Suspension setup
 

nvm

I've heard some people (including instructors) say that autocross, drift, and track setups are pretty different. Is that true? I don't want to compete or make setup ideal for autocross, just track.

The question that you are asking can be answered by pointing you to a good source and letting you answer the question for yourself.

An STX setup has enough camber to use the tires and will have a balance that makes the car work efficiently.

After you read through that thread, you will be able to answer your own questions, or at least ask more relevant ones.

It doesn't matter if you want to drift or drive on track. This will give you a baseline of information you need and drive your suspension modifications with purpose of known, functioning setups.

Good reading.

Balance is definitely a spectrum and a preference, a drivers preference will change and evolve over time with experience. You have no restrictions to your setup except time and money. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have different car setups despite competing at the top level in the world with the best car available, there is no ideal perfect balance. Purely neutral does exist, the car will over or understeer based entirely on driver inputs.

Ultimately what's best is what allows the driver to be comfortable putting the car at the limit and extracting maximum performance, aero, autox, hpde, drift, it's all about the driver being comfortable.

You originally posted in the local section, I think when us amateurs go to figure that stuff out getting other driver input can be hugely beneficial, you may feel the car is oversteery but put someone else in the drivers seat and they may have a radically different opinion of the same car.

Indeed. Good answer.

Autocross prefers transition optimization, which typically means more stability through transitions... And that is often understeer pure steady state. STX obviously has no aero allowance either.

There are relevant threads on both, worth a read. You'll find more front camber recommended across the board.

I have so far run a setup that is looser than average for autocross. It probably was a contributing factor (though known and discussed before hand) to the loss of my car. Codriver's first time out, and conditions also contributed. It can be extremely fast in the hands of someone that knows the car. It can go bad just as fast.

Being comfortable at the limit is faster... Tune to your current comfort level, and constantly evaluate. Change one thing at a time (rear bar and camber? Both add grip to the front while turning).

A few instructors drove my car in the autocross schools and didn't note much except needing to back off on the throttle. I didn't ask them anything about car setup because I was more focused on just driving. The current setup is probably fine, I was just curious if it would be a bad idea to use aero to make the car playful at low to medium speeds, but stable/understeer at high speeds (80+).

That's a rather different intent than the OP implies.

The school emphasizes driving, it's not their focus, I'm thinking the AAS test course would be a great place to pull in some fast people for a few runs, we're lucky, lots of fast drivers locally.

:burnrubber:

It was one of my questions in the OP. I think the setup is fine, I'm just not comfortable with high speed (80+ mph) turns until I've mastered getting loose and pushing the car on low/medium speed turns.

He'll have to wait until next year. The AAS season is over, and the first event of the new season is at the end of January.

Since autoX is all about speeds under 60 mph and pushing transition balance, I would think you should consider looking into that.

Also, my apologies on a vague response. However, it is my experience that people who really want to get better need to be taught how to learn instead of just handing them answers. When you start understanding what your problems are and how to get those answers or ask good questions, people love to help you out.

Not much opportunity for practice in autocross and the techniques are different, especially how long you stay on power exiting a turn and what the lines are.