Update
I had a chance to autox my 3 this past Sunday. Only did 5 runs at the end of the day, but it was enough to get a feel for it.
All i did was adjust tire pressures, i did not change the damper settings. 36psi front and 38psi rear on stock 17" tires. I left the jack and spare in there too...not enough time to remove it before i ran.
The car did quite well, although i could definetely feel the weight of the car, compared to the others i was driving that day and especially compared to my preped Protege. I ran competetive times vs. other cars that were more preped and beat some of them too.
As the car sits, it's a STS classed car. The only suspenion mods are the SS coilovers. Engine mods are only the SRI and ARK exhaust (i guess you could add the short shifter too...but it's not much of a performance mod) It could use a harness, but the seats weren't all that bad. My biggest complaint is where my knee rests against the center console, i'd definetely need a kneepad. This would be greatly reduced with the use of a harness, but i think there'd still be enough pressure to require a kneepad.
Body roll was nice and tight, but with the crappy tires, the front wanted to slide, so i couldn't push it as hard as i would have liked. With some Azenis or V710's, it would have turned in faster times. The power was nice, pulled well out of the corners and had good power down the straights.
All in all, it could be a competitive car, but not a winner. Add in a sway bar kit, better tires and some weight loss and it would run with most STS cars. I was happy how it did. Since it's my daily driver, i am really going to have to work hard not to prep it anymore and be tempted to run it...lol
For a quick comparison, the fastest time i ran in a nicely preped Sentra SER was 58.2xx on sat morning, never having even walked the course. My fast time in the MZ3 was 58.8xx. Now this was after 2 days of running the same course, about 30-35 laps. So you can see, it can indeed be competitive.
