Going From Straight Line to AX.

Over the last few weeks I have decided to toss my Daily 05 GT from a straight line oriented street strip warrior over to a corner oriented machine.

Tossed some 18x9's and a 275 square set up on the car and put the sway bar back on.

Going to hit a AX course for the first time this weekend. Hopefully judging what all needs to change on the car. Which I presume a set of Adjustable sway bars and brakes will be the first thing on order.

Any tips for a first time AX runner to not get lost in the maze of cones out there?

Get there early and walk the track at least once.
And remember to bring water.

It's a blast.

If you want to be good, save the money you'd spend on more modifications and spend that on seat time. More time behind a car that is consistently the same from one event to the next will help you grow as a driver. If you change stuff every event you'll spend more of your time re-learning the car than honing your driving skills.

Tires, seat time, seat time, and some more seat time.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk

My advice for a first timer...just go out and have fun!

Don't get upset if your times aren't fast. Everyone is "slow" when they first start autocrossing.

Ride with another driver at least once or twice if possible, before you do your own runs. Most people are welcoming to newbies, and will not care one bit if you ride along for a run.

Over inflate your tires so they do not "roll over" onto the sidewalls during cornering. Personally, I start at around 40 psi and work my way down from there.

TGR96 said:

My advice for a first timer...just go out and have fun!

Don't get upset if your times aren't fast. Everyone is "slow" when they first start autocrossing.

Ride with another driver at least once or twice if possible, before you do your own runs. Most people are welcoming to newbies, and will not care one bit if you ride along for a run.

Over inflate your tires so they do not "roll over" onto the sidewalls during cornering. Personally, I start at around 40 psi and work my way down from there.

Click to expand...

^^ I agree.
Enjoy the experience.
It's alot fun driving.
You will most likely have to sign up for work assignment. Pretty sure most drivers have to work at least one session.

I signed up for cleanup detail to pick up the cones and load the equipment back into the trailer with my golf cart because at the time I had a bad knee and could not stand out on the course for long periods.

I did it twice, but the one thing I noticed is that AX is brutal on tires and shock/struts.
I did it in my 95 Mustang GT 5 speed without subframe connectors, but I would love to try it in a S197

Brutal on tires? Yes. But on shocks? Not really. Your shocks take more of a beating driving on a rough road than dodging cones in a parking lot for 50 seconds.

I guess I forgot to update this.

Long Story Short; Had a blast. Kept up with some of the late model's that were running what I thought was decent.

The biggest thing I found I needed was;
1.) Seat time. You all were spot on. Seat time means miles.
2.) Brake upgrades. The stock pads and rotors weren't cutting it. Went to a set of EBC Rotors and Hawk HP-Plus pads up front. Looking to get out and see how they help.
3.) Sway bars and some help in the chassis and suspension department. Once I get some money together I will be giving the boys over at BMR (As I always do for suspension components) a shout for some mods.

All in all, I had a f'in blast. Only looped the car out once. And discovered a entirely new way to create a money pit.

I think I have some Go-Pro footage somewhere. If I can dig it out of my hard-drive I will post it up.

If anyone has any part suggestions feel free to throw it up.

How were your stock brakes not "cutting it"?

Sky Render said:

How were your stock brakes not "cutting it"?

Click to expand...

They were stock pads and rotors with very little life left. Found that after a couple of hard brakes (about half course) they faded away horrible and couldn't slow the car soon enough, causing the car to under steer horribly.

Heavy understeer might have been you not getting off the brakes before you asked the front tire to be turning instead. Situations where this might arise tend to be course-specific, but after you've built up some speed.

OE and OE-replacement pads don't have very good initial 'bite', nowhere near as good as HP+. The trade-off is in things like dust, noise, and rotor wear rates, where the HP+ is considerably less appealing to most folks.


FWIW, if you ever step up to HPDE (Mid-Ohio is probably not that far from you), HP+ pads won't really be enough.


Norm

I dropped the Hawk's on mine and went with the Carbotech's. A whole world of difference, especially in the higher MPH situations. Also had put on Stoptech rotors.

What class did you end up in with all those modifications?

rjyote said:

What class did you end up in with all those modifications?

Click to expand...

judging by what was in his signature, probably CAM-C or maybe STP.

the rest of the advice here is good.

I suggest walking the course as much as you can, up to 5 times. you should have it memorized (ie. close your eyes and imagine driving the whole thing in your mind).

