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.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp?make=Yokohama&model=AVS+ES100&vehicleSear ch=false&fromCompare1=yes&partnum=16VR5ES100&tireP ageLocQty=%26partnum%3D16VR5ES100

What about those?

we did a tire test on summer ultra performance tires this spring . using 2 front drive cars and 2 rear drive cars and 8 drivers . we found that the YOKOHAMO ES100 did very well for price ,sizes,lap times ,road feal, and so on . you will have a hard time with any summer tire in cold weather .

What was your best ultra performance?

i can not come out and tell you at this time . i do some test driving and at this time the publishing CO. has not come out with that article . but the es100 was a good all around tire !wink wink !

LOL. Ok well I am going to check with my dads friend and see what he can do on the es100. If he can't beat tire rack I will buy em and mount em myself, we have a tire machine. Then I will go let him make money on the alignment.

I should probably get away from the alloy lug nuts too right?

Hey 962 what size sways should I go to?


Oh if you are ever passing through OK on I40 give me a shout. I owe you a steak

do NOT get ES100's they suck...bad..

i just got some yoko advan ad08's. this year's hottest tire. but everyone's on backorder for the 15's. so i ordered 205/16 and 225/16 instead . going on 7x16 and 8x16 rims.


yesteryear's hot contenders are now cheap. the hankook ventus RS2's are still a great tire. and they're under $100 in some sizes. also the Kumho Ecsta XS are still good.

Why do the ES100s suck?


Oh the TTOD Cobra kit car was on Ecsta. I just remembered seeing that.

you could leave the stock front bar if its a 21mm or smaller as for the rear find a 24mm to 26mm bar . set the front tow in at 1/16 and camber at 2.0 , caster stock setting . rear tow and camber stock setting . run a 225/50r/15 tire size . a good starting point would be 36 lbs front and a 38 rears . cold settings . it works like this the more push (under steer) go smaller with front bar and drop air out of the tires 2 lbs at a time . and bigger with the rear bar and more air in the tires .yes get steel nuts !!

they're really noisy, they get mushy once they get to temp and on top of it...they just don't grip that well!

Ok I am not sure What size bars I have. They are just the stock bars(opt code 341). When you say drop 2 psi do you mean in just the front or rear, Or all 4?

I guess I don't want the M030 19mm 3 way bar in the rear?

that would be just the fronts . in the rears go up in air but not more that 4 lbs + or - . we found that the es100's had the 3rd best out or the 10 brands tested for lateral performance and not that far from 1st. . in an auto-x its hard to get street tires up to temp. for competition you want to hear your tires . the change in tone is just one way you know how your tires are working and what grip your getting . find a bigger bar . in one of my 944 race cars i have a 26mm 5 way adjustable rear bar and a 19mm front with stock suspension but welt bushing up front . it runs the alignment i stated . is a loaner car now but when i run this car in atuo-x's it was a winning car in its class with v710's. the people i loan it out to use it for track days just to see what track driving is like .

If you are willing to go to 205/50/15 tires (which I find gibe a better torque ratio anyways) the Falken 615 tires are real good and only ~$85 each. They are ment to be a road usable race tire that still allows you to drive in stock class. They are only 205 (stock 215), but since they are sporty, I think they are just as wide as the 215 though. I have not done any autocross on them yet (first one this Sunday), but I have done 3 DE days and really like them. They are the closest to R tires you can get, well, without getting R compound.

I am willing to go with anything that will fit on my wheels.

yea the azenis rt615's are a great tire. they have been outclassed though by the this year's new street tires. bridgestone potenza re11's and the yoko advan ad08's.

but the rt615's are so much cheaper now since the new tires are out.

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct/findTireDetail.do?pc=18501&counter=7&ar=50&rd=15&s w=false&cs=205


Hmm. Looks like I might go with these. Cheaper and free shipping.

Cant seem to find bars larger than 19mm for the rear. Lindsey sells a 19mm 5 adjustable thought for 129.

can one do these adjustments with the stock sway bars with still good results?

Assuming you have the same width tire all around (if not, then you should) - Start with equal pressures on all four corners. Try 38-39psi "hot". You will get a whole lot less understeer and it will only cost a couple of quarters at the nearest gas station. From there, used sway bars (18mm rear, 25 or 26.5 mm fronts) would be a good cheap upgrade.

Once you get a feel for that setup at a few sessions, then you can start looking at stickier tires and alignments. Once that feels good, you can go for shocks and perhaps even tighter springs and torsion bars. Don't try to do it all at once.

I'm running the Hankook RS-2s, 225-45-16s. I like 'em!

Ya this was my second run on these tires. They are all over the place. They suck for this. They are really good all seasons. So I am going for good tires, alignment and a bigger rear bar and we'll see where that gets me.