Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: Jetronic
The car was very composed, a little jitter under braking (in a corner) as the brake distribution thing did it's work, but for an OEM setup very nice. The steering is very neutral (i changed the factory rear springs with stiffer OEM from another engine option) and I can set the direction of the car by using the brakes. first time you feel it can be a bit unnerving though. 1G (and slightly over) is possible in the corners with these tyres. The real track monster however pull 1.6G, I'm told
Looks like good fun! How did the front tires wear? I've got similar alignment(lots of camber and toe in rear, near 0 in front) on my Focus but with substantially more body roll, so the outer edges of the fronts take a beating in autocross.
Your front camber might not quite be ideal but if outer edges are wearing OK, and you can already rotate the car easily on the brakes or with dropping the throttle, setting up for neutral handling in mid corner with some power can make the car tricky, especially at ring speeds!
I set up my old Neon with stiffer springs and a rear sway bar and put on as much front camber as I could. Great fun in the 30-60 mph world of autocross, and felt like a hero for the first few track sessions of the day, but at the end of the track day I into the grass sideways... Getting tired and had a little slip in concentration and off it went.
Tyre wear is dead even an all 4 tyres. No issue with outer tyre wear from a few laps around the ring, but they're not really sporty tyres that wear fast.
I'm loooking into Dodge dart lower control arms, if they'd fit, and if they're different size. If they're a few mm longer, this could solve the camber issue. I have a set of stiffer and slightly lower springs for the front (about 1/2 inch lower), but I'm in two minds about fitting them as it'll no doubt introduce more understeer than the lowering + extra camber would remove. Going with grippier tyes would make the camber issue more pronounced, I would think?