While my son and I are day-dreaming, is there some plan of attack towards upgrading (if necessary) the suspension bits on a '92 240SX? Assume that the parts are worn but serviceable. My thoughts are as follows:

1. Seat time, seat time, seat time!2. Upgraded seat & harness (suggestions?)3. More seat time!4. springs/shocks/swaybars/bushings?5. Still more seat time!6. Wheels & tires

I'm trying to lay out a plan for a year or so, maybe longer.

TIA, and have a good one,Mike

I like the way you think...seat time is the best teacher and the most fun .The plan that you've compiled is perferct. I dunno if the tires should be last but all those areas definately need upgrading. You also might want to look into a B&M shifter and new clutch.

B&M is already in. The way my son is slipping the clutch pulling away from a stop is going to give us the opportunity to change out the clutch in the not too distant future, anyway.

Any suggestions about what brands/specs of parts to look at for mods?

Thanks again, and have a good one,Mike

I would say more like1.Seat time2.Tires3.Bushings4.springs/shock5.seat6.cage7.harness

2. No matter how raced prepped the vehicle is Tires are hugely important so get those done quick before you start worrying about budget....3. bushings might not show the biggest increase in lap times but they will make a huge difference in confidence in your vehicle if they are all done at once, 13 y/o rubber has seen better days....4. once you got grippy tires and your bushings are up to coping with greater loads I would go with coilovers/shocks and springs depending on the condition of your local roads... roads around me are about as good as you could want for the most part, and if they were any worse I would most likely be loosing grip to my 8/6 spring rates5. IMO the stock s13 seat while not being he most comfortable thing ever does a decent job of holding, but after you have the stuff I mentioned it might be nice to not spend so much energy wedging your self between the seat and dead pedal....side mounted bucket seats with stock belts is what I would be looking for at this point...6. once your cornering enough to be need a better seat chasse bracing and safty should start coming to mind... remember that cages are alot harder then your head, so If you get in a wreck with no helmet giving a steal tube a kiss might hurt...a lot...7. Harness is the last step for after you have a roll cage and seat. If the car flips with out cage your gonna loose head room real quick, and being strapped in unable to duck might result in one hell of a head ache. Another important issue often mentioned about harnesses Is they supposedly need to be mounted at < 15(?) degree angle to the shoulders. If they are mounted too low will (according to rumor) pull downwards as you pull forwards and can cause spine injury...then again I know a porsche master tech/tuner/driving instructor mount harnesses to the floor so Id do more reading on that...

That would be my approach however I am just starting with autox so what do I know...

First choose a class you want to compete in.

I posted a reply earlier, but for some reason it's gone.

Anyway, we're going to be running with the local BMW and Porsche clubs, and they don't use the SCCA classes. Since we're non-marque entries, we're placed either off of engine displacement or "Other Japanese".

So, since mods are OK, anything I'm missing? Also, do you have any specific recommendations about springs, shocks, sways, etc.

Finally, the reason I put tires towards the end was because I want my son to learn how to drive the car first, and street tires are really good learning tools.

Thanks again for the comments, and have a good one,Mike

I'd change out the sway bars before anything. It's a lot easier to learn in a car with less body roll and more neutral handling.

InsanityInc wrote:I'd change out the sway bars before anything. It's a lot easier to learn in a car with less body roll and more neutral handling.

The point here is that he wants his son to learn how to drive before he learns how to drive fast.

I agree with the 100% stock 240. He will learn how to fight a stock car and in order to go fast, he must learn to manipulate it to do what he wants it to do. This means he has to sometimes go against what his mind says, and thats how you get better, by building habits based on what the car does and not how you feel (ie. scared).

Nismo,

You're dead on the money in that observation. OTOH, mods are fun, and I was actually thinking about putting some swaybars on. But, I've learned that, usually, suspension vendors have packages that are designed to work together. I'm not good enough to figure out what size swaybar to use in the front vs the rear, and what springs work best with them, and what shocks work best with the springs, ...

So, if I did decide to get him some swaybars for the car (say for Christmas), what suspension vendors should I be looking towards?

Thanks again for the comments, and have a good one,Mike

I'm a big Whiteline fan. I've run all of their available suspension components on 2 of my 240's and I LOVED the handling it gave me. They have also recently developed a coil over too. They're pretty proud of it though. I intend on using their products again on my current 240 as well. And as you said, all of their components are designed to work together, so you don't have to worry about trying to figure out how to match stuff up. It's a great street/autoX setup.

Definitely, figuring out stock limits will allow you to more fully use the vehicle to its limits.

However, I think of swaybars more as a complement to a suspension setup and fine tuning element.

Tires first, after he understands why regular all seasons shouldn't be used .

Then coilovers or springs/shocks & bushings once he starts getting good. And of course, the arms/rods that go w/ them.

From here, he can decide if a sway bar is what he is looking for, or a stiffer spring rate. Much of the body roll should have already been taken car of by the spring/shock or coilovers.

Other fine tuning elements would be strut bars.

Suspension Techniques are good drop in sway bar set. The Whitelines have the advantage of being adjustable, which is great... but only if you know what you are doing - double edged sword so to speak.

Unfortunately, I will be going to my first autox event in October after ride-a-longs w/ buddies auto-xing this weekend - my car will kick my *** because it is fully modified, but I have nowhere near the driving ability to control everything, hehe... reminds me of jumping in the water to learn to swim.