I'm still on stock pads, but i do have Brembos

swaybars, or adjustable shock is good to dial out oversteer allowing you to put power down exiting corners.

other than seat time, tires are the best investment.
A set of Bridgestone RE71R will knock seconds off your time.

Thenorm said:

judging by what was in his signature, probably CAM-C or maybe STP.

the rest of the advice here is good.

I suggest walking the course as much as you can, up to 5 times. you should have it memorized (ie. close your eyes and imagine driving the whole thing in your mind).

I'm still on stock pads, but i do have Brembos

swaybars, or adjustable shock is good to dial out oversteer allowing you to put power down exiting corners.

other than seat time, tires are the best investment.
A set of Bridgestone RE71R will knock seconds off your time.

Click to expand...

The event I ran at was just a open run with no formal classes. However, being new to this, I have no idea what class I will be running during SCCA Sanctioned events.

I went with Hp+'s after talking to a few friends and road course gurus. I know that with motorsports its trial and error and no two cars are the same. So I am open to trying anything that will possibly work.

Thanks to everyone for the input. I will continue to update the thread, or start an new one in a more adequate section.

The brake pad requirements for autox are significantly different than for road course.

Sky Render said:

The brake pad requirements for autox are significantly different than for road course.

Click to expand...

This. With pads, you have to consider the initial bite, the temperature range that they are built for, how "rotor friendly" they are, at what point will they fade, etc. You have pads that need to warm up before they can properly function. Then there are pads that are good to go without any warm-up, but they may not be as effective under high loads.

With Auto-X, you are probably hitting 60-90 mph before stopping. Road course guys are running 100mph+ and stopping to about 50mph or less, depending on the turns. Not to mention, road course guys are running continuous laps whereas Auto-X is 50 secs. or so then a break before the next run.

Many different factors between the two scenarios.

Boaisy said:

This. With pads, you have to consider the initial bite, the temperature range that they are built for, how "rotor friendly" they are, at what point will they fade, etc. You have pads that need to warm up before they can properly function. Then there are pads that are good to go without any warm-up, but they may not be as effective under high loads.

With Auto-X, you are probably hitting 60-90 mph before stopping. Road course guys are running 100mph+ and stopping to about 50mph or less, depending on the turns. Not to mention, road course guys are running continuous laps whereas Auto-X is 50 secs. or so then a break before the next run.

Many different factors between the two scenarios.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information. With that being said, what pads would you recommend?

I to have gotten into autoX. Only thing I have planed to put on are 275/35/18 NT05s and pads at the beginning of next season. Right now I am just going out and learning the importance in tire pressure and driving line.

Seat time is the biggest thing that has helped me.

QuickShift281 said:

Thank you for the information. With that being said, what pads would you recommend?

Click to expand...

I had Carbotech XP10's that I used for DD, AutoX, and a couple HPDE's. It generates a bit of noise and dust during DD duty, but not too extreme compared to more aggressive pads. After they warm up a bit, the noise virtually goes away. I was making stops from 150mph during HPDE's down to around 50-60mph with virtually no brake fade (not saying it won't happen). However, in the Auto-X situations, they worked just as well. Didn't need any warm-up periods for Auto-X or DD. Overall, I loved them.

If you are doing Auto-X's only (no HPDEs), they do have a more Auto-X focused pad, the AX6. Compared to the HP+'s, it looks like the HP+ peaks around 700-800* while the AX6 can go to up to 1000*. If you feel like you need more, they have the XP8.

http://carbotechperformance.com/brake-compounds2.asp

I bought the pads and SS lines from Vorshlag:

http://www.vorshlag.com/index.php?cPath=141_142_280

The rotors I got a huge deal through Rock Auto with their promo discount. They sell the Centric/StopTech rotors as well. I had the StopTech slotted rotors, though Centric (same company) blanks will be fine.

Also if you swap everything out, not just the pads, it wouldn't be a bad idea to upgrade the fluid. I had ATE Super Blue and then switched to Motul 600. For Auto-X, both performed just as well IMO.

On a side note, the other reason I dropped the Hawk's pads is I was told by one of the vendors that most of their pads (HP, HP+, etc.) are a side step compared to factory Brembo's (2012 GT). The other thing I read on some forums was that some of the materials in the Hawk's pad compounds damaged the paint of wheels if they weren't cleaned off often. Since I was lazy at times, that is what ended up happening to a couple of my stock wheels.