What are your current camber settings F&R? Going down to a smaller rear swaybar could help. If that doesn't work, you could run no swaybar altogether. Many STS miatas are set-up to run with no rear swaybar.

One piece of advice before you dive into making several changes, get a more experienced driver than yourself to drive your car. Your car may not be as loose as you think - sometimes a change in driving style is all that's needed. ;)

^-1.8 in the front and -2.0 in the rear. I've had more experienced drivers drive it too and they have the same problem as me.

http://vimeo.com/4343863

Here's a video, to show you how around even some of the lower speed corners in 2nd gear, it likes to slide.

Megans have an 8k/6k split. I'm not surprised you have oversteer issues.

As a first test. just disconnect one side of the rear sway bar. It's easy and you'll know right away if this takes it too far or not.

^I will try that at the next event. The Stance GR+ that I will be getting soon are 10k front and 7k rear. Mr. Pockets requested a 6k rear and was happy with it, but also talked about trying out 5k in the rear to see the difference. I was origionally planning on going with the 6k in the rear as well, But do you think it would better to go down to 5k?

Not sure. Others here have more experience setting up the RX-8 - I'm still on my BS setup.

I intend to go with the KW Variant 3, which uses a 455/258 split. That's a 56% split, which is halfway between 10/6 and 10/5. I suspect either could be made to work, but perhaps others will chime in here.

I would recommend the 6k. That's what I used last year with the same tires. I will also point out that I've still been running with stock bars, front and rear. I have no idea what those RB bars will do to your balance compared to mine.

OK, I've finally got my fist STX-specific purchase on the car. 17x9 wheels (a bit heavy, but the price was right) with 255/40-17 Toyo R1-Rs. I realize the tires may be a somewhat contreversial choice, but I liked the reports that the R1-R does well in the rain (I'm in the Pacific Northwest and have experienced rain on more than one tour) as well as good longitudinal traction (should help on corner exit against the AWD cars). If they force me to be a smoother driver then so be it.

I probably would have bought AD08s but I got impatient - wanted the tires for this weekend's NW Region Pro & regular solo events at Packwood.

Rest of the car is still pure B-Stock. I expect to get schooled by Karl & Amy in their WRX, but you have to start somewhere.

Car looks great George. Yeah Karl and Amy Coleman will be a great sounding board to see where you stack up!

I didnt figure an upgraded clutch would pose any advantage due to no real additional power adders :dunno:. I must have missed that one when reading through the rules.

Oh well, like it was mentioned, its not like i am competing on a national level. Im just a rookie

I'm running the RB front and rear bars with 8k front springs and 5k rear springs. I usually run full-stiff on my front dampers and full-soft on my rears, and the car is very well balanced. 10k fronts plus the very-stiff RB front bar might be a bit stiff for street tires, but that will of course depend on the surface. Either way, I think you could dial in either the 6k or 5k rear with some shock / camber / tire pressure adjustments.

Exactly - no performance advantage per se, but still not legal to the letter of the rules. However, when you get to San Diego, go spectate at a local autocross, talk to few competitors and see what they say. Most shouldn't care especially since you're a novice. Main point though is to have fun! This sport is addictive...and can get expensive really quickly! :lol::lol::lol:

I guess I should post this nugget over here for you guys that have not looked at the June 09' SC, and plan to run STX/U.

For you Racing Brake fans, they just started advertising in SportsCar magazine (SCCA members get it)..... In the June 09' issue (pg 43) there is a discount code for 10% off Racing Brake products. SC0609, good until 7-31-09.

I took advantage of BHR's sale a few weeks ago and put Hawk HP-Plus pads on my car last weekend. Tomorrow will be my first event with them.

I can tell so far that they definitely require less pedal effort to stop the car. Will it be enough to allow me to use my admittedly odd heel-toe method and downshift to first, if I need to? Time will tell.

^I'm running the HP+ as well, So far i've ran 3 events on them, and one day at the track. They are a definite improvement, but love to squeel when they are hot!

My avatar would seem to suggest you're right. And yet, I will keep trying! :D

We had events Saturday and Sunday.

First, I took FTDI both days. That's a clean sweep of the season so far after three local events.

Let me tell you, the RE-11s are amazing. I know I'm not reaching their full potential yet, because I have no real complaints about the car's handling. I know I refined it a lot last year, but come on. If I'm not complaining, I'm not pushing it hard enough. It's not rotating as much as I'd like in low-speed corners, but I'm not sure I'd want to trade that for the excellent high-speed manners the car has right now.