Thanks for the replies. I took the car to get it aligned Saturday, and was surprised to find that the stock suspension doesn't have much, if any, adjustments for camber. Still, once we got the toe set to 0 front and 1/16" toe in rear we ended up with right at -1.0 rear and -1.2 front, so, at least for right now I think we've got a pretty good baseline.

My son's first autocross is this Saturday, I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Also, I'll check out the whiteline and Suspension Techniques.

I guess next on the list would be wheels and tires. What are folks using for autocrossing? Sticking with 15s or can you get a lighter weight 14" wheel? How about widths? The tires on the car now are 205s (I think, it's a Monday ).

And finally, what kind of tire pressures should we try with street tires? I'm guessing 36f, 33r, mainly to keep the sidewalls from rolling over.

Thanks again, and have a good one,Mike

I used to work at http://www.splparts.com and suggest buying the components from there. I will be running Whitelines and I suggest the same for your son's car. Hell if you wanted to be evil you could always adjust the sway bar without his knowledge and see if he notices and see how he adapts.

There are two companies that know 240's in and out, one is SPL Parts, and the other is Don Nimi's PDM Racing. I trust both.

Again, thanks for the info. I went to the SPL Parts website and browsed around some. I think we'll probably do it in stages unless we can get a package deal.

What are some good aftermarket wheels for autocross? Tires I'll probably go with some Kumhos, MXs unless we go to a dedicated R compound tire. Anyone have any experience with the Falken brand of tires?

Thanks again for the info, now we have to get to the track!

Have a good one,Mike

Alan there loves the Falkens, he also started a "fastest tire" thread in wheels and tires you should check out

for wheels it depends on your budget really...for cheap and light theres the ones i have, Kosei K1s. Theyre around 14 lbs. for a 16 inch wheel, not bad for $110 a piece...only thing is youll have to catch them when tire rack has them in stock, a somewhat difficult thing to do. another wheel in this area would be the team dynamics series, fairly low price as well and light

a little more expensive, around $200 you have the fn01rc, a lot of people have it because its a good wheel, comes in friendly sizes for the car, and looks good too...around $250 a piece you can get gram lights or weds from tire rack. i myself plan on getting a set of weds when i can spare the extra cash for track-only wheels

hey just to let you know you can strap the harnesses to the rear lap sealtbelts. lets us know hoiw it goes at the autocross. tanabe sway bars are another option as well. falken azenis are a very popular tire for autoXing

Most people don't wanna run the harnesses at that much of an angle though...I think there is a thread some were in here about mounting harnesses, and safety issues.

yeah very bad idea

not as bad as mounting them on the floor behind the seat, but still bad

Kinda of a odd ball suggestion here. I would recommend kinda dropping all that stuff, except the seat. I would invest in increasing his knowledge, book wise about suspension, transfer and the geometry of it all. Buy some tools and adjustable parts and have him learn about the alignments, tire pressures and all around suspension setups. Not only can he learn to drive a car he can then start to tune the car himself to go faster and overall become a way better driver. Being able to drive fast only gets you so far, knowledge takes you beyond that.

Oh, believe me, we're doing all that. But, this car has 175K miles on it, and the suspension rubber bits are worn out and need replacing. So, rather than go back with stock pieces that he'll want to upgrade in a year or so, I'm thinking about upgrading the parts as we do general maintenance anyway.

Thanks for the suggestions, we'll be keeping y'all informed. Right now we're just going stir crazy waiting for next years season to get underway.

Hope y'all had a Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!Mike

Vettedrmr wrote:Oh, believe me, we're doing all that. But, this car has 175K miles on it, and the suspension rubber bits are worn out and need replacing. So, rather than go back with stock pieces that he'll want to upgrade in a year or so, I'm thinking about upgrading the parts as we do general maintenance anyway.

Thanks for the suggestions, we'll be keeping y'all informed. Right now we're just going stir crazy waiting for next years season to get underway.

Hope y'all had a Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!Mike

I'm sure you know better what is best for your son to learn.

Just as a reference though, one of my buddies has a stock eg civic hatch (early 90's) w/ only tire upgrade, most ppl have an extremely tough time keeping up with him or being able to lose him in the canyons (old cars, new cars, mixed suspension and power upgrades)... not that I condone any thing of that sort...

In any case, if you are upgrading anyway, it wouldn't hurt. But obviously a few more autox of completely crappy stock *** performance from the 240 will help him really see the differences in which each upgrade can do as he progresses in skill.

"Unfortunately" for me, my car is already decked out for the most part, so I'm playing mostly catch up with my own car... I don't think I understand the full effect of what each of my parts really does (only theoretically I do).

And in reference to the harness article - it was mentioned that anything beyond 15 degrees from perpendicular to mounting/seat was exponentially dangerous. It is also interesting to note that Sparco recommends no more than 45 degrees - of course, this is purely off road.

brokeAs240sx wrote:... But obviously a few more autox of completely crappy stock *** performance from the 240 will help him really see the differences in which each upgrade can do as he progresses in skill...

You mean like the H-rated 215/60R15 tires that came with the car? He just got a set of bling rims and tires for the street with some of the money he's got stockpiled for the car, so we're going to keep racing on the original tires.

Probably go with shocks first. Don't know how many miles are on these, but they're a bit, uh, "soft".

Thanks again for the suggestions, and have a good one,Mike

re: seats and harness

i have stock seats but i have added a 3" belt from a 5point harness. i use only the belt and the stock shoulder belt. the big belt helps keep my a$& in one spot so i dont have to use the dead pedal (which got lost somewhere).