I went to the solo yesterday for my first time and oooooh my I'm dangerous right now! I can't wait to try it myself! But first, where do I start? I'm thinking 17x7's with good 225's and F/R sways. My car came with some kind of "lowering springs" and I know that's not good enough. Coilovers? Struts and better springs? How important are brakes? ALK's? OR Should I run what I have now for the Subaru Challenge and go from there? I've built a few track day cars and know what's needed for that, but I'm new to AutoX. My ride is a 03 Sonic Sedan and it's my daily driver. I have Cobb 2 v93 and catless TBE. Where would you start knowing my goals? Thanks!
There are a whole lot of questions that can be answered there. First, starting mods should be none. Its a great idea to learn how to control your car now rather than when its faster. I know for many of us, the mod bug is hard to refuse. If thats the case, check out the SCCA rules for SoloII and find a class that you would be competitive in with a reasonable amount of money. Stock classes and street tire classes are a great way to start, because you only need a few suspension mods. Brakes are very important, but don't go with a big brake kit. That would really only help you if you were doing lots of track days. I would just suggest fluid, pads, and lines. That would really help to give you feedback in your brake pedal and a lot of extra grip. Swaybars and struts are a good place to start. Springs can definitely help out a lot later on. You should run whatever you have at Subaru Challenge, the best modification is upgrading the "nut behind the wheel". The hardest thing that I had to learn was slow in fast out. I hope that helps.
I've autocrossed two cars and I'm worse than either of them, stock off the showroom. My opinion is just come out and throw the car around. I've been messing with my car this summer and missed all of the autocrossing. (Well, I gotta give myself some slack and say that lots of things have kept me busy.) Anyway, I think a person should keep the stress down and just come out with what he has. Heck, we're not being scouted by ProDrive, I figure. DD
I'm not too worried about winning a class. I guess my goal is to get a car that's similar to most WRX's so that it's more of a driver challenge than anything. So what's most common mods and class for a WRX??? So you vote for stock sways and brakes for the Challenge? So my second question is: who's going to ride shotgun with me? hahahha.... I've got my heart set on some 17x7 Prodrive P7's because of cost, tire selection/price, looks, durability, and quality. 8" wide wheels would be nice, but with suspension set right it's not going to make too much difference. Tire compound is the key, right? Is going with these wheels a major 'oops?'
I vote for going with what you can get without much stress. I know that I'll leave the Subaru Challenge wondering whether I have my sway bars set right. The fact will be that I'm just not smooth and no setup will correct that. Now that I've changed my suspension, I'm gonna have to resist the temptation to wonder whether I got the technology right. DD PS: I'm sort of curious what I'm going to see out there. A lot the folks who post have very unique cars, but we have more cars registered than regularly post, as far as I can tell. PPS: I'm lookin' forward to those fuzzy dice. My car's pretty boring.
Only going .5" wider than stock doesn't open your tire options up really. I would suggest at least a 7.5. That is the minimum wheel size to get a 235 on. The most common classes for the WRX are the STX (thats why they call it STWRX) and DS. There are a few street prepared, prepared, and SM WRX's floating around, but they require a lot of mods to stay competitive. Going with a set of Hawk HPS or similar high friction pad wouldn't be a bad idea at all for the road and autox'ing. They will have been broken in nicely before the event actually happens. A custom alignment helps big time as well. Just giving yourself more camber up front and less in the rear will make the car handle neutral. You can also do adjustable struts in the stock class. If you get bored with the stock class, you can always move up to STX by adding more suspension mods.
you're in SM with the cobb stg 2 though, gotta run in stx with the cobb stx map since you can't go back to stock with your springs. Might as well get your sways and an alignment and some fat tires.
Nope, you are wrong. The catless TBE puts the car in ESP. If you were to swap the turbo, the car would be in SM. Although, nothing is stopping you from running a completely stock or mildly modded car in SM. Listen to ClemsonScooby, as he knows what he is talking about. -- Brian
I didn't see that you had a catless TBE. You might as well go all out now that you are in ESP. You need springs, struts, sways, and a custom alignment to really compete in ESP, not to mention R compounds. I competed in ESP with springs and an uppipe for a while, because I starting modding my car before I knew about SCCA. I got used to getting beat up in ESP for over a year, especially when they had EVO's still in ESP. Just slowly add things to your car and learn how to utilize them. Thanks Brian.
That's the PERFECT answer to my questions. So it looks like I'll be getting my ass handed to me in the ESP class for a while. So whoever is getting beat at every event right now, it's your lucky day. There's a good chance I'll be in Colorado this winter. That's a whole new world of fun...
Yeah, to have a nationally competitive ESP car, I would imagine that you would have to spend at least $10k in mods. Stock classes are much easier for prep, and cheaper. We are aiming to have my wife's car to be nationally competitive for A-stock next season. It would cost about $4500 to copy the setup from her STi. We have about $6k into it now if you count her extra set of wheels and tires. R-compounds really change the game, and once I drove a car with them, it is hard to go back to the idea of AutoX on street tires. The only issue is that the v710s work out to $10 an autoX run, so make sure you can afford this before switching. Until you get seriously into autoX, don't worry about your car being competitive, and just compare yourself to your friends running with similar mods. It is a fun, addicting hobby. -- Brian
I never heard the math, but $10/run is not bad at all. I could definitely deal with that. I went with the Hoosier's R to save a little $. It really hurts when they aren't warm, because its easy to get sideways. I know what you mean about the street tires though, not nearly as fun. You can always use tire squeeling as a comparison of how well you are doing as well. If they are screaming you are pushing way too hard (VERY common). You need to have it so you are only getting minor churping through the apex. If you can do that, moving to R's will be easy.
The Kumho V710s love to be cold, and seem to last about 100 runs if you flip them after 60 runs or so. -- Brian
My plans are to get some Kumho MX's, then once those are toast I'll be ready for R's. Does anyone have some time on those? For the $ they seem okay.
I would get Hankook R-S2 tires. They seem better for autoX than the MXs, and are cheap. Discounttiredirect.com has them with free shipping. -- Brian
I believe some national competitors in STX have competed with the MX's on their WRX. It also depends on how much wet traction you want, assuming you will use these on the street as well. I know the Azenis have improved their wet traction drastically. Overall, the tires won't really matter at this point, because there is so much understeer built into our cars. Go get a set of camber bolts for the rear and a custom alignment, or just get them along with a set of new tires.