Hey guys whats up....This past weekend was the first autocross in the MSP... it was a hard adjustment goin from a S2000 to a fwd car... But i do say, i really enjoyed racing this over the s2k... i ended up winning my class... I beat a WRX, the volvo s60 (yeah, the 300hp one, cant remember the model), a couple of 330Ci... All in all, i am very happy with this car... hell to beat a wrx and a bmw... says a lot about the car... i will post pixs ASAP... HELL YEA to the mazdaspeed protege

 

What kinda set-up you running ?? Stock??

 

Congrats on the great weekend. I will be looking forward to seeing those pics.

 

i am running a stock set up... i even have cheap pep-boy tires... uhh, i gotta get rid of em... i am gonna go for hankook... i am going to put a 225/40/17 on... im not really sure if a 235/40 will work... i dont think i can get camber done on the car either... but i do plan to toe the front end in and the rear toed out.. ill see what i can do... i am doin this saturday so i will post how much i toed in/out the car....

 

Thats nice I always like to hear good news about the Proteges

 

I'm autocrossing my Protege for the first time this weekend. I'll let everyone know how it goes (I'm not looking forward to one-wheel drive).

 

Hey Mazdaspeed , if you already won your class why start changing things. Put some better tires on it and keep winning. rear toe out will work well in a parking lot but be scary as hell on the freeway. Just my .02


Tom

 

Plus, toe in or out will wear your tires.

Here's the alignment settings I'm running this weekend:

FRONT
Camber: 0.9 degrees
Caster: 1.5 degrees? (I can't remember for sure)
Toe-out: 0.10 degrees out

REAR
Camber: 0.9 degrees
Caster: N/A
Toe-out: 0.10 degrees out

Toe-out in the front give more initial turn in (doesn't help with overall grip)
Toe-out in the rear makes the rear "slide" more. This is an important tuning tool, but unfortunatly if you dial in too much toe-out (0.20+) you'll start wearing out tires on a street driven car.

You can also have you're alignment shop install "crash bolts" in the bottom of your front shock mounts. They cost about $10 and give you up to 2.5 degrees of camber! I would recommend 1.5 degrees as a good compromise for a street/track vehicle.

Unfortunatly, crash bolts aren't legal for Mazdas running in the SCCA stock classes.

 

one more bit to think about; if you escalate the level of car prep the competition tired of being badly beaten , will starting throwing money at their car. this in turn will force you to do the same.......this is how National level stock class cars end up with $15,000+ worth of bills preping them to be competitive. Just keep winning , the competition will eventually figure out your driving better and work on their skills in the meantime enjoy yourself.....it's fun to win with less car.

Tom

 

I second that! (I'm looking forward to running a little 'ol Protege DX against the Mini's) Everyone cross your fingers for me on Sat/Sun!

But some people will argue that it's fun to "out engineer" the competition. But then we're talking about non-stock autocross classes...which are becoming very popular by the way. (STS doesn't look too bad for the Pro. STX for the MSP)

 

good luck this weekend... let me know how you do... i got a race thisd weekend as well.. i wonder if i could pull it off again... GLUCK...

 

thanks alot for the tip... but i heard that you couldnt do camber on proteges... oh yea, i dont know if i told you but i am running on pep boy tires... LOL... P.O.S. i think i am going for the Falken Azenis... what do you think? im having a hard time deciding what tires to get

 

Can't go wrong with the Azenis.

 

We'll I wish I could post a positive report on my first autocross with the Protege....but it didn't go well.

I couldn't get the car to turn!! I was running top-of-the-line Kumho V710 race tires at all four corners on lightweight rims.

I tried everything:

Full stiff rear shock setting (this helped)
Full stiff front shock setting
Full soft front shock setting (this helped)

Wider rear track
Narrower rear track (this helped)

I started with Front: 45psi and Rear: 50psi. It didn't work. Then I tried:
Front 42 psi
Rear 58 psi (didn't work)

Front 42psi
Rear 30 psi (this helped)

But the car still wouldn't rotate.... So I tried the ultimate setup (everyone thought I was crazy). I ran the V710's in front and my stock Kumho 712 street tires in the rear! It worked! Not great, but it worked.

I ended up 6th on Saturday (with race tires on all 4 corners) and 3rd on Sunday (with Race/Street setup).

I'm thinking of switching to the STS class so I can add a rear sway bar, which should help a lot. But unfortunatly STS allows a lot of other modifications which I don't want to spend money on (coil overs, intake, etc...) I liked the idea of running the car in the stock class.

I'm wondering if my brake pads were bad. I bought the car used and I've noticed that the fronts pads are thick (1/4") and the rear shoes are really thin (1/8-1/16th). I wonder if the previous owner replaced the front pads but not the rear shoes. This might throw off the balance of the car. Hmmmmm...... Any other ideas?

We're holding a drivers school at our next event (May 21st-22nd). I'm one of the instructors so maybe I'll have some time before/after to do some more testing before the Sunday event.

 

im sorry to hear that u didnt have a positive report about ur autox race.... hell at least you went... i didnt have a chance to autox on the 17th bc of an eveil exgf... AHHH...

The last tire psi u ran sounds like the Psi i use... i use 34-38 in the front and about 24-25 in the rear.. Granted i dont have V710s on my car, but when i was running V700s that was about the psi i was usign... i know a lot of people who run high tire psi but i have never had luck... even with my psi kinda low, i never really have trouble with them rolling over...but at the tire psi i run, the car rotates sooooo PERFECTLY... yeah, i know i really dont have much room to talk since im running high quality pepboy tires... haha, its all i could afford right now... but i am goin for the Hankook Ventus r-32 or something like that... Azenis are awesome for cooler days, but the last event it was around 75 degrees and ppl had a hard time with them bc they were over heating... My dad ran my S2k which has the Hankooks on em and he had no trouble...

I dont want to run STS or DSP because im going to spend a ton of money on my car just to be competitive and i really dont have the money to do that since i got the s2k also... but i do like my stock class... it very compeptitive with the wrx rsx and bmws... i def. cant complain...

im not really sure if ur breaks have anything to do with the car being unbalcanced... but i see how it woudl cause that problem...

my next autox isnt until the 15th of may... AHHH i cannot wait that long... let me know if you have anyother tips...

im thinking of a corksport exhaust... hmm, maybe a greddy boost controller but i dont have to tell anyone... but i think i am goin to focus on getting tires first...