Street Prepared build

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

you beat me to it :( looks flashy though!
 
I'll be selling those Millenia Rims (15x6 +50ish). Already painted orange. Some of the paint is chipped, but it looks good froma distance. I ran 205/50 with no fitment issues. Justin (xelderx) has seen them.
 
Great thread Xelderx, I have started autocrossing a couple year ago and I must say your thread is full of useful information. I currently run in STS and only started been somewhat competitive only at the end of last season. It's a humbling experience when you start and seeing someone doing so well with our car helps to keep working at it and to look forward at much better performance.

Keep up the good work :D
 
moxnix said:
With tires in SP sometimes it is as much what sizes you can get and what it does to your gearing as much as anything else that you can think of.

the widest 14" tire you can get would be the 225/50/14 V710/hoosier currently.

Currently you are running the 225/50/15?
How often are you topping out second gear/shifting to third?
The 14" tire would be umm an inch smaller in diameter so your speed would be down about 2.5 MPH at 60 MPH.

according to my rough calculations assuming the P5 has the same gear ratios as the MSP your current tire (225/50/15) should get you to 60.98
MPH at 6500 RPM (not sure what your redline is) with moving down an inch you should be at 58.43 MPH at 6500 RPM in second gear. not sure how much time you spend in the range or if you are already shifting to 3rd on a lot of courses or not.

see the attachments for the graph version.(1st is 14"'s second is 15"'s)

Also I think 14" wheels are harder to find than either 13" or 15".


Thanks for all the info. I'm never topped out in 2nd gear and I rarely get close. The gearing change of the smaller diameter 14's would probably help me. The other big reason is to get a wider rim without getting a heavier rim. I can get 14X8's for $120 a piece and the wheel/tire combo is exactly the same weight as my current setup while helping with gearing and getting a little more rubber on the ground with the 1 inch wider rim. I would rather do that than spend $400 per 15" rim to get the same width/weight.

All of this has just been pushed back in the budget a litte while though as I'm redoing my street wheel/tire setup. I want to move up to a 225 series street tire for everyday driving, but I was going to have to find a new set of rims since the old 15X6 626 rims just weren't wide enough to work. I didn't have enough money to justify all of this and I was willing to settle for 215 Azenis on the stock Pro5 rims. I was working with a friend of mine doing a 5 lug swap on his 240 when he decided that he didn't want to do it due to having to hack the ABS setup. He had already bought a set of 16X8 3rd Gen RX-7 rims and now he couldn't use them. I offered him $150 bucks for all 4 rims and he jumped on it so now I have 16X8 rims to mount my street tires on. I will have to have the centerbore machined out a little to fit the Protege hubs and I need to grind a little bit on the front struts, but they will fit perfectly after that. I test fit them in the rear and with a 225/50-16 tire it looks seriously sick. The 3rd Gen RX-7 rims are super light too for the size.
 

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The UPS man dropped of these:
Rotas%20004.jpg


...so that I can use these:
Rotas%20005.jpg


Off to test fit the 225's!!
 
Nice!!! i got a delivery from the UPS guy today too. Momo Steering hub and quick release adaptor. I'm not ready to get the steering wheel yet since I need a few bills to finish getting the RX-7 wheels ready to go.
 

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Just got word form the machine shop that the wheels should be done around 3pm today. I'll get some pictures up of the clearences or lack there of when I get home.
 
Playing with a little idea a neon racer (not a typical neon guy...this guy is fast) told me works for him. I was looking for a way to get the rear camber I wanted without spending $200 on rear top plates and he told me what he uses. He said to go find a bolt that is slightly smaller in diameter than the stock bolts that mount the strut to the spindle. That way you can give it a little more camber and just tighten everything up. I used 3/8 diameter bolts, but they may be a little too small. I might have to go metric. Here are some pics of the bolts installed and the camber it allowed. I still think this is too much camber and I have serous doubts that these will hold tight enough. I have a feeling the spindle won't stay there. Anyways it was a $2.00 experiment and it takes about 10 minutes to change it all back if it doesn't pan out.
 

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Ummmm...I'm not entirely sure about the rules in this regard. Does it say anything about allowances with mounting hardware on the suspension? My gut would say that you can't do that legally.
 
apexlater said:
Ummmm...I'm not entirely sure about the rules in this regard. Does it say anything about allowances with mounting hardware on the suspension? My gut would say that you can't do that legally.


Camber bolts are allowed, but not specifically defined as to what exactly constitues a "camber bolt". My reasoning is that if I can replace that bolt with a bolt that changes the camber then I have fulfilled the rules. It's really a moot point anyway...they didn't hold.
 
Well...there are no clearences on the RX-7 wheels. They rub the struts at both ends. The interference on the back is nowhere near as bad as the front and I have enough stud that just running a small spacer behind the wheel should be sufficient. I'm going to get hubcentric spacers for the fronts, but until I have to wait until I get the wheels painted and the tires mounted first so I know how large of a spacer I'm going to need.
 
xelderx said:
Camber bolts are allowed, but not specifically defined as to what exactly constitues a "camber bolt". My reasoning is that if I can replace that bolt with a bolt that changes the camber then I have fulfilled the rules. It's really a moot point anyway...they didn't hold.

you're fine; factory "crash bolts" (e.g., toyota) are usually just bolts with a smaller diamter than stock. toyota sells them in three sizes depending on how much camber you need.

the only problem is that they tend to slip. you can help prevent that by tightening them and then painting over them, but it's still not perfect. or you can always use a set of camber bolts like the H&Rs instead of top mounts.
 
Small update...not a good one. The rear swaybar mounting tab has broken off the strut again. I could probably weld it back, but it looks like the integrity of the piece has already been comprimised from the last time it was welded. I'm currently looking for new struts. This is a huge setback and will probably prevent me from going to Nationals this year. I can't afford new struts and new tires within the next few monthes. We'll see what happens.
 

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