Javelin said:In reply to spacecadet :
I have an SN95, which is a fat foxbody, and it's stuck in CAMC
Got it, CAM C is the new fat car playground with all the CAM-T cars that meet the 3250 weight now being CAM-C legal with the most recent rules update.
MINIzguy said:spacecadet said:Like I said above, in my accidental ninja edit, it's the new popular choice.
But, it's not my favorite. I'm a big fan of the Focus, I LOVE the 270 LB ft of torque and 252HP. I drove the civic last fall and thought it was great, but loved the power of the focus on the street and couldn't pay thousands more for a Civic Si, I paid $20k for my ST1 Focus ST when I bought it in December. I drove the Civic Si again about a month ago just to see if I felt any different after owning a focus for 7 months and I still am a bigger fan of the Focus. The focus is not without fault, but when I found out the Civic guys are having to do a pedal dance I was completely turned off to the car.Ahh all the quoting and responses have me confused reading this thread. There's plenty of documentation online for the strut grind, I have it bookmarked on a forum and also have it on All Data.
I've thought of going into G street a few times. I never really liked the FOST I sat in with the Recaros, but I've never driven one either. I test drove a Civic Si and it felt slow, but it was a nice car to be in. I really gotta find somebody to let me snag a co-drive in both cars to see if I like it over the Cobalt. I wish my current car was eligible but SCCA thinks it should play with the Camaro and CTR. There is a Cobalt SS/TC going to nats this year, so I'll be sure to pry his brain on what he thinks. I'll be there this year, most likely in my STX BMW.
I've tried to fix my previous comments to make them easier to follow, sorry!
I agree on the Civic, the Focus is very quick and I REALLY love playing with mine. The Recaros are not bad seats, but the lower bolsters are a pain if you're a big guy like me. I love the stock seats, just enough bolstering to hold me in, and they're just flat enough to be comfy on long trips. The other issue was in 2017 the Recaros only came with the sunroof, because the sunroof was added on the ST2 package for 2017 & 2018.
The Focus also turns on it's nose like no other car I've driven, the turn in is unbelievable.
I can pick up the SS/SC for $1500, hence my interest in it.
In reply to Javelin :
The general rule of autox: If any given car were competitive(beyond the local or regional level) someone else very likely would already be campaigning one. If not, and you’re convinced it can be made competitive, are you willing to invest the time & money on developing it, just to discover you were wrong?
I always liked being the only one at an event with that kind of car. However, I realized over the years that I prefer even more to have a chance at being competitive - hence why I’m building an STS Miata.
In reply to Pete Gossett :
Yeah, I know. I hate being like everybody else. My autocross cars have been an STS2 FB RX7 (won regionals), a STU P71 (won), an STS NA Miata (lost), an 86 944 with all the good factory stuff (2x regionals winner in PCA), a 1.7 914 (2x regionals winner in PCA), a CAMT 73 Javelin (sucked), and now a CAMC 96 Cobra (in the points lead).
Ideally I'd pick up a notchback 79-93 foxbody and swap my drivetrain in and then go stomp CAMT at minimum weight, but that's going to take a season of work to build.
If your only goal is regionally competitive, I suspect the SS/SC could be in the mix, depending on your driving skills and how tough your local competition is.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that the HP numbers on the SS/SC cars are typically considered to be underrated from the factory. There's many examples of completely stock cars dynoing 200-210 whp.
You'll definitely want some aftermarket wheels as the stock ones are very heavy. Even with the negative camber mentioned above, you will wear the outsides of your front tires fairly quickly. I was running -3.0 up front with camber bolts and was having to flip tires after about 5 events. In my opinion, the RE71R were far better suited for the Cobalt than the Rivals; I actually set the raw FTD time in my STX prepped SS/TC at a regional event on them.
Since you're allowed a single sway bar change, add either the Hardcore or XXX rear sway bar from Powell. I had the XXX on my car and had to run lower pressures in the rear to keep it from getting tail happy with 255's.
In reply to FooBag :
Thank you! That's great info! I'm going to be regionally competitive both in class and overall on PAX. The PAX on CAMC is terrible for my car so I'm not happy with where I end up despite solid raw times. I also want to compete in the National Tour and ProSolo that come through.
