My autox car build plan

[Carracer]

That would be a fun class, handicap based on self reported power to weight ratio, then add a multiplier for the treadwear rating.

[twistedwankel]

Can we factor in the age of the driver? They won't let me put boner donor on my driver's license anymore.

[mymomswagon]

Great price!
We'll make 'em work...

...or squeal

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[Native]

Philip sez we won't be able to hear them... Heh.
We'll make em scream!

[mymomswagon]

I purchased the thoses same tire for my parents Elantra. Great daily tire, a great tire in the rain, and quiet. I havn't push them to autocross levels yet but so far I have found:
Soft sidewall and numb steering feel, not the worst but not good for the class.
They are quiet even at the limit. They do have good honest audio feedback but I just wish I could turn up the volume.
Grip levels are good for the class of tire, lateral grip was better than expected, longitudinal grip is about average.

At $31 dollars they are a steal!

Philip you are spot on here on your description. The tire noise thing is a little weird for me since previous tires sang loudly. These tires seem to have better traction on launch and maybe more grip in corners. We'll see

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[mymomswagon]

Front Toe

Just to familiarize myself, I went ahead and measured front and rear toe with plates, car unloaded.

Came up with repeatable measurements of ~ 3/32 toe in, in front, 2/32 toe out, in back. Decided to set toe out up front, went underneath and adjusted the tie rods about a half turn each side which brought me to 4/32 toe out up front.

Can't tell much on the street, will see if anything is noticeable during this Sunday's Perfect Run.

Curious how you front wheel drive people set your toe alignment?

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[CaptainSquirts]

Geez, that's a nice chunk of toe out. Your turn in is going to be awesome, but your daily driving and tire wear are going to be ridiculous. Car might feel darty on rough/uneven surfaces. Not really sure where I would see the benefit of running that much toe out on Daily driving tires. My front toe out is set at 0.5mm. The other day I hit a road that was pretty broken up and holy crap my steering was pretty damn twitchy. I would keep the toe at 0 until you get some competitive tires imo. But again it's your car and you're to do as you please, just like how I run a 4 inch exhaust that does me no good besides loud noises.

I'm not FWD but AWD, close enough..
Running -2.5 camber with 0.5mm toe out in front
-1.5 camber with 0 toe in rear.

[mymomswagon]

Thanks for the comments.

Car feels very stable, but I'm at stock camber range up front. On a previous rwd car, -2.2 camber 0 toe up front felt twitchy on any pavement so I guess there's a ymmv thing...or maybe much wider rubber contributed.

Driving it more on the street, sweeping turns had less push against steering input.

Not thinking of leaving it out for DD though. More of a "get acquainted" to the adjustment process and to try something that can be easily un-done. Rear is more difficult and I left it alone on my prev car.

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[Loren]

Cars are different.

I usually like 1/16 to 1/8" toe out. Just enough to have a little better turn-in, but not so much that it causes a tire wear issue. More than 1/8" is getting into the area that will scrub tires pretty hard in daily driving, especially when combined with some camber.

But, some cars do get really twitchy/darty with toe out. My Yaris, for instance. I couldn't stand it with ANY toe-out or even zero toe. It needed a tiny bit of toe-in to not feel like it was wandering all over the road. (I think it may have had to do with short wheelbase, and possibly also with the nature of electric power steering wanting to "help" with any steering correction you made)

Rear toe-out is a nice thing on a FWD car. In moderation, of course.

What you really need is to hammer some negative camber into the front. Crash bolts. Slotted struts, whatever it takes. Get that front end to bite and it will help things a lot.

Unless you do a LOT of straight-line highway driving, I wouldn't hesitate to leave that 1/8" toe out in the front. You're going to kill those tires with autocross runs long before your street miles even matter. Such is the life of a regular autocrosser.

[mymomswagon]

I hear you Loren on that camber thing. My tires already show outside edge change front rear after one event.

