The one day it does you will never forget your drive to work on those tires, you know how that goes, i've been there too

I like this thread. I've never auto-x'd a FWD, only RWD, and FWD on road course. I always steer through keyholes with the throttle but I guess i'll have to change that when I finally do decide to go cone hunting with the Fit.

 

If you're looking to run in STF for 2012, i'd suggest using the RS-3s. I've run 2 sets of XS and they were great here in the florida heat, but after switching to RS-3s i won't go back I'm on 949racing 6UL wheels in 15x7.5 +42 and 225/45/15 RS-3s. I've made it fit on a GE8, but you should have no issues on a GD3.

 

RS-3 and Z1 are a better tire for initial sickness XS is more of a track tire since they need a lot of heat. Yah they should fit without a problem, but FWD is still idea to have a staggered set up and let the back a bit loose and less grip since you want the rear to rotate, when you get up to the 225 range that gets a lot of tire for such a small car.

 

The change from 195-55-15"s to 205-50-16"s have made quite an improvement in traction but the additional weight is doing a number on acceleration... 225s would kill the acceleration of a stock Fit.

 

The difference in weight of 205 and 225 keeping everything constant is only 1-2 lbs per corner. I haven't tested it yet but the weight doesn't differ that much. A large rim like the 16 would do more to the weight than anything else.

 

The weight of a tire has a greater affect on acceleration than the same amount of weight of wheel does as Mahout has pointed out... There is a 3 lb difference between a 205-50-16 and 225-45-16 Hankook Ventus R-S3 tires and the width of a soft tire like this also creates more rolling resistance......... Hankook Ventus R-S3

 

I got the tread depth ruler out and it seems that the front at stock suspension and set up needs at least 1.5 to 2 deg of neg camber up front. After only one wet autox the shoulders are a bit more worn out than the center tread. After reading the adjustments how much can I do with stock bolts pinch bolts or will I have to get the adjusting bolts at the dealers.

 

^^ That's some great information. Thanks. Keep us posted if different bolts are needed.

 

I run -3.0° front.

 

Jcrimson are you using stock bolts or did you get the adjusting ones......but you are probably also lower which gives it auto camber. If no one knows i'll just go and try to adjust it and see how much camber I can get. It isn't too hard to loosen two bolts.


update - after some searching it seems that there are 3 types of bolts

pinch bolts (stock) can adjust up to -1 deg
crash bolts (i think you can find them from industry supply stores like mcmaster - can adjust up to -1.5
and the oem adjustment bolts that are hard to come by - can do about the same -1.5 to -2

I think the idea setting should be around -1.5 deg at stock height but im just going to use the pinch bolts and get -1 deg and see how it turns out since the car is DD and will be tracked soon and won't need as an aggressive camber like it would be if it were autox a lot.

So autox all the time 2 deg
track you can get away with 1.5-1
DD and track 1 should be good enough

I also decided on sticking to Z1 star spec 205 all around, because of the wet and dry performance. I just need one rainy day and i'll be glad I bought them since my brother has the rs-3 and the z1 he said the rs-3 felt a bit hairy in the rain and the z1 was just amazing. I won't be cheap and buy the rs-r since my life is worth more than the price difference, and I can't hang with anything with lower tread ratings.

I'll also be at the next autox in fontana at the end of Feb on saturday's practice - hope it will be a dry day for more testing (get some tire temp readings) and anyone that is interested should come out - i welcome people to sit in my car cause it is so slow........it is really easy to learn. Just PM me and i'll give you my contact info and you can stop by and just sit in and it should be free. Since I will probably stop autox by may since they have their championships and I won't get into practice and moving to track days with extreme speed.


I will keep everything in this thread and since extreme speed usually does willow spring - my old times with my other car was 1:04 CCW at HTM and 1:28.7 CCW at Streets - i'll see how the fit would compare to that. I also sold my traqmate and will be replacing that with my iphone along with external gps using harry's lap timer pro and I will give some feedback on the difference.

