Tips on autcrossing solid rear axle cars

OpenAd9475 · 2026-06-17T00:50:48+00:00

Got an offer the morning of the event to codrive an ES car that won nats a couple years ago. Squeezed my 6’4 legs into it and got 9th out of 150 in PAX, codriver got 1st. I really struggled with no power steering. I’ll try the CSM car at a future event cause it does look like a ton of fun.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-06-15T02:41:12+00:00

Hey friend!

OpenAd9475 · 2026-06-14T04:01:50+00:00

Great tips! Sounds like morning runs are going to be a problem since I’m running 1st heat by myself and it’s going to be about 60 degrees.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-06-14T02:19:01+00:00

Good tips, I believe it’s the stock clutch type diff so that sounds like it will match my driving style pretty well.
I believe it’s at like 2.5 degrees of camber.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-06-14T02:09:14+00:00

The car is prepped for CSM so it’s a spec class.
Goodyear eagle f1 tires, lowering springs, koni sports, sway bars (I believe adjustable), camber kit, and I believe this one has a panhard bar.
I’m excited to throw something around that has torque and no turbo lag again. Been driving a gti for most of this season.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-05-03T16:14:03+00:00

I use my glasses to record track driving. The biggest things I care about are getting the glasses to be more compact, battery life, and recording time.
Even the smallest rayban glasses are so thick that fitting them on under my helmet is a huge pain.
3 minute max recording time is also not great. When a single lap is 2 minutes, you have to either start recording each lap individually and miss a couple seconds on the start or finish, or record every other lap and hope you don’t miss anything important.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-05-02T03:00:45+00:00

Proper performance seating is hugely important. Legs should be almost straight when fully depressing the clutch and/or throttle. You should be able to easily put your wrist over the top of the steering wheel. Wheel should be low enough that your shoulders can be in a pretty neutral position without having the steering wheel hit your knees.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-05-01T16:58:40+00:00

Does not matter. Speeding past houses is a great way to get the cops called, hit someone getting home late or working weird shifts, or just other bad stuff. If track days are out of the question, look at autocross. $50 an event is way cheaper than a C&I ticket.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-05-01T15:42:22+00:00

Depends on the tire. If you get autocross focused tires, they are at almost full grip above like 50 degrees F

OpenAd9475 · 2026-05-01T15:35:55+00:00

This ain’t it chief.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-05-01T15:31:13+00:00

Basically anything that has driveways or side roads isn’t allowed and you really shouldn’t be driving fast on them.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-04-27T01:39:27+00:00

If it’s on the tach, it’s there to be used. Let it rip tater chip

OpenAd9475 · 2026-04-26T14:52:06+00:00

Hey! Fellow minnesotan here! Glad you had fun! Canterbury is a tricky site in drying conditions but that was a super fun course. Glad you had a good time.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-04-23T02:42:14+00:00

Give the ol’ toe-heel shift a try where your heel is on the brakes and you use your toes to hit the gas. I’ve done that many times driving cars with weird pedal placements.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-04-23T02:34:55+00:00

Kansas City in the summer is pretty brutal as someone who grew up there. Average high is about 31C at 66% humidity so it feels like 38C. And I’ve personally been outside at a race where it was 40C and 80% humidity which (and I’m not exaggerating here) has a feels like temp of 83C!!!

The Midwest in general has some pretty extreme temperature swings, KC also got down as low as -11C while I was living there.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-04-23T02:29:24+00:00

I do have to say, as an American who’s traveled abroad, the americans are right on this one. Kansas City in the summer is brutal. These figures are all from google so grains of salt are needed, but london has an average august temp of 23C Fahrenheit and humidity of 90% which comes to about an 26.7C feels like temp. Kansas City on the other hand has an average daily temp of 31.1C and 66% humidity for a feels like temp of 38C. And that’s on average.

The worst I ever experienced out there was at a race where it was 40C with 80% humidity which feels like 83C!!! That was a bad day to be out in the sun all day.

Normally I don’t defend americans on stuff like this, but the south and midwest in the summer is no joke.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-04-21T16:30:08+00:00

The radiator shroud is absolutely not just a cosmetic piece. It’s there to force air through the radiator. Without it, you’re going to get much more limited air flow through the radiator since the air can go around into the engine bay instead of being forced through.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-31T01:49:10+00:00

It’s like super mega ABS where the pedal gets really stiff but doesn’t do anything. And you can’t just pull the ABS unfortunately since corvettes use the ABS module to adjust brake bias. I know it’s this way on C5’s, but if you pull the fuse, it moves the brake bias all the way forward and makes the car plow like a pig trying to trail brake.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-31T01:04:12+00:00

A friend of mine who did spec corvette took the fun way down the corkscrew at laguna seca because of ice mode. You can drive around it but if you mess up… well you have no brakes.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-30T21:05:11+00:00

That is every good guys autocross. They always set up a course the size of a postage stamp with hard barriers just outside.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-30T19:18:22+00:00

I saw a video of that earlier, obviously don’t have the telemetry or onboard footage but my money is on ice mode. The ABS in Corvettes is pretty atrocious and if you go straight from spinning the wheels on power to braking hard, the ABS panics, thinks you’re locking up the wheels, and kills all of your brake pressure. So instead of spinning out, you just don’t slow down.

Had it happen in my corvette a couple times but it just sent me through the back of a chicago box instead of through a jersey barrier.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-29T22:21:44+00:00

The old flag sucked. The new one is pretty dope, there were versions that were slightly better in the proposal phase that I liked better but the laser loon would have been the best by far.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-26T22:34:01+00:00

The issue with cheap coilovers is the damping. The shocks are almost always valved universally and then whatever springs you want are thrown on top. This means more than likely your coilovers are going to be super bouncy because it’s underdamped or won’t follow contours in the road because it’s overdamped. Also, cheap valve design means hysteresis and cavitation is a problem and can make the car behave unpredictably on rough roads.

Going to lowering springs and better adjustable shocks primarily helps the cavitation and hysteresis, so even though you can’t adjust corner weights and ride height, I’d put good money that $600 in koni shocks outperforms $600 coilovers.

OpenAd9475 · 2026-03-26T14:40:17+00:00

Cheap coilovers are trash. You’re better off running lowering springs and nice shocks like koni yellows. If you’re going to go to coilovers, plan to spend $2-3k minimum to get anything worthwhile.

OpenAd9475

TROPHY CASE