Superpro makes aluminum arms that add two degrees castor and "add" a whopping half-degree of neg camber, for $800.

Camber plates are out there, in some cases packaged into coilover sets (ST, BC racing) but that means welcome to M4.

So I'm open to researching other camber solutions that can be un-done.

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[CaptainSquirts]

Rather than 800 bucks on the whole control arm, why not get the caster bushing instead? 600 bucks cheaper . And for the camber, get some camber bolts. My aftermarket camberbolts were able to let me go up to like -3.5 camber. Anywho, should've just gotten some 200 tread wear tires if you were going to spend this much on suspension components. Would've gotten more time from tires than all these components you want to throw on.

[mymomswagon]

yeah I should probably just buy a miata
[emoji1] ...or something more ax oriented. Could have picked a more alignment mod friendly vehicle as I don't think crash / camber bolts exist for this platform (yet). We're pretty sol on off the shelf adjustable rear shocks that adjust on the car, at least for now.

bottom line though car meets my needs every other day besides ax day and I'm using cheap tires while I learn how to drive.

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[Loren]

Fixing your alignment with the crappy tires is not a bad thing. You'll see/feel improvement even with less than fantastic tires. If you spent the money on good tires, you'd just be fragging the edges on the expensive tires just like the cheap tires.

Optimize the suspension while you have the cheap tires. Then you'll get more (more performance, more tread life, more everything) out of the good tires later.

[mymomswagon]

thanks Loren. Having fun regardless


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[aw614]

I hear you Loren on that camber thing. My tires already show outside edge change front rear after one event.

Superpro makes aluminum arms that add two degrees castor and "add" a whopping half-degree of neg camber, for $800.

Camber plates are out there, in some cases packaged into coilover sets (ST, BC racing) but that means welcome to M4.

So I'm open to researching other camber solutions that can be un-done.

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possibly audi tt stuff if the mqb platform follows what vw/audi did with the tt and the mk5/mk6 gti, golf etc. The TT got all the fancy stuff like additional negative camber. But since its new, chances are changing control arms will be pricey and or not completely work.

interesting you found toe out up front fine on your wagon, it made my gti rather twitchy on the highway, but I think it was the veterans construction causing it more so...

[mymomswagon]

so far car is stable, need to find a really messed up road to test further....but it's so easy to change the front I may simply put it back between events.

thanks for the camber ideas. I believe the prev ttrs had ball joints that connected to slots on the control arm, but even if they fit, prices are comparable to the superpro arm. maybe something can be fabricated with the stock ball joint housing.

*****************

today, bought a used pair of koni yellows with mounting hardware to play with. Should be here next week.

Koni claims they must be removed from the car to adjust but I've got some ideas to test out, hopefully resulting in some reduced labor adjusting. Otherwise I'll find a compromise setting and leave them alone.

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[twistedwankel]

I set mine @ 75% stiff in rear and left it there forever.
There was only 2 5/8 turns full soft to hard. They were fine set there.

If you can access the shaft from inside the car after installed?
I made a tool once which was no more than a bent rod with a notch aligned with the handle allowing me to collapse the shaft and reach the bottom adjuster to do it in 5 minutes @ the event. Then I could go full hard and the car really rotated!! Unbearable on the hwy. set there.

You'll see how long to make the rod when you collapse the shock to adjust it.

[mymomswagon]

thanks Doug. unfortunately, the top mount cannot be accessed through the interior. top mount bolts on behind the well cover and there's stuff to take off to get to it, on one side.

I'm thinking detach at the bottom and push up to adjust.

If the bump stop prevents engagement, shorten it and use packers to push it back, remove packers to adjust. Mod the dust covers to velcro off or something similar.

FAST admins are we allowed to mod our bump stops in stock classes? (are they "springs")

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[Native]

Do whatever you want to the bumpstops.
Yes, they are "springs," but the FAST rules address the metal coils.

[mymomswagon]

thank you!

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