Re: <E36 M3> auto-x improvement, suspension

[Mike Orth <ORTHM@xxxxxxx>]

Carlos Lopez asks about upgrades for autocross...

Carlos,
Congrats on you're progress.  Now comes the hard part, finding those
last couple seconds.  It may take a while, but if you are consistantly
closing the gap between you and the local hot shoes, you're making
progress.  By driving on street tires for a while, you have learned
about being smooth with your driving, and staying ahead of the car for
your inputs.  This will make you even faster on sticky tires.  I've seen
some people who start out on sticky tires develope bad habits that would
cause problems on street tires and they don't understand why they aren't
going as fast as others in the class are.

I think you will get the biggest bang for the buck by going to sticky
tires.  They are typically worth 1 to 2 seconds on a run.  A little toe
out in the front will help turn in as well, but it will make the car
more "darty" under hard braking.  Leave the car alone for now, get
another set of wheels for sticky tires and drive as many events as your
budget allows.  Now go run down that  Integra :-)

I've done some suspension changes (shocks and springs on my E30 325is)
and may have gotten a few tenths of a second, but nothing like the
change with sticky tires.

If you're going to do the suspension changes, be careful about using too
much negative camber with R1's, they don't like it.  I'm not sure what
the R1 supply is like since the new G Force tire is taking it's place.
I don't have any info on what the new tire likes as far as suspension
setup goes.

Hope this helps,
Mike Orth
Tarheel Chapter

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