Given the regular comments in various threads referencing modifications and allowances, here's one old guy's first year process. Add yours in, if you're inclined - there's folks here with way more experience than me!
DISCLAIMER - it's long and wordy and might be different than the route you chose/choose....feel free to ignore or glaze over!
Our 2016 first year approach.....
1. Keep it simple initially....cars can suck up funds in a hurry. Until the car is actually the limiting factor in performance - do nothing more than drive as many events as possible.
2. For our car (base Mini Cooper), step one after feeling handicapped by the car was a set of real tires - which meant another set of wheels too ($$$). This improved our results, but more than that - it also made the car feel significantly more predictable. Oh, and we simultaneously introduced as much negative camber as could be achieved in the front wheels (still not enough, but that's it for a Street class Cooper).
3. Drove more events with just the tire/wheel & camber change and learned the car was way more capable than we were, but the enhanced predictability allowed us to learn more quickly. We were midpack PAX participants at that point. Given the Mini power limitations we also decided PAX times were the ones that mattered to us - fast RAW times would be awesome, but they're comparatively way more expensive to accomplish.
4. We were enjoying it enough to make the decision to do more, SO......did we have the right car? For us, (currently) yes - it needed to be a daily commuter, inexpensive to outfit with competitive rubber, simple enough for me to work on and historically capabable as a successful autox platform. I'm not sure we would've changed vehicles necessarily, but we would certainly have held off making any FURTHER changes if we felt the car would never be semi capable of being competitive.
5. MY aggressive nature kicked in at this point and I did the next series of modifications en masse (essentially the maximum allowable 'performance' enhancements available in HStreet) - there was no way I wanted the car to be the limiting factor (despite our driving skills under utilizing its' capabilities). $$$$$$ = catback exhaust and less restrictive air filter (an extra 3-5 hp!), Koni (non adjustable....as much as I want to say I know what I'm doing, I don't yet understand suspension behaviour well enough to think I can set up damping and rebound better than a well respected supplier) shocks and struts, and finally a stiffer rear sway bar.
6. Drove - as many events as we could fit into our work schedule.
7. Drove more, with some occasional upper mid pack competitive PAX results.
8. Started thinking the car was 'limiting' results....WRONG!!! Had one of the regular top finishers drive it - his second run was 2 seconds faster than I had achieved during an entire day of laps - appropriately humbled. So,....
9. Drove the rest of the season.....it's now essentially the end of year one and we've managed some top 10 and top 5 PAX results. Our skills have improved immensely (yesterday for the first time I drove with the stability control switched off for one lap), the car is more competitive than it was 5 months ago and we're still having a blast without breaking the bank!
The fun/$ factor is incredible and I have to say the majority of folks involved that we've encountered have been amazing - a significantly higher ratio than most any other 'competition' oriented activity I've ever participated in!!
If you made it this far....... thanks for suffering through - good luck with whatever path you choose to pursue and huge thanks to both SASC and CSCC folks for all you do!!
Cheers.
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April 26, 2024, 07:25:33 PM
