Best Road Race Setup on a 99GSX

['jrod']

Ok guys i am new to the DSM world. I have a 2002 TT Viper and a built 95 VR4. But i picked up a really clean 99gsx and a 95 gsx. Here is what i have so far, Koni Coilovers, i have both the Evo8 BBK and a AEM BBK(which is better?) Sway bars, poly busing etc..

Next question is, What offset will i need to clear those brakes. The wheels that are on the car i hate. I will prob want a 17or 18" wheel. Also what turbo will be better a GT3076R or a 35R for the road course?

 

[phunny]

Are you going to be going stroker or staying 2.0?

 

[See4Ways]

Im sure if you have those other built cars you can answer your own question.

In my opinion both those turbo are way too big for a road course. but if i had to pick i would pick the 30r. realistically something smaller with quicker response would be better. My scm 61 which is basically a 35r with journal bearings doesnt spool untill 3800 rpms. my evo 3 16g basically spooled at 2k. but its all up to you man. dont forget your going to need a million other mods not just slap on a 35r

 

['jrod']

And my other cars are built not to road race, they are all have the suspension and brakes too i just dont. I street race and drag race.


Here is what i got

the 99: Is a 1000cc E85, Greddy FMIC, 3" Exhaust, TRE Tranny, DSM Link, GT3076R, Magnus Intake, Full Fuel System, 272cams, built head. Made 472 on 27psi.

The 95: sorry for this, i just copyed the mod list.

ROSS STROKER PISTONS

CROWER RODS W/ ARP STUDS AND ARP MAIN STUDS

2.4L CRANKSHAFT

.03 OVER BLOCK

ENTIRE ROTATING ASSEMBLY BLUEPRINTED AND BALANCED

BLOCK MAGNAFLUXED

BLOCK LINEHONED BLOCK RESURFACED

OIL SQUIRTERS REMOVED

KOYORAD RADIATOR

NEW SS 1mm OVER INTAKE AND EXHAUST VALVES AND GUIDES

MANLEY SPRINGS WITH TITANIUM RETAINERS

WEB CAMS WITH STREET GRIND(546/547) Gonna change to FP 280

FEDENZA ADJUSTABLE CAM GEARS

HEAD MAGNAFLUXED HEAD DECKED

SCM6152E GRLS DUAL BALL BEARING FROM SLOWBOY RACING

TURBINE INLET AND OUTLET PORTED

INTERNALLY GATED

GARRETT GT35R COMPRESSOR WHEEL

-COMPRESSOR WHEEL DIA. 82MM,COMPRESSOR WHEEL TRIM 56 TRIM

T350 STAGE 5 TURBINE WHEEL- .63 A/R MITRU BOLT ON TURBINE HOUSING

FIC 850CC INJECTORS family is taking it to abel racing for a tune this weekend gonna drop some 1000's in there