As Mark said above, the Hawk pads are too much for street tires. He's right about that one. I'm going to give them another couple events, just to see if I can use them better, but they do overwhelm the tires quite easily. Braking with the stock pads, leaning on the ABS, I get consistent pedal feel and stopping distances. With the Hawk HP-Plus pads, the brakes seem to bite too suddenly. The pedal isn't consistent and I am surprised by how long it takes to stop. If I don't get them figured out better on my car, I'll swap back to stock.

No pictures that I know of so far, sorry. I did shoot video on each of my runs, and I'll try to get something up tonight.

Awesome results Pockets! What pressures did you find work best with the RE-11's F&R for your set-up?

I wouldn't call them 'final' pressures, but so far I'm using 40f/38r. The RE-11s seem to need more pressure than I'm used to.

I'm not convinced those are perfect pressures yet because we still don't have what I would call useful temperature data. I might need more or less air or more or less camber to get the most out of these tires.

Ive done about 5 events on my nitto nt05's and the grip level seems to be the best when the pressures are at 32f/30r. Anyone else running these they went on sale a lil late so alot ppl have been running the re-11 or z1, anyone try the ad08 advans

As I said, I don't have pictures from the event, but here's a video I put up from Saturday. I haven't had time to put one up from Sunday yet.

http://vimeo.com/4726254

Mr. P., congrats on your FTDI. That’s an interesting surface you run on there.
I had mixed results at my NW Region events.

On Saturday, we had a pro-solo style event. Each course was a little under 30 seconds long. Conditions were sunny, cooler in the morning and perhaps 80 in the afternoon. I lined up against Karl Coleman (or rather, he lined up against me!) in his well-prepped WRX, with me in my B-Stock prepped RX-8 running 255 Toyo R1-Rs. This would prove to be an interesting test.

Not surprisingly, Karl completely owned the launch. It wasn’t even funny. The announcer said my 60 ft times were 0.5 seconds behind Karl. My reaction times started in the .7xx range, but I eventually had one .5xx. I’m not saying my 60 ft times are representative of what a good RX-8 driver could do with another 20 hp on tap, but I never bogged the car and I think we all know the WRX will have our number at a pro-style launch.

The rest of the course(s) wasn’t much better for me. You know the old adage that a race track is a bunch of drag-races connected by turns? Well, I never experienced a Solo event of any kind that more closely matched that description. There were several long pulls on the throttle, and given that the course was under 30 seconds long, well, you get the idea – just a couple of token turns & transitions connected by a flat foot. Fun as heck, but talk about a course that liked Hp…

So, in the end, I was nearly 3 seconds down for both courses combined (54.7 vs. 57.6). I should point out that Karl had FTDI that day.

On Sunday I did much better. It was a more typical solo course with lots of transitions and sweepers. I closed the gap to less than 1.5 seconds over a 58 second course (56.6 vs. 58.1).

I’m actually pretty happy with that result. Considering my level of car prep, and the fact that Karl is a more accomplished driver than I (Karl is a nationals trophy winner), I think the RX-8 has a shot in this class, at least for regular solo-style courses. Of course, it’s just one event, and Karl was on last year’s Star Specs, etc. But then, I’m just learning to drive the R1-Rs, so…

I just ordered KW Variant 3s. It will be interesting to see how much time I find with these. I’m not expecting miracles, but it should help close the gap.

Interesting write-up George. What are your plans for power? High flow cat, headers, AP?

2wd cars will always be at a disadvantage in pro solo, but that's the nature of the beast. Have any pics from the event? Hopefully, with seat time and set-up improvements, the gap between you and Karl will close even more. It definitely will take 1-2 years of development before we start to see the RX-8's true speed in STX. In a regular solo, it definitely seems like it can be a contender in the class.

When I get the $$$, I'll probably go for the AP + cat for the power tweak, with the header coming last. Car made 180 Hp, corrected, on a Dynojet a few weeks ago with a K&N drop-in & cat-back, so the motor seems reasonably strong.

I've been debating, though, wether I should get the AP or cat first. I know they work well together, but I'm not sure which would give the most imrovement stand-alone. :dunno:

If you have to choose one or the other at this time, I'd take the AP. The increase in hp/tq should be noticeable across the rev band and you'll have other features to play around with like launch control. :)

Once you have the $$$ to add the high flow cat, I'd flash back to the base (stock) map and get a pro-tune.