Street category

jeremy gast · **Posted:** Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:02 pm

and i am in the miata crowd that would love to put 15's on wendy's NB that came with 16's and stock ride it!!!!

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:07 pm

JohnByers wrote:

the +/- 1" is important to me cause 17" tires are MUCH cheaper than 18" :thumbsup:

and 18's are cheaper than 19's

JohnByers · **Posted:** Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:09 pm

Ryan Holton wrote:

JohnByers wrote:

the +/- 1" is important to me cause 17" tires are MUCH cheaper than 18" :thumbsup:

and 18's are cheaper than 19's

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:05 pm

I wonder how silly an E46 M3 would look with 17's instead of the usual 18 & 19's. That would be a fun car, especially if you can get a couple more degrees of camber with the new strut rule.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:13 pm

I don't think you'd be able to find a set of staggered 17" wheels with the same widths and +-6.35mm offsets.

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Sat Mar 23, 2013 7:38 pm

Anybody who has seen my stock NC Miata AutoX understands that there is a limit to what you can accomplish with sway bars. Look at the picture on the left. The inside wheel goes airborn because the springs are soft resulting in the stiff sway bar compressing the off side soft springs. If street classes are adopted, I might get a slightly stiffer rear sway but as you all know, my car will spin. The stiffer rear bar will just help it spin faster. So without allowing springs to be stiffer, there is a limit to how much a stiff sway bar front or rear will help performance. I replaced my stock 22mm front sway with a 25mm and feel that going bigger will not help. A few years ago, Mike Dako had a stock NC with a 32mm front sway. It did not handle as well as mine. I very much like the addition of camber plates on strut cars, though it will do me no good with unequal A arm front suspension.

JamesShort wrote:

I don't think you'd be able to find a set of staggered 17" wheels with the same widths and +-6.35mm offsets.

James, the rule that the SCCA needs to change is the quarter inch offset rule. Since almost all wheels are metric based and made abroad, they should change the offset to 6.5mm. I believe that many of us are cheating by 0.006 inches. That rule also has not changed since 1972.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Sat Mar 23, 2013 9:48 pm

Mike, I agree with the offset comment. However regarding your comments about the NC rolling so much...remember that picture is with A6s, the new class is street tires so you won't pull as much lateral Gs. With the miatas degree of stock alignment settings you will be able to prep a very balanced car under the new rules.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:17 am

Also, don't forget that as you add more rear bar, that inside front tire will come down. Theoretically, you could stiffen both the front and the rear by say 50% more and still be at the same net situation (once they allow rear bars too). I would image such a car, with potentially the same net balance as now, would be much more responsive in transient situations (turn-in, slaloms, etc); how that translates into greater (or not) total grip at the steady state limit I have no idea. I imagine there is going to be a lot of experimenting in the coming year with people running in the ST* classes in order to experiment with setups for next year.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Sun Mar 24, 2013 11:41 am

For an historical note: Back in the day :lol:

I tried moderately larger front and rear bars on my 260Z prior to changing to shorter/stiffer springs. Tires were high performance real street tires or relatively narrow slicks (I don't recall since its been about 35 years

). Car was terrible. Maybe worse than with just a larger front bar. Car worked great when I changed the springs.

FYI I suspect from discussion on roadraceautox that there are enough potential problems and unintended other possibilities with the two bar approach that the SEB may be open to dropping that rule. Write if you care.

Dick

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Sun Mar 24, 2013 12:35 pm

That RRAX thread is pretty terrible. Do people not realize that ~250 (stock class) people at an once a year event doesn't make a sport?

If you can't get people hooked on the local/regional events the sport will die. As far as I can tell it's pretty obvious that people don't want to run R-comp tires in stock class as much as they used to. And everyone (with a strut suspension) complains about brutalizing the outsides of their tires.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Sun Mar 24, 2013 12:59 pm

JamesMilko wrote:

That RRAX thread is pretty terrible. Do people not realize that ~250 (stock class) people at an once a year event doesn't make a sport?

If you can't get people hooked on the local/regional events the sport will die. As far as I can tell it's pretty obvious that people don't want to run R-comp tires in stock class as much as they used to. And everyone (with a strut suspension) complains about brutalizing the outsides of their tires.

If you are an SCCA member be sure to write the SEB. Nothing on forums, even the ones they read, officially "counts" other than as possible background information.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Sun Mar 24, 2013 2:25 pm

I'm not super familiar with how the process works with the SEB & the influx of letters the SCCA receives. That said, is this adjustment to the rules pretty much set in stone? It's still sort of mind boggling to think that no stock classes will be on r-comps, even after hearing about folks gripe for the last few years about the cost of competitiveness vs. tire expense. I just never thought it would actually come to fruition.

My $.02 is that if you're allowing strut tower slotting, why not some adjustment (different control arms/camber kits) for double a-arm shock setups. I do understand the slope is very slippery on this though. Then again, excessive heat and wear on the outer shoulder of a 200TW tire on a car with less than stellar negative camber/camber curve is a lot more comfortable of a thought than on an A6 or V710.

The more I think about it, I'm liking the idea of racing on street tires in '14 since all the new offerings are getting closer & closer to the r-comps, unless you're running in FS, SS, or AS. Most people I'd imagine run on race tires because they are more competitive overall & are needed in their respective classes (for most drivers), not because getting around the course ~1 second faster is that much more fun or exhilarating. Honestly, if decreasing the cost of entry to the sport is achieved by mandating a 140 then 200TW rating the following year and it makes for a more level playing field, then why not do it if it helps at the local level too as James M. was alluding to? I'd say our RT experiment thus far has been successful as people don't really want to pony up for race tires compared to ten years ago.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Sun Mar 24, 2013 4:36 pm

Matt McGrain wrote:

people don't really want to pony up for race tires compared to ten years ago.

Im sure they would at 10 year ago prices :lol:

shawnwhipple · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 6:28 pm **Posts:** 603

I did send my letter to the SCCA, basically supporting the change. The only change I see the new rules needing is phasing out of adjustable shocks completely. I my opinion they are way to expensive to have a place in Stock/Street whatever we call it.

The toughest problem I see is, that the new rules will change class competitiveness for a lot of cars. So "the car to have" in 2013 may be a dog on streets next year.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 25, 2013 4:12 pm

shawnwhipple wrote:

The toughest problem I see is, that the new rules will change class competitiveness for a lot of cars. So "the car to have" in 2013 may be a dog on streets next year.

I don't see that as a problem. I hate the concept of 'the car to have'. I'd like to see the rules have subtle 'chaos monkey' injections every year (released with plenty of notice) to cause people to have to think and be creative and do spur of the moment development as opposed to honing in on formulas that everyone bandwagons on. But this might be a bit too much....let's get the Street Category finalized first

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