Driving Frustration Setting In

[integra55]

If I ran my car in AS, I can change shocks/springs and one sway bar and have to run factory wheels, any other changes that I am missing? I would change the rear bar. Now other than wide wheels a watts link and both bars and lighter seats I am basically the same. Not much difference if you have ever driven a mustang, don't get me wrong the wider wheels and hoosiers do help, but I drove the camaro at the school and you have to wait so long coming out of a corner to put any power down due to the front pushing and the rear not rotating at all. I do understand the problem as that was the same thing Scooter and I went thru with my car till I put the rear bar on it and it allowed it to turn. The IRS may have a different outcome with the rear if the rear bar was changed, so that may be a test it to see if it works deal as that was what I did by buying 2 or 3 different things till I found what worked.

I haven't really kept up with the Street rules … but what I do remember is that you don't have to run factory wheels … +/- 1" and within 1/4" backspace ????

you can buy the lightest wheels available that meet those requirements … don't know what the rules say about width

[TedV]

who is doing this?

Ok, maybe they used to preach smooth...


lol

Smooth yet violent

Actually, do to it what the car wants to make it do what it needs to do
How's that for some "do ..do" ?

[ke0ki2k]

who is doing this?

Ok, maybe they used to preach smooth...


lol

Smooth yet violent

Actually, do to it what the car wants to make it do what it needs to do
How's that for some "do ..do" ?

I literally set all of my students straight at the school .. first thing I said when I got in cars with people

me: "ever heard the term 'smooth is fast'?"
student: "yup"
me: "it's not in autocross"

[steverife]

Smooth is fast, but...

...smooth probably doesn't mean what your typical autocross student thinks it means.

[dewittpayne]

Great video love all the gadgets, how do you get all that info?

Harry's Laptimer Grand Prix edition app on an iPhone 4s with a Dual XGPS160 for 10Hz GPS (the internal 1Hz GPS is too slow for autocross and isn't very good at rapid changes) and a GoPoint BT1 OBDII dongle for engine data. Both are connected to the iPhone by Bluetooth. iOS Bluetooth is a never ending struggle, although it seems to be working ok with version 7.1.2. I'm waiting to see the bug reports before updating to iOS 8. The video is from a GoPro that was transferred to the iPhone and then overlaid with the data gadgets in the app. It's great when everything is working, which, needless to say, isn't all the time.

[dewittpayne]

Driving Paul's car at the Jetport was interesting. If makes EVO school instructors even more impressive. The ability to jump in a car you've never driven and go fast is amazing. I had a lot of difficulty with the paddle shifters and adjusting to the wider rear track. We didn't check pressures between runs and just let the pressure go where it would. After the last run, I measured the temperature profile across the right side tires with a probe pyrometer. It was fairly flat with the inside front only a couple of degrees F cooler than the outside and the rears basically flat. The final tire pressures were 44 front and 38 rear, which is exactly what I'm running on my Mustang.

I only had a serious problem with understeer when I went entered a corner too hot. The gearing wasn't too great. First was too low and second too high. And it needs a front end alignment, badly, and not just for performance. There's enough toe in on the front to visibly feather the outer edges of both front tires. But since the feathering was the same on both sides, at least it doesn't seem to be crab tracking. There's definitely more to get out of the car than I was able to extract, even with the bad alignment.

Speaking of alignment, recommendations on shops? I'd go with zero toe and as much negative camber as they can get without modification.

[90civichb]

Would you say the app is worth the $20 purchase? It seems pretty appealing, but my car being OBD1 I can't really see me being able to take advantage of the throttle/RPM abilities. I would like to maybe take the video with my phone as well, but I bet it would be pretty unstable.

[dewittpayne]

Would you say the app is worth the $20 purchase? It seems pretty appealing, but my car being OBD1 I can't really see me being able to take advantage of the throttle/RPM abilities. I would like to maybe take the video with my phone as well, but I bet it would be pretty unstable.

The money I spent on the app is trivial compared to all the rest of the equipment. I think for what it does, it's cheap.

