The Official 370Z Autocross Thread

[JSBZ]

I never noticed. Good idea about turning it off.

Originally Posted by IMWEZL

Has anyone else noticed that with the synch-rev on the car momentarily continues to apply the throttle even after you let off and hit the brakes?

I ended up just turning it off, it's not like I'm downshifting anyways on the course. With the system turned off the car behaved as expected or until I got to happy with the throttle and steering.

[ChrisSlicks]

Had an awesome auto-x this past Saturday. This particular club is one that runs a long course, a little over 100 seconds this week (actually short for them). This is also an anything goes club as far as mods go. There are 2 classes, cars with tires of 140 treadwear rating or above, and everything else.

There were 4 Corvette Z06's, a Viper, a supercharged Exige, supercharged Miata, twin turbo Miata, turboed MR2, and a bunch of other machinery there.

I pulled off a win in the "street tire" class with a 1.5 second gap to 2nd. Got 5th overall (0.2 seconds away from 3rd).

For this event I ran camber control arms and dialed in -2.6 degrees in front and -1.6 in the rear, as well as the Hotchkis sway bars. The car was very responsive and handling was excellent!

[IMWEZL]

Originally Posted by ChrisSlicks

For this event I ran camber control arms and dialed in -2.6 degrees in front and -1.6 in the rear, as well as the Hotchkis sway bars. The car was very responsive and handling was excellent!

I haven't searched yet but I have been wondering how much the car would benefit with more negative camber. Is that the max you could get out of it? Just wondering what made you choose that particular setting.

[JSBZ]

Nice result. Were you running the stock B'stones?

Originally Posted by ChrisSlicks

Had an awesome auto-x this past Saturday. This particular club is one that runs a long course, a little over 100 seconds this week (actually short for them). This is also an anything goes club as far as mods go. There are 2 classes, cars with tires of 140 treadwear rating or above, and everything else.

There were 4 Corvette Z06's, a Viper, a supercharged Exige, supercharged Miata, twin turbo Miata, turboed MR2, and a bunch of other machinery there.

I pulled off a win in the "street tire" class with a 1.5 second gap to 2nd. Got 5th overall (0.2 seconds away from 3rd).

For this event I ran camber control arms and dialed in -2.6 degrees in front and -1.6 in the rear, as well as the Hotchkis sway bars. The car was very responsive and handling was excellent!

[AutoX Z]

Originally Posted by IMWEZL

I haven't searched yet but I have been wondering how much the car would benefit with more negative camber. Is that the max you could get out of it? Just wondering what made you choose that particular setting.

The car would benefit greatly from some more negative camber in the front. Unfortunately because of the way the suspension is designed, front camber is non-adjustable. The only way to change it is to get some adjustable arms like chris has

[ssqpolo]

might try my first autox in two weeks in Brooksville, FL!

[JSBZ]

Originally Posted by AutoX Z

The car would benefit greatly from some more negative camber in the front. Unfortunately because of the way the suspension is designed, front camber is non-adjustable. The only way to change it is to get some adjustable arms like chris has

How difficult is it to dial in an adjustable suspension? Any special alignment equipment needed?

[ChrisSlicks]

Originally Posted by IMWEZL

I haven't searched yet but I have been wondering how much the car would benefit with more negative camber. Is that the max you could get out of it? Just wondering what made you choose that particular setting.

I wanted something aggressive, but still streetable. Normally -1.5 degrees is considered the max for street, but I set the front toe to 0.0 and set some more camber. These camber arms are set up to be almost all negative, as my mechanic said when we were installing them, "There's an oh my god amount more left there". I think I could hit 5 degrees pretty easily. Usually in auto-x the more camber you can get the better but it can start to hurt your straight line braking performance. The turn-in is very nice and hard now so I'm leaving it this way for a while.

[ChrisSlicks]

Originally Posted by JSBZ

How difficult is it to dial in an adjustable suspension? Any special alignment equipment needed?

We used a calibrated alignment rack (Hunter), but they do sell home alignment kits now. There's also a string method that is reasonably accurate just fiddly and time consuming.

[ChrisSlicks]

Originally Posted by JSBZ

Nice result. Were you running the stock B'stones?

I was running the Bridgestone RE-11's in oversized width. 275/30 front, 305/30 rear. I had to water the tires at the end of every run to prevent them from overheating, they fall off quickly when hot.

[JSBZ]

Originally Posted by ChrisSlicks

I was running the Bridgestone RE-11's in oversized width. 275/30 front, 305/30 rear. I had to water the tires at the end of every run to prevent them from overheating, they fall off quickly when hot.

100 sec run is long. I can see the need for cooling the tires. Any rubbing issues?

[ChrisSlicks]

Originally Posted by JSBZ

100 sec run is long. I can see the need for cooling the tires. Any rubbing issues?

We've had courses with 140 second runs, it all depends on how many cones they feel like laying down.

Happy to say no rubbing issues with the camber arms. Only negative about them is that they are heavy (about 2 pounds each) due to being fabricated out of steel, vs the ultra lightweight stock aluminum which are light as a feather. Probably about 50% of the weight is considered unsprung. Very easy to install, 3 bolts. Easy to adjust as long as you don't want to change the caster. I stayed with stock caster so installation was less than 30 minutes per side.

[IMWEZL]

Hmm very tempting. I might look into this when I get back from deployment. I was trying to go a whole year in B Stock without any mods just to get a good feel for the car. In three events I went from 5th place (out of five) to 2nd at the most recent.

[ChrisSlicks]

Originally Posted by IMWEZL

Hmm very tempting. I might look into this when I get back from deployment. I was trying to go a whole year in B Stock without any mods just to get a good feel for the car. In three events I went from 5th place (out of five) to 2nd at the most recent.

The car has much more of an advantage in B stock. I would have won the last SCCA event if I had race tires on, as it was I came 2nd on street tires against race tired cars.

By installing the camber arms you are automatically in BSP which is a very hotly contended class. In BSP people are going to have crazy sized wheels, suspension mods and more. The other catch is that even in a prepared class you aren't supposed to use an alignment setting beyond stock range, which is quoted as -1.41 degrees max.

[AutoX Z]

Originally Posted by ChrisSlicks

The car has much more of an advantage in B stock. I would have won the last SCCA event if I had race tires on, as it was I came 2nd on street tires against race tired cars.

By installing the camber arms you are automatically in BSP which is a very hotly contended class. In BSP people are going to have crazy sized wheels, suspension mods and more. The other catch is that even in a prepared class you aren't supposed to use an alignment setting beyond stock range, which is quoted as -1.41 degrees max.

Where does it say in the rules you have to use stock alignment settings? It says you can only adjust it using stock capabilities but you can make it whatever you want.

And yes the Z doesn't really stand a chance in bsp against the boost buggies.