Hey RHop

Nice seeing you yesterday and talking with us a little. We brought the orange '08 that the wife drove in your heat. I took it out in the afternoon and got down to a 53.67 but I was wringing everything out of it that it had. Good thing I have a few years of Miata driving under my belt so I was already trained in the ways of momentum maintenance. It was fun for a box-stock automatic with Z2s that I guessed tire pressures on (something like 30F 32R). We're mulling over putting some springs on it, maybe shocks just for more low but I don't see us switching out of STS anytime soon.

 

Wow I am impressed considering that it is the first time I have seen a first gen fit out there. My best time was a 53.35. As far as tire pressures go I run 47FL 43FR 28R. The car stock with some sway bars and camber bolts is pretty decent even if it is a bit pitchy. For the GDs I heard a front strut brace can help as well. Some of the weight difference between our generations is chassis stiffness.

 

The wife's going to try the Fit again this weekend with Autocrossers Inc. I might try raising the pressures some more, maybe even disconnect the front sway bar since it was pretty pushy when I drove it. I'm going to run my clunker MGB in the morning and might jump into the Fit for the afternoon session.

 

It is fun to disconnect the front sway bar. With added negative camber the car will oversteer a lot and the front tires stuck like glue. If you are going to disconnect it though I would remove it entirely. I had problems with the compressed side pushing the bar rubbing the drive-shaft against the sway bar on the uncompressed side. In the ge8s you have to drop the engine subframe some amount to remove it.

Here are pics from that day: https://app.box.com/s/ffzprmikv3e7ln0shqyl

Ultimately my PAX placement was no better than before so I tried it and moved on. You need stiffer front springs to make use of that. I would add a rear bar if you have not already. That makes a pretty significant difference.

If anything people with the stock suspension say to put a bigger front bar on to reduce the camber change.