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Today I went to Fostoria, OH and entered in the North West Ohio Racing SCCA Solo 2 competition. It was my first time at this whole autocross thing. There were 18 people in our STS class and I placed 14th which I didn't think was too bad. I think the wining time in our class was like 45.00 seconds and my best run was a 50.129 so i was very happy. I have some tuning to do to my car so if you experts could give me some tips before the next time I run ro things to get that will really help out (brakes, bars etc?). Oh and I have Gold lines, Koni's in the rear, front and rear upper strut bars, and intake....any help would be great. Just thought i would share...oh and I beat an SVT focus

 
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Setup a cone course in an big empty parking lot at about 3:00am...and practice until 7:00am . Good job whipping SVT foci ***.

 
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Seat time is really the only way... Your few times out the key is to run clean and beat SOMEONE... anyone. Worry about winning after you got the hang of it. If you ever get the chance to do fun runs, do them... it's also very helpful to get a fin run as a passenger with some really good drivers... watch how they drive from inside the car. You'll learn a lot.
As far as set up goes... TIRES TIRES TIRES. Your car is useless unless its stuck to the road.
Either get a set of lightweight 15's for cheap and buy either Falken Azenis Sports or Kumho Ecsta MX and run those just on the track, or be prepared to buy a lot of street tires. I learned this the hard way... I've been autocrossing on my street tires (215/45/17 Yokohamas), there's 5000 miles on them, they're trashed... look at them


You'll want to avoid that if you can.
My suspension right now consists of:
Stock Springs and Shocks
Neuspeed Upper Front
Cusco DC5 Upper Rear
Spoon DC5 Lower Rear
RSX Rear Sway Bar

I'm currently looking into some kind of adjustable suspension so I can dial it in a little better, but right now I have the car almost neutral...
Tire pressures are running 42/33.
Make sure you always check with the SCCA STS rules before you mess with anything. You can change the rotors and pads, but they have to remain the stock size, you can't convert the rear drums, all your suspension parts have to be mounted to stock locations, engine bolt ons are ok, but no internals, stock cat has to stay, tires must have a 140 Treadwear or higher, no wider than 225 and the rims have to be 7.5" or less. Getting everything tied together helps, but having adjustable struts helps get it perfect. You'll probably want to set the rears a little stiffer than the front.
Setting it up is a bit of a guessing game, you need to set it how you like it, it's not something someone can just tell you and it works. Fun runs really help this. You just have to figure out how you like it, some people like a super tight car, others like it to run a little loose.
Drive a couple of events before you really start tinkering heavily... Make sure you've got the knack of driving the course down, and learn what the car is going to do when it's hanging on for dear life... THEN start messing with it. Autocross is more driver than car, so you'll need to work on yourself too... walk the course, pick your lines, drive smoothly... smooth goes faster than mashing the gas and driving point to point... You don't need to cut every corner on the inside cone... set yourself up for the next corner by coming out of the corner before it where you want to be.
Have fun.

 
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Oh i forgot to mention i have Konig Traffiks 15 inch which are about 11 lbs or so wrapped with the Falken Azenis....

 
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Dang.. I dont have money to be buying new rims and stuff for track.. plus with the kit its impossible to drive on 15's..

I'm glad you had fun.. I am supposed to go down and try it out, I could put stock tires and no kit on and replace afterwards.. but my 17's would probably do better than stock dont you think.. even with the kit.. what do you guys think?

 
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I did Delta SCCA in my civic a while back. It was really fun and most of the people were cool. The day I went, they had about 60 or something in the novice class. I ran a 49. something and then a 48.0. I was about 7th place. I thought I did pretty damn good for my first time. But you wouldnt believe all the cars that do SCCA.

 
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Its never impossible to run 15's. the Total tire diameter is going to be about the same as with your 17's you'll just have a higher side wall on the tire.


Boilermaker1, those tires look just like mine! Gotta love the Feathering on the sides. wait untill you take them in to get changed, the Tire guys look at you like "what the Hell were you doing with these tires"

AirForce: the best modification you can make is in the way you dirve.
go pick up "Secrets of Solo racing" you can find it a borders, barns & nobel ect..... Lots of good information in there dealing with Just the Driver.

wait untill your times be come consistant before you start to change things (lear with what you have now) When you do start changing parts/settings do them one at a time. that way if someting makes you go slower you'll know what part/setting it is.