Get a RAM mount for your phone. The3.25 inch suction cup mount with the short arm is pretty stable. That's the single swivel mount, which should be less flexible, but also less adjustable than the mount with balls at both ends of the arm. I believe in overkill, so I have thethree suction cup mountwith a 1" ball. Since the balls are hard rubber, there's still some flex, but not much. Then add the cradle for your model phone.

[90civichb]

Wow, that seems like a really good price for such a strong piece of gear, and you weren't kidding about overkill. Thanks for the links, these will really come in handy for me.

[IsaacMTSU]

Well, reading this was some time at work well wasted It's always crazy to hear people that can drive the crap of a car and consistently place really high in the event results argue about how sway bars work. A sway bar's sole purposes are to keep roll in check and balance oversteer and understeer. A good alignment (high camber and some toe out) is always the first step with a stock car. My truck is a nose heavy RWD with 245s in the front like your Camaro. The "autox" alignment helped more than brand new tires. Then, I put poly bushings on my stock front bar and it would understeer like crazy. Just that little extra "bar" up front was so terrible I swapped it back to rubber. In a perfect world, sway bars are bad. They don't use sway bars in F1 because the car is so low and stiff they don't need to. The only reason you need a bar up front at all in a street class car is to keep roll in check and preserve your alignment specs somewhat so you don't have positive camber in the turns. Since you can't get enough camber in FS rules, you need a bar to keep what you got from getting "rolled" away. I'm in the same boat (literally feels like one) with my truck. I have all stock suspension, so I can get about 2 deg of negative camber if I max out the shims in there. I need the front sway bar to keep it, but I also have to run high pressures up front to keep from eating the sidewalls off. When I had an open diff, the only way to get it to rotate was poly mounts and aggressive end links in the rear. I just bought a helical diff so I can steer with the throttle now . Your car is a good one to have, you say it understeers (I'm sure it does), but in the videos I watched you were entering every turn tight and exiting wide with no tire squeal and they looked like dragon runs (really smooth and safe). Mainly because of the slow/smooth input, like someone said earlier. "You need to get to a corner hot, lift (off throttle) - toss (steering wheel) - straighten wheel - jump back on throttle." is a pretty good tip. Your passenger needs to be holding on for dear life! You should either be giving it as much gas as the rears will handle or as much brakes as possible at all times. All that time coasting or not full brake/throttle adds to your time. In an automatic, drive with two feet. With the lag from the trans and the open diff, trail brake the crap of every sweeper. Jab the gas and jab the brake as you slalom. All that time spent hovering over your pedals goes away and is subtracted from your time as well.

TooLong;Didn'tRead
Keep your Camaro! Align it right. Don't buy anything unless it's a rear bar until you are are completely stuck at your driving limits. Drive it like you are running for your life at events.

[MARKP]

With many newer cars, driving with both feet will piss off the electronics.

[CobaltSSlow]

Lift-off oversteer probably isn't an option in that car since it is a staggered setup with a decent amount of weight on the rear end. Running wider tires in the front (same size front and rear ideally, not sure of wheel spec, you don't want to squeeze on too much tire) would make a tremendous difference. A rear sway bar would help too and both would be the best option - though you might find that a square setup will mean you need less rear sway bar to achieve a similar (but still distinguishable) result.

[thrdeye]

With many newer cars, driving with both feet will piss off the electronics.

That's why I never learned. Subies didn't like it at all. Incredibly hard pedal.

[Tim Gillespie]

They don't use sway bars in F1 because the car is so low and stiff they don't need to.

Actually, they do use anti-roll bars in F1, though it is a completely different design from a road car and not visible from the outside of the car. There is a torsion bar that couples roll on each side, giving the same effect as an anti-roll bar.

Tim

[dewittpayne]

They don't use sway bars in F1 because the car is so low and stiff they don't need to.

Actually, they do use anti-roll bars in F1, though it is a completely different design from a road car and not visible from the outside of the car. There is a torsion bar that couples roll on each side, giving the same effect as an anti-roll bar.

Tim

Until it was banned recently, some of the teams were trying to couple the front and rear suspensions, effectively anti-squat and dive bars, although not actually using bars. A spring is simply a coiled torsion bar.

As long as the center of mass of the car is above the roll axis, you're better off with a combination of springs and sway bars than with springs alone. In a word, bumps.