FWIW I thought bone stock, my SS/TC rotated well with 40F/46R tire pressures. After hearing the XXX bar requires lower pressures in the rear, I think the Hardcore bar is enough.
Javelin said:In reply to FooBag :
Thank you! That's great info! I'm going to be regionally competitive both in class and overall on PAX. The PAX on CAMC is terrible for my car so I'm not happy with where I end up despite solid raw times. I also want to compete in the National Tour and ProSolo that come through.
It'll be great to have you back in the same class with all the other ST cars in our region! Nice deep class with 10 or 12 folks each event.
In reply to freestyle :
Well I'd be in Street not Street Touring, but at least I'd be back in the same run groups. I'd rather work when the race cars run to watch them anyway!
MINIzguy said:FWIW I thought bone stock, my SS/TC rotated well with 40F/46R tire pressures. After hearing the XXX bar requires lower pressures in the rear, I think the Hardcore bar is enough.
I'd agree with you, but I wanted to at least mention the XXX option. I believe I was down to 26psi in the rear for asphalt and 28 on concrete.
FooBag said:I'd agree with you, but I wanted to at least mention the XXX option. I believe I was down to 26psi in the rear for asphalt and 28 on concrete.
Wasn't disagreeing with you in any way, just saying my thoughts with the car stock!
What do you think of the OTTP or ZZP rear sway bars? They're both 1.25" like the Hardcore bar, and cheaper.
I suspect the new civic si is now the car to compete with in GS over the focus st. At least it appears to be in my milwaukee region.
MINIzguy said:FooBag said:I'd agree with you, but I wanted to at least mention the XXX option. I believe I was down to 26psi in the rear for asphalt and 28 on concrete.
Wasn't disagreeing with you in any way, just saying my thoughts with the car stock!
What do you think of the OTTP or ZZP rear sway bars? They're both 1.25" like the Hardcore bar, and cheaper.
Ha, a little typo on my part certainly made it sound like I was trying to argue! It was supposed to read "I agree with.."
If I was going to take the chance, I'd go with the OTTP, since it bolts through the bar; not via a cantilevered plate on the ZZP. From the pictures that I can find of the OTTP bar appears that it just has holes drilled through the bar, whereas the Powell has a reinforcing sleeve/bushing welded in place. I seem to remember some drama about OTTP having a partnership with Powell, then stealing his design, at which point Powell upgraded his with the reinforcement. This is basis some fuzzy memories from awhile back, so don't quote me on it! 
We had a guy autocrossing a Cobalt SS with the LSD and it was very quick with just 200TW tires. It was impressive! This was before the FoST hit the market.
In reply to FooBag :
I see. The discussion you linked you is interesting, with people saying the car still didn't rotate that much with the XXX bar. I'm gonna chalk it down to driving style as I really don't believe that
OTTP is slightly thicker walled too, so it gives a little more stiffness than the Powell bar apparently. But I think the takeaway is to not use ZZP, or Eibach for that matter, due to the cantilevered plate design.
In reply to MINIzguy :
That's good to know. ZZP was my go-to back in my 3800 days so I was going to default to them.
79rex said:I suspect the new civic si is now the car to compete with in GS over the focus st. At least it appears to be in my milwaukee region.
A lot of people like them who didn't like the Focus. But the Focus ST's aren't about to roll over and a GTi nearly won last year. as I said before, each of the 3 cars has something holding it back, the Si makes less power, has a diff and has shorter gearing, which is also a hindrance as it requires a shift to 3rd to hit 60. The GTi has a little less wheel, but has a 70 MPh 2nd so it should never run out of gear in a conventional national AX course. The ST's are a bit heavier than the Si but make 50 more HP(20-25% advantage) and only have an 8% weight penalty of roughly 200 lbs.
Now, back to the regularly scheduled SS/SC content of the thread ;)
Javelin said:I can pick up the SS/SC for $1500, hence my interest in it.
And that's totally cool but as Pete Gossett said
Pete Gossett Said:
In reply to Javelin :
The general rule of autox: If any given car were competitive(beyond the local or regional level) someone else very likely would already be campaigning one. If not, and you’re convinced it can be made competitive, are you willing to invest the time & money on developing it, just to discover you were wrong?
