whats most important? - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

dexter_5000 · 07-14-2005, 08:57 PM

top end hp or torque? is it better to have a lower geared car or higher geared? 6 speed or 5? i'm was just thinking about a few of these kinds of things today since i'm considering once my paseo is built up a little more.

SmokingTires · 07-14-2005, 09:34 PM

More low end. You want to be able to take off quick anywhere in the gear. Having high end is nice, but you have to downshift anytime you slow so that you still have power.

Low gearing is prime. It allows you to take of quick. Most of the time you won't get out of 2nd. Long gearing is great if you have a powerband that gives you power at low RPM. If you don't have jack for power till high RPM (like a Teg Type-R), then having long gears means you will be forever without power when you need it.

For a weaker car, short gears can be helpful. It means you will have a quicker take off in each gear, and you can stay in a higher gear while going through the course, keeping up power.

It all depends on your overall setup.

brink · 07-15-2005, 01:48 AM

I concur. For most of the courses I've been to and seen (and from everything I've heard about other venues) a good portion of your time will be the top of first to the middle of second in average gear setups. I've rarely heard of anyone getting into third.

From a different perspective, I would say it's rare to get much past 50 mph on a standard autox course -- your speeds ranging on average between 15-45. The last couple events were a half-mile course total, and the fastest time was 45 seconds run by I think a Sprite with race tires (driven by a national champion, I might add). That works out to ~45mph which is 4500rpm and the middle of the powerband on my tach. I think my best was like a 50 in the middle of the pack that day.

After saying all that, it kind of depends on the kind of course you'll typically run. BMWCCA runs really tight, lower speed courses where short gearing helps a lot. In contrast, the local SCCA tends to run more open courses where you can stay more towards the top of second (in my car) and maintain decent speed for more than just a burst. Corvette groups seem to favor lots of sweepers followed by sharp bends.

So if you're going to optimize your gearing based on autox, you might want to look at where you want to be competetive. I really don't know if there's a happy-medium.

Short answer: Torque 0wns j00.

SmokingTires · 07-15-2005, 02:15 AM

haha. My friend Paul was running his Sprite (has a 4.81 rear end) last week at Dakota Tech. It was a high speeds course. He had to downshift from 4th

Moist courses you run won't reach 50mph. We get a few Solo 1 style (road course with cones) once in a while.I think it might even be against SCCA rules to run over 55mph. I believe they state somewhere that it is always to be run below legal speed limits.

dexter_5000 · 07-17-2005, 03:10 PM

that helps some my car is pretty low geared from the factory is why i was asking. planning on 19-23mm adjustable rear sway bar, 24mm front, 16x7 wheels. if i my shocks and struts come in this week should have a 1 inch drop done too eibach springs

SmokingTires · 07-17-2005, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dexter_5000

that helps some my car is pretty low geared from the factory is why i was asking. planning on 19-23mm adjustable rear sway bar, 24mm front, 16x7 wheels. if i my shocks and struts come in this week should have a 1 inch drop done too eibach springs

From a professionals point of view, unless your going to use that car just for racing, I wouldn't drop your car. Dropping your car, although increases performance, throw off your alignment. The factory numbers no longer match. When we do alignments at my shop, we have to just zero out cars with drop springs. WHich in the end can cause pull, uneven tire wear, and a number of other problems.

The sway bars are a good way to go. As big as you can get. The stiffer the better!
As for wheels, I would go as wide as possible. I went to 8" wide

Are you concerned about your class at all? Or are you just racing to be as fast as you can?

A lot of people in Auto-X try to tune their car for a certain class. I am tuning mine to run in STX. However others like to do things their own way and just make their casr fast, and not worry about classing.

dexter_5000 · 07-17-2005, 08:51 PM

i'm getting an alignment kit if i need it i'll have it if not then i should be ok having a 4 wheel alignment done at work. so i should be ok on the tire wear issue i've talked to others that have done even more serious drops of like 4" or better they never had problems. has been stated to me before that the a arms dont angle like most cars they are pretty level to start with so lowering actually makes them more negitive. as i've already stated bought a camber kit to help with the issue if i need it. the tire wheel size combo matches very close to my stock size so my speedo wont be off much. more or less i'm setting my car up for all around in some sense right now not sure what i'll be doing with auto-x will probably only be a weeknd thing. those are the best i can do for sway bars since no one makes much of anything for the paseo.

