When I see new people coming out to autocrosses, there is always a common theme. They have a blast, and are gung-ho about continuing to compete, but they generally don't look at the rules and add a part to the car that kicks them into an un-comptetitve class. They may then get discouraged, think the rules are foolish, and stop competing.

For that reason, I'd like to write up a little modification and classing guide that will help people new to the sport understand the classing, and why it's done that way. It doesn't always make sense on the surface, but there is generally a reason for things. Not always a *good* reason, but a reason nonetheless!

Autocross classing is broken into four major categories. These main categories invlolve the level of modifications that one can do to the car. These four levels do not address different car types, only the types of modifications allowed. Within these 4 major categories are classes, that seperate cars with different performance potential. The 4 major categories are Stock, Street-Prepared, Prepared and Modified... In order from mild to wild. Within each of these are different classes for different cars. Actually ALL the classes are as follows:
Stock - SS, AS, BS, CS, DS, ES, FS, GS, HS
Street-Prepared - ASP, BSP, CSP, DSP, ESP, FSP
Prepared - AP, BP, CP, DP, EP, FP
Modified - AM, BM, CM, DM, EM

There are some 'new' classes, such as STS and SM but none of them apply to the Stook so I won't cover them here, For the record, there is F125 (Karts), FJ (kids karts), STS, STR and SM for a grand total of 32 classes available.

I'm going to address the 5 classes that the S2000 is eligible for. One Stock, one Stree-Prepared, one Prepared and two Modified classes. First, the most popular (due to cost) is A-Stock.

In A-Stock, you can change the following things: Shocks(but not springs), Front Swaybar, DOT Legal race tires, Wheels(provided size is same as stock and offset varies no more than 6.35mm), Thermostat, Air Filter, Exhaust from cat back, Any brake pads and a lap-only-harness. Anything that's NOT on the above list is forbidden. There is a 'comfort and convenience' ruls, but it covers things like guages and armrests. If you try to add something that enhances performance in any way and call it 'comfort and convenience' you'll probably be called on it. Which brings me to an important point about enforcement of these rules. Only glaring, obvious exceptions will be caught in tech (i.e. a super-charged car trying to register in A-Stock.) For other, smaller infractions, it is up to your competitors to 'protest' you. This is a very rare occurrence at local events. At National events, people are actually looking and checking for legality. So if you have something little, like SS braided brake lines - you could get away with running A-Stock locally. I'm not advocating cheating, but running such brake lines will not give you 2 seconds per lap, so you could get away with it. My point is that at local events, it's not SO stuffy that you can't get away with a thing or two. Only at the National and Divisional level events are people more strict, for obvious reasons. One last note on Stock-Class is that some of the rules used to make sense. Like the shock rule - this was adopted years ago so that people could go to Midas to get shocks instead of having to go to the dealer to buy Honda shocks. Over the years, this has been twisted into people building custom, adjustable racing dampers - which satisfy the letter of the rule, but not the original intent. That's often the way racing goes, people look for every advantage possible. To compete at the highest levels you have to have all the same bits on your car to come close.

On to A-Sreet-Prepared... The intent of this class was to allow people to modify their cars for the street, drive them to events and race them. To have a truly dual-purpose car, street and race. Again, the rule is a bit dated, and most SP cars come on trailers and aren't even registered for the street. You can do everthing you can in stock PLUS the following. Keep in mind that if it's not on the list, you can't do it: Any springs, Any swaybars, Any suspension bushing material, 1 Suspension brace front and rear (i.e. X-brace OR srut tower brace, but not both.), Adjustable ride height, Any wheel size, DOT approved tires, Any brake lines and pads, Cross drilled rotors NOT allowed, Any intake, Exaust, and ignition system (basically, you can't open the engine - anything you bolt on is OK. Unfortunately that means you could scrap the Honda FI and use an Electromotive ignition and FI system and it would be legal.), Headers OK, no cat OK, Any seats, CANNOT remove interior bits, adding limited slip is OK (we already have one, but you could put in any type) And updating/backdating is OK. This last one doesn't apply to us because there haven't been any changes to the Stook over the 2 model years. But what that last rule allows is swapping of parts between model years and cars that are listed on the same line in the rule book. A good example is with VW, the GTI, Golf, Jetta area all listed on the same line in the rulebook for FSP. That means you could use any motor, tranny, suspension combination from any of the cars. You could use a GTI engine in a Jetta with a Golf transmission. Over the years, there were so many variation of these cars that you can pretty much pick and choose your transmission ratios... but as I said, that doesn't apply to the Stook as there are no differences.