WALBRO 255LPH HP FUEL PUMP

-6AN FUEL LINE SYSTEM

AEROMOTIVE ADJUSTABLE FUEL PRESSURE REGULATOR WITH GAUGE

1G FUEL RAIL

HIGH FLOW BILLET FUEL FILTER

SLOWBOY RACING PORTED EXHAUST MANIFOLD tubluar to come soon

SLOWBOY RACING 02 DUMP

3" RSR DOWN PIPE

3" TEST PIPE

3" RSR CAT BACK EXHAUST

INTAKE JM FABRICATIONS SHEET METAL INTAKE MANIFOLD WITH VELOCITY STACKS

2.25" CUSTOM SHORT ROUTE INTERCOOLER PIPING

SPEARCO FRONT MOUNT INTERCOOLER

BLIZE STAINLESS STEEL 5" AIR FILTER

CUSTOM TURBO INLET PIPE

KONI YELLOW ADJUSTABLE SHOCKS

EIBACH SPORTLINE LOWERING SPRINGS

REAR CAMBER ADJUSTMENT KIT

FRONT AND REAR SWAY BARS

FRONT AND REAR STRUT TOWER BARS

SHEP STAGE 4 TRANSMISSION

NEW SHEP TRANS SPEC 2ND GEAR

NEW 1-2 HUB/SLEEVE KIT WITH DOUBLE SYNCRO RINGS

NEW 5TH GEAR SYNCRO RINGS

NEW 1-2-3-4-5-R SYNCRO RINGS

NEW INPUT,OUTPUT, AND BOTH DRIVE SHAFT SEALS

NEW INPUT SHAFT BEARINGS

NEW INTERMEDIATE GEAR BEARINGS

NEW ROLL PINS

NEW END NUTS

NEW CENTER DIFF SIDE SHIMS

NEW NYLON SHIFTER PAD

SHIMS FOR SETTING PRELOAD

NEW 1ST GEAR AND INPUT SHAFT

HEAVY DUTY SHIFT RAILS

WELDED DIFFERENTIAL

UPGRADED REAR EARTH MAGNET

BEAD BLASTED CASE

SHEPTRANS CHROMOLY STEEL SHIFT FORKS

SPEC STAGE 3 CLUTCH AND PRESSURE PLATE

4-BOLT REAR END

DSMLINK V2

PLX M-300 WIDEBAND 02 SENSOR WITH DIGITAL DISPLAY

3" GM MAF AND MAFT

DIGITAL TURBO TIMER

-AXXIS SPYDER 19" RIMS WITH AZZENNIS TIRES

B&M SHORT THROW SHIFTER

SOLID SHIFTING CRADLE AND SHIFTER BUSHINGS

PROTHAN SOLID MOTOR MOUNTS

AEM BIG BREAK KIT

STAINLESS STEEL BRAKE LINES

BOOST AND EGT GAUGE

BATTERY RELOCATED TO REAR

SHAVED DOOR HANDLES

CARBON FIBER GAUGE INTERIOR

MSD ING.

COP.

VIS EVO STYLE HOOD

SPARCO RACING SEATS PROPERLY MOUNTED

 

[phunny]

You may want some larger injectors with that build. I'd say 2150's and you'll never need another set. On an FPred at 31psi I'm at 66% idc with 2150's.

 

['jrod']

Ok thanks. What motor would you go with since i have both, the 2.0 or the 2.3?

 

[phunny]

For autocross 2.3 easily.

 

[kidtsi]

go with the 2.3, you will need the low mid range power, and go with the fastest spooling turbo.

 

[Ludachris]

For road racing you'll be focusing a lot of time and energy in the suspension. Lots to explore - do some searches here in this forum and you'll see what everyone has been talking about the past 5+ years on the subject. That alone will keep you busy for weeks.

As for the turbo, once you get past the suspension research, you'll find that the 3076R will likely be the biggest you want to go for spool reasons. A 35R, though fun, will likely spool a little late for most road racers. In choosing a turbo for this application, it's all about spool and running in the turbo's efficiency range in order to keep the temps down under the hood - which is the other major issue you're going to be focusing on once you pry yourself away from the suspension discussions. You'll learn that talking about turbos is not all that important when it comes the other major issues - suspension and mitigating the high temp issues.

If this is your first time around with these cars, I'd keep it simple and stick with a cheap 16g turbo - the Evo3 16g to be exact. Cheap and really good spool, with plenty of power for a road course application, just not as exciting due to its power limits (around 350-ish to the wheels). Don't get sucked into the whole power numbers mindset. That's not going to make the car much faster in terms of lap times anyway. The more boost you have to run, the more you'll battle hot temps. Maybe later you can play with that, but in the beginning who wants to complicate things?

The more power you make at the road course, the more things get complicated and the more money you'll need to keep up with it all. That's what gets most DSMers in trouble when they jump into this arena. Focus on suspension first. And before that, get some seat time to feel how the car does now - though it sounds like you have work with a modified car to start with, which is not ideal.

 

['jrod']

^ Thanks for the info! good stuff.

