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I'm uncertain about the rear cover, but man, if someone would protest over simply the OEM cover with a sight added, I'd be shocked. There's absolutely no performance gain there. Or are you talking about the side cover they offer?
Hey guys, I'm looking to replace my front LCA ball joints but the crowd favorite Whiteline Roll Center Kit doesn't fit in STU regs (correct me if I'm wrong). As far as I can tell, I can either buy 2 new OEM arms from STM (link), or take a shot at some Febest OEM replacements from Europe (link). I'd rather not buy 2 whole new arms, and I haven't found enough info about those Febest parts to be overly confident in them. I figured someone here had run into this before while trying to stick in STU spec, are there any options you guys know of that I'm missing?
Depends how dedicated to STU you are. You can get control arms off Ebay around ~80-100. If you are in it for the long run, new would be a good bet knowing they've lasted this long.
New is definitely the plan, the current ones aren't in awful shape but I'm planning on doing the other bushings so I figured I'd do all three while the control arms are out of the car. Given the options, I guess I'll give them a hard lookover and if they feel fine I'll just leave the current ones in until they become a problem...then we'll see how committed to STU I am
Finally got the 255's mounted to the 10" wheels. Lincoln already has a 2 day Solo weekend coming up on March 27/28th. Looking forward to some testing then.
Updated picture for reference of the 255/35/18 on the 10. Also comparison shot vs the 295/11"
T - Minus 3 days until a Test and Tune and then the 1st points event at Lincoln with the NRSCCA.
The plan is to ensure the 295/255 combo is going to work and truly get a feel for how she responds to the staggered setup. I've driven the evo on the street and I must say, especially on the round abouts, the car really likes to play around in the rear! I'll definitely learn more this weekend.
Full disclosure, anything more than about 100 degrees of steering rotation, the tires are going to rub through the inner fender linings as well as the front part of the sideskirt - right behind the tires. I'm going to keep an eye on that are as I know there's metal right behind where it's rubbing and that can't be modified/touched/hammered, etc.
Welp, 1st events are in the books with the new setup.
Saturday at Lincoln was a test and tune. Me and my codriver knew going into the day, the car was probably going to be tail happy. It didn't help things that it was cool (50's?), overcast and windy. I left the front bar in the middle setting and the rear bar was already on full soft.
I let my co-driver take the 1st three runs to get a feel for things and get some heat in the tires. NRSCCA set up two mirrored test courses that were in the mid 30 second range. Lots of very tight stuff initially, with a super tight slalom, then the remainder opened up for the last 2/3ds of the course. My codriver spun the evo completely around on his first run through the tight slalom. There after he toned it down, but the car looked SUPER unstable, especially in the slaloms which was obviously concerning. We left the settings alone and just drove it to truly see if it was the cool temperatures or the setup that was leading to the snappiness. He's use to an STS miata for the most part, so it's a night and day difference as far as steering feel which takes time to get used to, no doubt.
I got in for 4 runs in succession and noticed exactly what I was watching when my codriver was turning runs in. The rear end was super loose when you had to be quick on steering through slaloms. I almost lost it a time or to as well in the slaloms. It just didn't give me any sort of confidence that I usually had.
We decided to pull her in and simply make a front bar change by maxing it out. I also had high/low speed compression maxed up front well. I then took it back out and noticed that in some of the more tight turns, I was getting hints of understeer. Simply may have some in too hot - unsure. The slaloms felt better, but there was still the unknown of if or when the rear end might decide to swing out. However neither of us really had it snap out for the rest of the day - unless we got behind in the slaloms and gave it more steering angle.
Power on exit was predictable and I could easily the the rear to rotate controllably. Due to various reasons and setup changes, I only got about 7 runs in my car. At least we made progress and that
Come Sunday, we were hopeful that the car would perform. There were only two heats and we had about 105 registered drivers. We lucked out that we were able to work the 1st heat while it was still cool out, albeit sunny. I opted to run first and him second as it was his first time autocrossing at a larger venue.
The 1st run out was excellent, even on the cold A052's. By that time it was completely sunny and probably around 60 degrees. I thought for sure initially, the car was going to be all over the place, but ran a pretty darn fast lap right out of the gate. From there, by my 3rd run of the day, I set FTD (which I didn't think that would happen) and pax'd 3rd overall behind Ron Williams and Riley Heaton. We did get a total of 5 runs, but I have been pushing myself to only focus on getting it done in 3. If looking at the 1st three runs of these guys, Ron would have out pax'd me by less than a tenth. No complaints there!
I will be making some changes to see if I can get her a little more collected through these slaloms. Other than that, I am happy with it's maiden voyage. I drove it there and back (3.5 hours) and noticed on the way home I have a bit more of a whine than I did on the way home. Can't totally determine if it's the TC or the rear diff...however this drivetrain has been louder than I'm used to - granted there's no sound deadening in the RS, so that could be part of the reason why too.
I was wondering why the STU thread was so quiet, and then I realized it was no longer 2020 (thank god!). ;-)
You're probably all over this already, but if not, these help with the side skirt clearance issues (pushes the assembly forward) and meet the current STU "metal" allowance. https://superprousa.com/products/dur...o-duroball-kit
Brent, good job as well and we all appreciate the information about your setup and outcomes. Good detail there!
Doug and/or Tasha I heard a rumor you were able to get 285s in the front AND rear under your car within the current rule set? Was that a rumor only or is there some truth to it? I can see possibly the front but not the rear. I am sure the more oversteer behavior of Brent's car will be too tough for me to master/use in a positive way.
I hope everyone is dong well and get to hang out/catch up in the near future!
I was wondering why the STU thread was so quiet, and then I realized it was no longer 2020 (thank god!). ;-)
You're probably all over this already, but if not, these help with the side skirt clearance issues (pushes the assembly forward) and meet the current STU "metal" allowance. https://superprousa.com/products/dur...o-duroball-kit
Thank you! Haha, yeah it's definitely been quiet around here...hard to get any sort of discussions going. Hopefully we see an increase # in evos in STU this year, but I'm not getting my hopes up, ha! Are you guys running in STU??
I actually do have the Superpro bushings in the LCA's...but with the wheel width and tire diameter, she has self clearanced things quite a bit after this weekend. I'd assume if I ran a little less caster, it would help with clearance, but I maxed it on the top plates.
Originally Posted by Murph
Brent, good job as well and we all appreciate the information about your setup and outcomes. Good detail there!
Doug and/or Tasha I heard a rumor you were able to get 285s in the front AND rear under your car within the current rule set? Was that a rumor only or is there some truth to it? I can see possibly the front but not the rear. I am sure the more oversteer behavior of Brent's car will be too tough for me to master/use in a positive way.
I hope everyone is dong well and get to hang out/catch up in the near future!
Absolutely!! Glad to share my findings and hopefully I can get some of the looseness in the slaloms dialed out. It's not nearly as bad as it was prior to some bar adjustments. I'm doing a bit more research on where I should probably be with my JRZ damping settings as well. I have another event in 2 weeks at Lincoln that I'd like to try and attend.
Not to speak for Doug/Tasha, but I'm quiet certain you could run a 285 on say a 18x10 with the perfect offset (about a 18x10 +35). I think the biggest issue with that route is how high the ride height will have to be to clear the rear fender.
I will be interested to see the various wheel/tire setups the evos will end up running for 2021...
Feb 4, 2021, 11:46 AM
