hi everyone !

first post here.

bought a 2015 Fit as a daily.

we have always owned a beater car we did not care about, and in the last case, it was a 1996 Nissan Sentra that had 70k miles on it. we have that, so we can drive it anywhere and leave it, and not worry about it.

however, a couple of weeks ago, someone stole it. apparently, they ran it into a dumpster and bent the front a bit, and then took a brick and bashed the windsheld. yes, it's fixable, but we really dont feel like it, and really did not care that it happened. it's not like we are really attached to that car, and it is not worth much... we did not pay much for it either years ago, and have well gotten our moneys worth out of it. currently sitting in the back yard, and will likely give it to someone who needs it. let them fix it.

so, got a thought about looking at cars. thought about a slightly used Fit, but found that a lot of them are priced almost as much as a new 2015 LX. so we walked into a dealer, and bought the one they had. manual of course... we are corner racers... the CVT is unacceptable to us. Black... not my first choice of color, but we are fine with it. seeing on how hard they seems to be able to get, color choice is less important than getting one at all.





my wife and i actually met at an SCCA autocross event around 1994. we both have been autocrossing for quite some time, and i have road raced, and we both race shifter karts. however, our local club's road racing program came to an end, so we dont do much of that any more. but, we rarely miss an autocross, and travel once in a while for events, including national events.

our current autocross car, 1989 Civic Si, STC class:



and a vid of it in action:


have been kart racing since around 1999. both sprint tracks and road courses. even went to the Solo 2 Nationals in 2000 in the kart below, and won the F125 class:




so, we noticed the Fit had ok power, and handled pretty decent for a grocery getter... couldn't resist last weekend. it's pretty new, so we had to go easy on it. short shifting around 5000, and taking care not to be hard on it. took a set of the STC Civic's wheels and tires and slapped them on, completely from the factory otherwise, and ran in STF class due to the 1 inch wider wheels. those are Kosei K1-TS 15 x 7 wheels with 225-45-15 Hankook RS-3's on them:




and... just for fun, an LX hubcap in a R-Compound road race tire




and on race day in grid, ready to go. the water by the tire is not something leaking... we spray the tires with water to cool them off:



the car does ok... while we turned off the traction control, the stability control made it hard to accelerate off the corners. not a huge deal, as we were taking it easy on the car anyway. however, the surprise was i won the PAX index... while i usually do in the Civic, the Fit is a completely stock car besides the wheels, therefore really under prepped in STF. but then again, that just proves that the car is not all that bad.

but... the car is not going to be used for autocross anyway... it is not even remotely close to our STC Civic, and never will be. but what it does best, and what we bought it for, is running around town and doing it efficiently. and it does it way better than a $16k car has a right to. we are _Very_ happy.

i am not a fan of the wheels on the EX's, and am glad an LX was available. we have lots of super light wheels for the STC civic, so wheels were not a concern. we have a choice of multiple Kosei K1-TS's, all of which are the first gen TS's that weigh 10 lbs 5 oz, some 9 lb SSR Competitions and 9 lb Enkei RPF-1's, and... a horrible 13 lb set of Rota Slipstreams. ( which are most likely going to make it onto the car ) will of course keep the stock LX wheels for when we ever go for long drives.

unfortunately, we cant call it a "beater car", like the one it replaced. i think we will care where we leave it, and may be thinking about it when left somewhere. oh well... worth it.

anyway, great to find this forum.

 

Best intro thread in a long time.

Welcome!

 

ha hah ! thanks ! well, cant be boring... on the other forums i am on ( not Fit related ) intro sections never get read by the long time members. thats because the posts, and the whole section in general, are kind of boring.

just trying to make it somewhat interesting in this section.

 

Welcome!

PAX win is impressive, how did the stock suspension feel with the 225 RS3?

 

mushy... however, not excessively so. but you also have to keep in mind that i am used to 550-600 in/lb springs on the STC car that weighs 2035 lbs. that car compresses the outside suspension around 1.5 inches on a 1.09 lateral G corner. but to compare the Fit with others, i find the H Street class Mazda 2 and Mini Cooper that i have driven, just as mushy. can the 2015 be a contender in STF ? maybe... it certainly has more power ( with the traction control off ) than the cars currently dominating STF.

the RS-3's did generate tremendous amounts of lateral grip over the factory tires, so that just made the mushiness even more noticeable.

one positive thing, is with the tires, the car did not understeer at all. it was extremely neutral, and was easy to rotate the back end around sharp corners. overall, it was extremely easy to drive at the limits, and my wife will completely agree with that. i can say for sure, that the magazines reviews of the 2015 are completely invalid when the horrible stock tires are replaced. none of what they complain about applies.

yeah, the PAX win was a surprise, considering we were not beating on the car hard and shifting at 5000. it was only a .2 win, and it is usually a lot more with the STC car. but our region has very few nationally competitive cars and drivers... not like your region or So Cal region. i know a lot of the people in both regions, and raced against them, and i know exactly how fast they are. while i have won against them, i have lost against them more than i have won.

but... the win got me thinking that the 2015 may just be a competitive car in STF. however, being a daily driver for us, we may never find out. maybe in 5+ years it may be a trailer queen serious built STF car... but for now, it's sole purpose is to go to the grocery store and take my wife to work. at least, that's what i say now...

