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SCCA F-Street Setup. What's Everyone Done so Far?

Norm Peterson

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I think my car just had less camber up front than yours to start with. I don't know why it would, same suspension arms and strut/knuckle dimensions AFAIK.
Tolerances on everything from suspension mounting points to springs.

Cambers on my S197 were at or slightly outside the negative end of factory camber tolerance when it rolled off the truck.


Norm
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Whiskey11

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Tolerances on everything from suspension mounting points to springs.

Cambers on my S197 were at or slightly outside the negative end of factory camber tolerance when it rolled off the truck.


Norm
Which is why when I got my S550 the first thing I did was jack up the front of the car, take the wheels off and start loosening suspension bolts and tugging, pushing and pulling as best I can. Stuck at about -2.0Âş without the smooth bolts (still running the splined ones). Not that I ever plan on having one again, but if I ever run in Street after the S550 is completely out of contention and buy another stock car to run in Street, I'll repeat this process again!

It really is a shame that the SCCA didn't allow camber plates and both swaybars in Street... would have made strut cars not ridiculously expensive to run... I'd also like them to allow running the smaller of two staggered wheels at all four corners to facilitate swapping tires from end to end to even out wear... but all of those things were expressly rejected the last time I submitted the proposal...
 

Static_LV

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I would be insanely happy with just dampers, springs, and camber plates. Unstaggering to the smaller wheel width for rotation purposes would be nice too.
 

DickR

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Conversely based on the popularity of the Street class with TW200 tires vs the previous Stock class with Hoosiers it looks like the rules as written are pretty popular with a lot of us. Allowances such as camber plates, bars, at both ends, springs, etc. were considered and the SCCA membership told the rules makers that we preferred the rules as they are now written. Once the rules allow more options then anyone who is serious has to do even more testing to find the "best" solution. STP, ESP, CP, and CAM provide all sorts of options for Pony cars with similar classes for others.
 

DickR

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FYI I got my start in SCCA autocrossing in the mid 70's in Stock class. At the time the rules allowed shocks, front bar, and about 1/4 inch wheel offset change. There was even a minimum tread depth rule of either 2/32 inch and later 1/32 as I recall. This made tires a really major expense since the only good tire for my 1974 260Z was a $150 each Michelin XWX which needed to be at about 4/32 before it got "good" but worked well all the way to the cords . . . but not in SCCA Stock class. Think about $600 tire sets at 1977 salaries! Not fun and I was an engineer. I used the no longer legal for SCCA stock at other clubs or just for practice. Long wearing all seasons for street except when wearing in a new set of XWX's. Take off XWX's for practice and other clubs when I didn't have a no longer legal set that I had worn down myself.

There were constant proposals to remove the bar and shock allowances. There were also requests to allow either a front or rear bar change which finally got implemented decades later. One reason SCCA changed the class name to "Street" was to help "defend" against the "but its not stock" argument.

Anyway this isn't the place for discussing the good or bad of SCCA rules.
 

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Grintch

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I would be insanely happy with just dampers, springs, and camber plates. Unstaggering to the smaller wheel width for rotation purposes would be nice too.
Camber plates are a step too far, though I wouldn't mind camber bolts.

The problem with allowing springs, is people could completely change the behavior of the car with custom springs with 4x (or 10x) the stock spring rates. Just like the shock allowances have some people running $6000 custom shocks rather than $600 off the shelf Koni's.

The advantage of only allowing a single anti-roll bar to be changed is that you can't go too crazy or it won't work with the stock bar on the other end.

But yeah, down sizing to the smaller wheel size or even allowing any OE size would be nice and prevent some of the specific trim/option package nitpicking we get forced into now.
 

NightmareMoon

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Street-class gripes.

I love the one swaybar rule. Keeps costs down, but lets a bit of tuning for the typical factory handling bias.

Camber saves tires. It would make it cheaper to run a car in this sport.

Its too bad that camber plates would also effectively require that newbies to the sport spend more and do more tuning to get the car up to competitive specs... but really is it all that different to what we have to do now, which is dig up some obscure factory procedure and hit the struts with a dremmel? Lets be honest, people are modifying their camber and staying w/in the current rules. Why be unneccessarily picky about HOW they modify their camber.

Allowing camber plates would make it a LOT easier to have a car which both fits in F-Street, but also can be used for track days without absolutely destroying the tires. As things currently stand you almost have to make a decision to do one or the other. Everytime they make people choose, they loose a few potential participants.

The $$$$ double-adjustable shocks vs single adjustable cheap konis is really too bad. I was surprised to learn you could even go to double-adjustables when the car comes with no adjustments stock.

High dollar shocks are a much bigger advantage than what camber can do. Besides, who even wants to spend thousands on multi-adjustable shocks when they have to conform to stock attachments and perches. They're effectively ONLY an upgrade an autocrosser gaming the rules would do, everyone else who buys shocks that cost that much is going to want other features, like standardized spring dimensions, camber adjustable, offset struts, etc. I think nearly everyone in a Mustang at the last nationals was on Konis anyway, so maybe the high-dollar shock thing is mute.

