My suspension setup: Breakfast Blend for the angry panda

[Loren]

Just watched the 3rd video. Yup, definitely faster. The segment that was taking 11-12 seconds on the other vids was down to 10 seconds. Which just shows that you're hitting one of the fundamental problems of trying to tune a suspension while you're still learning the finer points of autox/track driving. Stop me if you've heard this one before... "tune the driver first!"

You've just made more actual difference in your cornering ability by merely changing your driving technique a little bit than you did with all of the new mods that you did! I'm not saying don't mod the suspension, especially since you're so far along, anyway... but do find a point where it's "good enough" (have an experienced FWD autocrosser flog it and get their opinion) and just leave it alone while you learn to drive it.

I mentioned hand position above... look how your left hand is at the top of the wheel, often crossing 12:00 throughout the turn. Your right hand is doing the same thing at the bottom. Teach yourself to "shuffle steer" so that you're anticipating the turn and pre-positioning your hands so that in the middle of a big sweeping turn like that, they are at about 9 and 3. You'll have WAY better control that way. You'll be able to make smoother and more subtle corrections because you'll be turning the wheel using your arm muscles instead of your shoulder muscles.

You should make a road trip over this way for one of the Tampa area autocrosses sometime... or maybe we can get together for an event at Sebring. I'm a member of SAFE Motorsports, we could share an entry at one of their events.

[Tamago]

Originally Posted by Loren

Just watched the 3rd video. Yup, definitely faster. The segment that was taking 11-12 seconds on the other vids was down to 10 seconds. Which just shows that you're hitting one of the fundamental problems of trying to tune a suspension while you're still learning the finer points of autox/track driving. Stop me if you've heard this one before... "tune the driver first!"

You've just made more actual difference in your cornering ability by merely changing your driving technique a little bit than you did with all of the new mods that you did! I'm not saying don't mod the suspension, especially since you're so far along, anyway... but do find a point where it's "good enough" (have an experienced FWD autocrosser flog it and get their opinion) and just leave it alone while you learn to drive it.

I mentioned hand position above... look how your left hand is at the top of the wheel, often crossing 12:00 throughout the turn. Your right hand is doing the same thing at the bottom. Teach yourself to "shuffle steer" so that you're anticipating the turn and pre-positioning your hands so that in the middle of a big sweeping turn like that, they are at about 9 and 3. You'll have WAY better control that way. You'll be able to make smoother and more subtle corrections because you'll be turning the wheel using your arm muscles instead of your shoulder muscles.

You should make a road trip over this way for one of the Tampa area autocrosses sometime... or maybe we can get together for an event at Sebring. I'm a member of SAFE Motorsports, we could share an entry at one of their events.

i'd like that. i definitely have more work to go on the car (fix the destroyed engine next) i'll try shuffle steering next time i'm out there. i will also be lowering the car 2" as soon as the springs show up (the car is higher than stock in the front right now) so this may or may not help. we'll see! i also haven't aligned the car since yesterday. not sure it'd matter but after the 4" springs show up i'll go and align it again.

[Bluevitz-rs]

Bump :) I wanna read the rest of this thread later.......

[DeathBeard]

Originally Posted by Loren

I think camber plates on a Yaris is severe overkill. With slotted strut bottom holes on the K-Sport kit, I can easily get almost 3 degrees negative. You could get another degree or so by using crash bolts.

Did you slot the the bottom of the ksports or do they come that way? Any pictures?