All...I'm still really new to autocross, always been interested in road racing, but I figure this is the most accessible way to gain seat time for now.

I recently found out there is a local autocross session locally and I attended last weekend. I was just a spectator, I had a good time and it really made me get off my *** to get my car ready and try it.

I hear they will run again in May and so I've been trying to get my car ready.

This will be my first time out there so any advice would help....

I'm curious what class my car would fall in?

Below is the basics on my camaro.

Power: Cam, Bolts Ons
Suspension: Bars, Konis, Springs, Rod PHB
Body Mods: Pin On Hood

I'm not trying to go out and dominate as much as just learning and having a good time.

Thanks for reading...I posted in frrax but it looks kinda slow in that forum.

 

look into geting wider wheels like the cheap ZR1 replica's with 17x9.5 and 17x11 and get some nitto NT05 or other road race tire. They have a treadwear of 200 so they are still considered a street tire class but they will perform very close to an R-compound. If you go to a roadcourse, and will be pulling high speeds and braking hard for multiple laps, get some SS brake lines, and some high temp brake fluid. Look into some rotors if your stockers are like mine were, rusted. go for sloted but dont worry about drilled. I see you have koni's already, they are probably one of the best suspension mods u can do, besides the koni 4/4's lol. You should have a decently balanced setup with that.

 

frrax is filled with so called experts who dont believe in owning anything but a dedicated, stripped & gutted racecar, and think having a driver/weekender pull double duty as an autoxer is wrong and something only a beginner will do. take whatever you get off that forum with a grain of salt, and use it just for technical information. trust me.

to answer your question, you first need to find out how your particular club runs their rules. is it SCCA? do they follow SCCA rules? are they strict with their rules/tech, or is it more relaxed and open? first answer those questions. if its any kind of half decent run club, they should have their own webpage with their rules/classes listed there. try that on your own first.

most clubs look down on any kind of power adders, including bolt-ons. for some stupid reason theyre very horsepower unfriendly. most of them drive some sort of jap car; wrx, evo, honduhs, miatas, etc. doing something major like a cam should bump you a class or two.....that is if you tell them, and if its noticable. does it have a lumpy idle? can you tell its cammed? did you also do heads?

 

I hear you, before I never really had anything to ask or post on that forum, but it never really felt that way from reading all the old threads. Very informative site no doubt.

If I remember correctly yes they do follow SCCA rules, but it appears the techs are laid, real laid back.

No Heads, I wont be adding more bolt on HP for now, if anything I'll add a 100 shot later, but thats just for messing around. The idle is a little lumpy its a 112 cam, but its mild. You cant tell its cammed if I idle over 900 rpm.

Appreciate the info...

 

90% of the people that post there all know each other already. in real life, not just online. and theyre all near professional racers, so of course they have the "theres us, and theres them" attitude. ive asked more then a few questions about certain things, like brake pads, harness bars, etc, and had these 'experts' nearly jump down my throat about not having a stripped racecar, daring to race my weekender, and actually care about how it looks. the only decent thread i started was about rear/trans fluids. that actually got normal responses and help me decided what brand to use.

unless their tech guys know f-bodies, LS1s in general, they wont know anything unless you tell them. baring obvious visual cues like a FAST intake and the like.

 

This is a quick list of what I'm doing to get her ready..

Flush brake fluid
Install Stock PS cooler
Alignment
Light Weight battery
Oil Change

I'm going to take a small electric air compressor to check and adjust tire pressure. Am I over looking anything?

What tire pressure should I start with?

 

for a typical autox you dont 'need' to do anything. a track day is harder on the car then any autox. bleeding fluid wont hurt. the stock PS cooler doesnt do good enough of a job to really warrent putting it in. keep in mind that after a few events, especially if you run slicks, the stock pump WILL go, no matter what you do. if you plan on running a full season, start to look for a new pump, primarily a turn one unit. a little expensive, but one of the best out there for our cars. flushing the stock pump and using new high po fluid will help at least a little. i use royal purple in mine.

the battery is overkill until you start really getting serious about competing. remember, like you said in the first post, youre not out to win your class, but to learn and have fun. if youre getting the battery regardless, then fine. but id put money into something other then a light battery first.

oil change wont hurt anything, but again autoxing isnt that hard on motors, not like a track day is. you rarely if ever get even close to runing at redline, and if so its only for literally a second or two. i easily ran my TA on anywhere from 2 to 7 events before changing the oil, using GC.

alignment is the best thing you posted. somewhere i have the specs for an autox/street car. if you dont know them already, ill look for them.

tire pressures depend on the tires you run. every tire is different, and you certainly wont need as low a pressure needed in slicks. try 37 front/35 rear and go from there. you typically wont notice a change in pressures until you can drive exactly the same, each time out. start with 37/35 as a ballpark figure, and keep them there throughout the day.

the biggest things you might need, depending on where you run, are comfort items like a chair, extra clothes if its cold, food/water, work gloves, hat/shades, things like that. id imagine texas is warm or hot already, so take in account that youll be standing around in the sun for 8-10hrs all day. also something to keep in mind come summertime.

 

Great advice thanks....

