When gridding for our last Autocross event, I couldn't pass up taking this picture. Wedged nicely between a Ferrari F430 and a Viper was a mild-mannered Crossfire -- and I beat them both. Granted, I was running the Hankook Z214 245's up front and Hoosier R6 295s in the rear and they were only running street tires, but it still makes a great story. Nothing done to the motor, just some alignment tweaks with some toe out and the camber bolts up front, and some toe in and Les's camber bars in the back.

Mike

 

Great result MJ! I'm glad things are working out. I'm doing more experimenting with the alignment now that I have the K&W's but it looks like my original conclusions still work best. How do you like the Kook's? It seems they're working if you out ran the Ferrari y Viper. If you have a slalom or real tight tracks 0 toe in the back will loosen it up and get the car to change direction faster. Since your running R-Compound tires I don't think you'll have traction issues with 0 like I do with street tires. On the other hand, if it's not broken don't fix it.

Les

 

Hankooks stick very nicely, but the R6s aren't the right tire to autocross. Tirerack calls for about 180 degrees before they really get sticky, and with our short runs, they never get over 125. Only Hoosier has an autocross compound for 19" wheels, so next year I'm putting A6s in the rear. What it has done is taught me how to drive a car with a loose rear end. Imagine a Crossfire that DOESN'T understeer. I couldn't break the rear end free last year at all, but I do a lot of throttle steering this year. So far, I'm in first in "DS" in the SCCA club, and I moved up to "D" in NASA and hope to finish in second. If I stayed in "E" in NASA, I would have finished first as well.
Mike

 

Well done, Les. Takes me back to the days when I autocrossed a 61 Healy 3000. Never could beat the big boys though; Sunbeam Tigers, 289 Cobras, and a "Special" built with a monocoque chassis by an aircraft engineer with an aluminum block Buick and Dynaflow.

 

I don't know about hankooks up front but they hardly hold in the rear on my mildly modded N/A. Would be scared if i had an extra 100 hp.

 

Congrats MJ, cool stuff.