FT@SELGP

Today we went to our first autocross of the season, the "Test and Tune" day. It is one of those days that give competitors a warm up and does not count towards points. There were many Evos and suprising number of STis; just a wonderful sight to see

Since our STi is not out of the shop yet, a customer of ours (wojo from these boards) asked us to drive his Evo to help him tune the suspension. His car has a turboback exhaust and I believe that is about it for power upgrades, and we had put in his JIC FLTA2-RS coilovers and did corner balancing as well.

The event was at FedEx field and was a beautiful day. The lot's asphalt was nice as usual and the course was a great mixture of handling and power. The start favored power and a good lunch could truly make 05. -0.7 sec difference. The a right-hand sweeper, then a series of single-cone and gate slaloms with 90-deg turns and shift and 180-deg turns and so forth.

Wojo has set the JIC's bump settings to 12 front and 12 rear out of 15. Tire pressures were 36/36 if I remember correctly without my notes. And we started running...

During my first run, the car was not pushing too much, it was relatively balanced and I took it quite easy and had a passenger (another Evo owner who was not running today and first in auto-x ). There was a portion of the lot that was relatively bumpy and we noticed that we were skipping a little too much and was not able to put the power down in that section where it would have been nice. However, the slaloms and overall turn-in response was quite nice. My best time was a 67.xxx and Wojo did a 66.xxx

In the second run, we adjusted tire pressures, and the car responded quite well to transitions with the RA1s, but we were still having problem putting power down in that one bumpy section. But our times went down to 65s.

Before the 3rd run we adjusted the rear bump to 8 and left the fronts at 12. And now we could really put the power down in that bumpy section, but we compromised our turn-in during the slaloms, slowing our transitions with less stiffness in the rear. But overall my time went down to 64.7xx, so focusing on that side of the course was the right objective. But we had to keep the power down but also get good turn-in during the slaloms. So, we wanted to try lower bump in the front and we set it to 10.

Unfortunately, that compromised front turn-in too much and I hit a cone during the first slalom and since we hadn't readjusted the tire pressures, they were a little too high in pressures due to heat and it became more difficult to control the front-end. Ended up with a 65.xxx in the fourth run.

My third run was the best and was enough to get 3rd place in ESP behind a mustang (0.2secs) and a camaro (~2secs). So, overall I would have throphied, but being roughly 2 seconds behind first place finisher is never too good .

However, we truly gathered invaluable data for shock setup on the Evo, which will also be applicable for the STi with slightly different settings.

We certainly got the results I was looking for: adjustable shocks played a significant role in putting our available power to the ground and modifying handling characteristics as they are supposed to and Wojo was particularly pleased to be able to have that capability as he drives on the street, autocrosses, and track events with nearly equal focus.

And I have admit, I would have loved at least 2-way adjustable shocks as in this particular course we could have used the rebound advantage to our benefit without compromising turning and being too stiff on the compression.

In my opinion, this was also a testement of the quality of the JIC shocks with their valving. At the price range that it is, the FLTA2-RS units are truly high-quality and full-range usable.

We'll see how the real thing goes next month

kevo

iTrader: (7)

Me and my buddy went to autox yesterday. Weather is around 50-60 degree. Me and him got the same car. only different is I have a sunroof and JIC coilover and his is totally stock without sunroof. everything else is the same stock. Both running stock tires with same pressure 38 all around. In the morning section. we take his car out the best we can do is low 53 sec in his car (one with no sunroof and stock suspension). The car push a little and when you let of the throttle to regain front grip the rear tent to step out...somtime too much that you need a lot of corrections which mean wasting times. Then we drove my car in the afternoon also stock only with JIC and corner weight. We did the best of low 51sec. Jic was set at 8click front and 9 in the rear. The car is willing to turn in carring more speed and act really neutural. Before, if you ask me if the JIC can imporve that much in a 50 sec course and I will tell you no way. We are shocked and happy with the results. We are only within a sec slower compare to FTD time. There will be a test and tune at Englishtown next week and we will do some more testing back to back.

Alignment setting on my frined's car (stock)- 0 toe front and rear. -1.8 front camber and -.7 rear

Alignment setting on my car (JIC flta2)--- 1/8 total toe out in front and 0 rear.
-3 camber in front and -1.7 in the rear.

This car is amazing!! Can't wait when my wheels and r compound arrive

kevo

iTrader: (7)

double post deleted

FT@SELGP

Yes, I don't think just with JICs you can gain 2 seconds on a 50-sec course, I'd agree.

What spring rates do you use, and do have helper springs on them?

I think a combination of things might have contributed to a total of 2 sec difference: your alignment looks more suitable, may be weather temp had impact on tires between morning and afternoon, you guys new the course better in the afternoon and of course the JICs

I think a nicely setup chassis would make a 2/3 secs of difference over 50-sec course with comparably prepared cars otherwise.

kevo

iTrader: (7)

For some reason, I got different springrate than most of the off the shelf JIC. I got 8k F and 9k R. Which is good because I'm planning to run softer rate in the front than in the rear to give the car a little more rotation. No helper springs. The weather in the morning and afternoon is about the same. Its even more cloudy during the afternoon runs. But still, we also think 2 sec is too much for just the coilover. We will run both car again next week.

WhosEVO

iTrader: (10)

We don't believe that too......(i am the other car Kevo has mentioned in his post)......but the fact is I got 53.3 sec on my car (stock sus.) and we did 51.8 and 51.4 on his car (JIC sus.)

Both of us only drove total of 3 run for the whole day.....I'm sure if we get 2-3 more run, we can get even close to the FTD

the weather between all the run is about the same.....we also wait on the line between run, so the tire temp is about the same too. One thing for sure.....his car has much better rotation than mine

we will do much more testing in this coming weekend. Stay tune

FT@SELGP

Looking forward to your data

3171

some of the time is in the alignement settings. the car with the JIC suspension also has a more aggressive suspension set-up, allowing the front to bite more, which will rotate the car.