renotse

Tim Pryor and his co-driver Cody Clark did the RX8 community prowd again on Sunday. For the 3rd month in a row these guys have raised the bar in b-Stock class Autox

221 drivers competed against the clock in 31 different classes.
Out of the combined classes (including prepared and modifierd) the b-Stock RX8 had 2 entries in the 10 best times, 4th and 7th.

With the addition of an excellent run from Karter Bollmann, local RX8s posted the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th best overall times when you combine the stock classes. Bested only by David Hedderick driving his national ranked Porsche Boxter to a (ever so slim) 1st in b-Stock.

For the last three months similar results have been posted. However, Tim and Cody seem to be raising the bar as they dial in their setup. With results like these, I expect this RX8 to be very competetive at the National level soon.

Thanks, Tim, Cody, and Karter for your sucsess. It goes a long way toward stemming some of the negative press our wonderful cars seem to attract.

Event Results Here

PS. I met Tim and Cody at the meet and they are super guys. Tim even took my 18 yr old son on one of his blazing laps. At the time it was the fastest lap of the day (all classes). My son told me later that he was hooked. We will be back!

tpryor

0.074 - Seventy four THOUSANDTHS of a second!!! Oh well, I'll get him next time.

Thanks Renotse, for the kind words. It was a pleasure to meet you and your son. I hope you come back often, and compete next time (I know HE wants to).

We have a GREAT group of B-Stock drivers in the region, with Cody, Karter, David, Richard, Roger, Donovan, and a few others. Everyone gets along great, and we have a good time, while (hopefully) pushing each other to do better and better. It's a good environment, especially for young drivers to learn all about car control and disciplined driving, and you will find that any of us will go out of our way (for as long as asked) to help a "newbie" get familiar with the sport.

Again, it was great to meet you guys, I hope you come back, and any other RX-8 drivers who want a chance to see what a GREAT handling car you have, show up for the next event in your part of the country. You'll have a ball.

Genom

Welp, you guys obviosuly know more about auto-x than I do, so how about some helpful hints for the newbie? I have been practicing the whole look where your going thing and feel pretty good about it. My timing on the brakes is still off though and I wast too much time screaching in a turn since I dont brake soon enough, and usually way too hard.

I sorta know what I am doing wrong. but any other tips?

syntrix

Good stuff guys!

What are you running as far as legal mods? ie type of tires, etc...

zoomzooomp5

hello tpryor! I love autoX. Hey are u running street tire. can u run slick in B stock? and is their anything else u can do to the car in B stock.

tpryor

We are VERY careful to only run under the rules, as at a National level, everyone knows too much about the competitive cars to try and do anything "off the books". Since it seems we are going to be competitive, the "fast" guys will know every detail of these cars before long.

Our complete list of autocross mods consist of:

Racing Beat Front Sway Bar.
Racing Beat Front Sway Bar Links.
2 Spare Sets of Stock RX-8 Wheels.
1 Set 245/35/18 Hoosier Roadrace Compound Tires (R3S03).
1 Set 275/35/18 Hoosier Roadrace Compound Tires (R3S03).
Competition Alignment.
Borla Cat-back Exhaust.

I would put a replacement K&N filter in if it were available, but otherwise, that's it.

The BEST thing (and what we are trying to do) is to get the car to an acceptable point, and then just learn the finer details about driving it at the limit. For example, we are still too early on the throttle and a little late with the brakes (we have been autocrossing Miata's for 10 years), so we have to learn what the car "wants". The only way to do that is to finalize the modifications, and just put seat time in the car.

Rx-Appreci-8

Tim, Cody, and Karter

Wow! Look at those times! You are really underscoring that the RX-8 is a driver's car. You are obviously talented and must be having a blast out there.

Thanks for giving us ammunition against the 1/4 mile straight acceleration crowd!

I live in Friendswood so I'm definitely going to the next event. I want to see you guys drive. Do you know yet when you are competing again?

tpryor

Jan. 4th - Gulf Greyhound Park.

All Information HERE

Come on out, we'd love to have you. I will say, you should enter (you can do this on-line), it's MUCH more fun than watching. If you're there, find me (early) and one of us will take you for a lap.

PM me if you're interested.

renotse

Tim, I noticed that both of your sets of Hoosiers are Roadrace compound.

I think I remember in a previous thread that you mentioned that David H. was running AutoCross compound Hoosiers and that you perceived that as an advantage. Is it?