Basically A-Prepared is the next logical step from ASP. You are allowed to open up the engine, change cams, compression, etc. You can change the suspension mounting points. Tires no longer have to be DOT approved so you can run real racing slicks. You can remove most of the interior. These cars are true race cars, much like the Production classes for road-racing, they are stripped, gutted and built back up from the ground as a race car. I don't see anyone here building one of theses in the near future, but it's important to note a few things. If you do any modifications that put you above the ASP rules, you have to run AP regardless of how FAR above ASP you go. An example would be cross-drilled rotors. As much as we all know how little performance these add, they would put you in AP up against aggressively modified cars. My advice would be to avoid any mods that would put you up into Prepared. There is plenty of tinkering that can be done and stick in ASP. Use the above guide as a starting point for ASP, but if you want to start doing this by all means go to http://www.scca.org and buy a soloII rulebook.

D-Modified and E-Modified are the two fastest classes that the stook is eligible for. Basically, anything goes. D-modified is under 2000cc, and E-modified is for over 2001cc. The reason the Stook could end up in both is that a supercharger adds a multiplier so they consider the engine 3.0l instread of 2.0. Also, forced induction AUTOMATICALLY puts you in Modified. So you could add only one mod, a supercharger, and find youself in EM where anything goes. Basically the car has to meet a minimum weight, have the correct displacement, 'look' like the car in question, and use the floorpan from the orginal car. That's IT. You could take a Formula Atlantic chassis, put a fiberglass S2K body on the car, and run 12 inch wide slicks with a 400hp supercharged F20c and run E-Modified. You could do all the same things but without the supercharger and run in D-Modified. Truly Big-bucks and for the most dedicated of tinkerers but either car would be pretty wicked! You better belive thoughts of D-Modified have crossed my mind - until I start thinking about the tens-of-thousands of dollars that it would take.

So there you have it Stook classing in a nutshell. This is just a starting point to help people understand. If you want to try it, please buy and read a rulebook. It may save you a headache in the future, and could even save you some money by keeping you from getting that Mugen CAI because it's not legal in A-Stock! My advice to people who want to improve their driving? Get a front swaybar and stay in A-Stock. The lower limits and higher competition levels will make you learn faster as a driver. For those of you who just HAVE to mod, try to stay within the confines of ASP. You'll have a good time, and it can help you decide which mod to do next. If any of you ever have any specific questions on whether a mod is legal, please don't hesitate to email me and I'll try to answer.

The moral? Think before you mod!

Happy racing, everyone!

[Edited by Jason Saini on 03-01-2001 at 11:31 AM]

 

Jason:

Very interesting. I wondered why you guys hadn't put on the Mugen headers and ECU. I guess you'd have to run ASP.

 

Excellent post Jason. This is a must for the FAQ!

 

Glad to know my SS brake lines won't be a huge issue locally.

Great post Jason.

 

Jason,

great post, thanks!

Would you (or someone else knowledgeable) answer a couple of questions:

What is considered stock on the S2000? (e.g., what about the Honda spoilers?)

Do things like DOT4 brake fluid move you out of Stock?

What are the rules for Novice class? (e.g., is there a maximum number of times you can participate as a Novice?)

Personally I'm not really interested in competing in autocross, but I would like to participate. I have done mods (throttle body, X-brace, brake lines) that bump me out of Stock, but I would like to be able to go out for the practice, and compare my times to myself and others. I don't care if I qualify for trophies or standings. Is that cool?

