Hi everyone,

I've had my Montego Blue 97 for about five years now and have done a few (mostly suspension/chassis) mods. Unfortunately its exterior has also been "modified" by an accidental off road excursion (yes, my fault) as well as my mom and a previous roommate backing into me - hence my user name.

I just did my first autocross about a month ago and am pretty sure I'm addicted so my current goal is to make my car a little faster around the course without spending a lot of money. I do know that seat time is the best and cheapest way to do that (and I plan on getting as much of that as I can) but since I can't compete in a stock category I'd like to even the playing field a little bit.
A little more power would be nice but I'd like to stay naturally aspirated for now.

Anyone on here in the gulf coast area?

 

Welcome to the forum. I was in Biloxi for 6 months for training recently. I did one autox and embarassed myself at how bad I did. In my defense, I have a turbo car with stock suspension and my RS-2s are well past the wear bars. And I swear that parking lot was more like gravel than anything else!

You can always start with tires and suspension, and like you said, seat time. If I were you, I wouldn't buy any power adders that wouldn't go well with a future turbo setup. So no header, and if you get a catback exhaust, try to get at least 2.5" piping. Look into a cowl intake, too.

 

Welcome to the boards and to autox addiction. Go have some fun in the STR class. You would have to do serious weight reduction (NA and NB's mainly) and suspension mods to be competitive but it's a fun class.

 

RavynX:

Yeah, I talked to a bunch of veteran autocrossers when I went and STR seems to be the best fit. Unfortunately my butterfly brace technically bumps me into CSP where I'm hopelessly outgunned. I'm considering dropping the center section and just using the frame rails but several guys said that as long as its local just tell 'em I'm in STR and don't worry about it. Thanks for the greeting.

 

I'm in Mobile. We have a monthly autoX here. I hope you can make it over to one. This Saturday is a double event with a race in the morning and another at night. check out gulfcoastscca.com I think.

 

I'm actually going to one in Baton Rouge this saturday but I"ll have to check out the Mobile one sometime since its not much farther away. Hopefully each region will schedule events on different weekends and I can play more often.

 

Welcome!

Just down the coast from ya, actually grew up on the coast in Orange, on the LA border.

Would like to see pics of the car, despite the blemishes. Nice take on a username though.

 

Here are a few pictures. Everything that has happened to my car has been on the driver's side so at least one side still looks basically ok. The third picture is from the night autocross yesterday.