Please share your thoughts on traction, tire size, and compound selection for AutoCross.

Thanks

tpryor

Sorry, I guess I need to clear that up. We have tested the Hoosier RR compound, Hoosier AX compound, and Kumho's back to back on three separate occasions before (on the miata).

Same day, same course, same drivers, what we found was that the Hoosier RR are about .4 faster than the Kuhmo's, and the Hoosier AX's were about .8 faster than the Hoosier RR - all on a 60 second course.

There is a significant difference in "feel" between the Hoosier and the Kumho (or anything else), so we chose to use RR compound Hoosiers to use while setting up the RX-8 to our liking. This way, when we swith over to the AX compound, the setup will not have to change.

The RR compound can last us 6 - 7 months (with two drivers) and are very consistent in their feel, whereas the AX compound would only last us about 2 - 3 events (1 - 2 months) and "go off" well before they wear out.

So, money was the only reason. Rest assured, we will be on Hoosier AX compound for all of the "big" events (National Tours, Pro Solo's, etc.)

We know we are spotting David (Boxster) some time, but we would instantly be faster on the AX compound, and he knows it.

Also note that Karter is using a 225 Kumho (too small, we think) on the black RX-8. After the weekend, he may be on Hoosiers as well (they spent a long time talking to us about them).

I hope that clears it up.

donald121

Can someone video tape the next auto-x competition and post it here, please? Thank you. :D

revhappy

Those are some significant mods. How much of a difference does this make vs. the stock RX8?

tpryor

Actually, the alignment and the exhaust are the biggest differences, with the alignment leading the way. One of the issues we are having is that the alignment changes on the front while accelerating, braking, and turning (just like normal cars), while the alignment on the rear (effectively) stays at it's settings under any conditions.

So, a small alignment change really affects the way the car handles. And, anything would be an improvement over the stock alignment - we didn't have the same setting on any corner of the car from the factory!

The ride suffers a little (from the sway bar) on any surface that's not perfectly flat, but it's not bad at all.

According to our data acquisition box (GEEZ), calibrated carefully, we are pulling 1.17 (right) and 1.15 (left) with the Hoosiers on the car. We expect 1.19 or so on Autocross compound. That is WELL above what you could ever do on street tires, so I guess that could be considered significant.

Renotse can ask his son to comment on the g-forces generated by our setup, as he drives an RX-8 on the street, and has now ridden on a lap with us. That might be a better explanation than mine.

AlexCisneros

I'm interested to know what alignment set up you did using the Front Sway bars vs. the stock bars

eccles

For comparison, my '8 on the stock RE040's pulled just over 0.8g's average on a 50' circle. That's with a similar alignment to Tim's, but without the bar.

tpryor

STOCK BARS

Front Camber 1 degree negative
Front Caster 6 degrees
Front Toe 0

Rear Camber 1 degree negative
Rear Toe .08 toe-in

RB FRONT BAR (Alignment Tweak 1)

Front Camber 1.25 degrees negative
Front Caster 6 degrees
Front Toe 0

Rear Camber 1 degree negative
Rear Toe .04 toe-in (Stock setting)

RB FRONT BAR (Alignment Tweak 2) (this will happen this week)

Front Camber 1.5 degrees negative
Front Caster 5.75 degrees
Front Toe 0

Rear Camber 1 degree negative
Rear Toe .06 toe-in

You can see that we are just making small adjustments, but it is having a significant effect on how the car behaves. Interestingly, these values are ALL within the stock alignment specs.

We are going with a small amount of extra negative camber up front (to help the turn in) while settling the trailing throttle oversteer down with a slight addition of toe in at the rear.

I'll keep you up to date as the events go by.

AlexCisneros

Thanks... One last question though... What tires did you have on then?

tpryor

The alignment was done with the stock tires and me sitting in the car. We use Hoosier 275/30/18 tires for autocross.

By the way, the final specs came out at 1.3 negative in the front, as it was all the adjustment there was. All else was as specified in the earlier post.

racerdave

Do you use 275s all the way around?

Or (from your first spec post) 245s in front and 275s in the rear?

Also, if the 245/275 split is indeed true, did you find you were getting too much rear grip?

Just curious...

tpryor

We were using 245's (all the way around), then decided that we were easily overdriving the grip levels, so we switched to 275's (all the way around). We are considering 285's next, but we are pretty happy with the grip level of the 275's (so far) - we need a couple more events to decide.

We are not going to upset the balance of the car by running different sizes front and rear.