My AutoX journey

[mrmatto]

Rear camber is adjustable. Front isn't, you'd need camber plates.

One thing I've learned with this platform. No matter how much front camber you do or don't have, the car seems to want -1.5 to -1.8 in the rear. It stabilizes the rear in hard transitions, where toe seems have more effect on rotation under trail braking, steady state and at corner exit on throttle.

So would a good starting place be -1.5 and 0 toe in the rear? That seems fairly neutral in either direction then I can tweak from there.

Also -- how close to 0 is 0.08? I'm not familiar with toe settings so I'm not sure how sensitive it is.

 

[GTIfan99]

So would a good starting place be -1.5 and 0 toe in the rear? That seems fairly neutral in either direction then I can tweak from there.

Also -- how close to 0 is 0.08? I'm not familiar with toe settings so I'm not sure how sensitive it is.

It seemed more sensitive with stock suspension.

With stock suspension, you should end up -0.9 camber, .10 toe out front and -1.8 camber and zero toe rear, with big rear bar. I used the 26mm H&R rear bar. It was absolutely perfect on 245 200tw tires.

 

[mrmatto]

Between-events update: 25mm rear sway and Moog end links installed. Feels so much more planted now. Can't wait to suss it out at the next autocross event. If I have time before then, I'll get the rear camber sorted, but it's not too wacky for now (-1.45 lr / -1.18 rr)

 

[mrmatto]

I had an autocross event yesterday at Roebling Road near Savannah, GA. It was my third official event and my first event with the new rear sway bar, endlinks, and rear alignment. The course was sufficiently technical and overall pretty fast. I was in 3rd gear (DSG) for ~75% of it, and saw nearly 80mph at one point in the back half. There were some challenging sections where you could build up lots of speed but didn’t have much of a straight line for braking. It was bone dry, sunny, and in the 80s by the time I ran. Here’s a low video of the course

My goals for the day were to suss out the new setup, not over-drive, and get a couple really clean runs.

Da mods:

• 25mm ECS rear sway with Moog endlinks
• -1.75° rear camber / 0.07° rear toe
• -1.2° front camber / 0.06° front toe
• ECS rear hatch brace
• Yokohama Advan Apex v601 tires
• CTS FMIC
• APR stage 1 low torque 91 tune

Wow wow wow, the car drives so nice now with the new sway bar and alignment! It’s lively, playful, and neutral. It did exactly what I asked it to do. This is a really enjoyable setup that is so much flatter and less dramatic than stock.

If you read my post from the previous event, I was over-driving and plowing too hard into corners, inducing understeer and overworking the tires. I went into this next event knowing exactly what I wanted to fix. This time, I made sure to still brake hard but a tad earlier so that I wasn’t still hard on the brake as I started the turn (basically, string theory). Feeling this in action was lightbulb moment #1 — so clean and controlled. And with the stiffer rear sway, I was able to really rip it around some turns by just lifting off the throttle a bit.

I DNF’ed my third run because I came into a slalom too fast and started getting squirrelly. But I learned my lesson from last time — instead of trying to keep fighting for control when the rear started fishtailing around, I pulled out of the slalom and braked in a straight line to avoid spinning out. Lightbulb moment #2.

Second and fourth runs were mired by a cone. Same inside cone both times ... I realized I was actually compensating for the understeer I had come to expect pre-sway. Worked it out on my fifth run, which was my fastest and cleanest.

Ended up with 42psi front, 39psi rear (hot) as a good pressure to keep my v601’s happy, and the front and rear balanced. Lightbulb moment #3.

Overall really happy with my runs and the new setup. It feels like I’ve got it pretty dialed in and it feels comfortable and predictable for me. I’m definitely not competitive in any sense yet, but I was only 1.8 seconds behind a GS GTI guy with 200tw tires, a rear sway, and many years of experience. I can tell I’m improving and learning a lot — aaaaand I’m having a lot of fun, which is the point for me.

 

[GTIfan99]

Good job Matt.

 

[mrmatto]

Good job Matt.

Thank you sir. Your advice and input has been very helpful and appreciated

 

[mrmatto]

Better video of the course:

 

[IES99]

Better video of the course:

Matt,

I was there that day, too. Running in GS class. Nice video.

 

[mrmatto]

Matt,

I was there that day, too. Running in GS class. Nice video.

Not my video -- just pulled it from someone who posted in the FB group.

Did I meet you? I was the noob in the 2-door red GTI. If not, hopefully next time!

 

[GTIfan99]

I'm the dork in the white rabbit edition.

 

[mrmatto]

Yesterday was my 6th event and it was a mixed bag.