Thanks,

Ted

 

Tedster... no problem! I think I can help. The brake fluid is legal - Stock class allows any lubricants or fluids. There isn't even a restriction on gas, but without allowing ECU mods, there isn't much gain there.

By the letter of the rules, the Honda spoilers, strakes, Ti shift knob, etc. are all "Dealer added accessories" and such should bump you from stock. However, these fall under the category of things that you could get away with. In fact, Ron and Annie ran Nationally with the spoilers last year and no-one cared because we all know it doesn't help performance.

As for Novice classes, it varies by region. In our region, you can run Novice as long as you feel you need to. Now, someone will say something if you are winning Novice every weekend, but you get the picture!

Again, those of us that do compete encourage others to come out and participate! We love to share in the fun, and personally I am more that willing to help someone like yourself through a day at the event. As for the mods you have, you could probably get away with running stock locally because no-one would notice about those things. Especially if you run on street tires. More often than not if someone is SO competitive that they would whine about your car, they are already on race tires. So you could run Stock-class on street tires, knowing you would never beat the guy on race tires.

Again, I can't speak for everyone... you could run across a mean person that will cry about your x-brace, but if that happens, just play dumb and run in ASP while comparing your times to A-Stock. It's a blast no matter what class you are driving!

HTH, Tedster...

 

One minor correction. The S2000 does not go into ASP... it's a CSP car. Because it's not specifically listed, it falls under the CSP catch all of "blah blah... sports cars with under 2.0 liters displacement... blah blah". Being that the S2000 has a 1.997 liter engine... there you go.

It's also worth noting unless a car is *specifically* classed, it is not eligible to compete in any SP class at national level events. Of course it would probably take about *1* letter to the SEB to have it classed in SP somewhere... but until someone writes that letter, the S2000 is not legal for SP (nationally).

Oh and should anyone consider writing that letter... I strongly urge you to reccomend CSP as the correct class for the car... and not ASP, nor BSP (and of course any attempt to get it into any of the other SP classes will just get you laughed at).

cheers,
jason keeney

 

Good to know, Jason... goes to show that even I need to look at my rule book! But the good news locally is that people could run in CSP by making the organizers aware of the rule that Jason noted.

And if anyone wants to run in SP Nationally, do as Jason says and beg for CSP. The other two classes are TOUGH! Well, CSP is pretty tough also, but it would be better.

 

This was an excellent post Jason! I'd like to see this recreated for every car club out there, specific to the car(s) in that club.

When I started autocrossing, I came out in my '92 VW GTI that I had put shocks and springs on. This was my only modification, but it automatically bumped me into Street Prepared. Not only was my car not even close to being competitive nationally, but we had a local guy that had a stock version of the car with better shocks than I had. His car was faster than mine! He was also a better driver, but that's another story.

I would add one caveat to Jason's thoughts on running your car in the stock class. I don't in any way condone cheating. If you have done something to your car that you know is not legal for stock, talk to the people you'd be running against. In most cases they will be alright with you running in the class, but it's better to be upfront than to get a reputation as a cheater.

Any of us that have been autocrossing would love to show those of you that haven't been out before the ropes. Chiman came out to our last event and loved it. He even brought a friend with a Type R. They both had a great time.

As for the spoiler issue, again there is somewhat of a grey area there. The factory spoilers (dealer add-on's or whatever you want to call them in this case) while not technically legal shouldn't cause you any problems. There isn't a performance advantage in an autocross to these. Now if you get into other such dealer add on's like different wheels, that's a different story!

Ron

 

Great post Jason. Very clear description. I think you've also highlighted some of the problems the SCCA faces and the reasons for the creation of street touring, etc.

Most people don't want to be limited on their mods, but because of the hard demarcation between classes, you can't just go step by step. As you said, you need to prepare to the limit of the rules to be competitive.

In my case, I say screw the rules and just run time only on practice days. Just as much fun and no hassles. I'm too competitive for my wallet's own good, so no class competitions for me :-). I think the local SCCA groups need to advertise that more so that more people will come out (need more course workers :-).

UL