You can also talk to your local BSP competitors and discuss your intake with them. They may be OK with non SP parts if they really dont improve things. At least until you start beating them. I recall that locally in FS when I ran there, we allowed a short-shifter on one car when the stock one broke on the owner. It really did not make a competitive difference in our class so we let it slide. Now, if he did not ask first that would have been a different story.

-Mark

 

Rob if you buy star specs i will kick you in the ovaries.

 

Just tape it up. Nobody, even on a national level, will likely complain as long as it's covered, unless they are being a huge weenie!

 

PDX - I never knew I could actually use the racing sims for practice. I would give it a shot except I don't own a single ps3 or xbox or whatever.

Ross - If I'm gonna lose my ***** getting Star Specs, then hook me up dawg!!

BPRacer - Thanks for the heads up. I was hoping it would be ok, but if/when the time came that it would matter, maybe I would just switch oem bumpers just for the the runs.

And I just uploaded one of my autox vids from last season. Yes, I drive like a noob. But any constructive criticism is welcome if it's possible to tell from the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUV2YIERTDQ

And just for kicks, I uploaded my gf's first ever autocross run You'll notice the difference between the first and second video as she got A LOT better just over 2 runs.

Run #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a31HF9BMdkY

Run #3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7rDbw_jS_Q

 

It's hard to get into too much detail from a video, but....

Turn at :31 = too fast. At :50 Same thing, only it looks like the most costly "cooked corner" of the run.

You are not afraid to push the car and you seem to have decent car control.

Those are good things, but it seems you are not respecting many of the tight spots. The fact that you can clean up messes is good, (You throttle back with understeer, for instance) but you will be faster if you make less messes.

 

I would say that you started off strong but by halfway thru the run you looked like you were overdriving, trying to force the car into corners too hot and pushing wide on exit. That was forcing you to give up a little bit as you tried to get the car back on line and not kill the exit cones, so instead of being early on the throttle exiting, you were lifting and avoiding. I think if you pulled back just a bit on corner entry and focused on getting on the throttle and unwinding the wheel as early as possible at exit, your times would drop considerably. All IMO, and trying to judge thru pretty grainy video... You do appear to have aggression and good car control skills, so just work on tidying things up and you will see good improvements!

 

I saw a few times the tires were squeelin, obviously on the limits of their adhesion, you were getting some understeer and you kept turning the wheel (bad habit, its hard to get out of) till they started howling. Scrubs off speed and then when enough speed is scrubbed and they get traction you get snap oversteer like you did, which again slows ya down while you correct (you have quick hands so it was no big deal but still a tenth or two). If the tires are squeeling dont keep turnin the wheel. Around 18 seconds you looked like ya kinda overslowed the car (bad habit- alot of people do it, myself included) and bogged it down, if you woulda really run it out to the exit cone you couldve carried more speed. other than that pretty good, were you on street tires?

i'm an autox noob too so I can only offer advice on the dynamics of it all, somebody with more experience can probably give you more technical pointers. If ya post it up on sccaforums.com you may get better advice.

 

thanks for all the comments guys. I'll have to study them in more detail when i get the chance. But yeah, I did feel I was overdriving the car.

But to my credit, I was driving on severely used Falken 615's that were heat cycled a lot. So I'm thinking that had a lot to do with the squeeling and understeer.

2 more questions for you guys:

1) After reading a bunch, it seems like the cheaper but better way for suspension would be to get a set of springs/shocks instead of a cheap coil-over. That being said, would would you guys recommend as a combo under $1k? Or would getting a coilover around that price still be better?

2) When dropping the ride, you you get a lot of negative camber, can we "racers" use this to our advantage? Or should I still get a toe-bolt (FR/RR)? And is that legal in BSP?

 

I run RS*R Ti2000 springs, Koni "Yellow" shocks, Hotchkis sways, and lightweight SSR Comp-H wheels. The car handles great.


The 1/2" drop my springs gave me came out to -1.4 front and -2.2 rear. A little "toe-in" in the back, and a little "toe-out" in the front. I would prefer a little less camber in the back, and a little more in the front but, because my car is on the track so much, my tires are wearing well. ("even" tire wear doesn't always equal fastest, but in my case, I'll take it.)

 

toe-bolts wont fix excessive negative camber, but this year in BSP camber arms are legal so you can adjust camber front and rear. iunno about shocks, from what i've been told Bilsteins and Penskes are the ultimate but Koni's are pretty good shocks especially if you get them valved for your purposes/springs by a reputable shock builder, Nismo T2 springs may be a good option. Not gonna get anything worth having for serious BSP competition for under 1000 bucks though.