is to an NA 3 rotor. I will definitely be giving up some power in the high rpms.

Mods are as follows.

3" Downpipe,
3" hi-flow cat
RB Duals(Thanks Fritz)
99 spec twins
AEM Water/Meth
Greddy Type S Coilovers
PFS front Sway Bar
Stop Tech Rotors and Hawk HPS pads
Pettit ECU running around 12psi


Thats all that probably matters as far as performance goes. Somewhere around 300rwhp and still running the stock intake and intercooler. Id be interested to see how well it could run in your hands.

 

I would get better pads for track use, but otherwise our cars are very similar and my car is very competent on track, more so than the driver

Jason

 

Mine is an R2 as well so probably more similar than you thought

I was figuring someone would suggest pads but I'm curious to see how it will do in street trim. Still not even sure I can make the event. Should know sometime in the next 3-4 weeks.

 

What is this torque thing of which you speak?

-bill "two pics of the FC!!" rankin

 

The TA1 TransAm cars (V8 Vette's, tube frame Mustangs, etc) with pro drivers were running around 1:55's this past weekend in pretty much perfect conditions. And those were the guys at the pointy end of the pack.

Sub-2:00 in anything that even remotely resembles a street car is insanely fast.

-bill

 

I was getting some fade 5 laps in at gateway in STL if i stayed full in it on the back oval leading to the straight, i started lifting around 110 instead of braking from 135-40 or so down to 80 for the entry into turn 1. Thats with HP+'s but also i was very new to my car, the first time i ever drove it fast was a HPDE, so i was probably a little harder on the brakes than i would be now a little more comfortable with the cars limits.

I just need a track where there isnt anything to run into if(when) i go off so i can really get a feel for what this car can do

Jason

 

Still waiting to hear back about the date, Monday November 18th. Have asked for options on all the courses and costs for each. Last time, the South Course was around $3,000 for 1/2 day. Would think the North or Full would be more. If we can get one of the courses for the full day, we are probably looking at needing 20 guys to sign up at $300 per person but let's see how it turns out.

For those that are interested, the goal here will be to go out and have a good safe time and to be able to compare the handling and power characteristics of different types of RX7s. I think we all want the good drivers to get a chance to drive our cars and then comment on them. What we don't want is for this to turn into an episode of "Pinks", where we try to beat someone else's car on the track and sacrifice safety in the process. Let's make sure we carry over the great experience of last time into this event and be safety conscious and respectful of one another. I know I am preaching to the choir for the majority of the community.

 

Do you at least have some additional ducting for the stock IC? I would be concerned about the intake temps at 12 psi with the stock IC. Don't forget that Mazda fried the engine during the early stages of track testing the series 8 when they started running more boost with the 99 twins with the same stock ducting to the IC on the original bumper. Frying that engine is also one of the reasons the series 8 has a bigger mouth opening.

 

No, the stock IC when ducted correctly is actually pretty efficient(considering) when the car is moving. The stock setup really struggles once heat soaked though. Also note I am running water/meth injection. While my abuse on the street is not comparable to on a track you can comfortably place your hand on the UIM after several hard pulls in 90 degree heat and the AC blasting on level 4. I'm not claiming it is as effective as a large SMIC, FMIC or VMIC but it isn't nearly as bad as most think.

 

No problem! The performancebox is a great tool to have. You can overlay multiple runs on top of each other to compare data. Helps to show where there's room for improvement Especially if you have multiple drivers in the same car on the same track. Plus who doesn't like to see speed, track location and g forces overlaid on their videos? For someone like you who tracks a lot it would be nice investment, but there's other less expensive options out there that should work about the same. HPDE beginners however, would be better off spending that money towards more events and exploring the limits of their car.


Hopefully you can So how many track events have you done and will anyone else be driving your car? At the very least I'd suggest Hawk HP+ (not great) or Ferodo DS2500's they're both streetable pads....If you want something more aggressive try the Hawk HT-10's. They're not street pads though! Don't forget to flush your brake fluid with something better (higher boiling point) than what pepboys offers (Brembo LCF600, Endless RF650, ATE Typ200, etc). The last thing you want on track is brake fade. You could also purchase some titanium backing plates if you wanted a little extra piece of mind.

I can't tell if this guys a good driver or not since there's no data to show if he's hitting 170mph or not, but it looks like he's pretty quick.

 

Count me in the 18th


Hoi

 

If you bring the car I'll bring some hawk blues and decent tires You really should get a nice smic in there though When run hard even an m2 large with twins will get too hot on a hot day. Plus 60c risk of blown motor plus 70c pretty much blown motor

I'd suggest adding a snail



Well look what the cat dragged in Love you baby and hopefully see you in Oct or Nov

Dan,
The ALMS car was chillin for sure or very new to VIR because that was a 2 minute lap. Don't get me wrong a 2 minute lap is quick but not in a big block race car.

 

I know a guy who can rebuild it if it does blow. . In all seriousness it's the original 64k mile motor and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if it lets go. I've got all the parts sitting around for me to single it and do what I want with it but hard to talk myself into it since the car runs so well as is.

 

I'm at your disposal if you need a nice engine build DJ

 

Funny, that's exactly how my 20b swap got started. I bought my 20b 3 months after purchasing the car. The car only had 65k. 3-1/2 yrs and 43k later she finally went. I was like damn "took you long enough" 20b time lol!

Water injection is the ticket for your setup.

 

Can I ask why you don't throw on a 62mm billet turbo with 1.15 exhaust housing on your car and run around 10-12lbs? The power curve would be incredible and not uncontrollable. I guess I will never understand the NA 20bs:why: Those doing all out NA 20b setups maybe I could grasp but a street oriented NA20b I just can't grasp when you can make a better torque and power curve with a 2 rotor for much less and just as good reliability.

 

That's the nice thing about my designed intake. It's designed to also take boost which one day it will get. I was thinking a Gt40r at some point down the line. My set up is pretty radical and has different power levels based on switch settings on my center console (valet, normal, sport, and race). Ferrari's aren't the only cars that can change it's performance with a switch. I'm trying to build something that's very modern in it's operation. One of these days you will get to experience a NA 20b and then you will say "Ahhh now I see why yall built it like this". Anyways I'm trying to build something Mazda should have built as an option or could build in the near future.