Fast DX

Howdy,

I thought I'd post some of the things I've figured out during the last few autocross weekends. I've definitely learned some of the car's strengths and weaknesses. First, the setup so far:

Bone stock everything '03 DX except for '02 LX wheels, 205/50-15 Victoracers, K&N air filter, Redline tranny fluid. 1/8" toe-out front, zero rear.

I had GEEZ! in the car two weeks ago at the OR Region autocross events. The first day I drove with the front swaybar disconnected to see if it was possible without flipping over and what the car would do. The course was pretty much all 2nd gear, mid to upper rpm range transitions so having no bar on was a bad thing in theory. If I was real smooth I avoided pounding the bumpstops but otherwise the car suffered no wheelspin issues and worked pretty darn well. I had transition rates of around 4.5 g/sec, pulled a peak of 1.18g and sustained around 1.07g in the corners. I also had PAX FTD.

Sunday's course was without a majority of the slaloms and had a series of three spin cones that had to be negotiated twice with an inner loop turnaround. I reconnected the front swaybar since I learned what I needed with it off, mainly that it would cure the wheelspin and drive ok. I'm working on a solution to a smaller than the smallest Protege bar (21mm) that is the ultimate solution. I immediately found I was way off the pace, like 2 seconds. For the second run I disconnected it and only improved a half second or so. For the final run I reconnected it and equalled my second run times, still 2 seconds off the pace. I was so frustrated I almost kicked in a door since just the day before I was PAX FTD and nobody could figure out where I was loosing time by watching my runs.

A couple days later I starting looking at the GEEZ! data. Since on Sunday I had runs with and without the front bar I could see what the differences were. With no front bar I didn't loose much in transitions, cornered consistently .1-.2g harder in turns and in a short sweeper (the inner loop) was .2 seconds quicker through it. I also could get on the gas alittle earlier and had "more accel under the curve" because of the lack of wheelspin. I had higher peak and sustained lateral gs and they were more even.

Gee, I should have been faster on my second run than the last, right? Yeah, but I screwed up at the finish and gave up the .3 sec I was carrying to that point. I also took a much tighter line in the spin cones on my last run thinking that was were the 2 seconds was (not directly). Everywhere but around the spin cones I was living in the 95-107% usage range so where in the hell was the 2 seconds? (same competitors from Sat. to Sun. and we're all pretty consistent) I think it was accelerating off each spin cone. If you've ever had to drive around one, it is a single cone that you do alteast a 180 around. In my Neon, I was never faster by downshifting to 1st gear, I always had too much wheelspin. Well, I think I need to use 1st gear in the Protege for turns like that. It didn't seem like the car was lugging off the turns but the GEEZ! data showed I was accelerating at half what I was in other places and only using 40% of the car compared to other sections. There was a total of 6 spin cones. The previous day had none of those low speed sections and I kicked butt.

There's alot more in there to talk about than I've gotten to so far but this is a pretty long post So far, I think my Protege's weakenesses are fast sweepers (can't get on the gas with stock swaybars), and low speed corners (poor low end power). I messed with the rear toe last weekend and had really good runs. I like the car toe'd out in the rear but I didn't bring the GEEZ! to compare different settings. Darn!

Steve W.