 

[TSiAWD666]

I feel I should warn you that real "road racing" experience on this forum is very minimal. Hopefully no one gets their feelings hurt over this but it's reality here on dsmtuners... we just don't have a glut of vocal road racers. We've got a lot of people who have dabbled in it, a whole lot of drag racers who think they can relate, but few that have really built a full on track tested race car for turning. I'm personally working on building my track car like yourself and am a bit further along. We've still got Andrew Brilliant (gixxerdrew) who has probably built the most advanced Eclipse "race car" to date and is kind enough to share gems of wisdom from his vast experience, and a few other pioneering fellows like jtmcinder and greengoblin, but I think the rest are quiet folks like me or have generally moved on to other cars/forums. You'll get a lot of suggestions for best practices and "common sense" engineering ideas, but very few that have been put through the real rigors of actual on track racing. Take a lot of what you get here with a grain of salt.

Start thinking about cooling the car. That's paramount. Both oil and water. These cars overheat really easily as they aren't provisioned well in stock form for the heat levels you'll generate once boosting the horsepower. Make heat shields, header wrap what you can't heat shield, and put reflective tape on important things near items that radiate heat. Seal your radiator to the core support if you're still using the stock core support. Make some radiator and fmic ducting sealed to the radiator, fmic, and ideally to the front bumper cover too. Get some sort of properly positioned vent in the hood for exhausting the air on the backside of the radiator.

Next think about fuel and oil protection. Our fuel tank pickups suck and with any real Gs you'll be running into starvation issues at just a 1/4 tank down. Look into a fuel slosh/surge tank. As for oil, ideally you'd get a Dry Sump system but that's $5k in parts alone from Magnus Motorsports, so you may want to start out with an 2L Accusump.

For suspension I would suggest looking into a modified front subframe from Robispec (though a fellow DSMer is soon to release a tube-frame version, dunno if he's on this forum...) as it greatly improves your roll resistance with the car lowered, and front fender braces (msg greengoblin on this forum as no one makes them aftermarket for us). I can't comment on the shocks you have but I would suggest getting KW V3 from Robispec (custom tuned) because, well, it works for Gixxerdrew

If you've got lots of money and time you can talk to gixxerdrew about his widebody kit he's developed for his Eclipse that is kicking ass on the west coast. I don't know if any more are available though. I can't speak to the efficacy of the aero the kit offers as my install is still in progress but seeing his results I'm incredibly excited over the potential. If you do go with the kit you'll need a large wing to match and I'd strongly recommend working with Dave@DHP Composites as he's produced a phenomenal wing for my 99 GSX. We've already worked out the mounting details for the 2g so it would be much easier process for you to get the same wing, and I can help explain the mounting procedure.

 

['jrod']

^ MORE GOOD INFO. My plans are just to have this as a DD that is setup for the track. My other cars are my drag racers. the viper went 9.1 at 164 on the old setup.

 

[snowborder714]

To answer the question in your first post, Evo wheels are a +38 offset. Most people run with wheels with a smaller offset than that (+27 to +35, or sometimes even smaller). I don't know what the AEM kit requires.

 

['jrod']

^ Thanks for the info

 

[Ludachris]

I feel I should warn you that real "road racing" experience on this forum is very minimal. Hopefully no one gets their feelings hurt over this but it's reality here on dsmtuners... we just don't have a glut of vocal road racers. We've got a lot of people who have dabbled in it, a whole lot of drag racers who think they can relate, but few that have really built a full on track tested race car for turning. I'm personally working on building my track car like yourself and am a bit further along. We've still got Andrew Brilliant (gixxerdrew) who has probably built the most advanced Eclipse "race car" to date and is kind enough to share gems of wisdom from his vast experience, and a few other pioneering fellows like jtmcinder and greengoblin, but I think the rest are quiet folks like me or have generally moved on to other cars/forums. You'll get a lot of suggestions for best practices and "common sense" engineering ideas, but very few that have been put through the real rigors of actual on track racing. Take a lot of what you get here with a grain of salt.

Start thinking about cooling the car. That's paramount. Both oil and water. These cars overheat really easily as they aren't provisioned well in stock form for the heat levels you'll generate once boosting the horsepower. Make heat shields, header wrap what you can't heat shield, and put reflective tape on important things near items that radiate heat. Seal your radiator to the core support if you're still using the stock core support. Make some radiator and fmic ducting sealed to the radiator, fmic, and ideally to the front bumper cover too. Get some sort of properly positioned vent in the hood for exhausting the air on the backside of the radiator.

