STF posts

[justjesus]

AutoX this weekend with speedventures!

[ilikerice]

Originally Posted by cali yaris

Yes. The front sway bar rocks. Does NOT cause more understeer.

yea, probably doesn't. Adam Neylans with his honda fit runs with a front sway bar but not a rear. says it helps with his cornering. Not sure how. Driving styles I assume.

I would play with tire pressures a bit more before jumping on a front sway bar personally

[racerb]

My reason for asking is simple, I live on a long dirt road, so could not do coil-overs without trailering my car to events. So I went with a simpler and cheaper Tokico HP, TRD spring set up, so I can still drive to and from events. However this set up is proving not quit stiff enough and a larger front bar seemed the next logical step. Was hoping someone had actually run a similar set up and could give some feedback on their experience.

racerb

[ilikerice]

Ahh.. I see. Yea, I would try the front sway bar then. What tire pressure are you running front and rear?

[racerb]

I'm using the old shoe polish trick, starting high and dropping until I get a little more roll-over toward the sidewalls. Oh and I'm running Kumho XS 205/50/15s, usually starting out between 40-42 front, 38-40 rear. On Sunday I was actually down to 36 front, 32 rear by my last run and had I not screwed that run myself, was on a 29 second run. Still would have been over a second off the top STF Mazda in our Region.

racerb

[ilikerice]

interesting. When and where is the next autocross in your region? I wanna try to hit up an event soon.

On another note, Ran into a couple of people in a Top Gear panel at DragonCon from North Carolina region. I asked them what class they were running in but gave me some vague answers and didn't quite understand what they were talking about.. I wanna run into them again.

[racerb]

We have an NCAC event in Charlotte in October, not sure I'll make that one. Then the Region is back up at Cherry Point Air Station in November, trying to make this, then back here in Wilmington at CFCC November 30-December 1.
http://www.ncrscca.com/Solo

I'm also thinking of making the drive up to a few Triad events, but not sure right now, since I'll be heading to Indy in a few weeks.
http://www.auto-x.com/schedule.php

I've noticed, and maybe it's because I've been away from Auto-xing for sooo long, the people in general seem a little stranger than I remember. The whole new, read way too many, classes and structure seems to have diluted the overall feel of the events. I liked the good old days of Stock, Street Prepared, Prepared, Mod, and Ladies, that was it!

racerb

[cali yaris]

It would be a lot of fun to swap cars for some runs. And yes, suspension tuning has a lot to do with driving style.

[justjesus]

Originally Posted by cali yaris

It would be a lot of fun to swap cars for some runs. And yes, suspension tuning has a lot to do with driving style.

Oct 5, with SCCA autoX, they're putting together a "Cup" race with teams. I forget the details, but like a team of 3 drivers, 3 cars, at least two of those being different drivetrain configurations.

[ilikerice]

Yea, especially with the new Road Tire class for stock cars. RA (Road tire Awd), RR (Road tire Rwd) and RF (Road tire Fwd). Its just getting crazy now

[racerb]

Originally Posted by ilikerice

Yea, especially with the new Road Tire class for stock cars. RA (Road tire Awd), RR (Road tire Rwd) and RF (Road tire Fwd). Its just getting crazy now

My good friend David came out to run with us on Sunday, ran in Road Tire Rear with a base class of D Stock. It had been close to 15 years since he'd run, I thought he was going to have a stroke just trying to register on-line. I told him that was a lot of the reason I chose STF, it was just easier to settle on this class and work to become competitive.

racerb

[ilikerice]

First place in Pax again at our North vs. South shootout at Roebling Road Raceway.

Was .6 ahead of 2nd place in pax. And that was just my clean run

[ilikerice]

Results from the event

1st in pax and 7th in Raw out of 79 drivers

http://buccaneerregion.org/ce9-jax10-13.html

[MattPSC]

So, what are folks doing to fit standard 2.5" ID springs on these cars?

Looking at the H&R coilovers since they are apparently rebadged Bilsteins (which can be revalved at a reasonable cost). Anyone know the lower perch diameter?

[xnamerxx]

Lower perch is 62mm, upper perch I used a K-Sport perch which is the same dia. The rears are just about 3" so you'll really wanna pickup a setup of Megan/Tein/ksport rear adjusters if you want any sort of spring selection. I was running on 3x8 springs for quite a while but as a started going up in the spring rates and lower in the ride height adjustability just wasn't there.

Bilstein will work on them but you really have to talk with Juan before you send them in since its not quite a standard setup.

I used a Koni 2.25-2.5 adaptor and shaved the inside to fit. But I also ran on the undersized perch upfront with little issue, the rear you'll need to put a metal sleeve otherwise the spring won't sit correctly and make tons of noise.

[MattPSC]

Ah, good stuff. Missing the ability to hit an autocross or a track day on a whim like when I had my STS CRX Si, and having a fun, yet practical daily driver. Having autocrossed and raced VW's after that I'm no longer scared of twist beams and struts.

I can't find very good descriptions of the off the shelf valving on the H&R's, or on the spring rates. Are they passable (similar to a Bilstein PSS) or merely for lowering? Could they handle more spring without revalving?

[xnamerxx]

I didn't use a real tool when I tested the spring rates and the springs are variable as well but the fronts were close to 280lbs and the rear was 200lb-250lb. Very similar to the PSS, and HR will give you next to no information about the springs.

I don't have a copy of the valving infront of me but I do at home. From what I remember the front was valved pretty well for 300lbs and the rear for about the same. With my revalve set to be really digressive and not having much lowspeed compression it handles my 500f/600r springs much like a set of adjustable turned to soft. Its going in to be revalved in a month or so to handles the higher spring rates the car is currently running. I've been talking to Bilstein to see if it would be possible to add either an adjustable shaft or a compression canister to the rear shocks, but haven't made much headway, I may end up hacking up the rear shocks and doing it myself if I can't proceed forward.

[MattPSC]

You may want to talk to Marcus Merideth. I've emailed back and forth about converting some PSS to adjustable with the new needle valve shafts Bilstein offers. Unfortunately the shafts themselves are $250 each for a single adjustable, not counting the labor...