With the reduce flow of the turn one PS pump, you dont think the stock cooler can keep up? I probably wont be running slicks for a while and so I'm hoping the stock pump and cooler do for now. But I had been eyeballing the turn one pump for a while now.

The battery is a done deal, I really think less weight is always a good thing. Does less weight mean more grip on street tires?


The chair and extras are noted! I got baked by the sun last time I was out. Live and Learn...

I'm looking into learning heel toe and it sure seems awkward. I need the gas pedal closer to the brake pedal.

Do I get pedals or modify the gas pedal? Also any pointers on how to practice heel toe?

 

the turn one AND cooler is a fine combo. i was talking the stock pump and stock cooler isnt enough.

every pound off counts, but think about the big picture. youre taking 10-15 or so pounds off the front...but what else have you done? spare/jack? rear/passenger seats? carpet/sound deadening? a/c? radio/speakers? youre not going to notice a differance in just the battery.

heel/toe is actually a misnomer, at least in our cars. you dont use your heel on the gas and toe on the brake. keep the left side of your foot on the brake, and roll the right edge off to blip the gas. an aftermarket pedal set will help. check around the sponsors, i think theyre still in business. i have a set, and it helps alot. i certainly wouldnt start messing around with bending pedals.

how/why would you even downshift in an autox? unless it happens to be a big, fast course, you wont get out of 2nd, and downshifting to 1st really isnt worth it with as much power and torque as we have. all youll do is spin the wheels. we're not ricers with a complete lack of usable torque. a stock LS1 can power out of most any corner in 2nd much better then a dinky honduh, given the same amount of traction.

 

Trust me when I say my car will weigh near 3200 at the track( no driver). I have weighed it before. The battery is the final piece in little here, little there approach. Still have a/c and radio though.

Ok, makes sense but again I've never gone at it before. Staying in 2nd sounds good to me, I was worried bout my lack of shifting skills.

And yea, I know the proper method to heel toe shifts, but cant get it down yet. I'm going to look into some aftermarket pedals.

 

[QUOTE=2000Z28M6;11417802]Trust me when I say my car will weigh near 3200 at the track( no driver). I have weighed it before. The battery is the final piece in little here, little there approach. Still have a/c and radio though.
Ok, makes sense but again I've never gone at it before. Staying in 2nd sounds good to me, I was worried bout my lack of shifting skills.
And yea, I know the proper method to heel toe shifts, but cant get it down yet. I'm going to look into some aftermarket pedals.[/]



If it is a road course I wouldn't worry about heel toe'n if you haven't tried it before. just use the brakes and shift just before the turn in. But I do it the way Echomirage said. But on a roadcourse there is so much going on you need to keep it simple, the smoother and faster you get you will start doing more technics you are taught on instinct, and you can move on to other things like heel toe. have fun...

 

My advice:

Walk the course as many time as you can. Run through it in your mind...try to do it in the same amount of time it will take to run the course.

Focus on making a clean 1st run and then improving your time with each additional run.

"Squeeze" the brake and throttle...don't stab them.

Max out the negative camber.

On street tires, I would start at 40/30 and adjust from there.

You might get a "long pedal". Be prepared to pump the brakes if that happens to reseat the pads.

As for classing, the cam, pin-on hood, and gears are going to put you in Street Modified (SM). SM is a tough class....you may want to run in C-Prepared if the competition is more suited to you (usually not very many CP cars)...you don't have anything near a fully prepped CP car, but it doesn't really matter. Plus, you can do pretty much anything you want to your car without worrying about checking the rule book every time.

I would run in the class that contained cars/drivers I felt like I could compete with.

 

Well it's this weekend and the car is as ready. I flushed all the fluids, brakes, clutch master, PS, and engine.

I had an alignment done yesterday and had them give it as much negative camber as it would give....got really close to -1 on both sides.

I also had the fill my tires at 32psi all around.

Once I picked her up and took a little spin. WOW it was a noticeable difference.

I have BF Goodrich gforce street tires, not the best but they do decent.
I think the fronts might even offer a little more grip with a few more lbs of psi I'm going to leave them at 32 and then play with it.

The rears are good I always felt 30-32lbs does good.

I'm excited and cant wait!!!!

 

At 32 the fronts will roll over onto the sidewall excessively so I think you'll definitely want to pump up the fronts. You should try it at 32 and then bump it up to 40 to see the difference it makes.

Keep in mind that a parking lot will have pea gravel, little bits of asphalt, and sand all over it, so the level of grip will be different than on a nicely paved road. Consider yourself lucky if you get a nice new parking lot to tear up!

-1 is decent...that will help a lot.

Relax and have fun!

 

I've heard different things on tire pressure, and I'll make my own observations. I'm going to start at what feels good which is 32 and set it as my starting gauge.


I'm taking a small 12v compressor to play with the psi.

On a side note...I did install some autovation pedals and I like them alot.

Still getting used to them, only been on 4 days. Heel toe is no sweat with the new pedals.

Although I wont use it, I'm more mindful of how blip the throttle just enough to make the entry and exit of the turn smooth when downshifting.

Been practicing the position of my foot as I downshift every time I drive the car.

I think eventually like anything else it will get natural and smooth..