SCCA is eating it's own young here with Track Nights, Time Trials, and Autox competing for car setup. What I'd REALLY like to see is a merger of classifications for TT and Autox, with a more track-use suitable "street" prep allowed for Autox, and a more Street-friendly lower prep class category for TT events.
 

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I'm running my EBPP in STP this year and moved to 19x10s with 285 RE71Rs. Anyone have a suggestion for starting pressures? Based on experience on other cars I'm thinking it might be slightly less than the 275 Bridgestone on 9s.

Thanks!
 

Whiskey11

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The $$$$ double-adjustable shocks vs single adjustable cheap konis is really too bad. I was surprised to learn you could even go to double-adjustables when the car comes with no adjustments stock.

High dollar shocks are a much bigger advantage than what camber can do. Besides, who even wants to spend thousands on multi-adjustable shocks when they have to conform to stock attachments and perches. They're effectively ONLY an upgrade an autocrosser gaming the rules would do, everyone else who buys shocks that cost that much is going to want other features, like standardized spring dimensions, camber adjustable, offset struts, etc. I think nearly everyone in a Mustang at the last nationals was on Konis anyway, so maybe the high-dollar shock thing is mute.
I'm not sure the gain is that large going from something like the Koni's to a set of pimpy shocks. If it was, I think we'd be seeing a huge number of people switching to them. Of course, I look at it from my own results... I'd have to shave off nearly a full second each day to beat Cashmore on two courses that were pretty favorable to the way I have my car set up. I'm not sure there is that much time in car setup with pimpy shocks, maybe a few tenths, but there is probably that much time and more in my driving!

I definitely understand the slippery slope argument regarding modifications and all that, but I'd really love to eliminate the massive expense associated with running a front heavy strut car in street in the number of tires we go through each year. This last year, Justin and I went through two full sets of RE71R's with only two test and tunes, and like 10 regional events and two national events... The fronts obviously bear the worst of it since the rear's camber range is like 0 to -4.0Âş at stock height.
 

SteveW

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I'm running my EBPP in STP this year and moved to 19x10s with 285 RE71Rs. Anyone have a suggestion for starting pressures? Based on experience on other cars I'm thinking it might be slightly less than the 275 Bridgestone on 9s.

Thanks!
If I remember right I ran 33-35 front, 30-33 rear when I had a setup like that. I'm returning to RE71Rs but 305/30/19 on 11" wheels and will start with those pressures again.
 

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TDC

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If I remember right I ran 33-35 front, 30-33 rear when I had a setup like that. I'm returning to RE71Rs but 305/30/19 on 11" wheels and will start with those pressures again.
Ran 305/30 RE71R in 2017 and found 30 front and 29 rear to yield fairly even temps across the tire.
 

Grintch

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I'm not sure the gain is that large going from something like the Koni's to a set of pimpy shocks. If it was, I think we'd be seeing a huge number of people switching to them. Of course, I look at it from my own results... I'd have to shave off nearly a full second each day to beat Cashmore on two courses that were pretty favorable to the way I have my car set up. I'm not sure there is that much time in car setup with pimpy shocks, maybe a few tenths, but there is probably that much time and more in my driving!

I definitely understand the slippery slope argument regarding modifications and all that, but I'd really love to eliminate the massive expense associated with running a front heavy strut car in street in the number of tires we go through each year. This last year, Justin and I went through two full sets of RE71R's with only two test and tunes, and like 10 regional events and two national events... The fronts obviously bear the worst of it since the rear's camber range is like 0 to -4.0Âş at stock height.
It's not the SCCA's fault that Ford gave the Mustang crappy, non adjustable front camber. Or that they only allow some very minor slotting for camber correction.

Ford could allow standard camber bolts/crash bolts and/or more slotting range (SCCA probably wouldn't buy camber plates as a service procedures, but they could maybe even try that). And/or they could design in proper stock camber adjustments with sufficient range (like the Camaro has).
 

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It's not the SCCA's fault that Ford gave the Mustang crappy, non adjustable front camber. Or that they only allow some very minor slotting for camber correction.

Ford could allow standard camber bolts/crash bolts and/or more slotting range (SCCA probably wouldn't buy camber plates as a service procedures, but they could maybe even try that). And/or they could design in proper stock camber adjustments with sufficient range (like the Camaro has).
Ummm, My GTPP has quite a bit more camber that the SS can run in FS. IIRC, Ryan's SS only had 1.6 to 1.8 degrees in front.
 

jpaulson

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Have you guys found something you liked for brake pads? I am still running oem on my GTPP. Would like to get a little more rear bias.
 

DickR

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Ummm, My GTPP has quite a bit more camber that the SS can run in FS. IIRC, Ryan's SS only had 1.6 to 1.8 degrees in front.
I think the BMW's also have very little negative camber and no adjustment.

In general in Stock/Street far more cars have camber "issues" than those which do not from what I've heard over the years.

You should have seen the camber wear on the front tires of my 74 Datsun 260Z, even with 50 psi and what may have been the stiffest sidewall 70 series tire ever built for passenger cars (Michelin XWX).
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