Frankly, I'm tired of seeing people consider traffic light antics, and other forms of street racing, "real racing". Technically, we autocrossers are careful not to consider our sport "racing" as we do not compete wheel-to-wheel, but the skills we learn in parking lots across the country make us better than 99.95% of the drivers on the road.
I started this thread to call all the autocrossers forward and let us know who you are, what model Civic (or any other car for that matter) you are competing with and which SCCA (or other club) class you plan on building the car for...
DRIVER:
Anthony "Mario" Crea... I am a 15 year autocross veteran with almost 250 autocrosses under my belt at all levels of competition (regional, divisional, and national).
CAR:
Soon to be a 2010 Mazda 3s (5 door)
CLUB/CLASS:
SCCA H-Stock (local and national level competition)
The 255 Z2's are a full inch narrower than the 265 Z1's when mounted, a FULL inch!
And grip is just way off. Corner entry speeds and sweeper speeds are way slower than the 265 Z2's. Steering response is great with the Z2's, but response isn't fast, grip is fast.
Since your Z1 is 265, and the Z2 is 255, contact patch difference will effect your entry speed and sweeper speed. The difference of the 265 and 255 in respect with sidewall stiffness will also effect the steering response.
There are too many variables in your situation. I am not sure if what you have state is a fair comment about Z2.
Also grip is only one of the elements to make you faster. Kumho XS has a lot of grip in that tire when it's heat up and dry. However, the sidewall is too soft and at limit characteristic make it very hard to predict thus even though XS can break into 1G on skidpad, it is still not a fast tire. It's a combination of a lot of things that makes a tire faster than the other.
Yes, we've run Z1's in similar, and colder temps, and they were not as bad.
Temps were in the 50's, pavement temps in the high 70's, so it certainly wasn't too cold for them.
It was also unnerving how quickly they generated heat, and how long they retained that heat. The tires were still over 100 degrees an hour after i parked the car. I'm guessing that's going to be an issue when its actually warm out.
I felt a similar issue on our LeMons endurance car during our first race this season. We've run Z1s for a couple of years and they were awesome no matter what conditions we ran in. The Z2s felt great for a short period then the grip fell off dramatically when I overheated them a little (never happened with the Z1s). I'll be interested to see how the Z2s fare during a hot autocross event.
The Hankook R-S3's get rave reviews for their dry weather grip. Wet weather performance is a different story though.
However I believe that the R-S3 beat the AD08 in dry testing conditions. Not sure about the wet though, but I believe the Yoko isn't that great either. However I've heard the Hankook has soft sidewalls, and I don't know how the Yoko's sidewalls are. If they aren't much better, why not run the R-S3 and save yourself some money since they are a good bit cheaper than the AD08's?
Yeah, its an idea, but the cooler/wetter weather performance is not good as you noted. A big factor for me is they don't come in 235/40R17. I may have to give up on that idea and stick with 225/45's since that opens up a lot more possibilities (new RE-11A's, new BFG Rivals, Mich PSS, etc).
Gotta stop over-analyzing and just make a decision. :think:
Guys, wasn't planning on this but need little advice. I had planned this summer as track season but looks like it'll be more autoX. Right now I have an 09 si sedan with HFP, camber bolts and a progress RSB, still stock wheels and everything else. First off, haven't autoX'd since the suspension change so I'm not sure what my class would be, but I'm pretty sure it's going to put me in something that I'm not as competitive or with other cars that have many more modifications.
I have an extra set of stock wheels kicking around and was going to order a set of 235/40/17 UHPs.
Last year I felt pretty good in G-stock without the suspension or camber bolts, am I better off keeping the mods and running what ever class or going back to stock suspension, using crash bolts and running in G-stock? I was pretty competitive here in STL.
It really depends on what you want. Do you want to have a car that you'll enjoy more every day and that will look nice (lowered), and have fun on the weekends when you auto-x it to learn more about the set up you have? Or do you want to potentially sacrifice some joy of driving the car every day so that you are competitive in a specific class the couple of weekends you auto-x your car?
For me it was simple. I would rather modify a car that I drive every day, and have fun running it in auto-x, whatever class that may be, even if I am not competitive, compared to sacrificing some modifications that I would want to do simply because it would put me in another class.
My car is a DD, so I like driving a fun car every day, and if it isn't fast in class when I auto-x then so-be-it, I had fun. However, if your Si is a dedicated track car then you may want to make it as competitive as possible. That's your call...
Guerra, your car would fall into STX with the current mods..
You were pretty fast last year in GS, and CART competition is fairly soft, so I wouldn't sweat the move to STX, you'll do fine.
edit: But yes, the car would do much better in GS. The mods you have will not improve times much at all over a stock car. And only the springs and aftermarket camber bolts are bumping you. The struts and swaybar are legal.
Would you guys suggest AutoXers to just keep light mods on the car with a set of sticky tires and stick with STX? Or would you guys recommend a different path and staying with a different class?
It all depends on how active your region is, but I would hardly consider stx a "light mod" class as your looking at probably 5 grand with of mods for an stx car. Stock is the cheapest to run (minus tires) and if the SEB has its way, it'll have more allowable mods and cheaper tires.
Ok so right now I'm running a K&N Intake, Flashpro, and Progress RSB. Stock A/S tires. I believe I'm supposed to be in either STS or STX class right? If later on I get Star Specs and aftermarket suspension, is that going to change my class again?
To be fair, I did read a lot of articles regarding SCCA classifications and such but there is simply so many different rules and exceptions its hard to follow.
Yes, you would be in stx. If you switched out the intake and flashed back to stock, you could run in stock.
And with star specs and suspension, you would still be in stx.
I raced over the weekend in Central IL. My A/S tires killed me. I'm going to keep my car in stock trim, so trying to maximize it as much as possible. I have an '07 EX coupe, are there some goodies off the SI I could take, or are the suspensions basically the same? (other than swaybars)
As far as the Autocross, 2nd in my class. I got my butt handed to me by an old school BMW. They put my stock EX into G-stock, and I'm fairly sure it should be H-stock. Final Results
Wait. I can run SI swaybars and struts? Is there a difference in the SI struts? I wish I could just run Koni yellows in stock class. :-(
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