Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Theo
Things I'm doing to get faster at autocross.
After frying the outside edges of my RE92's I purchased camber/caster plates. This helped my turn in and changed the wear pattern from the outside to the inside of the tires. I can get a much better autocross alignment now.
I purchased better tires, Falken Azinas 215-45 16, and they work great. I'm trying to get the one set to last all season. I will probably be showing cord by the end of the season. I run RE92's when not racing. I've also played with tire pressure a lot. On hot days I have good luck spraying my tires with water. This has helped me get faster with each run where before I would get slower with each run.
|
Caster/camber plates make a big difference, on any car with a strut-type suspension. This can allow you to have a fairly normal alignment for the street, and also adjust the plates at the track for a very aggressive setting. It only takes a couple of minutes to loosen the bolts on the adjusting plates, slide it to where you want, and re-torque the bolts... and voila, instant handling change. I did my own front wheel alignment in my garage a couple weeks ago with a caster/camber gauge, plumb bob & string - I marked the camber slots on the plates for my street setting of -1.75 degrees camber and adjusted the toe to 1/4" in, and when I get to the track and slide the camber all the way in I have ~ -3.5 degrees and ~ 1/4" toe out (due to the ~1/2" change in toe I get that occurs through my range of camber adjustment). Helps a lot to get a car to turn in, especially a nose-heavy beast like mine.
Getting an IR pyrometer is also a relatively cheap way ($79-$99,
http://www.raytek-northamerica.com/c...ekNorthAmerica) to check what effect your chassis setup adjustments are having and what tire pressures you should be running, rather than just guessing at it. I personally like to set tire pressures to see a proper temperature distribution across the tire (ideally you would have the inside 5-10 degrees F hotter than outside, and a linear spread from inside to outside), and then adjust the rest of the suspension (swaybars, springs, shocks, etc.) to compensate for any handling deficencies, rather than changing pressures to try and correct the handling.