That Bilstein/Progress combo seemed to work well for Peppy. Glad you liked your set-up on the track!

 

Heres a pic of me at about 100mph through turn 1 of our local track.

 

Nice! I hope to add a few autocross shots of my car after the T&T and Event #1 I'm doing this Sat/Sun with my local SCCA region.

I also fixed the "clink-clink" issue I was having from the rear coilovers. Tightened the top lock nuts down some more.

My car is now ready for the season to start!!!!

 

Swift springs have arrived...

 

^Nice. I was thinking of going with Swifts on my FatCat customs as well.

 

They're pricier coilover springs, but from numerous sources who've advised me, well worth the extra expense.

 

not sure how this got off the bilstien 9 topic.

but the progressive sways work well!

beers

 

progressive sways wheres a good place to get em??

 

I think Bryce @ RaceRoots sells them.

However, I'd talk to S0l08 about them. They're great swaybars for track events, but I think he found them too stiff for autocross purposes.

 

The PT bars worked well with the stock springs, but I think they are too much for autox with the bilsteins. With them on, I just found I was having to fight the car for the first time since I got it. I've got them sold and going to try some softer bars all around.

 

oh ok thanks for the info i'll just stick with my stock ones for now then

 

wow,

thanks for the pm..

you should note that theses are custom coilover springs.. i read it very wrong..

i know some people that are going to luv you long time..

beers

 

Ha ha. Thanks Scott. Yeah, you can get Swift's in varying ID's, length's and spring rates.

Looking at my schedule for this season, I'll probably have these on the car around May 1st.

 

this kinda scares me now. I have the PT sways and autox is about to start for the year.

 

I did my first event in STX today -- a test & tune held by my local SCCA region. I had a co-driver who was Gary, one of the better drivers in my region, whose previous experience was driving a decently prepped '00 camaro in ESP. Gary and I would typically PAX 3rd or 4th all of last season when I was still in B-stock (always within 1 or 2 places of each other).

Today's event was held at one of my local region's smaller lots, infamous for its bumps and a surface that has quite a bit of gravel in places. Not the best of lots for 2wd cars, and typically an awd car gets top PAX here.

My best time was a 48.204, while Gary got down to a 48.388. Only cars to go faster than us were a decently prepped Street Mod STi on hoosiers (47.9) and an ASP C6 Z06 (47.5). So I was top PAX for the event, while Gary was a close 2nd.

I found the car to be very well-balanced in my straight-out-of-the-box set-up! I had the front and rear shocks set to the middle setting of '5' for the first session. We both felt the front need a little more rebound, so I stiffened the shocks to the setting of '4' for the second session. The car felt even better, so around the end of the session, Gary suggested stiffening it up a little more, so I went to a setting of '3'. The car then picked up some power-on understeer in sweepers but was faster in transitional elements like slaloms. Times were basically the same (car was faster in some areas, slower in others), and when we went back to a setting of '4' in the front, the power-on push was gone once more. FWIW, we kept tire pressures consistent throughout the three sessions, as Technical Support at Hankook Tires was able to give me some good starting pressures to use.

One comment which Gary made that I felt really summed up the performance of these coilovers was that when driving through the bumpy section of the lot, the shocks soaked up these bumps very well w/o unsettling the car. The konis on his former ESP camaro did not.

So two thumbs up all around!

P.S. Tomorrow is Points event #1, and even more solid drivers will be in attendance. I'll see how things go as I'll have 5-6 other drivers in my class (including two WRXs). Gary is running my car in STU (as he wants points in that class since he just bought an E36 M3 that he's prepping for the class).

 

Awesome Chike. Got my wheels and tires in and the new sways will be here next week. What pressures were you running on the Hancooks?

 

Hankook recommended a hot pressure of 45 psi for the RS-3's (gave them my car, racing weight, alignment specs, etc). So I wanted the fronts at this psi, and stepped the rears down 2 psi.

Btw, one thing I should have made a little clearer in my previous post -- we only adjusted the front shocks. The rears stayed at the setting of '5' all day. So '4' Front, '5' Rear were the shock settings that worked best for me on that lot.

 

Two more pics I snapped in grid...





I should have some action shots by Monday...

 

Wow! That's high! Exactly 10 psi higher than I ran the star specs.

 

Agreed. But they worked very well!

 

I did my first points event in STX today with my local SCCA region at the same lot as the Saturday test-n-tune. STX was one of the larger classes with a total of 8 cars including an '89 Civic Si, a co-driven WRX, and a couple mustangs.

Gary ended up running with me in STX and he ran first as my tire warmer. In terms of set-up, we ran pressures of 45F/43R and I went with the shock settings of 4F/5R.

After 1st runs, I was leading with a clean 55.9, while Gary was in 2nd with a 56.3. No one else in the class could match either of these times after 4 runs (closest was the civic si that got down to a 56.6 on his last run). However, Gary dropped his time to a 55.8 (clean), while I lowered mine to a 55.2 (clean). We both had faster runs where each of us just nicked one cone -- Gary had a 55.0+1, while I had a 54.4+1!!!

I finished 2nd in PAX, while Gary was 4th out of 84 drivers. The guy who took top PAX had a number of FTDs/FTPs last season in his decently-prepped Street Mod STi on hoosiers. STX also ran in the 1st heat on this dirty lot, while Street Mod ran later. However, if my 54.4 had been clean, I would have taken FTP...

Gary and I had a good talk afterwards about the handling of the car, and we both were in agreement that the car had absolutely no vices today. My set-up felt completely dialed-in for this lot. There was no power-on understeer, the car was very easy to drive at the limit, and the back-end rotated progressively when we wanted it to step out. However, we both felt that the front-end seemed to have a little more compliance/roll than the back-end. From the driver's seat, this felt like the front-end was slower to take a set than the back-end (especially in fast transitions e.g. slaloms). I'm thinking my new stiffer Swift springs will fix this issue, but those will be added after a few more events...

Not many action pics are up yet, but here's two-

Gary


Myself

 

Awesome job! Can't wait for my next event. 2 weeks away and on a bad surface. But it's Easter weedend, so there is not much to choose from around here.

 

Nice Job, Chike.

Not to sound like a broken record, but did you think about stiffening the front shocks to add some front transitional roll stiffness?

 

Thanks George.

See my comments in post #290. We tried a stiffer shock setting of '3' during the T&T event and the car developed power-on understeer. This could be an ill-effect of the adjuster increasing compression and rebound at the same time. A front setting of '4' worked best for the car on that low-medium grip lot.

 

A couple more pics...





I must say I'm very impressed by the amount of shock travel that the Bilstein coilovers have. They really kept the car feeling very composed through the bumpier parts of the lot, and I never lifted an inside wheel (front or rear) on the grippier sections of the lot.

I'll see how she does on the high grip asphalt at Fedex stadium this coming weekend...