I'm thinking about jumping into autocrossing this spring. My car is stock except for intake and exhaust modifications. From what I gather, the intake means it wont be considered for the stock class. I guess this would put me into the street prepared or street touring class?

I just want to do this to have fun and learn about the limits of my car. I don't have aspirations of winning all season long. So my question is, should I change the intake out and go for the stock class or just compete in what ever class my car falls into? Are the classes with more prepared cars going to be much harder to compete in? Should I even worry about my competition since I just want to have fun and don't really care if I win?

What's the deal?

 

Leave your car as-is and have fun. You will quickly decide if you want to compete in AS or just have fun.

 

I think you answered your own question right there.

Just go out and have fun at first, then you will figure out what you want to do later on.

 

Go out and have fun. Put the car in whatever class it fits in and work on closing the time gap between you and the faster drivers. Don't worry about the trophies.

If you find you really like it, and your times would be competitive in Stock class, then you might consider changing the intake.

 

Intake gains are really minimal. If it was me I'd spend a few minutes to put back the stock intake and compete in A-Stock. It's more fun when you don't get blown away in your nearly stock car against the other much more modified cars.

 

if you go out just to see if you like it id say leave it as is. if you enjoy it and want to get competitive then yeah put the stock airbox back in. just dont get disheartened if you are blown away the first time out by the class they stick you in.. or the class you would be in normally with the stock airbox.

it takes a few autox's to get competitive, but only one to get hooked

 

Good, cause you won't

Autocross is 90% driver, 10% car. If you've never done it before, prepare to be amazed as street tired miatas trounce your best time by like 10 seconds. It's a humbling experience.

You sound like you'll be cool with it though, so go to a few events before you decide to do anything to your car. I'm lucky to run in a region that has a healthy AS field this year, including some pretty experienced drivers. Depending on your situation, it may be more fun for you to run in a local street tire class, or maybe you have enough money to make a competitive BSP or FP car.

Talk to other S2K drivers there, as well as other drivers in the classes that you're considering. Autocrossers are a pretty friendly bunch, and usually pretty open to share knowledge and experience.

 

Enjoy it as it is. If you want to get serious, swap the air box back in, but the exhaust may also move you out of stock because of weight savings.

 

Any exhaust is legal for SCCA autocross as long as the stock header and cat are still there.

 

Exhaust would only bump him out of stock if its not a cat-back. EDIT: ^ beat me to it

If you've never done it before, just go to an event or two and see how you like it. If you do, I would swap the stock airbox back in and run the car in stock for a year or so. Plenty of time to work on the driver as thats what makes the car go fast or slow.