gback

I'm planning how to set up my new to me 99 FRC for B Street autocross. I'm an old fart but just starting auto crossing and ran about half of this year in a 99 Mustang GT in F Street. I'm working on the driver mod and just need seat time and to concentrate on my driving. I'm searching for a simple, trouble free setup to that end. Here are my initial thoughts from talking with others, Googling the web and pursuing this and other forums. Please give me your comments, criticisms or suggestions of alternatives.

Tires - Bridgestone RE71R 255/40-17 front and 275/35-18 rear.
Shocks - Bilstein Sport in front and HD in rear.
Front Sway Bar - Strano adjustable with GM metal end links and poly bushings. Should I initially set full soft or stiff?
Rear Sway Bar - Stock 21.7mm with poly bushings. It's not clear to me from reading the rules but can I also run the GM metal end links here also and be B Street legal?
Ride Height - I've seen suggestions all over the board on this topic. Everything from lowered all the way in the rear and up 3/8" in front to lowered all the way in front and lowered about half way in the rear. I'm thinking on the stock bolts and starting from fully lowered to go up 1 turn in front and up 4 turns in the rear. Really looking for input here.
Alignment Front - 2.5* camber, max caster and 1/8" toe out keeping camber/caster equal on both sides.
Alignment Rear - 1.5* camber and 1/8" toe in keeping camber equal on both sides.

Any and all comments or other suggestions are welcomed.

Greg

firebirdfan

Personally, I'd do these 2 things:

Swap the 275 rear tire for the 285.

Swap in some adjustable shocks. Ridetch makes a great set for a great price. Konis are the gold standard. Both are very reasonably priced.

Front bar should be set to full stiff.

You're not allowed to swap the rear swaybar bushing material if you've changed the front bar. Same would go for endlinks. You can use metal ones ILO the plastic ones (moog makes a set, though pricey). I'd honestly not worry about it.

Lowering the car will get you different answers from different people. I'd lower it probably an inch or so and then stop. You REALLY gotta watch the bump travel on these cars. Slamming the car way down is going to almost eliminate any bump travel in the rear. I suggest you take some measurements with the new shocks before you do anything. Ridetech's shocks are designed to be lowered (or so they say). The Bilsteins actually have slightly LESS bump travel than stock. In any case, I wouldn't lower without having the car on scales.

The front alignment should be doable. You'll probably have to pull the washers from behind the front trunions to get to -2.5*. My car did -2.25* with the washers and right at -2.5* without them.

The rear alignment will be tricky. My car is EXTREMELY camber limited on the back. The passenger side of the car will go to like -2.0* but the drivers wouldn't go any more than -0.3*. I ended up cutting the alignment pins out of the rear subframe and it gained me another -0.3*. However, I did this with the subframe still hanging in the car, so the cuts weren't super clean. This winter I'm going to double check that I cut all the pin off and do my best to put the subframe all the way to the driver's side as possible. Lowering will also help with the rear camber. I haven't done that to my car yet.

I personally run zero toe so that I don't burn up my tires driving on the street. I drive on the street WAY more than I autocross, so that's a trade-off I'm willing to make. Many people run toe-out.

Make sure you put some good rotors, pads, and some fresh brake fluid.

If possible, ditch the factory shift ****. The factory shifter is absolute garbage, but a **** will go a long way for feel.

rigit

Id put the front height right where you can get a jack under it with the front pucks in. lower than that is just annoying and will scrape everything and be on the bump stops. and have a little rear rake, so same height + add 0.25-0.5" for the rear pucks. then align and corner balance.

Second on the zero front toe if you street drive it. and 285 rear.

if you go bilstiens, pony up for the DRM valved ones. if you can pony a little more than that, get koni adjustables.

strano@stranoparts.com

Not a bad basic setup. I do prefer the Koni's and in the long run if you are going to be at all serious about the setup, that's what you want so you can do some tuning. Bilstein's being non-adjustable don't give you any flexibility. Ridetech are technically not considered to be legal due to their rear mounting (for an SSR, A or B Street car, fine in STU or SSP).

I have dyno's of the Bilstein's both Sport and HD in comparison to stock '04 Z06, Koni, Penske of various ilks, MCS too. If you are going that way with non-adjustables then I recommend that to folks, but only after making damned sure they won't consider the Koni's.

I wouldn't be so quick to automatically say the front bar to stiff. Folks run both settings. Personal taste, the site you run, the tires you run, etc. all play in. Having the bar (this bar, since we win a lot of stuff with that bar) is the key first, the trim change from which setting is a little more hair splitting.

gback

Thanks for the input so far. I guess I'm about convinced to go with Koni SA shocks, but are there some recommend initial settings that would be good for me to start with so I don't have to worry about getting this screwed up due to my lack of tuning knowledge/driving skill? I'm going off on vacation the rest of the week but will call Sam Strano soon to order up the front sway and the Koni shocks and get some set up tips targeted at a novice driver.

strano@stranoparts.com

Part of what I do here is help folks not just with the parts, but in how to use them.

