This will be a brief one. My plans to upgrade to STX were thwarted by my incredibly brilliant daughter being accepted into a top-notch college. I had a few dollars left from that budget that I could put into maxing the car out for HS. The first step is swapping the stock shocks for Koni Yellows. I had three hours last night and planned to remove one wheel. I ended up getting both shocks out completely. When a car doesn't sit in a field for 20 years, it is much easier to work on! You can do something called "unscrewing", no torches, breaker bars or Sawzall required.
Last night I got the fronts swapped out. Thank goodness I have a plethora of tools collected over the years. Open-ended sockets, ratcheting wrenches, cordless impact guns...all made the job go pretty quickly. But now, I have these:
I can't see your pics. But it sounds like you are having an easier time of it than I did!
My FiST autocross build!
Have fun with it! I'm still enjoying the E36 M3 out of mine!
CrookedRacer wrote:
I can't see your pics. But it sounds like you are having an easier time of it than I did!
That's weird, they display for me. I wonder if it's something about Google Pics only displaying for the owner of the pics? Ugh, no good hosting options anymore! Anyway, I remember your build well, glad to have off-the-shelf Konis available now.
Got the rears on. Pretty straightforward, they just popped in. I removed the rear bar, deciding to stick with the front for HS. There is a lot of conflicting information and advice, but for the FiST and my driving style, keeping the front planted seems to be the way to go. Testing will tell the truth.
Car is in for an alignment and new tires now, more pics later this week, first event on Sunday.
Hanging out with a bunch of Wankers.
I love FiSTing!!!! Wait-that didn't come out right.
Hopefully I fixed the pictures, moved them to another host.
This is supposed to be a workaround for Google photos, is the above photo displaying?
I don't know what that spot of paint is for on BFG sidewalls, but it's freaking impossible to remove.
Also, RPF1s look great on anything.
Looks Great!
We had our first Night Series Autocross this past Tuesday. Top PAX time was a Fiesta ST.
In reply to red_stapler:
I read somewhere the dot on sidewalls is supposed to line up with the valve stem for better/easier balancing.
In reply to petegossett:
match mounting tires
Anyone wanna bet the isn't done 99% or the time?
Were you part of the group buy on 4x108 enkeis? Or did you have you hubs redrilled? Car looks good, I do miss my FiST.
Ironsides wrote:
Were you part of the group buy on 4x108 enkeis? Or did you have you hubs redrilled? Car looks good, I do miss my FiST.
I was going to ask the same thing. I didn't know RPF1s came in 4x108
I was part of a group buy, took 4 months but I think it was worth the wait.
I ran the car for the first time and HATED the front bar. I thought that the wider, stickier tires and ability to go stiffer in the rear on the Konis might help, but for small, tight courses, it sucked. I am going to swap back to conventional wisdom and run the OEM front bar and Eibach rear. That's all I can do in Street Class, so that's about the end of this thread, other than sharing notes on setup as I learn them.
I meant to ask, what size BFG you running? 215/45-16? (can't see real clear on the angle of the photo.)
Yes, 215/45-16. I don't hear/see any rubbing anywhere, and the OD seems to be about the same as OEM. Might need some Rally Armor to protect the rear panels as they seem to stick out a bit more than stock.
Last night, I swapped out the front bar and added the rear bar. 2.5 hours total, with nothing but hand tools and no lift. You have to remove the front subframe and steering rack, so that's a pretty impressive time if I do say so myself. Sunday is another race, hopefully I can do some tuning beforehand.
pinchvalve wrote:
I was part of a group buy, took 4 months but I think it was worth the wait.
I ran the car for the first time and HATED the front bar. I thought that the wider, stickier tires and ability to go stiffer in the rear on the Konis might help, but for small, tight courses, it sucked. I am going to swap back to conventional wisdom and run the OEM front bar and Eibach rear. That's all I can do in Street Class, so that's about the end of this thread, other than sharing notes on setup as I learn them.
In the short time and 4 autocrosses I had my FiST, my most frequent exclamation after every run was, "I HATE open differentials!" I would think that adding a front sway bar would make wheelspin worse. Did you find that?
