I autox'd my 2003 lancer oz rally for the first time last sunday. It is now one of my new weekend hobbies. I had a blast. I have a few questions for the autox pros on these boards.

I had quite a bit of tire roll. I have 17x7 enkei's with toyo proxes 4's 205/40/17 tires. I didnt measure my psi but im pretty sure I was right around 38 or so both front and rear. It was a hot day. no clouds and 85+ temps.My car is not lowered and I have no strut bars.

Is a certain amount of tire roll expected? I could see after my runs where the ground was actually rubbing the sidewall. In that case, should I raise my psi? for a warm day on 205/40's what kinda psi should I run.

When I finally do drop my car and add strut bars will this help with the tire rolling issue? thanks.

Heres a pic. Because I have "weight reduction" I was put in SM class.



ps- this is also posted in "motorsport" section but I dont think ill get much help with it there. its mostly evo guys anyway.

 

u have no suspension mods ur gonna roll like a biatch!

get k bar lower it and get rrms rear sway at least!

 

^^

I allready knew that...

strut bars and coilovers are next on my list but in the meen time.

tips on reducing the tire roll. I dont want to lay over on the rim.

 

why was the psi not measured? are u certain as to ur pressure. good luck mate, didnt mean to sound rude.

 

well... haha. I forgot to measure it. I measured it like a week before. I keep it right at 38. the weather has been consistent so I dont think it changed much.... Im new at the whole autox thing. haha

No prob. I didnt take it as rude. I was being sarcastic*.

 

I autoX all the time We have a event in 2 or 3 weeks at NHIS how far away are you from there? Check out my sig for my mods. Its so much fun isnt it? I love it!!!!! Good luck and keep on running PM for more info on AutoX in New England

 

Ok, where to start. I don't want any beef, take the advice or don't. My background in this is I took 3rd in class last year behind a 1976 Scirocco with gutted interior, a 2L swap (fr 1.6L) on race rubber and full suspension and a 99 Merc cougar owned by a guy with more disposable income than I care to think about. We don't use SCCA classing rules, in case you're scratching your head thinking "WTF? How does that happen?" This year I'm in 2nd and I'm on street tires.

First get the larger rear sway and stronger perches. Believe it or not the perches bend quite a lot. When I fabricated my 3/16" thick set I was surprised how thin the stockers were. The new stronger perches felt like I was adding a thicker bar.

Do not get ANY strut braces. I have faster lap times and a more stable rear-end without them. Plus if you're using SCCA rules it will move you into the next competitive class. Our strut towers are close enough to the firewall that they really don't get to bend much. I'll get a chance to really put this to the test this weekend. A lot of racers in my club are going to nationals so we're expecting 6-8 runs per person for the morning and afternoon sessions and I'll be running with strut braces for the afternoon.

You need new rims and rubber. Get smaller rims because those 17s are killing your torque. Yeah, I know you spent a mint on them, but find someone who will trade you a set of the lightest 15s that are reasonable for them. Mine are 13.5# each and the stock rims are 15#. Those 17s are what? 19#? What do your tires weigh? Yes it matters. I'm on the kook z212s in part because they're more than 1# each lighter than the Falken Azenis 615s.
All seasons like the proxes need to be bumped to closer to 45PSI (or more) front and about 40 rear. You need a good pressure gauge (the dial kind, not the little stick) and at least a dabber of white shoe polish. a small air bottle to add pressure to your tires would be good, too. The small one is fine because you're onlly going to add probably a total of 20PSI over the course of a race. As you get used to how you need to be set up you can get pretty close at the gas station before the race and then you'll just make small tweaks. Put a dab of the shoe polish in 3 places on your tire where the tread meets the sidewall. If the dab is being rubbed off of the sidewall add pressure. If the dab is still there, drop the pressure 1-2 psi until it starts to get scrubbed away on the sidewall. What you're trying to do is maximize the contact patch. I'm on "ultra high performance summer" Hankook Ventus Z212 RS2 (not an r compound, and most folks just call them the 'kook Z212). My rear pressure is really low- like 23 and the fronts need to be at about 30, depending on the weather. The sidewalls are ridiculously stiff on these. My Proxes FZ4s were like jello.

Struts. If you're really really serious and have the money the JICmagic flt-a2 setup is the optimal. It better be at almost $1600. However, I'm inclined to think that it's the camber plates that make the kit. I'm working on putting my hands on some tein plates to confirm fitment but no one ever has them in stock. I'll email and they say "yep, we have two sets" and when I place the order it's "those are backordered".
Anyway, the tein SS kit is awesome. I keep mine set to about 2 front and 1 rear depending on the situation. for reference, zero is full hard. The basic kit is just that- basic and is set to about 4-6 on the damper scale.
I recommend the Ingalls camber bolts ($50 for two sets of two bolts per set- just google them and find the best price). Set the camber to the max negative (top in) and just leave it there. You'll really want more, but that's the best you can do with bolts. The neighborhood of -2 is optimal, bolts will give you about -1.25.