SmokingTires · 07-17-2005, 09:30 PM

Besides running the pro events, Auto-Cross is only a weekend thing. They never run on weekdays, and usually only once or twice a month depending on where you are.

If your concerned about winning in auto-cross, you'll want to build your car for thlass your in. If your not concerned about winning, and just want to have fun, then do whatever you want to do to the car.

Just a warning, I haven't found a person yet that doesn't get hooked on auto-cross. You'll be going for 1st soon enough

brink · 07-17-2005, 11:56 PM

It's true

SmokingTires · 07-18-2005, 12:04 AM

Did I mention next week I am driving 160miles south at 6am to race at 10am. Then I am driving back... So I am putting over 300 miles on my car in one day just to race.

Damn I love this sport

brink · 07-18-2005, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokingTiresV6

Did I mention next week I am driving 160miles south at 6am to race at 10am. Then I am driving back... So I am putting over 300 miles on my car in one day just to race.

Damn I love this sport

Dang dude... I was gonna say crazy, but then I recalled my plans to drive up to Detroit to hit a race with a buddy who lives up there... That's like a 3.5 hour trip

Yeah, I went through a real withrdrawal phase the past two months, cause all the events were on occasions where I was out of town

Glad I got one in finally this weekend.

4DMR2t · 07-26-2005, 02:59 AM

Dexter, I couldn't agree more with what Smoky and Brink have been saying.

When I first got my car, I just wanted to make it as fast as possible. I only knew about drag racing, so I added as many things to my car as my bank account could handle.

Soon after, I heard about autocross and the local SCCA. I went to my first event not really knowing much about the genre. I went into the whole thing with the attitude of "I'm just gonna have some fun and see how fast I can go". They put me into SM2 because of my fuel cut defenser and boost controller. I didn't care too much at the time, cuz like I said, I only wanted to have some fun.

Well, after a couple events, I started to realize that I could actually be competetive, just not in the class I was in right now. I soon found myself trying to figure out what parts to pull OFF my car to get into a lower, better suited class.

Because of my springs and larger wheels, the lowest class i could get into was A sreet prepared. But let me tell you, if I had known about autox before I started modding my car, I would have gone about it all differently. And I'd probably be in stock class still. You'd be surprised what they let you do to your car in stock class.

Anyways, the point of the story is, you can do autox with the attitude of just doing it for fun, but it doesn't take long to get hooked. So, like the other guys said, if you really wanna do it, aim for a certain class and build your car withing the paremeters of that class.

You'll thank yourself later, cuz let me tell ya. It feels damn good takin a trophy home at the end of the day!

Think about it, and good luck!

dexter_5000 · 07-26-2005, 06:55 PM

what class would my paseo fall into as is now? what do they let you do to your car for each class? is ranked anyway fairly for power output of engine displacement like a class?

SmokingTires · 07-26-2005, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4DMR2t

You'll thank yourself later, cuz let me tell ya. It feels damn good takin a trophy home at the end of the day!

So True! I just took home a 3rd place Trophy in STS (the largest class) in a friends car (my first time driving it )

Here's the current SCCA Rule book in a PDF file: http://scca.com/_filelibrary/File/2005SoloRules.pdf

Stock, your car would probably fall into H Stock. But you would have to look into that. All the class listings are there. If you have a mod listed in that class, chances are you are in it?

What all have you done to your car?

nort0188 · 07-26-2005, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dexter_5000

what class would my paseo fall into as is now? what do they let you do to your car for each class? is ranked anyway fairly for power output of engine displacement like a class?

Stock classes are based generally on the Power/Weight ratio... however, If your engine is swapped, even if it is just the JDM model, I believe you would be placed in Street Mod. I'm not entirely sure on that... I don't really like the SCCA's classing system, so I haven't paid much attention to anything other than stock and street-tire classes.