Tein RA's Autocross and ME
 

Well I just did my first autocross of the season with my new Tein RA's, and I must say that I am about 4 seconds slower than last year in comparison to other drives that I was beating. Now I know that there is a learing curve for every mod on the car but wow, I never thought that adding coilovers would actually slow you down.

I spent all of my runs looking for a setting that would work, but nothing seemed to mesh. Right now I am running Kuhmo ASX tires (yes all seasons) could that be the reason that I couldn't find something to work. Could it have been that I was over driving the tires. At the moment I am really rather pi$$ed that I spent that much to go slower, but maybe I just need to learn how to use them.

Anyone have any advice... {pcfreak}

were you running the all seasons last year? thats probably your biggest problem..

no, I was running the the advans.

it's the tires.

^^^ What he said.

maybe...but I think that there may be a little more to it. Thanks

100% agree

It is the tires

Ummm... no.. not really. No good suspension will work the best when you don't have the tires to match and make the best use of the suspension. Tires, in some circles, are considered part of the suspension.

Coilovers will do their best to balance the car, soak up bumps, handle transferred weight, etc... but when a tire cannot handle the load and you're contantly exceeding the slip angles of said tire (or too much tread squirm), your time will suffer at an event.

Ditch the all seasons if you want your times to get back up there. Also, re-measure your ride heights and make sure you're not lower than recommended... and did you re-align your car after you put them on? If not, I can 100% guarantee your alignment is way out of whack. Also make sure you're adjusting them correctly. ;)

I had Tein RAs on my old WRX wagon... did pretty well on them too. But you'll always go slower on all seasons than high-performance rubber.

One other idea is... if you were 4 seconds slower for the 1st event of the year, the cars you measure yourself against could have gone faster. ;)

A car and its parts are only going to get you so far... after that, it's all driver. (Actually... it begins with driver, but you get the picture)

First... Yes, it's the tires.

Second... You won't see immediate benefits from coilovers unless you are going with proven settings for: ride height, alignment, shock settings, and spring rates. It takes time to work this stuff out...

I didn't figure out the right coilover settings for me until the 4th event on my coilovers, and people tell me it often takes longer than that.

Now that I've upgraded from 245 tires to 285 tires, I'm starting all over again -- I ran the big tires for the first time last week and came to the conclusion that I need to make some changes.

I heard a comment from a famous autocrosser who said basically that the chance that your suspension is properly setup when you roll off the trailer is ZERO. You have an adjustable suspension -- to really make use of it, you need to adjust and adjust frequently.

^^^^ Those are the type of answers I was looking for thanks.

Alignment..... yes I had it done on Friday. -1.5 camber in the front and about -1 in the rear.

They asked if I wanted to get it corner weighted, and I told them that I didn't. They said that My ride height was exactly what they would have set it at, so I don't think that is the issue. This place knows what they are doing so I trusted their oppionion.

As far as the settings go, do you have the back stiffer than the front or do you have it neutral? All the way on the stiffist setting or somewhere in the middle?

jbrennen, since you move from 245 to 285 tires. Did you notice a big different (time wise) or you are still working on the suspension setup and adjusting your driving accordingly? What do you think of the advantage or disadvantage moving from 245 to 285?

Well, my last three local events on 245 Hoosiers (all in 2004), I PAXed 1st, 6th, and 5th (out of 200+ entrants).

Last week on the 285 Hoosiers, I PAXed 15th (out of 239). That is not a statistically significant drop-off, and could be explained by the fact that I hadn't autoXed an Evo on Hoosiers in 7+ months (in between, I autocrossed a Scirocco, an M3, my Evo on Toyo RA1s, and a Camaro). It could also be explained by the fact that I ran some different ride height and alignment settings than I did last year -- not because I wanted to change the handling, but because I wanted to minimize the possibility of tire rubbing issues.

The car was looser than I remember it being in 2004 (well, except for rain events). I softened the rear dampers twice in an attempt to bring the looseness under control, but still I had to just drive around it. I think the next step is to make some more aggressive fender modifications so that I can go back to the ride height and alignment that worked so well last year.

So in summary, I don't think I've tapped the potential of the 285 tires yet.

I love it when shops know more than manufaturers. Look, the RA's come with minimum and maximum ride hight. It can be adjusted to where it's lower than recommended. After a while the car will settle to where the car will be lower than the initially set ride-height. Just saying this could be one contributing factor.

While I trust some race shops, I always double check their work if they did any. I'm the one driving the car at a race.... not them.

--kC

how the heck do you run 285's?