So I went to my first Auto-X with the S197

[walter]

And I was totally amazed!!!

I was expecting to do much much worse then I thought but I went for it from turn one and didn't look back. The car is very compliant and even on the stock KDWS tires the understeer was minimal. I had 5 runs total and improved on every single one of them cutting down over 4 seconds from start to finish beating out some really fast cars including a Porsche 911 Turbo 3.6.

This really is a great chassis with some suspension tweaking it'll really be a killer.

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[kooldawg6]

Very nice!
Improving driver skill is very important and you did great knocking off 4 seconds A guy in my Mustang Club road races his older Fox body. He was telling us that other than better tires and brakes, he suggests changing nothing the first few times you go out to the track. The biggest gain you can make will be getting to know your's and your car's limits. He said only then do you go out and start replacing parts. Many times he's seen people go to the track with a "Brand X" suspension system that is highly rated only to do worse than those who have factory parts. Practice, practice, practice and then go from there if you're going to stick with it

 

[walter]

Correct.

Biggest mistake I did with my 240 was dumping thousands into the suspension before getting a feel for the baseline at the track. I'm already a relatively seasoned Auto-X driver this being my 6th or 7th event I competed in. Until last week-end I still felt the car as if it weren't mine. The drive to work on Monday after the event was a totally different story everything was just right.

That said I am going to be working on the suspension to enhance what is already there without altering the nature of the car. I'll replace the LCAs, panhard bar, panhard brace, the sway bars and endlinks and add the G-Trac Bar to the setup. The goal as you can see is not to change the car completely but to take the design which proved to be really good last sunday and make it even better.

Springs, and shocks will come much later once I'm satisfied that I got the most out of the car's setup. This time I'm getting it right.

 

[ranger04]

You go girl, I mean man !!!! I thought these cars would be decent at auto X out of the box.