Ive autocrossed my old beloved 1999 Civic Si competitively for over 2 years in the Cincinnati, OH area, and absolutely loved it. Although the time has come for me to, well....err, "upgrade" per se. So I went and got myself a cherry NFR Ap1. This is the first autocross Ive been able to make it to with this car and Im nervously excited. I could drive the wheels off the Civic and always finished 1 or 2 in class of usually between 9-15 others. (always behind a VR6 Jetta since I could never overcome the Civic's torque deficit, welcome to Honda I say.) Anyways, Im new to this whole RWD and cannot wait to learn in a good, fun, safe environment. Will report back tomorrow. :-)

-Matt

 

You'll love it once you unlearn your FWD automatic reactions. That's the toughest thing about a transition in either direction.

You may KNOW you need to react like X, but your feet and hands do Y.

 

Fortunately you only have two years of wrong wheel drive to unlearn.

 

Well, I just got back, annnnnnd its nothing like the Civic, at all. My first time was a 47.925 which I deliberately went a little slow just to make sure I knew the course well. I only spun out bad one time, which I was happy with. The people who set the course up were generous with the slalom because it was not very tight at all; same goes with the chicago box as anyone who had a relatively smaller/nimble car didn't have much trouble at all navigating that. The course was set up so it favored the higher horsepower cars, but it was a good setup to learn RWD on. As I said, my first time was 47.925 and I ended up getting down to 41.298 so I shaved just about 6.5 seconds off my time and ended up getting a faster time than all the other cars in A-stock. Although I was for some reason placed in the novice class, so with PAX time factored in, Im not sure the total standings. Anyways, it was a great time, and just with 6 runs under my belt I feel A LOT more confident driving this car now, and boy, is it sure tailhappy. With that being said, Im now enjoying when the back end slips around as opposed to being petrified by it.

-Matt

 

get a good alignment something like -2 degree's camber front, -2.5 degree's camber rear, 0 toe front and about 1/4-3/8 total toe rear and max out your caster and that will hell from keeping the back end from coming around as well making the car feel more planted going through steady state corners and allowing you to get power down sooner.

oh by the way, good job and keep it up!!

 

Good job. I'm thinking about trying out SCCA autoX events next year. Is A stock the best class for the S to be competitive? Just wondering.

 

Yup, stock class is where our cars are very competitive. There's no SCCA stree tire class we can run in (I wish there was an STU2 class), so the next step up would be into BSP, against the rally cars and their unlimited boost.

And OP, glad you enjoyed it. It'll take a few events, but soon enough you'll be used to RWD and will find trying to go back to FWD a little difficult.

 

Sliding around the turns is a lot different than pushing through them. I just wish we got about 20 runs instead of 6.

-Matt

 

Matt,

I am glad that you finally got out there and participated. Too bad I wasn't there to see you in action.

Jason

 

That's a bit excessive. We run -1.75F -2.25 rear and I think we're going to take out some camber next season.

Oh yeah, make sure you get a front bar.