I dont have the cash to drop on a new set of rims and slicks this year so I wil have to wait until the 06 season to move into ESP. As of now I'm dang near stock, just Helix 3" cat-back, BR mini-battery and BR intake/MAF pipe. Our courses are usually pretty dang fast over-all, we have very large parking lots to race on and hitting 60-70 isnt all that uncommon. Its time to start saving up for new mods for the season, so I need some suggestions on where to spend my money first. Should I go with some of the cheaper power adders such as test pipe and down pipe, work on bars (sways, struts) and bushings, try and get coils or work on my brakes? Again, I shall be moving to ESP next year, or even near the end of this season as STU here consists of me and my co-driver, and possibly just me this year since his 01 2.5RS is gonna be down to 2500lbs (2640 last summer when they had the corner weight scales at the event). I'm more of a slow in-fast out driver if that makes a difference on where my money should go. Thanks for any and all help guys!!

 

There are a ton of people of this board much more experienced that an I and almost everyone of them well say the money will be better spent on schools, tires and an 'autocross' alignment.

I'm not excatly following that advice. I've added a rear sway-bar already. I have an XEDE on the way along with a turbo back exhaust. Along with that though I plan to attend at least two evolution schools if not three. But I only have 6 events under my belt, so I need all the help I can get. The bling is just so I can say I have a fast car, even if the driver is slow.

Good luck

 

I would concentrate on your suspension setup. I ran ESP last season (our STU class is DOA) on street tires, and made impresive gains with nothing more than the right suspension tweaks (good coilovers & rear swaybar) .

 

Biggest performance bang for the buck in STU... coilovers.

You should be able to get a decent set of adjustable coilovers for under $2K. It's not so important to have a particular brand or model, but adjustability is important.

Don't spend anything else on the suspension until you're on coilovers and making effective shock adjustments.

Note that in particular, changing sway bars has the potential to drastically impact the car's balance -- and the optimum sway bar setup for an Evo on stock suspension is almost certainly quite different than the optimum sway bar setup for an Evo on coilovers.

As far as strut bars, the Evo's front strut bar is triangulated (attaches to the firewall), and as such, it cannot be replaced in STU (or ESP, or SM, for that matter). Adding a rear strut bar will affect transitional weight transfer, but you can get much bigger effective changes in transitional weight transfer with shock adjustments. IMO, a rear strut bar is not worth the money and the additional weight.

For brakes, I'd recommend going with a more fade-resistant pad -- although you'll be hard pressed to get significant fade on a typical autoX day. I had some significant fade at the last autoX school I did last summer, but that was doing 12-15 runs in quick succession (40 second runs with about 90 seconds between).


As for power adders... do what you comfortably can, but realize that you'll get better time improvements with suspension mods. And BTW, the test pipe would be illegal in STU -- STU requires an emissions-compliant exhaust complete with at least one cat.

 

jbrennen, what do you mean about the a rear strut bar "will affect transitional weight transfer"? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I have a rear strut bar, but only because I got it for free and I think it looks cool in the trunk (so to me it's a bling mod). I've never really thought about whether it is helping or hurting handling. I guess I didn't think it would make much difference and if it does (because the car is flexing there) then I'm glad I have it. It's very light. Maybe 2-3 lbs?

 

Yes, the rear strut bar's main effect is to reduce the body flex in the rear.

Think about what a flexible rear end does -- it makes the rear end work a little bit like a leaf spring mounted across the car from left from right. On corner entry, the inside rear quadrant of the car will droop as the "spring" bends, delaying or limiting weight transfer away from the inside rear tire. This also results in a transitional (and temporary) weight transfer to the rear of the car. Then on corner exit, the "spring" returns to neutral -- but since the body flex is not properly damped, the "spring" continues through neutral and actually tries to lift both rear tires, resulting in a transitional (and temporary) weight transfer to the front of the car.

Adding a rear strut bar greatly reduces these effects. So the rear strut bar should reduce weight transfer to the rear on corner entry and reduce weight transfer to the front on corner exit. Compared to no rear strut bar, a car with the rear strut bar should have more oversteer on corner entry and more understeer on corner exit.

But notice that the change in weight transfer caused by the rear strut bar is going to be fairly small compared to that which can be induced with shock adjustments, or even with driving style -- you did realize that the brakes are used for more than just slowing the car down, right?

Since the rear strut bar's effect on handling is small and can be effectively achieved in other ways, I see the rear strut bar as basically "bling" -- but if it's light enough, probably harmless.

 

FWIW, I added a rear strut bar and trunk bar to my ESP car after the trunk started to creak from stiff springs.... No discernable handling change but definitely a reduction of the creaking sounds when driving around. If you do get a rear strut bar buy one that's all welded as the units with bolt-on ends will just parallelogram under load. Tires/wheels, coilovers, and engine management are the big three for STU modifications. Don't underestimate the effect of engine power on handling with an AWD....

Eric

 

You mean the no hinged type strut bars right?
Like the OEM ones and ones from ralliart.

 

Concerning coilovers: I find the stock suspension to be quite harsh on my daily drive. Maybe I'm a wuss . Would I be able to live with a set of stiff coilovers?

 

That's correct.

Eric

 

There are some dual-purpose coilovers which are decent on the street and decent for competition. I don't have any first hand experience, but the Tein Flex coilovers come to mind. These are positioned by Tein as halfway between a street setup and a competition setup. Certainly they have all of the features of a decent single adjustable coilover package, and the ride quality is reported to be close to stock. I've also heard of some autoX competitors doing quite well (at local events) on Evos running these coilovers.

 

I found the olins to be good solution so far. I run on the street with 400/500 spring combo and have no issues to complain about.

Like jbrennen said, the tien flex is another option, but the flex is somewhat of a low end solution too. there are other tein models that might work.

another strut I would recommend (again) is the DMS 50's. They have a nice double progressive spring design that really does a good job soaking up the bumps on the street and just corner hard when pushed. They are also completely servicable unlike many of the other coilovers sold here in the US.

 

I guess I was still in "budget" mode based on the original poster starting the thread with "I dont have the cash..."

 

yeah, I feel that pain...

[edit] but then again, don't skimp on the coilover budget. This is where you will see the most performance increase in autox.

 

jbrennen
What are you running on camber an toe.

By the way I have Tein RA's.