 

550-600 lb/in sounds so nice on an 88-91 Civic hatchback.

I stupidly went straight to 900/800 lb/in....can't say it rolled much haha

 

That is what I figured, but i've also been waiting for a real life experience like yours to form a better opinion of the GK's suspension. I take every magazine's review with a grain of salt, especially on stock tires, which 9/10 times now are built for fuel efficiency, not performance.

There's a few guys on this forum that do well in STF in Fits.

I don't autocross much, it's just not my thing, I like road course, but I think there's a lot to be told about a car out there on the pavement so I still find it interesting and i'm happy you joined/posted. I don't have a GK and don't plan on getting one, but who knows, if I wrecked my GE tomorrow I might think about it.

I've found the Fit handles pretty well... if you put enough tire on it.

1.5" compression @ >1G is impressive

 

ha ! i bet that thing was real skittish... on the verge of spinning even at low speeds.

i am en ME and EE engineer, so i do my own homework on stuff like this before i build. i have custom built Konis that are valved to be matched up with those spring rates, matching the average surface traction of the typical autocross lot.

if we were going to get serious about autocrossing the Fit, i would do the same... in fact, in the little more than a week since buying the car, the car would have already been corner weighted, suspension geometry calculated, and the Konis would have already been designed and ordered. order some Ground control/Eibach ERS springs, and order a Speedway Engineering anti-swaybar for the rear and adapt it up. strut bars are easy to make. ( yes, i am aware that the general aftermarket has nothing for the car yet... but i dont use that stuff anyway )

but... the car is going to remain just a run around town daily driver car... i keep telling myself that, and someday, i will believe it.

exactly. funny that some of the very competitive cars out there, were considered a GenericMobile by the magazines, that just put out some ho hum numbers on paper. put some real tires on them, and all of a sudden, they are the car to beat in their classes.

also, from some of the comments in some of the articles in magazines, it seems they tested the 2015 with the traction control on. i certainly am not finding their complaints match my car even on the stock tires... but i also am turning the TC off.

understood. to me, they are two different things, and i like both. i've road raced a ITA Mazda RX3, a ITA CRX Si, a Spec Miata, and an old Formula Ford that i could not keep running right. ( everything was too worn out ) we also road race our shifter karts on occasion. ( which is the fastest lap times i have done on a road course ) it is really fun.

on the other hand, there are lots of important points about why we have autocrossed since 1990. i like to be extremely busy behind the wheel. straights, no matter how fast i am going, are not as fun for me as a 100% at the limit corner. so i like lots of corners, and autox does that for me. but more importantly, my wife... she is not comfortable at 100+ mph diving into a corner, so road racing is not for her. she has no problem diving hard into a corner at 60 mph though, and i think she secretly thrives on beating up on the guys in our classes. she is quite an accomplished and experienced driver.

the absolute best thing about that, is she is the one that is always saying: "honey, we need new race tires" or some other go fast goody. but that did not happen in road racing, as she was not a participant. it's all good though.

ha ! and you should have seen the numbers on our CSP Miata and CSP CRX, both on 225-50-13 Hoosier A6 R-Compounds. BTW, all measured on a $1500 Valentine Research G-Analyst and data recorder.

 

sounds like a class killer... it should be in STC along with the class killer kia rio.

*EDIT* i stand corrected, i see that you are a winner.
Combined Final Results - Modified

Let's see the jacket!

 

pretty sure the Fit would get slaughtered in STC. in STF, i would like to see someone put in a serious effort to get to the top. you never know. i'd do it, but that would require buying another one, as we really like the one we have as a daily driver.

wow ! i did not even know that web archive even existed ! cool... will have to show the wife. ( she is second in F125L )

in the closet at home, along with the hat and T-shirt that says "Sportscar Was Wrong". ( they picked Paul Russell, who has been dominating since we left ) but my avatar is a close up picture of the trophy.

we quit doing national events shortly after, as we had kids... our youngest is almost 5, so we will be returning to National stuff very likely next year, however in the STC car.

 

exactly my point. i tried to get the kia classed in stf but got shot down repeatedly.

i can tell what the solo trophies look like, i have had hundreds of them myself.

 

wait... the Kia is in STC ?

on paper, it seems a good fit in STF... did they give any reason why they think it is an overdog in STF ?

one never knows... on that logic, they just may throw the 2015 Fit into STC too... which with the talk of combining STC and STS, will make a lot of cars also-rans. ( either that, or they may take cars like the Kia and at that point put it in STF. )

i do know some of the SEB members and ST advisory committee members... but at times, i wonder what they are thinking. the logic often is not consistent.