Any AutoCross Guys?

**theorangeguy** · 10-24-2014, 05:58 AM

A buddy of mine here in Nashville convinced me to get into this with him so this winter is going to be prep and build time since I wont be driving the car that much anyway...I'm not going to be doing anything crazy, but I know I'm going to be swapping over to all tubular stuff "arms, kmember, etc", new suspension, and new seats "getting ready to order the seats", and some better brakes...not sure which direction I'm going with brakes yet or how much I want to spend. Heard great things about Hawks Pads and Rotors with the stock calipers...any of you guys running that? Stainless steel lines will be on the list for brakes obviously...

Any advice is appreciated...never really fooled around with autocross before.

**35th-ANV-SS** · 10-24-2014, 06:07 AM

Tires will be one of the most important things in my opinion.

**theorangeguy** · 10-24-2014, 06:08 AM

Originally Posted by 35th-ANV-SS

Tires will be one of the most important things in my opinion.

yea thats on the list as well...going to grab a set of the 5 spoke ZR1 vette wheels and run some fat sticky tires in the front and rear. Probably 285 up front and a 295-315 in the rear. Thats also one of the reasons I was asking about the brakes because if I have to go to a bigger brake configuration that will dictate what wheels I have to get because my current wheels will not support big brakes...i'd like to be able to just swap wheels and and go on the weekends instead of having to buy 2 new complete sets of wheels just because of a brake upgrade.

I know the a lot of the guys like the CTSV front brakes for our cars but I dont want to have to swap calipers unless I have to.

**Zinergy** · 10-24-2014, 07:09 AM

You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. I have seen people autocross in mercury sables with 150k miles on them. Upgrade the calipers if you want to or don't if you don't want too. Obviously there is an advantage to doing it but it is not needed. F-bodies aren't the best auto cross cars as the courses are usually small with tight turns and these are big long, somewhat heavy cars. But you can still have fun in it.

If fast times are really what you are after spend 2k on a miata. It will be faster than your T/A around most auto cross courses... at least the ones I have been too locally.

**theorangeguy** · 10-24-2014, 07:12 AM

Originally Posted by Zinergy

You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. I have seen people autocross in mercury sables with 150k miles on them. Upgrade the calipers if you want to or don't if you don't want too. Obviously there is an advantage to doing it but it is not needed. F-bodies aren't the best auto cross cars as the courses are usually small with tight turns and these are big long, somewhat heavy cars. But you can still have fun in it.

most of the courses around here tend to be a little bigger than usual "which is a good thing" and they have some pretty big sweeping turns to go with the tighter ones otherwise I wouldnt use my car for the exact reasons you listed lol I think I'm going to upgrade the rotors and pads + some steel lines and see how it goes...

Funny you mention how long our cars are...I never realized how long they are until I saw my car in a gopro video. I guess you just get used to it and dont realize it...

***SMWS6TA*** · 10-24-2014, 07:30 AM

Braking and tire wall height is more important then power on these courses from what I've been reading. I too also want to try this but can't find any events in our area.

I've read that it's better to over inflate the tires 10 psi to help the wall of the tires stay more ridged otherwise you can roll the bead off the tire going into turns.

**theorangeguy** · 10-24-2014, 07:34 AM

Originally Posted by SMWS6TA

Braking and tire wall height is more important then power on these courses from what I've been reading. I too also want to try this but can't find any events in our area.

I've read that it's better to over inflate the tires 10 psi to help the wall of the tires stay more ridged otherwise you can roll the bead off the tire going into turns.

I'm not even looking at power modifications right now lol all that will help with is spinning tires out of the corners which would = slower times...might look into 4.10's or something like that, but that would be the only performance mod I would do to help with power. THat tire PSI comment is interesting...I'm going to look into that one.

I know Birmingham does them because thats one of the places we could end up going to...Nashville has an autocross association that does stuff all around central TN and Alabama, but I'm sure Alabama has the same thing so you can stay somewhat local.

**Zinergy** · 10-24-2014, 07:55 AM

The closest one to me in WI is at Miller park. The Brewers stadium parking lot. And they setup a course on the Milwaukee mile raceway. The Miller park course is tight. Miatas/subarus will take c5s on that course all day long. I was helping a friend setup his is300 as a autocross/track car. We changed the sub frames to tube, engine mounts, every piece of the front suspension, most of the rear, some of the body panels to wider vented panels for downforce and air channeling for the brakes. 2 days after the car was put back together he went for a joy ride on scenic road and got ran off the road by a f250 and destroyed everything. He didn't get anwhere near what he had put into the car.

**theorangeguy** · 10-24-2014, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by Zinergy

The closest one to me in WI is at Miller park. The Brewers stadium parking lot. And they setup a course on the Milwaukee mile raceway. The Miller park course is tight. Miatas/subarus will take c5s on that course all day long. I was helping a friend setup his is300 as a autocross/track car. We changed the sub frames to tube, engine mounts, every piece of the front suspension, most of the rear, some of the body panels to wider vented panels for downforce and air channeling for the brakes. 2 days after the car was put back together he got ran off the road by a f250 and destroyed everything.

dude that sucks...that really sucks. I like to think that I'd be level headed and wouldnt respond like a maniac in that type of situation but I dont know that I could...

**Zinergy** · 10-24-2014, 09:01 AM

Originally Posted by theorangeguy

dude that sucks...that really sucks. I like to think that I'd be level headed and wouldnt respond like a maniac in that type of situation but I dont know that I could...

I am sure he was having some fun out on those roads. But the f250 basically ran over the front fender/hood area destroying most of the passenger side front suspension and pushed him into the median which destroyed most of the driver side front suspension/body panels. It was pretty much everything we had just done. Even I wanted to cry after laying on my back for days to get that car put together just so it could be destroyed.

**98TransAmWs-6** · 10-24-2014, 09:12 AM

One of the important things other than tires is to get everything that you can in the fully adjustable version. This is what I have and or will be getting to set my car up for AutoX:

CTS-V 4 piston calipers
R1 concepts premium rotors
Hawk HP+ brake pads
SS brakelines
Vogtland lowering springs
Bilstein shocks (will be upgrading for better ones later)
UMI 3 point SFCs
LCA brackets
UMI Adjustable LCAs
UMI double adjustable PHB
UMI Full length adjustable TA
UMI road race Kmember with Solid MM
UMI adjustable upper and lower A-Arms
Strano hollow sway bars

Right now I have street tires in 275 35 18 front and 335 30 18 but will be upgrading the front size to 295s and getting some AutoX tires all around.