Curious what baseline alignment specs you serious AX guys are recommending for front/rear tow and camber? I dont care about street tire wear as much as extracting best performance from tires.

Thanks!

Grant

 

Are you on coils? Ride heights are just as important as alignment settings. Going off memory we were running -3 deg of camber in front and -1.2 in back. Slight toe out in front and zero toe in in rear. But yours could be way different depending on spring rates. We went through probably 12 different ride heights/alignments when setting up the car.

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No coils. I just switched to tsw springs which I really like for daily driving but clearly the car isn't quite low enough Autocross now. I may go with lighter striping Coilovers so I can lower for Autocross.

I have front camber plates on the way and have installed them yet so could only get -1.1 upfront and set rear to -1.4. 0 toe in rear with little bit of toe out upfront. Once camber plates are in I will dial in closer to -2.5 to -3 upfront.

As I start doing this I'm wondering if a car that is used as daily commuter can be setup so it can be competitive for STX and not feel like a silly Boi racer.

 

I wouldn't focus too much on getting your car lower. You're probably going to have to make some ride height sacrifices to fit larger tires. 15x8s with 225s would be great. You don't want to go too low as you'll start to screw up roll centers.

You have to further define "competitive" in STX. Something that's competitive locally can be set up to be pretty comfortable on the street providing you have the driving chops to make the car competitive. A lot is going to rely on you as a driver. Something that is competitive nationally can still be daily driven but if your roads are really crappy it's not as nice to live with.

 

STX here is ruled by the RX8 and WRX, good luck!

 

And the FRS/BRZ and the e36 325i. It's not an easy place for a mini to play

 

Yeah but regardless of roll centers the H&R height definitely made the car faster but just couldn't stand airborne stuff on poor sections of roads I run. First time is exciting but daily it gets old. The TSW's are certainly better than stock springs but car isnt as quick to transition as it was sitting lower on H&R's. I raise light front tire a little easier now so getting power down becomes an issue on turn exits. I will crankup new H Sport rear bar to counteract that. But lower CG is an advantage from my initial tests. The car rips when its a little lower. Even with the ***** progressive H&R springs Unfortunately I cant live with that lower CG ride quality.

I really wish there was a gentlemens coilover with soft pillow tops, rubber spring retainers etc that would assure absolutely no rattling or noise. The last 5 miles of my commute just beats up coilovers and I havent had a car yet where I could keep coilover as quiet as stock spring perch . Ultimately they all rattled or clunked. I dont want to experiment with high quality coilover just to be disappointed.

So think my thought of having a drivable yet competitive car is out the window. I do fine locally. Every DS event I entered last year with completely stock car on run flats it was fastest car in class and I was approaching STS car top times. STX in my region however is populated with sharks. I have top guy here and 4 or 5 others who are almost as fast. STX seems to attract many of the fast guys. Mostly BMW's and starting to see the FT86/BRZ I hear there are couple Minis here.

If I was to chose a car that might offer better ride and still be competitive it probably be BMW or RX8. But im stuck with this roadster for next year. So it will be compromise car. Guess I can try 225/45/16 on my wheels to see if extra tire does much for me. Now Im debating cost of LSD. If Im not even close probably a waste of money.

 

If you're set on running regular springs Id suggest Swift