Need help setting up 944 for Autocross
 

Went out today and ran my second autocross and the front end was pushing bad. I know I need better tires but I think less understeer would help too. So would my best bet be to go to a better rear sway. Mine is stock now and TINY. What is my best bet on rear sways. I don't want to get too radical on suspension as this is my DD and I may get a track beater soon.

shop around for ppl gettin rid of 951 sway sets. that'll get u pretty good to start.

but i have a thought in the back of my head that yer issue might be more of an existing hardware issue. have u had alignment checked? what size tires front and back? what about yer shocks?

Factory everything. The alignment was set digitally on all 4 wheels last year with the new tires. It goes straight as an arrow. Its on 16" Phonies right now.

Factory alignment specs, or autocross spaecs?

Get new tires, and a good autocross alignment. I couldn't believe the difference when I had a local race shop do no more than a competition alignment on my stock 944.

Just factory specs. How well would the autocross alignment do on the street? I drive this car tons on the street. Unless Lindsey Racing can do that alignment idk if anyone else in OK would know how.

Nice thing about 944s- An aggresive autocross alignment doesn't affect tire wear on the street like it does on a 911. (A 911 will wear rear tires quickly)

The factory specs assume a fully-loaded car, and induce a bit of understeer, as that is considered safer for "average" drivers.

The car should be more fun to drive in any situation, unless you are carrying a load of bricks under the hatch.

The only downside is that there will be less on-center steering stability- If you are on poor pavement, the fronts will want to follow the road contour instead of plowing straight ahead. This is the flip side of the quicker steering response.

I much prefer driving a 944 on the street with a competition alignment over the factory settings.

dan, what specs did u get?

Don't remember- I'll have to go look it up.

i'm thinking about 3.0 camber front, 1.5camber rear, 1/8 out in front, 0 in rear.

for an autocross/track car

Hmm if I could find a good set up I could have a friend of my dads dial it in on his electronic rack.

the 944 body cars have alot of under steer . what is needed is the smallest front bar you can find for the car and the biggest rear bar . then go with 1.5 to 2.0 neg camber in front with stock caster set about 2.2 then tow in the front about 1/8 this is for a quicker turn in . you don't tow out a rear drive car ! that is what you do to front drive cars ! a front drive car wants to lift its inside rear wheel and a rear drive car wants to lift its inside front wheel ! you want more over steer so have the rear tow and camber set at 0.0 . find some 15 inch wheels 7inch fronts and 8 inch rears a 15 inch wheel will drop the gearing down for a better accretion . then find some one with scales and balance the car .

oh man....thanks for the save 962porsche! ive been driving fwd cars too long. *shakes head*

will do 1/8 toe in instead

Ok so that won't wear my tires too bad on the street? I think I have a set of 15s that will fit this car. I may get some sticky tires and bolt them up for the track.

Darn I have a set of 7x15 phonies. I need to trade 2 of em for 8x15s.


Oh the wheels that are on there are all 7x15s too. Idk why I thought they were 16.

All the 15'' PD's were 7's. Run a 225/15 width tire on all 4 corners so you can maximize tire rotation. 16's are nice due to larger tire selection, but not necessary.

I did alot of auto-x with my n/a when i still had it. I had a relativley cheap setup that worked very well i think. This was the core of the setup

200lb front springs
Koni struts and shocks
Adjustable spring perches in the front, you can do the same with the Welt. springs instead
Lowered front and rear about 1 inch
Rennbay geometry correction balljoint pins to compensate for drop
26.8mm front swaybar
18mm rear swaybar
KLA monoball upper strut mounts
KLA strut brace

Alignment was a compromise street / auto-x setup...

-1.5* camber front
-1.2* camber rear
Zero toe front
1mm in thrust angle for the rear (slight toe in on rear helps keep car stable on heavy braking)

I daily drove this car and did not notice any wild tire wear. The key was no toe. Camber does not kill tires really, its a combination of toe and camber that does it.

This setup worked very well for me, very neutral at the limit but would understeer mildly if pushed past the limit..easily correctable with trail braking or with throttle steer.

I used 16x8 wheels all around (i put turbo brakes on the car so i had to). I ran 225/45/16 Kumho v710's and really loved the handling.

Ok thanks Duck but thats more bucks than I am willing to spend. I think I will try the bars and some tires for now. So just use the 15x7s I have. Now whats a good autocross tire. It wont see street use.

Tire choice depends on your budget and how much experience you have. R-Comps are expensive but depending what type of class you run in are needed to be competitive. They are not a good idea unless you have in my opinion about 1 season of auto-x done. They can mask alot of poor driving technique and are not as forgiving as a street tire.

I would find a good high performance summer tire. The Falken RT615 is a popular auto-x choice right now. Other good tires are the Hankook Ventus RS2, Kumho MX, Kumho XS and a few others i am probably missing. All of these fall into the semi-cheap, ultra high performance summer only category. If you are just starting out and still learning, any summer tire will do.

The best advice i can give you is to make only a few changes to the car then just learn to drive it and setup the car to suite your liking. When you feel like the car needs something else, upgrade it as needed. Alot of people will auto-x once and just throw a ton of money at the car thinking it needs all sorts of work.. then spend the entire season trying to dial the car in.

i have found for auto-xing the kumho v710 work good . i stopped auto crossing early last year and only road race now ! so there maybe a faster tire now like the hoosier A6 . we have not doen an auto-x tire test in just alittle over 2 years . so you may want to look at other peoples times and what tires there using on rear drive cars .don't ask around becouse they may have good tires but be a bad driver so look at times ! you could use the 7 inch wheel in the rear if your using stock suspension or almost stock . remember you do need to get some over steer to help make the cars more neutral . a 924 to the 968 body car with very little set up can be driven at a 10% slip angle all day just like your going to the store . as you know an 1/8 tow in will were the tires more than a 1/16 but if the car is not the only car your driving to and from work it will be fine .

Ya thats kinda why I was thinking a bar and some tires. My tires just dont grip. A good summer tire should do. Even in the winter autocross. I mean a cold day here is 20f.

This car gets driven on the pretty days and shows, autocross and tour drives. Now it will get driven less starting in the fall when I start college and it will be 15 miles away in the garage.