Overall the car felt good and balanced. I ended up running slightly lower pressures than my last post and that seemed to work nicely. 40psi front, 37psi rear (hot). Course was fun and fast, and deceptively tricky.

But I was in major need of a driver mod. I just couldn’t get it together to improve my times. My best run was my second run, and every run after that was ~1 second slower, plus a +1 second cone penalty. I was too cautious where I could have carried more speed, and I was too aggressive going into the back turnaround. Honestly felt like I needed 2-3 more runs to dial it in. I don’t feel like I learned or improved yesterday, and that sort of frustrates me.

I guess that’s part of getting better at this: learning how to learn faster, if that makes sense? Figuring out the components of the course and how to optimize what I’m doing wrong — faster — is where I think I can find some real improvement. Having some veterans ride with me, and/or riding with them would probably help.

One aspect of the car I’m struggling with a little bit is driving mode for the DSG. Sport Mode frees me up to totally focus on the other inputs, but sometimes it puts me into 3rd gear when I want to hold 2nd, causing a bit of a delay when I get back on the throttle and I have to wait for a downshift. On the other hand, manual mode sometimes trips me up because the top of 2nd comes so soon and it’s hard to hear the engine with the windows down and helmet on. And if I hit the rev limiter, it pops me into 3rd automatically. Might explore my DSG tune options…

Had fun nonetheless because it’s driving fast and zoom-zooming. I don’t want to get stuck in my head thinking the only point of this is to compete. It’s not.

Anyways, here’s a little bit of 3-wheel action from the day

——————

Oh, and I didn’t post about my 5th event because it got cut short due to rain. But it was interesting because @GTIfan99 needed a car to drive, so we were co-drivers. He brought his 200tw tires and we swapped them in my car, so that was fun to play with. It was also educational to ride with him and have him ride with me. The feedback is 100000x welcome.

However, I only got 3 runs (he got 2) before we had a lightning hold and ultimately a cancelled event due to severe weather. But we did have a wonderful time swapping wheels in the pouring rain

Aaaaand I might have to buy bronze wheels now…

 

[krs]

Seat time is the single biggest thing that’s helped me, along with advice from other good drivers.

But that also means more drive time to neighboring regions, and mileage on the car.

 

[mrmatto]

Seat time is the single biggest thing that’s helped me, along with advice from other good drivers.

But that also means more drive time to neighboring regions, and mileage on the car.

Yeah, that's why I drove up to the Roebling Road event in April. A lot of miles though.

Hoping to do another Apex driving school later this year, if they offer it. That was really amazing because it's the entire day, you have 10x the seat time, and you have a national championship driver with you most of the time.

 

[GTIfan99]

Learning to go fast in the fast spots and go slow through the slow spots is one of the hardest things.

 

[mrmatto]

9/24/22 Autocross event @ Daytona Int'l Speedway - inside kart track

• Really fun course today. Literally 0 cones on the course (except to block off parts of the track we didn't go), so it was as fast as they could make it. Basically a mini road course. Had some complex corners that made it a fun challenge. Probably ~65mph max on the straight at the beginning, but 2nd gear the rest of the time. If you search Youtube for "cfr autocross daytona" you can find plenty of videos of people running a similar course on the same track. I was here last month, but I severely pulled a muscle in my back on the second run so it was just a lot of pain and slow laps. Glad to get a chance at redemption...
• It's still hot down herrr in Florida, but slightly less so. Mid-80s and breezy felt pretty nice.
• I finished 2nd in STH out of 4 total in the class. I was just 1.1 sec. behind a power-modded WRX with 200tw tires, and beat another WRX and a Fiesta ST.
• The car felt lively today and I felt focused and confident. 42psi front and 40psi rear is the magic formula with these v601 tires.
• I am getting much better at "string theory" and timing my apexes. My main focus today was to get my trail braking timing down and to not get sucked into the apexes too early. Nailed it.
• I was at an advantage because I actually got 7 runs instead of 5. The first run they had everyone too close together and I ended up catching up to a Cayman, and the third run had a red flag. Get that track time, baby!
• Only issue I had: Launch control on my new APR DSG tune was a little finnicky so I stopped using it after trying it twice. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong, but it didn't behave at all like the stock mode. It seemed very very slow and laggy off the line, like it was riding the clutch too much. The revs would just hang at 3,000 rpm or so but the car would just creep forward. Odd. I'll need to practice with it a bit more on my downtime and put in a support ticket with APR if I can't figure it out. I've never had problems with the stock launch control and have always found it easy and intuitive to use.
• Fun side effect of racing at Daytona is you get to watch lots of other racing around the main track and inside track.