Next think about fuel and oil protection. Our fuel tank pickups suck and with any real Gs you'll be running into starvation issues at just a 1/4 tank down. Look into a fuel slosh/surge tank. As for oil, ideally you'd get a Dry Sump system but that's $5k in parts alone from Magnus Motorsports, so you may want to start out with an 2L Accusump.

For suspension I would suggest looking into a modified front subframe from Robispec (though a fellow DSMer is soon to release a tube-frame version, dunno if he's on this forum...) as it greatly improves your roll resistance with the car lowered, and front fender braces (msg greengoblin on this forum as no one makes them aftermarket for us). I can't comment on the shocks you have but I would suggest getting KW V3 from Robispec (custom tuned) because, well, it works for Gixxerdrew

If you've got lots of money and time you can talk to gixxerdrew about his widebody kit he's developed for his Eclipse that is kicking ass on the west coast. I don't know if any more are available though. I can't speak to the efficacy of the aero the kit offers as my install is still in progress but seeing his results I'm incredibly excited over the potential. If you do go with the kit you'll need a large wing to match and I'd strongly recommend working with Dave@DHP Composites as he's produced a phenomenal wing for my 99 GSX. We've already worked out the mounting details for the 2g so it would be much easier process for you to get the same wing, and I can help explain the mounting procedure.

I would expand on this and say that real road racing experience in any DSM forum (not just DSMtuners), in the DSM community in general, is going to be very limited. The main reason for this is because these cars are mostly used for straight line speed because they're cheap to make faster, but not necessarily cheap to make turn as good as some of the other platforms out there. These cars are fairly heavy, and are not very rigid - especially the 2g. So it will take some work and you won't have a big knowledge base to pull from, relatively speaking.

I've tried to drum up more excitement over the years for these type of builds, and have been somewhat successful back when we had Greg Collier racing his 1g Laser some 6 years ago. Gixxerdrew has taken over where Greg left off after the Laser was sold, and Andrew has taken his 2g far beyond what most of us have seen in the road racing DSM world. Most DSMers won't go that far (it's super expensive), but we'll be able to benefit from what those guys have learned and done. Outside of that, the DSM road racing group is mostly full of guys like me who spend a lot of time trying new things and learning from our mistakes - little by little, with limited budgets and time. I haven't had a whole lot of time to dedicate to my 1g track car the past couple years due to family.

So basically, keep in mind what is suggested most of the time (here and in just about any DSM forum) is mostly going to be from people who have either not had their car on a road course, or have only been on a road course for a limited amount of time. And within that group, you'll have to distinguish between those who have a 1g and a 2g, as many of the parts (like suspension) are vastly different and require different solutions. And you'll have to determine which suggestions are pointing you in a direction that will cost you a LOT of money, and which ones are close to your goals and your budget. You won't be able to get away from people urging you to go with a bigger turbo, as that's just the nature of our scene. Spend some time in this road racing forum and you'll find that the ones who have been on the track the most will advocate to keep your power levels down in order to limit your other problems.

From what I've found though, this forum has had the largest number of passionate DSM road racers all in one place - even though it seems participation on the subject has dropped a bit lately. I'd love to see more people get involved to help drum up more excitement about it again, as that will result in more parts being made for us. As far as I know this was the first, and maybe still the only, DSM-specific road racing forum around. I'm hoping people will help me grow it. So stick around and share your experiences as you go so that others can learn and share their experiences. That's really the only way to build motivation around this topic.

 

[everbruin]

For 17x9" wheels, an offset around +25 mm will avoid rubbing assuming stiff enough springs.
Beware front wheel hubs may become a consumable.
Some of us who autoX run 600-900 lb front, 300-400 lb rear coilover springs.
Negative camber in front is key and I needed to employ 2 methods:
1. eccentric/offset front upper bushings
2. custom cut/rewelded/shortened front upper arms

 

[jtmcinder]

Cut upper arms, but your sig says ESP/ST. Hmmm.

 

[96awd]

Enough of the setup and info.

Let's see some pics/videos of these big horsepower Viper and VR4.

 

[everbruin]

You didn't know scca changed the rule for 2010? Parity w/ ST heh =)

Cut upper arms, but your sig says ESP/ST. Hmmm.