I'm good at it...and by the way I've been instructing for what used to be McKamey Autocross school and became Evolution Performance Driving School since 1997. I was trained by the founder, I even trained the current owner of the school. I know how the driver effect things and I do consider that when doing this work.

Dbullis27

You'er ok going with the 275 rear. It was the better tire to have at Nats. The rest of the setup looks fine. Nice thing about these cars is it doesnt take much! Good luck!

strano@stranoparts.com

Shocks, Delrin shock bushings, and endlinks are all on the way. Sway bar is being made and will ship directly to you as soon as it's ready to roll (about 3 weeks in total).

If you have any questions Greg. Just ask.

Sam

gback

Not sure how Sam did it, but I ordered on Tuesday am Pacific time and the shocks were delivered on Wednesday am. I'm in the middle of changing all the fluids and putting in new plugs and wires and fixing a few minor things on the car (new battery tray, wiper motor) and am anxious to get the bushings and bar so I can get everything installed. Then an alignment and RE71R's on a spare set of OEM wheels. Thanks to all for the input, it is appreciated.

Justin Barbry

If you are going with the Koni 3013 shocks most of us have the fronts set around 7 sweeps from full soft and the rears around 4-5 sweeps from full soft.

I used the 285 Bridgestone on the rear at Nationals and a few events before that, but I'm considering going back to the 275 rear tire on my car. Something about the 285 just didn't feel right. I think I like the taller sidewall on the 275. I run the 33mm FSB on it's softest setting.

gback

Thanks, good to have a starting point...

strano@stranoparts.com

Well.... I would recommend something less than that. Part of what we are going to discuss at when you call Greg. Especially on Bridgestones. That's stiffer than I run on my car on Rivals, which are much stiffer settings than Hoosier's. And Bridgestones are stiffer construction like a Hoosier is.

In the end the settings are personal, and depends on what you want for feel. But I know while announcing for A-Street at Nationals a customer and friend clearly was packing the front of his Z06 down at a similar front setting. And from the announce car I managed to get a message to soften them down. He did and the car was a lot better on the West course mega slalom. Also on the same bar, shocks and RE71R's.

Horses for courses. I'd start softer and work up myself.

gback

Once the rest of the parts get here I definitely planned to give you a call, Sam. But it is interesting to hear what others are running.

gback

Got the Koni shocks on 10/21, the sway bar today but the delrin shock bushings are lost in space somewhere by Fedex. They were out for delivery from my local Fedex depot on Saturday but somehow wound up in Oregon instead. I'm waiting for them to update their tracking again to see where they are now. Hopefully they get here soon so I can get everything installed and run the next SFR Slush Series event in a couple weeks.

gback

Finally got the Konis with delrin bushings and Strano front bar installed. Dropped it off for alignment on Friday but when I picked it up the rear toe settings were not what I specified. I took it home anyway so I could drive it over the weekend and let things settle a bit before I take it back to get it corrected. Anyway, here is what I wanted:

Front - Max available negative camber and max available positive caster keeping both sides as equal as possible. Zero Toe.
Rear - Max available negative camber. 1/8" total toe in (about 0.15* per side).

Here is what they were able to get:

Front Camber (L) -2.1* (R) -2.2*
Front Caster (L) 5.8* (R) 5.7*
Front Toe (L) 0.01* (R) 0.01* (Total) 0.02* Toe In
This all looks pretty good to me.

Rear Camber (L) -1.0* (R) 1.3*
Rear Toe (L) 0.10* (R) -0.03* (Total) 0.07* Toe In

I'm taking it back to get more rear toe in (about 0.15* per side) which they already know they need to fix. But what about the rear camber? Good enough as is or should I try to get the L/R more equal? Comments/thoughts appreciated.

Overall I am very pleased with the shocks, delrin bushings and the Strano front bar. No significant change to NVH with the delrin bushings, at least that I could tell. Handled great on a little test area I use on a nearby abandoned runway, although I think going from the current rear toe of essentially zero to 0.3* total toe in (about 1/8" total) will help with getting the power down off a corner.

Tomswheels

I like a little tow out in front...

Matt_27

Rear toe is insanely easy to adjust yourself. Buy some toe plates with whatever the shop was going to charge you and do it yourself. Rear camber just needs to be maxed out, whatever you can get, unequal is fine.