For all:
Auto crossed yesterday, wow perfect day, acres of
flat concrete, and a well laid out course.
This is my first time out since modifying the
suspension (Falken 195X60X14 on 240Z Libra
wheels, front springs shortened by 1.5 inches,
top half of front rubber snubbers cut off,
and comp front sway bar).
My impressions are:
Overall balance of car is unchanged, it
pushes in low speed turns and does
kind of a cool four wheel drift in faster
turns. I dont have a limited slip, and
its possible to light up the inside tire
but this does not cause a spin, just
tightens the line a bit. Only time
I was worried about spinning was with bumps,
which upset the rear end and caused
almost spins, which were easy to catch.
For this reason, I would advise against
comp rear springs or rear sway bars
for normal low speed solo-1 autocross
unless you are quite skilled (which I am not),
because I think it will change the handling to
more of a tail out situation.
Overall sticking was much, much better than
stock. In fact, results will not be out
for a few days, but I am pretty sure I am
near the top of the folks running on
street tires. FTD was 39 seconds for a
nitro fueled shifter kart, and times
ranged up to around 58 seconds. My best
was 47.01.
I was worried about the Falkens rubbing
on the front fenders, and the right one
did a little (but not the left, wierd
anomoly of 35 year old car maybe). But
after the first 3 runs the tire and the
fender had found peace with each other
due to the fender shaving about 1/8 off
the outer corner of the tire. My recommendation
here is to get some wheels with a slight
offset to put the tire farther inside the
wheel well, or only shorten the front
springs one inch.
I ran 40psi front and 35psi rear. Its
interesting to note that the Falkens are
rated for 51 psi max. I know theres
probably some improvement here for
my settings, but I'm open to
suggestions on which way to go.
I had the oldest car there, excecpt for
some excentric guy who trailerd in
a morgan (pulled behind a 1939 chevy
one ton pickup).
I'm pretty sure, except for a ratty
1st generation RX-7, that I also had
the smallest investment of anyone there.
Big giant amounts of fun by all accounts!
Best Regards,
Jim
Chesapeake Va
67 pushrod 2L 5spd
72 510 sportwagon
_________________________________________________________________
/// datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net mailing list
|