LP944

Im not certain in what a class that I want to run in ('83 NA). I want to go into autocross mostly for the fun but also to be somewhat competitive. I cant decide between Stock/Street Touring/Street Prepared. I really want to get wider wheels (964 205 Front with 15mm spacer / 255 Rear with 2.5" spacer : Already 215 all-around with 2.5" Rear spacer) with some good street tires, some suspension mods (Springs and Shocks) and an exhaust (Maybe High Flow with outlaw pre and custom 2.5" pipe : Or Danske/Bursch, which is better?) to make it sound a bit more for the part. What modifications does each class allow because rule books are never really that clear to me.
Thank you to all who reply

Eastep

A contact of mine (former SCCA solo national champ btw) give me this advise when i first approched him about starting racing. goto SCCA.com, i search FIRST what classes are your particular car eligible for, then look through the allowable mods, and decide which best fits your skill level and budget. When I first got interested in AX, i immediately scoffed at stock because, well... I thought the car was relegated to 0% mods allowed. actually far from it!! do some research. if you cant invest the time in yourself to get the answers, how do you expect to race????

krystar

255's will bump u into STX at least, if not Street Prepared.

just FYI, oem sized R compounds are allowed in stock. koni's yellows are allowed in stock.

go read the rulebook, it's quite simple. start at stock class rules, everything that's listed is allowed. anything that's not listed will bump you to a higher class. when i bought my car, i took it to AX and expected to run street prepared. stock engine, stock sways, koni yellows. well got there and I had to run F prepared. because i gutted my interior. i'm always in combined class with crazy prepped MR2 Spyder, regional champion in a civic hatch. i just started gauging myself in raw times against the other cars.

Eastep

almost forgot. if your wanting nice wheels for your car, get them, just dont race with them.....its kinda unwise to race with really nice wheels anyway bec A: most nice looking wheels are heavy and counter productive to racing, unless theyre super high dollar ultralight wheels, and in that case B: why would you wanna ruin those wheels by racing them where they will get damaged and put you in a class you have no chance in?? get some dedicated wheels for race use. (like your stock wheels ) then rock the nice wheels on the street

Will Feather

Im not really sure how the classifications work either. I understand Stock, and SP and those generalizations, but dont know where they get the letter/number from. Or how the ITS system works.

krystar

yea the ABCDEFGH class confuses me as well.

as far as I know. 944 8v starts in E-Stock, upgrade path is STS, CSP, SM, FP

Will Feather

Ill just do what I want with my car and go to tech inspection and see what class I get put in! I dont mind gettting spanked by other cars. But would be cool to know so I could add my classifications (i.e. SP1, ITS or whatever) in decal form ahead of time.

roman944

yup when I went I was in E-stock

lol I guess with gutted interior I'll be somewhere else next time

krystar

gut interior = F Prepared hehe.

unless yer region allows u run the loophole for CSP

roman944

it was my 1st time, and there were barely any cars for E-stock, I think they ended up combining a few classes together, because one of the other cars that was runing same as me was a S14 240sx and a E46 M3

too bad my wheels didn't allow me to go faster, and by next time the car was broken

however, this time, I'll be back and have everything sorted and ready (right wheels, tires etc.) and as I go - I'll upgrade what's needed

schwank

Picking a class is always difficult as there is generally some tradeoffs for all cars.

For instance my weight to run E Production locally would actually be about the same as the weight the car was delivered at... which means I need about 150lbs of ballast. That is no fun. An 86 would be better as EP weight is a multiple (18x) of factory rated horsepower for a given year, and the 8 HP bump in 87 results in 144lb difference between models only 1 year apart.

ITS is better as it gives me a lower, static weight limit, but there are other cars which can better exploit the rules and thus my car cannot truly be competitive in a real ITS field as the Z cars are better.

The best thing to do is start at the least preparation level, ie stock. Run it like that, and then decide where to go. Once you start spending money, it is a very slippery slope!

knfeparty

Porsches aren't eligible for any class of Street Touring (STS, STX, STU, etc...) so ANY modifications that aren't stock legal will put you in CSP (regardless of tires you're running) where you will never have any hope of getting a decent PAX time, ever.

E-Stock is the ONLY class that a 944 is even slightly competitive in, and even then the MR2 is a lot better car.

For E-Stock you can upgrade the spark plug wires, the shocks, and the front swaybar. You can also run r-compound tires (which you shouldn't at first) with whatever the biggest factory size wheel option was in 1983.

Run in TIR E Stock for now, and then later get some r-compounds and try that out. The best thing you can do is make sure your suspension bushings are in good shape, get a big front sway, get a rear sway if that was an option in 1983, and take it to a good alignment shop. Tell them you want max camber all around, even ride height (no rake), and just a bit of toe in in the rear with zero toe up front. If you want the car to be looser, raise the rear ride height (or put in less gas, or play with taking the spare in/out).

2BWise

+1 on the vote for E Stock. Street tire Vs Street tire or Rcomp Vs Rcomp the 944 can compete readily in ES. I used to run in ES on Hoosier R6s and was pretty competitive. The only car that routinely could beat me was a Miata with Kumho V710s. Had I switched to the Kumho we would have been dead even. Outside of tires there aren't many other changes you can make so the class is relatively cheap. It also allows you to learn the car as they are very balanced and easy to throw around.

86 951 Driver

Will alignment shops change the ride height on our cars? I am thinking about lowering the rear of my car all the way. which would make it about even with the front I guess.

Eastep

umm probably not. its a liability thing. you can do some things to lower the car yourself, but different cars react different to different methods. example my old X1/9 had an extra coil on the springs from the factory, that served no purpose and could be cut, without affecting spring rate or ride quality, where-as my GTi would bounce and buck and generally suck *** if i were to cut a coil, thus coilovers were used. you could also probably get away with heat compressing the springs while on the car to lower it but im not sure how a 924/944 will react to this method. out back you can adjust the torsion bars