Yes every time I look at the suspension it seems very well made and designed. A lot of forged Aluminum arms where I am use to seeing just plain steel. But it is a very heavy car too.

I never wore the suspension out but I did use about 10K miles worth of tires up every time I auto crossed. I do see where having a set of race tires is the way to go. I can't over emphasize how good every car can handle if it only has good tires.

If you want to feel humble. Make a few runs on your own then see if you can get one of the instructors to make a run in your car with you riding shot gun. Then you will truly see what your car can do and it's pretty shocking!

Here is a picture of me making a run in my old car.


Sorry the junk forum software again jams the picture at the top and I am unable to move it. Sure wish we could dump this crap and go back to the earlier software!
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More weight more tire wear, but it still handles amazingly.

 

Thanks again for all the input. It can be done. At the autocross I went fast enough to have fun, but I didn't want to push it and hurt the car for a couple of seconds. I was one of the slowest there, but I was the only one there with a big car on street tires no less. People were amazed at how good the Catmobile did and how little body roll there was though. Next time I will go a bit faster, like they say, "if your street tires aren't making noise, you're going too slow." I left the car in the #2 slot, but even so with the computer controlled transmission, the throttle wasn't very responsive with the car going back and forth, but good enough to have fun. Maybe next time I will try it without the traction control, once I know where I'm going. If someone had an S Type with a manual transmission, it would probably do pretty good at autocross. I think that I'll just do it a few times this year, don't want to wear out the suspension, etc. You'd need a big stick to hurt a NA 4.2 motor. Someone wanted some videos, I'll try and attach some links to youtube.

 

Awesome! But yes, next time turn the track control off. It's nothing but a killjoy, totally useless for anything like this. Also if in good repair you're not going to hurt the car.

 

Also if you start doing things like this more regularly an auxiliary transmission fluid cooler would be an excellent investment.

 

Is there an ignition coil anyone can recommend in which works best for hard/fast driving?

 

The factory supplied denso ignition coils are more than adequate.

 

How about spark plugs? Also, what's a good transmission cooler setup?

 

The factory spec plugs are fine, and the front bumper has a nice big vacant space inside on the (drivers side for a lhd car and pass side for a rhd car) for a forced air trans cooler. I prefer derale coolers, excellent quality products at a not to outrageous price point

 

Denso Iridium TT for spark plugs look real good. Thanks for the input Lobb!

 

You can add another transmission cooler but you already have one built into the radiator.

Glad to see you racing it. Sure is a lot of fun.
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Yes you do and it's a nice stacked design, but if you're going to be abusing the car via racing an auxiliary cooler is very recommend. If you want proof just datalog your trans temps during an autocross run.

 

Will I lose fuel pressure on very sharp turns? Any recommendations on the fuel system?

 

Fueling needs no attention, it's fine as is

 

Smok'n on the autocross course

 

Sorry, pix too large, gotta figure how to cut it down in size...

 

Are you trying to upload as an attachment or using the insert picture function in the reply box?

The insert picture function should resize automatically you can drag and drop from your computer.

 

 

>insert picture function should resize automatically

Tanks
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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car
Oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car
Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, and
Torque is how far you take the wall with you

 

Well my first pix got such a rousing response...

So here's another one. :-)

Oh, the tail of the front fender liners that hang down from the fender dragged really badly on most corners. Anyone know why they hand down like that. Some spectators came up to me afterwards to tell me they could hear the scrapping and thought my tires could have been rolling over and the rims themselves scraping.

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You dreamed of a big star
he played a mean guitar
He loved to drive his Jaguar...

So welcome to the machine