Pete is on point, there are a lot of people who really want jackets and if the car was competitive, with having been in the class so long, someone would probably have built one. SO if you're cool with building a budget GS build and seeing how far it can take you, go for it! But if you're really serious about winning things or being competitive beyond a regional level, find a co drive in any of the current 3 hot platforms.
CAM-T and CAM-C have the same ruleset, with CAM-T having a substantially lower minimum weight. If you're off pace in CAM-C, then theoretically you'd be further off the pace in CAM-T. The only reason one wouldn't be is due to the lack of well developed competition locally. At this year's CAM Challenge East, CAM-T straight timed CAM-C, so in your situation I'd continue to work on the SN95 rather than transfer everything to a Fox body just to be stuck in the same predicament. Personally I'd rather be in CAM-C since the higher minimum weight would allow for more strategic ballast placement to optimize weight distribution and cG height.
As far as the G-Street situation goes, I did actually consider a Cobalt SS/SC (or the quirkier twin the Ion Redline), but I don't really think it'd be on pace with the rest of the class. In my book right now the top dog is the GTI by a slim margin, with the Civic Si being the unknown quantity. The GTI that placed 2nd/4th last year is lighter than an equivalent prep Focus ST, it scaled at around 2950#, with the Focus in the 3050# range. The VAQ in the GTI is extremely effective at putting down power exiting sweepers. The two liabilities the GTI has are the slightly narrower wheels (7.5" to the Focus's 8"), and the gearing puts the top of 2nd north of 70 mph. The car's very frequently out of the powerband exiting tighter digs, but it can be mitigated with early throttle application. Regardless, it's still a driver's game, and this year there are very strong drivers running in the Focus, GTI, and the Civic Si. With the last two years' champions leaving the class, it'll be interesting to see how things wind up going.
In reply to KevinLG :
My CAM car is in a weird spot. Stone stock it's lighter than the CAM-C minimum, so I'm running at minimum weight which is the only reason I'm doing well, but it's frustrating because I can get it to the CAM-T minimum on this chassis. Hence my idea to get an older fox-body and move the drivetrain and suspension over.
In reply to spacecadet :
Yes, I fully realize that if it was going to be competitive someone would have done it already, but I'm not going to nationals. I just want to be regionally competitive in a lower cost class and have a better raw to PAX relationship.
Javelin said:In reply to spacecadet :
Yes, I fully realize that if it was going to be competitive someone would have done it already, but I'm not going to nationals. I just want to be regionally competitive in a lower cost class and have a better raw to PAX relationship.
With the practically vertical uphill battle you face in CAMC... this line of thought makes perfect sense! Build on!
KevinLG said:As far as the G-Street situation goes, I did actually consider a Cobalt SS/SC (or the quirkier twin the Ion Redline), but I don't really think it'd be on pace with the rest of the class. In my book right now the top dog is the GTI by a slim margin, with the Civic Si being the unknown quantity. The GTI that placed 2nd/4th last year is lighter than an equivalent prep Focus ST, it scaled at around 2950#, with the Focus in the 3050# range. The VAQ in the GTI is extremely effective at putting down power exiting sweepers. The two liabilities the GTI has are the slightly narrower wheels (7.5" to the Focus's 8"), and the gearing puts the top of 2nd north of 70 mph. The car's very frequently out of the powerband exiting tighter digs, but it can be mitigated with early throttle application. Regardless, it's still a driver's game, and this year there are very strong drivers running in the Focus, GTI, and the Civic Si. With the last two years' champions leaving the class, it'll be interesting to see how things wind up going.
GTi being top dog is still debatable since it hasn't won at the big show, but it's definitely a very close fight between the 3.
I've been reviewing the results from this year's Tours, and they've been all over the map. 17 and 18 Civic Si, Focus ST, Genesis Coupe, and GTI's have all had success this year. I guess the takeaway is that you should run what you like and not worry about competitiveness on the national stage. For example, my Focus RS has no presence at all on the National Tour, but we've dominated locally.
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