It also depends on your situation.

For some, "fun" is passing slower cars and not being incessantly being passed by faster cars, so making the car "faster" has that perspective.

We have an "Showroom Stock B" Civic that I road race with SCCA locally. It's fast enough to pull Miatas on the straights and run with some of the Improved Touring cars. So that's fun for me.

In a NASA HPDE 4 setting it's "okay," but even on Hoosiers you're a rolling chicane for vettes and M3s.

For my wife in HPDE 1, it was "okay" at chasing down most cars and a faster car would just be more frustrating getting stuck in traffic.

So I think it depends on perspective. Miatas are crazy fun. But having your doors blown off by traffic dampens that.

If you're looking to drop lap times, tires are where it's at, but pricey.

 

This tells me that non-staggered is the first thing you should do. Once you have them on your car, you'll know what you want to change in terms of both balance and dynamics.

IMO, the s2k should have come from the factory with square tires, but probably didn't to help prevent accidents.

 

Bringing this back up....

I did my suspension towards the end of this year and now, I am about to bore out some OEM wheels to go square this year.

Question:

My next step towards the end of next year may be aero, but wondering if a wing is useless or at least usefulness highly diminished with having a soft top? I will eventually get a hard top (if necessary).

 

I'd say its more fun because of the extra cornerring G's but you have to resetup the car for the balance you like.
I back my wing down so the car stays loose but enough DF to be stable but not understeery in 4th gear stuff.

Some people use more wing and push a bit but pickup time in 3rd gear stuff so its not nessarily faster over a lap as far as I can tell.

For me its realy fun when you know the car won't go thru a fast corner with just the tire grip and you can feel the downforce.
Take T9 roebling / T12 road atlanta on street tires - you can go flat with a wing probably not without.
So once you get down there flat out start backing it down a degree each session!

 

Driving with aero can be counterintuitive as well. The more you stay on the throttle, but more grip you have. It took me awhile to get used to that feeling because my natural instinct is to want to lift... haha

 

Is the picture in your signature you? If so then you are running a wing without a hardtop correct?

 

Of your list, I have points 2 and 3 done to my car. I can also say I have point 4 because my car is a CR. I have also owned an AP1 that I tracked quite a few times.

IMO, you should do 2,3,4. Get a test pipe/exhaust and a flashpro tune to lower vtec as much as you can. Save the coilovers for last (unless you are already a very very fast driver)

From my experiences, you do not need to add any more then that to the car. You would be better off stripping as much weight as you can once you have a square setup with an adjustable front swaybar, tune, and aero

 

OP, your next move should be for more front camber. Your tires will last longer and you'll pick up a lot of cornering grip/speed.

I ran for over a year with a wing and soft top. A wing works fine with the soft top. It does work better with a hard top but not that much.

 

Basically, I just did Steps 1 - 3.

Current setup:

Staggered RS3 on OEM wheels, KW CS, camber 3f/2.5r (I think, have to check the sheet), Eibach FSB (soft), Miata FSB in rear, and car came with I/H/E.

2013 setup same as above except:

All OEM rear with 255 RS3, Eibach FSB (hard)

With the comments from this thread, probably by end of this year, will get a wing and see what changes I may have to make with the wing.

I know the flashpro gets some decent power, but that will probably be end of this year or 2014.

Again, thanks for the help and insight.

 

Another update.

On step 4 now. Ordered a wing from kspecracing. It was so low ($575) I hope it is not a scam. If so, that is why I always use a credit card. I am also going to build a splitter based on some info I received from Rob Robinette.

I did one event on the square setup and did notice some initial understeer on turn in (which was surprising), but the day was very cold and took about three laps or so to get heat in the tires. Too be honest, the tires are two years old with about 10+ track days, so until I get new tires (probably NT01) I am going to withhold any tickering to my setup.

With the wing, I expect some more initial understeer, but I should be able to carry more speed mid-corner to corner exit.


Side note: I was feeling the need for torque and this week was going to sell my car and think about a C5Z06 or maybe a Cayman/Boxster. But, the P-car is not significantly enough better than the S (on track) to justify the added cost and I couldn't get over the Vette interior or Vette driver "stigma". Anyway, I will stay with the S for now. If one day, I can afford a 996GT3 or ????, then I may get rid of the S.