How about sharing your autocross secrets?
#26
09-27-2004 | 05:56 AM
4th Gear
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 374
Likes: 0
From: Mt. Airy, MD USA
Hey Folks, although my finish this year can't back up my driving, my co-driver, Ian Baker, finished second at Nationals in the car in G Stock, so obviously the car was working fine...
What Keith said about Karter Bollman was correct and echoes what I've been saying for awhile: Improvements in the MINI are much less effective over how the stock suspension comes.
Although my car has Koni Single Adjustables ("off the shelf"), I don't believe they gain you any time at all. What they do gain you is adjustability, although the rear is not very friendly, especially when it's raining and then drying, since you have to drop the shock out.
What Keith has(had?) is the easiest because they can be adjusted without removing the rear shock. They cost a pretty penny over the Konis, but have more adjustability and are much easier, they even "click" for each adjustment.
All that said, my front has about 1/8" toe-out, the rear has about 3/4" toe-in. The rear toe-in is unusually high, but that allows me to throw the car with very good pradictibility. In the wet, you don't ever have to worry about "snap" oversteer.
Even the best drivers will drive differently and have different setups for their "style", so you can't always setup your car exactly the way another has and enjoy driving it. It would probably be best to do something generally in the same area as what you read hear and then adjust as you get faster to what you feel you need.
And finally, the obvious as suggested many times before, do some schools. For those of you in the Mid-Atlantic area, check out the Washington D.C. Region SCCA Schools http://solo.wdcr-scca.org/noviceSchool.php
They become popular enough to draw people from 6-7 hours aways.
Good Luck!!
Brian Garfield
What Keith said about Karter Bollman was correct and echoes what I've been saying for awhile: Improvements in the MINI are much less effective over how the stock suspension comes.
Although my car has Koni Single Adjustables ("off the shelf"), I don't believe they gain you any time at all. What they do gain you is adjustability, although the rear is not very friendly, especially when it's raining and then drying, since you have to drop the shock out.
What Keith has(had?) is the easiest because they can be adjusted without removing the rear shock. They cost a pretty penny over the Konis, but have more adjustability and are much easier, they even "click" for each adjustment.
All that said, my front has about 1/8" toe-out, the rear has about 3/4" toe-in. The rear toe-in is unusually high, but that allows me to throw the car with very good pradictibility. In the wet, you don't ever have to worry about "snap" oversteer.
Even the best drivers will drive differently and have different setups for their "style", so you can't always setup your car exactly the way another has and enjoy driving it. It would probably be best to do something generally in the same area as what you read hear and then adjust as you get faster to what you feel you need.
And finally, the obvious as suggested many times before, do some schools. For those of you in the Mid-Atlantic area, check out the Washington D.C. Region SCCA Schools http://solo.wdcr-scca.org/noviceSchool.php
They become popular enough to draw people from 6-7 hours aways.
Good Luck!!
Brian Garfield
#27
09-27-2004 | 06:20 AM
Coordinator :: Gulf Coast & Panhandle MINIs
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 12,662
Likes: 0
From: In the Tube
#29
10-12-2004 | 07:02 PM
5th Gear
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,081
Likes: 0
From: Texas
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