 

Another thing to consider......while I was thinking to counter act under steer for more advance drivers.

The benefits of a rear sway that it will not change the stability of a stock car when going straight. If you are novice, and drive on the freeways a lot a rear sway is probably the first thing to consider to counter act under steer before messing with toe.

1. Zero out all toe front and rear (novice drivers)

2. 1/16 front toe out and zero toe rear (intermediate driver)

3. 1/8 front toe out and zero toe rear (advance, would not recommend on a street car because it will be twitchy, and increase tire wear) but you can get the car induce the car to drift into turns pretty easily at this point and with not much power this can be fun.


these progressive settings should make the car want to rotate

 

Another event over...........

Tire temps came back with stock alignment.

Front tire temps were 120 on the outside and 90 on the inside a 30 deg diff which is significant. The car needs camber......and on crappy all season stiffer side walls. The outer tread is almost gone now.

Rears are fine they were about a 10 deg difference from 80-90 on the outside. Rears don't do much.

This run wasn't the fastest but it was the funnest

Honda Fit AutoX AAA Speedway 2/25/12 - YouTube

 

back from first track day.......... tires are gone .... ran CW at Streets of Willow got 1.41

tranny - love it no issues
brakes - just don't use them much they will last
suspension - good for stock
power - not much going on here
tires - they are all season, and decent for what they are, but none the less trash for track use

the car is fun through corners but really lack any power coming out of it - i got blocked a lot going into corners and through the chicane as others brake - better tires should put me a bit faster and out the corners faster - but for now the car was lacking power and I was constantly overtaken by faster cars but slow drivers


here are some tires pic will upload my run in a little bit

first run



last run

 

CHUNKED!

haha good stuff here, congrats! stick with it

 

Dammm nicee must of been fun lol

 

Those tires are screaming, "please shoot me dead already, it hurts too much", NICE!!!

 

I love the picture of the tires!

 

What tire pressure were you running with the all-seasons?

 

I ran 40 in the rear and 35 in the front. The track and the direction put a lot of stress on the front driver side front, so I had to adjust it by lowering that corner's pressure. About mid day, i notice that the front was being worn in the center and again lowered the pressure. At the end of the day the rear stayed consistent at 40 and the fronts was down to the low 30s when cooled and the tread is all equally worn out other than the shoulders that are completely gone. At the first half of the session I was pushing the car too hard and the temps reached 170 at the outside and 120 on the inside that was too much difference. I drove more conservatively and got to about 150 outside and 140 inside. Which is about right. The rears were at around 110-120 deg.

The pad temp was around 250 for the front and about 350 deg for the rotor after a cool down lap - without a cool down lap which I did, the temp went up to 350 and rotors went up to 450 and the brakes were smoking - i got back in the car and started to drive it. The only time I lost braking was when there was a train forming in front of me and I had to ride the brakes a little more and they crap out. Other than that I had no issues with the generic ceramic brakes.

I hope next time I can get some of my data acquisition software to take in some more data and maybe a better set of tires. These babies still have 4/32 surprisingly but won't last another track day since the shoulders are all gone.

Someone stop by my area and said they have some video of me, and I was doing a minor drift through all the corners. My own video is very uninspiring since when I drive on the track with a car, with relative soft suspension, all season tires, and a car that has a tendency to under steer. It was kinda of a breeze to control the car, since you don't need to do steering wheel corrections.

I also wished I had lsd........i missed being able to accelerate out of corners.

The best thing was when I took a nap for an hour and a half with the rear seats folded down front seats pushed way up with my inflatable camping mat and pillow. I got my fastest time after my nap.

Overall the fit, in stock form, is a great beginners car for the track and autox. I haven't tried the Mazda 2 yet but I heard it is even better from reviews. But for me the roominess, mpg, style, and performance the fit can't be beat.

 

What was the top speed you ended up getting to before turn 1 on the straight (or did you even look/care to look)?

Nap in the back sounds great