Gas: fill up before the race. Fill up with the lowest octane you can safely run. Unless you're cammed, have fuel management, pistons or something more than intake/headers/exhaust you shouldn't be above 87 octane. Lower octane allows the fuel to burn more efficiently. A more efficient burn means more power. a full tank will help keep the sloshing of the fuel from unstabilizing the rear of your car. Snap oversteer (the rear end comes around the front after a turn instead of coming back to center like you expect) is fun the first time and extremely frustrating every time after that.

Have fun

 

The JIC's are great but a bit $$$

 

yea..my car looks like this on the turns..



As for body roll, I have to live with it or get stiffer suspension. Even with the body roll, I've been able to creep up there in HS and taken a couple first place finishes. In street tire class, my most successful placement has been 8th place.

What have I done to my car? Well..I'm rolling on Falken Azenis RT215 (previous Azenis model) and Schroth harness. That's it. The biggest mod I installed to myself is more seat time and advice from fellow Lancer owners and autocrossers! So keep at it and you'll get better

One thing about tire roll, I would definitely fill your tires with a bit more air. What I generally do is overfill the tires a bit (not excessively, but enough) and then take air out as I do each run. I don't own an air compressor so this is the best option for me. I also "chalk" my tires (drawing a line of chalk from the tread to sidewall) to precisely see where my tires are rolling on each run. This makes reading the marks on the sidewall not a guess.

The only time I really get tire roll is are weird parts of the course where there are dips or uneven pavement. Otherwise, these tires have very stiff sidewalls and do not roll too much. Your tires are more of a street tire so they probably roll, and if you can't get rid of it, don't worry about it, worry about your driving.

I can't give you a specific tire pressure, so I recommend that you buy a tire pressure gauge (best are those dial gauge ones) and experiment yourself. I would definitely inflate more than what you normally run with though.

 

Different tires should help, I have BFG Traction TAs which are hardly racing rubber and I get a pretty manageable amount of body roll just driving around town. I'm still trying to get out autocrossing, things have just had a habit of getting in the way.

 

i hear that

 

Toyo RA-1 are great R compound tires and the hoosier A-6 are awsome too for dry

 

Alchemest, I couldnt have said it better myself.

mitsuozboi, Use your stock OZ wheels and buy a better tire for them, try and get a 50 series rather then the 60 or 65. Also a set of coilovers go a long way. Too bad you went around when I parted out my Lancer before I got rid of it. I was basically giving away my coilovers for a stock suspention in good condition, yet for some reason nobody wanted it.

Do not lower your car more then 1.75 no matter what anyone tells you, I went with 1.25r/1.5f I think and that was more then enough. The stiffer suspention on the coilovers alone was a drastic improvement over stock.

Another thing you need to look at is your driving, time will correct this a bit but the best way is to see if you can get some of the vetrans to take you around the track in either your car or theirs to show you some tricks. The lancers pedles are set up perfectly for heal-toe. Use that to your advantage. Left foot braking may be nessessary aswell in some cornors, although I found that I was always able to get enough pedle control using heal-toe most of the time.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the info guys. You guys that responded is kinda who I was hopeing to hear from. (ive read other posts in which you seem to know a lot.) haha

I have my stock wheels still. I use them for winter. Mabey next year I will buy a set of racing tires for autox for them. The shoe polish and chalk idea is great. Ill try that next time. I dont have a Portible air compressor so Ill have to overfill the tires before I leave the house (thats a great idea).

Alchemist- No strut braces? That ruins everything I thought I knew about suspension. haha. so your sudgesting just autox perches and bigger sway from rrm? and leave it at that? Im getting coilovers next and was going to get strut bars but.....

danno- what width tire should I go with on the stock wheels? will 205's work? The stock tires were 195 right? (I dont remember). Ive seen guys dropped more then 3 inches on tein basic. Thats a bad idea for handling performance? I *thought* that the lower the center of gravity the better. (within reason of course). I do have a digital tire gauge. Is that what you meen by dial? Im a loser with an auto or I would heal-toe. (its all the dealer had so leave me alone.) lol.

Right now Im doing it for a great time. But in near future (like probably next year) Id like to really get into it. All this info helps a lot.

 

I think you can run 215's, maybe 225s on 15" rims, but I'm not sure if the stock OZ rims are wide enough to run them. While lowering generally does help handling, suspension balance and proper geometry is far more important.