I have just taken delivery of a new '05 MCSa. Do we have any experience autocrossing the MCS automatic?

The car seems much better at low speeds than my '03 MCS, and the new car has even lower gearing than the re-geared standard MCS. I think this could be a good ride. Anybody else had a chance to give the auto a go?

I have a set of X-lites that I want to use for autocross, or autocross/ street. Should I be trying to get even lower profile tires to enhance the gearing, or am I better off trying to stay with the standard sized wheel & tire combos?

I won't be running R tires, I have too far to drive to events and back, and don't want to haul & change wheels & tires. Where I am, its wet at least half the time, so I am hesitant to go with something like the Falken RT615 that is so popular - I need something that will allow me to autocross from dry to downpour, and drive to and from events. Falken 451s ? Goodyear GSDs?

Thanks in advance, and let me hear from you! I am still in 'break-in' but I need to buy those tires!

 

I answered you in the STX forum also:

Hankooks R-s2 z212 in a 225/45/16 are the hot setup according to Andy Basham (BMW 330i) who smoked everyone in STX in the rain at Toledo this past year. He ran shaved Hankook's in the dry with sucess at CENDIV events also. He happens to be a quick driver as well.

Run them full depth for rain. Gosh, they are even cheap!!!!
Link Here: http://www.edgeracing.com/cmdhankook

 

Thanks for the suggestion Minifinn, I will try to look for them locally. Shipping usually breaks the bank to Hawaii!

Any thoughts about the difference in gearing - the MCSa has a 14.89 first vs the manual's 11.4 (up to '05), and a second gear of 8.73 vs 7.18 for the manual. I have read people going to smaller diameter to improve gearing - with this difference in the auto gearing, would it be a good idea to stay with stock sizes or go with the small diameters? Any thoughts? Maybe Andy would give this some thought?

Thanks!
Jim

 

One of our local hotshoes runs his wife's MCSa every now and then in our BMWCCA events for a change of pace... He's daggone quick in it. It doesn't launch like an automatic, and it seems to work very well. I've ridden around the course in it and there seems to be little disadvantage on our very long (1.2-1.5 miles, 90-120 seconds in duration), very fast courses (hitting 90 mph on the long straights at times).

However, he did drop an axle one time... We thought he'd grenaded the gearbox, but it turns out that one of the axles just "fell" out. The local dealer had seen the problem before, too, which is disconcerting.

 

Thanks for the response. I still haven't gotten the miles on my new car to really try to maximize it's performance, but it sure feels strong. I got a little agressive with the throttle from a standing start and caught myself just as I heard the tires chip. That was using the manual mode, 1st gear, so I am feeling pretty encouraged that it will work well on an autocross course.

The speeds you are running must be for a track day or HPDE. We never see anything like that in our Solo 2 autocrosses, and certainly not a mile. But since you don't use all the gears in the 6 sp manual at the track, I would expect the auto to perform reasonably well . We will be without a track for a while, so no chance to check it out.

 

No, it's not an HPDE or at a track day... that's seriously on our autocross courses!

They're really more like time trials, IMHO... BUT, we've got one BIG open piece of asphalt for setup. I mean BIG...