I thought I would start a thread for the new season, since our first event is next weekend. The way the weather is looking here, it's hard to say what tires I'll be on. Maybe the Michelin snows.

Anybody else started this season yet?

As in previous years, I'll edit this post with updated results as the season goes.

Good luck folks!

2/24/2008 - 1st SM (no competition ), 2nd overall - Michelin X-Ice (course was iced over - what a blast!)
3/30/2008 - 2nd STU, 2nd overall, 2nd PAX - Stock Subaru STi w/ a reflash (first time in the car - my power steering pump failed right before the weekend)
4/6/2008 - 1st STS, 24th overall, 12th PAX (107 cars) - co-drove '02 2L Hyundai Elantra w/ RSB, wheels and Hankook RS2s (beat 26 of 27 SM cars)


Scott
90SM

 

You all start early, I'm in Louisville and we don't even have a schedule yet. Which is good since I'm not done with my mods yet. Won GS in Kentucky region last year and am taking the plunge to SM this year.

 

Come on up to Walesboro (Columbus, IN) and join us.

www.cscc-scca.org

Scott
90SM

 

First race is March 9th for me

March 9th Results: 1st in STX . 15th overall. Running a set of Toyo T1r. not the new TR1R which im waiting to come out in my size 225/45/15.

March 30th: ran with the CDC group which dont have classing. Was Third Fastest MINI and Fastest Street tire MINI

April 13th: Still not planning on running hard having Friends from work coming out for Ride Alongs. Finished 1st in STX 33rd Raw and 24th Pax. Car ran good the Mech. grip is much better with the change. Ran 39.7 With Coworker on board. After the event we had 3 Fun runs which I ran Solo and did a 38.5. Which would have put me 17th Raw and 13th Pax

 

We had our first (my 1st ever) event on Feb. 10th. I also did our novice school the day before and had a blast. There were 4 heats in the AX and I was in the last one. I didn't get chance to ride with anyone either so the course was a little fuzzy after 5-6 Hrs since the morning walk through. I DNFd the first three runs and hit a cone on the 4th, cleaned it on the last run and placed 14th out of 37 novices, on Yoko ES100s. That was top nSM w/1 nSM2 ahead of me. I feel like I could of found another second pretty easy if I would have cleaned the course earlier.

The next event is March 2nd. I'm trying to get some decent tires for that one and I'll be sure to get a ride with someone if I'm in the later heats again.

 

We are just finished with our last event of the previous season yesterday.

Run Off Championship March 2.

Next season begins March 30. Good luck to everyone this year.

 

Good luck to you as well

 

Normally if you are a novice you get an instructor. Always ask for one early if you can and if they still allow you to get one for the next event, I think it is always helpful. If you have funruns at the end of the day you can ask for an instructor as well.

There is always much to learn even after a few seasons.

Stuff to do-
Prepare you car, don't many big changes the day before your event. A week before is good.
Prepare yourself- get your rest, avoid alcohol, drink lots of fluids the day before.
Set up your things and be ready to go the night before (similar to camping)
Study some basic books on autocrossing. See James Watt or **** Turner.

Day of the event-
Walk the course, many times over
Draw or sketch the course (mark the tight slow turns and the long fast zones, mark the driving line with respect to the edges of the course).
Don't be afraid of making changes in your strategy when you see others making mistakes or a good run.

Looking at your mod list-
You already have a Magnaflow exhaust but you list it as to be installed?
Not sure if the OBX header would do much, maybe change the noise.
Not sure if racing rotors will do anything.
Hawk Ceramic pads are usually meant for street with lower dust/ noise, usually we use Hawk HP plus pads, see
http://www.hawkperformance.com/performance/
TSW Springs (change to be better for street use? vs H-sport springs)
TSW endlinks- not sure if that would help for autocross

Set your rear swaybar to softest and see how you do.
Try a little higher air pressure up front for the tires, 3 psi

You need most-
Good tires like Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R in 205/45-17 which will give you nearly the grip of some R compounds and be OK for street use so you don't have to change wheels at the event. This extreme Performance Summer tire is likely to out perform Max Summer tires but it does wear faster.
And front camber plates either fixed or adjustable. Fixed plates will give you sometimes uneven front camber since no adjustment is possible but they are less costly. You need more front negative camber to make use of your tires. I don't see rear adjustable lower control arms- you might be OK with your stock adjusters if your rear negative camber is about -1.0 to -1.4 degrees.

Yokohama AVS ES100 are good street tires but not up to the task of SM class autocrossing.

Check with RMW if you really would benefit from the 380cc injectors and a retune.

Odds are you have plenty of power already, you need a good alignment (what is yours now? Not done it yet, then maybe after you decide about the front camber plates) and good suspension and tires.

Also note that many SM class MINIs use 15" and/or16" wheels not 17" due to the selection of tires for those wheels that will fit.

March 2nd for our event we get 3 runs and only the top 5 drivers for the season per class can participate. There is little room for error. We will both be driving that day. Thanks.

