Congrats on your trophy! I think this should be celebrated far and wide in the Fit world. Is it, perhaps, the first autocross season trophy nationwide for a Fit?

Just curious, what kind of tires were your competitors using?

 

Thanks. I never thought that this might be the first FIT to trophy in a SOLO event series. That is an honor..

My plans for 2008 include some minor mods, driver's school and trying to win the SFR Championship Series beginning in February. Last year I placed secondin that series , after a late start. Also I want to make the SCCA Solo Nationals taking place in Topeka Kansas in September. Sure hope it rains cats and dogs for that event.

As far as the tires of the competitors: The 2nd & 3rd place Mazda3's had on Falken Azenis; a very popular autoX tire here in northern California. 4th place went to a '00 Civic Si with Hankook tires.

I'll run 15x205 Kuhmos on the front and something like a generic 15x195 on the rear. or at least start the season like that.

 

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...d-results.html

sorry, i think i beat you to it

as of oct 28, i got 1st in points for my region

 

My apologies, and congrats! Looks like you had a pretty large field for each event, relatively speaking. Just wondering: Were you really on the stock tires for each event? And what kind of tires was the 2nd-place Mini running? And how close were you to his times when you competed against each other?

Just wondering, since the Mini (and Mazda3) are considered to be our toughest competition in HS.

Froge: I'm surprised none of your competitors were running Kumhos or Hoosiers. If you come back next season with Kumho's, I bet you'll be in good shape.

 

yup, i was on stock tires; the mini's driver is a 3 or 4 time national champion for h-stock, and his car was set up with all of the allowable mods for the class. on good days we were about 10 seconds apart. when i drove his car last time, we were separated by about 4 seconds. i think he was running hoosiers, but whatever they were, they are full race tires.

 

Well, wasn't it Woody Allen who said "80 percent of success is just showing up"...? So it's kudos (and trophies!) to you for being on the scene!

But seriously, it looks like those Minis are going to be tough to beat for us Fit drivers. With some tuning and some comparable R-compound tires, hopefully we can at least give them some serious competition.

 

First, CONGRATULATIONS, to Lyshk0 on the 1st place in his series!! Great job..

Second. I want to clarify that the AVON R-compound is a very good performing tire for autoX. It has good traction on gravel, tarmac and concrete (forget sandy surfaces). The strong sidewall helps the weak suspension on hard turns. But, the steel radial belts are heavy and add 5# per wheel of unsprung weight when compared to the KUHMO 710 R-compound tire. I'll be betting this will be a better way to go..

Third: Yes, persistence goes count and you should drive at every event you passably can. The more seat time you get the better. The SFR SCCA drops your lowest score for each four events. So, I lost 130 points for showing up during the Slush series, while my competitors lost nothing by not showing up. But this does give everyone a chance to skip events during a long series without a penalty.

Forth: The Mini Cooper is not the car of choice in our region. You still see some "S" models in other classes but nothing in H-Stock. Note that many SCCA SOLO Nationals drivers have switches their elegance to the Mazda3 and Mazda3 Speed cars. Note, this year's H-stock Champion is Jack Burns of Hamilton, Ohio, driving a Mazda3, his second National Championship.

If I had seen the Mozda3 before buying the Fit in '06, well.. I might be driving one now. But then it isn't a HONDA..

 

Looks like a decent option has emerged for autocross wheels: '94-'95 Saturn S-series, 15x6, 4x100, 50mm offset.

See this thread:

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/gaug...heels-fit.html

 

i had found those a while ago, but couldnt find any solid info about the hub bore, or offset

 

We'd recommend 195/50x15's in the lightest & stickest tire you can find legal for stock class (meaning 15" wheels mandatory). A slight reduction in tire diameter helps, too.
There isn't much torque or weight so acceleration and precise steering are paramount with good cornering which sticky 195's should provide. And any legal smaller offset wheels down to 45 mm would improve things. And disconnect the antisway bar if you can. You need to get rid of the heavy understeer for A/X.
Ripit. Cheers.
PS you can find good tests of most autocross tires up-to-date in Grassroots Motorsports" if you want some pre-purchase investigation.

 

Just FYI...Most of us are using 205/50-15 for autocross. The conventional wisdom in autocross is that wider=grippier=better and the marginal weight savings from a 195 tire won't get you anything. But it could be worth trying. The SCCA stock-class rules also require OEM-dimension wheels with an offset no more than .25" different from stock, so a 45mm offset aftermarket wheel isn't legal.

