After seeing my inside tire nearly leaving the ground, I think it's time for the stock front sway bar to go. This surface is not as grippy as other courses I run. I had someone tell me one time on concrete that I was carrying a front wheel airborne coming out of a particular corner. I didn't believe them but I guess these pics prove it was possible.

Evolution Autox School pics

 

you have the stock front sway bar now?!?!?! I thought you were saying in the other thread that you wanted to get one. If the latter is true then good luck, they are hard to find and very pricey...cusco makes a good strut tower bar

 

Yeah, stock front sway bar right now. I will be adding a Tripoint adjustable bar and mounts soon thanks to a friend who sold her RX-7.

Now what you sure about hard to find? I am going from stock sway bar to an aftermarket bar. I already have an aftermarket tower brace.

 

alright, I was thinking you meant the strut tower bar, not the sway bar....my bad. Sorry man

 

Personally, I think your car's cornering attitude looks just fine About as flat as possible considering nearly 1 G of lateral force

 

Damon,

Looks good! Was that Evo Phase1 and did you use this configuration?



Wondering what times you and your instructors got? Curious as to what times the different surfaces would produce (we have concrete). TIA.

 

No HedgeHog, it was Phase II I took. Apparently now in Phase II they no longer time runs and I feel that is a good idea. The course layout is bigger and more technical than Phase I and we ran it 4 very different ways. Only got 10 mins to walk the course once in the morning, so every time you took a different route you had to recall where to go purely from memory.

It's a big help having a "coach" who can point out right away your biggest weaknesses so you can spend time improving them as opposed to something you are already doing well.

I took Phase I last year and our course was vaguely like that. From the start a 4 cone slalom into a big carousel that you ran about 270 degrees around, hard into the power, through a chicane that was perfectly placed to try and completely f*ck your entrance into the chicago box and then a hard right out of the box. Getting a good entry into the box was tough for me all day as I recall.

Phase II stresses your mind much more than your driving; you have to constantly evaluate the course since it changes so often and you just blast off into it each time without benefit of a walk through.

 

Front TP alone may be too much understeer at autox (but ok for big tracks). Tendency to pick up inside front will likely increase, if g's go up. TP front usually goes with RB rear.

Addco front would fit in stock pivots, and would reduce roll, and be a smaller step toward more understeer.

No official protest, but your stock ride height 93 looks a lot lower than mine, esp in rear. :o

Check out WRC rallys on speed channel to see how to handle a hairpin on tarmac. Impressive!

 

I have seen it and recognize I do not poccess that ability at this point!

As for picking up the wheel the bar will help that. The inside wheel picks up because the chassis rolls and the inside runs out of droop. By the fact that a thicker bar will keep the chassis from rolling it should help that tremendously. I do understand this will increase understeer but at this point I can afford that; the front has more grip than the rear. The Tripoint's adjustability is the reason to go to it over any other. If even at full soft I find this bar too hard I can buy a different tube from Mazdacomp for about $125 if I remember correctly.

 

"The inside wheel picks up because the chassis rolls and the inside runs out of droop"

This is not likely to occur, unless car is bouncing, due to oem fr bar. Have you jacked up front to a full droop cond'n, both wheels off ground, and compared with your pics? Based on pics, more likely hitting bump stops on outside wheel ... similar lift result, and if true, the stiffer bar may stop this.

Tri-point 1/8" wall tube would be a good place to start, call 'em to verify.

 

That is a good idea to jack up the car and compare to pics. I will measure the height of the front license plate and use that to determine how high the inside is and how low the outside is.

If you look closely you can see clear rock guards on the front fenders. When the car is parked those things are about 4 inches from the ground. The bottoms of both are scraped up from touching the surface during the runs.

I don't think the car was hitting the bumpstops because I removed them last year on the front Without the bumpstops on the front the tires will rub the fender liners at full compression and I didn't find any signs of that upon inspection afterwards.

 

Would scca rules for SS allow you to run R1 springs?

 

First off R1 springs, base springs and touring springs are all the same. The R1 has stiffer struts than base, the touring softer. Springs and bars are the same among all models.

A car can be "transformed" into another model as long as ALL the parts are added. For instance I have a base model. No front strut tower brace and only one oil cooler. If I wanted to add just the brace, I would also have to add the additional cooler so my car would be equipped exactly like an R1; I can't just add the parts I want according to the letter of the rules. Cosmetic mods are allowed so the front and rear spoilers would not be an issue.

There was a big problem with the Z51 vettes a while back. Many people upgraded their suspension to Z51 spec, but were still illegal because they didn't add the power steering cooler included in that package as well.

 

Im going to say you need stiffer shocks and not th ebar!
I had that problem but shocks make the difference... Think about it.. If you have less roll and compression by the stocks you wont have that issue.

My car will not lift a wheel anywhere with stock bars


thats a 90 degree turn @ 45 mph! The car was like a rock.. Check your bushings and endlinks. if they are ok then i would upgrade struts!!

 

How is your car going around a 90 degree turn with the wheels pointed straight ahead? I haven't taken that class yet

 

One more time guys. Shocks do NOT control roll! They damp the springs. You may percieve that they do because when you put on a stiffer shock the car does not lean as much in transitions; such as slaloms. What a shock does is effect the RATE at which weight transfers accross the car, but the total amount of transfer is still the same. In a slalom the car constantly changes direction and so never really "settles", this tricks you into thinking your stiff shocks are controlling roll. Go through a sweeper and you'll find the car will still keel completely over no matter how stiff your shocks are.

Only things that support weight on your car are the springs and the torsion of the sway bars when cornering. Only ways to fight chassis roll are

1) stiffer springs
2) stiffer bars
3) tires so hard that they don't grip

 

4) lower car

 

addendum to 3)
tires with a taller/stiffer sidewall ... like 245/45