First Race with Coilovers

Only slightly exciting than finally getting to test the coilovers is that I finally got my girlfriend to race my car in the womens class, but more on that in just a bit.

Sitting in the morning sun down at PPIR, the car looked great. I was thrilled to finally get to test it. However, I had no clue where to set the front and rear shock stiffness at. For starters, I set the front to full stiff, the rears to half.

By now, I am sure that you have realized that there is a big "W" on the side of the car. That is for my lovely girlfriend who agreed to give racing a shot. Her racing is not the craziest part though. She had only learned how to drive manual the night before and had maybe one hour under her belt. We just practiced launching the car, flooring it through first, and then shifting into second. While she was learning how to drive manual, we realized that even with the seat all the way forward, she could not fully press in the clutch without sliding forward in the seat. Solution: pillow.

The day went pretty well and I was rather happy with the setup of the car. Overall, the car. was really tail happy, so I changed the shocks stiffness to half up front and full soft in the rear. Kinda Next race will tell if that helped any. Now that I had the coilovers on, the next biggest thing that I needed to tackle was my lack of a limited slip differential. Looking at the images from the race, you can see my inside rear lighting up on corner exit. UGH! Slowing me down SO MUCH!

Here is a nice video that I got from a GoPro showing my best run of the day....man do I need a LSD and to dial out that oversteer.

D-Street Prepared
						Hometown		(Index)	Best	Pts
		Vehicle			Sponsor
T	1.	125/DSP	Lee Michael			Arvada, CO			48.825	955
		93 BMW 325is / Hoosier			SCR Performance
		1) 48.825		2) 50.966	3) 49.757		4) 49.594		5) --
T	2.	165/DSP	Scott Herbert			Colorado Spring, CO			50.140	930
		09 Chevy Cobalt SS / Hoosier			Copperhead Road/Front Range Muffler
		1) 51.260		2) 51.854	3) 50.140		4) 50.260 + 1		5) --
	3.	30/DSP	Matthew Stephenson (N)			Centennial, CO			51.737	902
		89 BMW 325i			AMANDA!!!!!!!!
		1) 52.004		2) 51.737	3) 51.787		4) 51.296 + 1		5) --
	4.	89/DSP	Daniel Heffron (N)			Denver, CO			53.455	873
		89 BMW 325i
		1) 54.711		2) 55.291	3) 54.035		4) 53.455		5) --

Coilovers!

Now that I have some R-comp tires and some lightweight wheels to go with them, I needed some suspension goodies to replace my monster truck status. I compared the Ground Control AST setups, but ultimately went with the GC coilovers due to their cheaper price.

I decided to send in my stock shock housings to have them shortened, support tabs welded on, and to be powder coated. The kit included some Koni Yellows revalved to my desired spring rates, Eibach springs, and some Ground Control race camber plates.

Apparently Koni was way behind at their factory in Denmark, so long story short, I waited about six weeks to get them back. They looked great when they arrived. Each spring came with a ride height adjuster. I figured that I would just leave it at the middle for now and adjust later.

I ran into some problems with the install. First, the front right wheel bearing was shot, so that got replaced. Also, as a best practice, I ordered new axle nuts and dust caps. However, neither fit. Oh yah, and I got them from a BMW dealership!! They were poorly made and manufacturing flaws made them unable to fit. That was another setback. Also, there rentable spring compressor from O'Reilly Autoparts sucks and is the hardest thing in the world to use to get stock springs off. 

Here is the car after I pulled it out of the garage and gave it a test drive. It was VERY wet out, so the test drive was slideways for sure.

CAMBER!!

I took the car home and threw on my race rubber to make sure that it would fit and there would not be any rubbing issues.

I am very happy with the setup. I think it looks great. Worth noting is that the camber is set to max negative right now. Not sure the actual number. Now I need to go racing!