 

Thanks for the info on the offset. I haven't run an A/X in 30 years and our resident A/Xer's not here. And in that case are wheel spacers legal if there is thread at least equal to lugbolt diameter? In that case I'd use 6mm spacers (1/4" = 6.25 mm).
How about antisway bar changes, additions, etc
And wider is not necessarily better; its the tread to road pressure that counts. Experience counts more tho so if the 20/50x15's are faster then thast is the choice. Hoosiers? Falken? Kumho?
And the rotating weight is very important.
PS my credentials?: quite a few trophies and A/X championships on both east and west coast back in the 60's. Its a great sport.

 

Spacers are legal as long as you don't exceed that .25" number. You can do whatever you want to the front swaybar, but no changes are allowed in the rear (i.e. we can't add a rear swaybar to the Fit). I'm running 205/50/15 Kumho V710 R-compound tires on 15x6 Saturn 'sawtooth' wheels, which are about 2 lbs. lighter than the stock Fit Sport wheels and have a 50mm offset.

 

Thanks, So you can disconnect the front bar and add 6mm spacers but not both 50 mm wheels and 1/4" spacers? or not?

Hey, if I were A/Xing I'd run the same as you except Hoosiers if legal if not then the Kumhos.
PS whats in the class with the Fit?

 

You can do the wheels AND spacers as long as both together change the offset no more than .25". And yes, you CAN disconnect the front swaybar. I haven't experimented with that, as severe understeer hasn't been a real problem for me. Hoosiers are legal, it's just a question of preference. I got a good deal on slightly used Kumhos, and supposedly they have more longevity than Hoosiers, so I'm hoping they last me the whole season.

The main competition in H Stock for the Fit is the Mini Cooper (not S) and Mazda3 (not Mazdaspeed). I haven't gone up against either yet. But there's a bunch of other cars in the class: Honda Civic, Scion tC, Ford Focus, BMW 318i, etc.

 

Pretty much what we guessed but you have always check the rules for interpretation. The Mini will be a problem because size matters. The 3, Focus, Civic,and 315 could be a problem on open Acrosses but not on tight ones. This is what I hear from my current A/Xer who has won a bunch in his Civic.

How do you get the FIT to rotate in tight corners so often found in Acrosses with the stock bar?. (handbrake turns?) Every time we tried here all we got was lots of tire squeal and slow corner exits. Just couldn't make the Fit rotate to position for straight run out of corners; had to keep cranking the wheels all the way through the corner, resulting in a slow exit. No vehicle accelerates as fast in a curve as well as a straight line. In an A/X as well as acing, exit speed is king. Disconnecting the antisway bar did just that; rotation by application. And much faster times.
If you duisconnect the bar practice turns in a vacant parking lot to acquire the skills it takes to rotate the chasis in corners.And yes you may 'spin out' a few times learning proper rotation to aim out of the corner..

PS you can do much the same by increasing rear tire pressure or mounting smaller or less sticky rear tires. Increasing oversteer is somewhat the same as decreasing understeer. Not quite but sometimes thats all you have. Good luck.

 

That's sort of the million-dollar question we're all asking, isn't it? So far I've had mixed results. The air shocks have helped a lot. With 50 psi in the rear tires and 34-38 in the front, I get some rotation when trail-braking into corners. I only get seriously ugly understeer when trying to drive too fast through hairpins. As I learn to drive the car better, I can avoid this. Sometimes. Hopefully adjustable shocks, when they finally come out, will help with this somewhat. But for now it's just part of the package that I have to live with and I try to make up the time in other parts of the course. Like slaloms, where the Fit excels. There's a reason, after all, that the Fit beat Ferrari and Corvette Z06 in slalom times in many of the car magazine tests! I can take nearly any slalom flat-out, while the faster cars have to back off or risk spinning out.

 

Have you tried disconnecting the front antisway bar by removing the link between shock and bar?

 

No, I haven't.

 

Can I run Falken Azenis RT-615 205 50 15 in the front and stock 195 55 15 in the rear and still be legal in H stock? I've read the rules and it makes no mention of tire size front to rear but don't want to buy them and be DQed at the event next weekend.