SCCA Solo C Street Discussion

[solort]

are there any better brake pad compounds for the C Street class?

[Kido1986]

I swear by my DS2500s for Autocross and DD. Need only minor heat (the second time you hit the brakes you have great stopping ability). I drag mine up to the start on run one and its perfect.

[autoXracer]

Originally Posted by Kido1986

I swear by my DS2500s for Autocross and DD. Need only minor heat (the second time you hit the brakes you have great stopping ability). I drag mine up to the start on run one and its perfect.

Do you have fronts and rears? How is the brake dust and noise when DD?

[AustinTX]

I traded my STU STI in last Friday for a BRZ, and I plan to come play in CS next season - despite the PAX number

[G_Ride]

Originally Posted by AustinTX

I traded my STU STI in last Friday for a BRZ, and I plan to come play in CS next season - despite the PAX number

I'm sure you'll have fun and good competition anyways

[DylanFRS]

^ Agreed!

I am picking up a set of Kosei K4Rs over the winter wrapped in ZIIs. I ran RS3s last year and I liked them but I think the sidewalls are too soft for our small amount of camber. What is everyone else running for tires next year?

[mrazny]

Originally Posted by Kido1986

I'd LOVE to move to STX, but I dont have the big money to do a competitive build. $2000 for exhaust and tune, $1900 for coilovers, $1000 for wheels, $500 for a light battery, $2000 for the lightweight brakes. That's not even close to a full build, just the 80% build, the bulk of the parts that make a difference.

You can skip some of it but I want to be competitive :/ At the end of 2014 I have to decide I love competitive autocrossing more or my BRZ because I have a feeling it will come to that.

Talk to Lance and/or Bart. That's a lot of wasted money. % build is mostly crap. define competitive? if you want to be in the trophies, no you don't need a whole lot of that. If you want to win the whole thing, then spend cubic dollars.

[Kido1986]

Originally Posted by autoXracer

Do you have fronts and rears? How is the brake dust and noise when DD?

I started with just fronts but now have rear too. Minor noise but not bad at all, nothing like my Carbotech pads.

Minor dust, more than stock but nothing terrible. You will notice a bit after each event.

Originally Posted by mrazny

Talk to Lance and/or Bart. That's a lot of wasted money. % build is mostly crap. define competitive? if you want to be in the trophies, no you don't need a whole lot of that. If you want to win the whole thing, then spend cubic dollars.

At this point, I'm not a front running driver. At BEST, I'm final trophy spot contender. I feel these cars need a minimum of wheels, tires, coils, exhaust, tune to compete. That's still around $6000 before fine tuning

[Biggins]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

I am picking up a set of Kosei K4Rs over the winter wrapped in ZIIs. I ran RS3s last year and I liked them but I think the sidewalls are too soft for our small amount of camber. What is everyone else running for tires next year?

I ran ZIIs in 215/45 last year and will run those at locals until they're corded (2/32 now). Most of my budget is for tires next season. I'm going to try 16s to start with either the new Yokos or Toyos. I want to see if any other choices pop up before/during the season that prove better, otherwise I'll get ZIIs again by mid-season.

[Kido1986]

Originally Posted by Biggins

I ran ZIIs in 215/45 last year and will run those at locals until they're corded (2/32 now). Most of my budget is for tires next season. I'm going to try 16s to start with either the new Yokos or Toyos. I want to see if any other choices pop up before/during the season that prove better, otherwise I'll get ZIIs again by mid-season.

What wheels are will you be running?

[Rexpelagi]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

^ Agreed!

I am picking up a set of Kosei K4Rs over the winter wrapped in ZIIs. I ran RS3s last year and I liked them but I think the sidewalls are too soft for our small amount of camber. What is everyone else running for tires next year?

From testing back to back at Nationals I think the Hankooks have the peak grip but don't have the turn-in response. My codriver and I were both ultimately faster on the practice course using 235/40R17 ZII's than we were on 215/45R17 RS-3's, although the difference was only 0.2sec for me having never been on ZII's before. You may be able to get the Hankooks to work but I don't know if the bigger front bar setup is the answer. I also think it is an uphill battle as the ZII's seem to handle poorly cambered cars better, which I suspect is why they did well in Tire Rack's test on a stock BMW.

Regardless, I will try to make the RS-3's work once I get the Konis installed on my own car as I still have a lot of tread life left on my RS-3's.

[Kido1986]

We've made the R-S3s work well on my car (Konis and Strano FSB) but we are switching to ZIIs very soon as the info others have put out show it better (once you get used to their characteristics). I know the 235/40s were epic on Trev's car at Nationals, especially versus Rivals we had.

215/45 RS3 vs 235/40 ZII is what we will be testing

[Rexpelagi]

Originally Posted by Kido1986

We've made the R-S3s work well on my car (Konis and Strano FSB) but we are switching to ZIIs very soon as the info others have put out show it better (once you get used to their characteristics). I know the 235/40s were epic on Trev's car at Nationals, especially versus Rivals we had.

215/45 RS3 vs 235/40 ZII is what we will be testing

I'd be interested to hear if your results are different than ours, as our test was only a few runs with minimal setup changes on one surface.

I'm especially interested since we have nothing better to do for the next 5 months up here in the frozen tundra. :-)

[Biggins]

Originally Posted by Kido1986

What wheels are will you be running?

I'm not sure yet because I want to wait until late Feb/Mar to buy. It will likely either be the Sparco Assetto Gara 16x7 +48 with a 5mm spacer or the Focal F16/F09 16x7 +42 from Tire Rack. They're light but not super light, but I ran OEM wheels all last season.

My region should regularly have 5-8 full/mostly prepped FRS/BRZs running next year in CS and several well-driven/prepped 370Zs, MX5s, and RX8s, so I'll know quickly what works, also with DC Pro and NJ Tour early in the year. Plus, I have Strano's STX cars to baseline where I need to be throughout the season.