 

First off, thanks for all the advice.
I had a couple of great instructors for the novice school (Dan Pedroza & Andy Hollis), but unfortunately they were running while I was working the course. I really just needed a fresh look at it from a car.
After the school I went home and made some adjustments that really helped get the car to rotate: I adjusted the rear shocks to full hard, up'd the bar to the middle setting and added some air to 40psi. I had set the front shocks to full soft after the first runs with an instructor (Dan Pedroza). I left the front tires at 35psi because they were already rolling over enough (maybe too much).
I was able to walk the 3 or 4 times, but that was several hours before my runs . I'll try to sketch something and take a few notes next time.

It's installed, it's the Cat that's waiting to go on with the OBX.
True.
That's "RacingBrake" brand (bling). I found a good deal and figured I'd need rotors eventually any way.
Yeah, that's the street choice, I'll consider the HP Plus pads for AXs...
The rear progressive section has collapsed after around 7-8 months of use. I thought TSW would be my next choice. (coilovers probably ain't gonna happen any time soon). I set the rear shocks to full soft and the fronts back to the middle after the AX and the ride feels really good, the best it's ever been actually, so I may wait a while on the new springs.

That's where I had it during the school, and the car was pushing like a dump truck.

I'm seriously considering a set of Hankook R-S2 for the next AX. I've also got some 16" SSR replica wheels lined up for them. The RE-01Rs are kinda pricey in 17" and the R-S2 still come in 225/45-16. I think they'll have enough grip for now?

High on my list for sure!

Yep, they came back to -1.5 and there's a little more adjustment left. I have a set of IE arms if I need them.

It was running out of fuel at the top.

Camber/toe were at the stock settings last time I checked, but the springs have sagged a little since then. Plates will effect the toe for sure, so I'll have it adjusted then.

Again, thanks and good luck.

 

updated Post #1 with results.

Scott
90SM

 

chuckt – My biggest piece of advice would be to not get too hung up on modding the car (for autox) while you're still getting the hang of it. It's pretty different from street or even track driving. First the driver, then the car... (of course, we never do this. Look at me. )


Scott, autox with ice on-course. Amazing.

We don't even have a schedule out yet... But two test+tunes at Seneca Army Depot.

 

Here's a pic from yesterday.

 

And another late in the day as it hovered around 32deg and all the cars were starting to turn parts of the line to slush.

 

This is from the February event at the same site in 2003. We had 5" of snow overnight. This was even more fun!

Car was stock except for a set of 205/50-16 Michelin Artic Alpins and a BMP intake. Two weeks later, it had a Magnaflow, coilovers, control arms, camber plates, a harness and 16x7.5" wheels with 215 Azenis.

 

We had our 2nd event today, I placed 8th in novice PAX. I'll have to take a better look at the resuts when they post them, to see how I did on raw time. I suspect that'll look a little better amongst the novice entries anyway.

 

Okay, that’s better, 4th in raw time in the novice class, behind an Elise an RX-7 turbo and an Sti... 0.372 behind the Sti and 1.046 seconds off the Elise. If I would have run in SM (non-novice) I would have got 1st place beating an RX-8 by 0.214 seconds (on Yoko AVS ES100 205/45-17). I have some 16" Max performance rubber ordered but they haven't come in yet.

 

I'm glad we don't have snow where we autocross but I did see snow this week on the top of Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii at 13,700 feet. I was in Hilo and the day was clear, not as much snow as in this picture but still a fair amount.



Our Hawaii region 2008-2009 season dates

Experience- Four years completed in SM class, this is start of 5th year in same car.

Goals for 2008-2009
In SM class- Be first each event, be helpful to other drivers in class, encourage competition.
In raw time overall- Be in top 10 every event, Be in top 5 at least half of the events
In PAX overall- be in top 10 in every event, Qualify for PAX award for the season (top 10)

Event 1
March 30
1st of 13 in class, 11th out of 112 raw times, 15th on PAX (used staggered tires first time)
225/50-15 fronts and 205/50-15 rears on 15x8 rims with 3mm spacers in back only.
Had a wicked oversteer spin out 200 degrees on the first left turn in run one on new cold tires.
Tire temps were 130 in front and 110 in rears with 37 psi front and 33 psi rears.

Event 2
April 13
2nd of 17 in class, 15th out of 113, 19th on PAX (staggered V710s- fast course, didn't downshift to first which I needed)
Got to practice my downshifting in the funruns- will be prepared next event.

Event 3
July 13
2nd out of 15 in class, 6th out of 115 raw times, 9th on PAX overall (best all season so far, but short where I'd like to be).

Event 4
July 20
3rd out of 15 in class, 12th out of 116 raw times, 20th on PAX overall (lowest finish in class for several seasons, beat out fourth place by few thousandths of a sec.)

