The Official 370Z Autocross Thread

[ChrisSlicks]

Originally Posted by christian370z

This is a great thread, I just read through it in anticipation for the Solo SCCA event I am doing this Saturday. The only thing I am wary of is the course as I have watched tons of auto-x videos and find that many of them are hard to follow in terms of knowing where to go.

Is it more obvious when you actually get to the course in person?

It is much more apparent in person when you are walking the course at low speed. There should be some people available for the course walk to assist the novices in understanding the course and its elements.

[supunna_picta]

Originally Posted by christian370z

This is a great thread, I just read through it in anticipation for the Solo SCCA event I am doing this Saturday. The only thing I am wary of is the course as I have watched tons of auto-x videos and find that many of them are hard to follow in terms of knowing where to go.

Is it more obvious when you actually get to the course in person?

Best advice: Walk the course as many times as possible (and walk it with the novice group if your region does that) and also look far ahead, not just at the next turn.

Sometimes courses are set up like a sea of cones so course design can make a difference.

[christian370z]

Originally Posted by ChrisSlicks

It is much more apparent in person when you are walking the course at low speed. There should be some people available for the course walk to assist the novices in understanding the course and its elements.

Originally Posted by supunna_picta

Best advice: Walk the course as many times as possible (and walk it with the novice group if your region does that) and also look far ahead, not just at the next turn.

Sometimes courses are set up like a sea of cones so course design can make a difference.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the advice. It's an SCCA event this Saturday, I am going early to walk the course a few times in response to your recommendations. They have a mandatory driver's safety course as well before the first drivers head out which I hope will cover that stuff.

I will make sure to catch some GoPro footage so that I can have evidence of my noobish autocross skills!

[handyman]

On top of walking the course, some other things that I've found helpful are to draw the course on a piece of paper (you can also note key points or draw the line you want to take) and run through the course in your head.

Good luck and have fun

[Shamu]

Even more important. Get an experienced ax instructor in the car with you.

[cossie1600]

What makes it DOT legal over the racing slick anyway?

[AutoX Z]

Originally Posted by cossie1600

What makes it DOT legal over the racing slick anyway?

The two circumferential grooves and it has to pass some other DOT tests but I'm not sure what there are.

[cossie1600]

The A6s are softer than some of the racing slicks out there.

[boardkat]

so much tr00f, so much fail. i love this thread so much!!

[handyman]

Just finished an all day autox school. It was my 3rd day on an autox course and I'm picking it up quickly. I ended up matching the best time of one of the instructors which he set in his B Stock S2000CR. That made my day (as well as a couple FTD's)

I experienced the damned inside rear tire spin up on a big increasing radius sweeper. Has anyone found any remedies for this that wouldn't bump me out of CS? Being light on the throttle helped of course, but I want to be able to lay down the power! I've heard one guy had good luck using a bigger front anti-roll bar... but I'm not stoked about making the understeer even worse just for traction on corner exits. Maybe after using tires and alignment to counteract the understeer a bar wont be so bad.

I found smooth trail braking and playing with tire pressures really helped getting the car to rotate, I wasn't have any issues with plow by the end of the day.

For anyone who's interested I found 41 psi front and 34 psi rear to be my happy place on the stock tires (of course it will change depending on driving style, course, and traction, but its a place to start) I was still getting a bit of roll over on the fronts (to the base of the triangle) and not quite enough on the rears (about 1/4" from the triangle) but it was handling great with a lot less understeer.

I'll be throwing 285 RE-11's on next week, so all my tuning of tire pressures will be useless to me, but hopefully they will help someone else.

[handyman]

Managed to win the street tire CS class at today's autox (and got 11th out of 53 in PAX) Turns out our stock tires aren't too bad in the rain

[cossie1600]

Yeah, bigger front bar helps the inner rear lift. You just have to deal with the understeer with tire pressure and alignment setting (same reason why I don't have the bar)

New tires work too, I love my 285 setup. I can see a huge difference over last year's setup

[boardkat]

so has anybody in CS actually test-fitted a 315/30R19 with the sport pkg front wheel and a 5mm spacer? they're the same height as the 295 and i know they'll mount up fine on a 9" rim - we have a few guys over in the solstice world that did the same thing with a 315 on an 18x9 (which has similar tread/section width as the 19" version). i'm dealing with my own car issues that may see me make the jump over to the 370 in the near future and don't want to reinvent the wheel if i don't have to!

[boardkat]

oh and i know jeff had a set of custom AST 4100's made - was that through brian hanchey @ ast-usa directly, or did was strano in the middle of it? anybody running 5200's?

[cossie1600]

not sure how much info you are going to get, there are probably not many people who particpated at the national level in this forum, especially in a 370z