Event 5
Aug 3
2nd out of 16 in class, 12th out of 114 raw times, 17th on PAX overall

Event 6
Aug 31
3rd out of 15 in class, 6th out of 115 raw times, 8th on PAX overall (lost out to 2nd in class by 0.05 seconds, 3 of top 6 raw times overall in my class)

Event 7
Oct 5
3rd out of 16 in class, 11th out of 107 raw times, 12th on PAX overall (lost out to 2nd in class by 0.13 sec, FTD was 1st in my class)
(during my last run got a cylinder 3 misfire code and lost 60% of throttle control)

Event 8
Nov 2
3rd out of 13 in class, 16th out of 122 raw times, 18th on PAX overall

Event 9
Nov 16
2nd out of 14 in class, 10th out of 108 raw times, 12th on PAX overall

Event 10
Dec 14
4th out of 11 in class, 13th out of 107 raw times, 9th on PAX overall

Event 11
Jan 11
2nd out of 9 in class, 8th out of 86 raw times, 10th on PAX overall

Event 12
Feb 15

 

SPOKES had its 3rd event this weekend. This time I got out of novice class and went to SM with only 3 other cars. I managed to edge out an EVO that was running crap (340 wear rated) tires to pickup 2nd place, but a distant 1.8 sec. behind an Impreza 2.5RS on Hoosiers. We got 6 runs total with 3 wet runs in the morning and 3 more dryish runs in the afternoon. It was a pretty fun running in changing conditions all day, though it didn't help me get a good read on the new tires like I'd hoped.

My best time was 31st, out of 80, a whopping 6 sec. behind the top time of the day, but most of those drivers were on r-comp tires and/or nationally competitive in some tire class.

 

Updated Post #1. I've never had any issues with my power steering, but when I got in the car Thursday morning there was none. No blown fuses that I could find, no leaks, and no sound at all when I turn the wheel - I'm assuming the pump is dead at 120,000+ miles.

A very kind competitor let me co-drive his STi in the rain. My first run was enough for 2nd overall and was FTD until the 4th runs of the last heat. I never improved due in part to playing around with the center diff settings. The car owner when first and was 6 seconds slower, but knocked of several seconds once he knew the car could go faster.

FTD went to another STU STi, but that one had a nicely prepped suspension a more power. Still, the driver is very good and put up a great final run. SM was 4+ seconds behind, but I don't think I could have won SM in my car without power steering, at least on that course. It would have been pretty frustrating to try.

I'm going to another event this coming Sunday, and will be in co-drive mode again as I don't see my car getting fixed that soon. It will probably be either a SM2 Miata (the driver was kind enough to offer but I don't think I'll fit well enough to autocross it - too tall and no room for my legs under the steering wheel) or the STS Hyundai Eleantra I drove at one event last season. That was actually a lot of fun, and he has since bought decent tires. It's an underdog car, even regionally, but it would be fun to play head-games with the local SM crowd.

Scott
90SM

 

The St. Louis region started the season last weekend. I took 1st in SM, but there were only 3 entrants in SM. I am expecting tougher competition this season. Being the first event of the season, and that I went to V710s this season (from street tires) I was trying to get adjusted and only got 1 good clean run. I am looking forward to a fun season.

 

updated Post 4

 

Do you mean SM or have you removed your SC pulley?

 

Recently I had the Supercharge go out. I replaced it with a Stock one. Also had the crank pulley, Intercooler and Firewall Partition. Put back to stock which puts me back to STX class.

I just never updated my SIG.

 

Did horrible for the day. Really not where I want to be.
Got beat by 0.27 seconds in SM class which is just my own doing.

Should have used second gear due to a faster course than usual then downshifted to first after a tight segment two turns from the finish which was also tight.

I tried to run it all in first- hit the rev limited and died. Then I tried keeping second and could not generate enough power in the end.

In the funruns I had more success downshifting to first near the end so I am hopeful to figure out for my next faster course.

Normally the courses are tight and I run in first gear. Using taller 225/50-15 tires I was going to ready for speeds up to 45-46 mph.
205/50-15 would give me lowered gearing but top speed of about 42 mph in first.

With 50+ mph I need second and switching to 205/50-15 for the lowered gearing in second would be possible and helpful. 225/50-15 gives me a taller gearing which wasn't working for me.

Still, managed 2nd out of 17 and beat the third place driver by 0.002 seconds.

Will be changing suspension settings to softer and rear swaybar back to softest from full stiff. Thought I could rotate the backend a bit with stiffer but it's not working for me after 3 events.

Tire temperatures- fronts 125 degrees and rears 109. Barely enough.

In funruns I did better, ran less than one second slower on stock sized street tires RE-01Rs. It felt a lot better and I was able to practice my downshifting.

 

The 2nd event in St. Louis was 37 degrees and wet. I decided to keep my street tires on. At then end of the first heat I had the best raw time of the day, but the weather improved in the afternoon and people started getting good runs in. I still got 1st in SM. I was doing better keeping my foot in it and letting DSC keep me on line. Otherwise I would have been sliding around way too much.