I dont think you want to trade. Lets drive eachother's cars at an event and you'll see what I mean. If you really want to after that then i'll be down like a clown in a gown with an upside down frown.

I autox at the port of bellingham with the chuckanut sports car club. The port might be shutting us down though so we may not have any more. I'd love to head up into canadia to hit some events. I'm already planning on hitting the knox mountain hill climb.

My car is going to be a track car, not so much a AutoX car (although I'll still AutoX for fun). The manual rack will be great for the track. Although, with some other cars which have manual and PS racks available for the same car the manual usually is a bit of a slower rack? Gotta check that out. If they are the same we can do the swap.

My club which I help run myself is www.ubcscc.com (University Of British Columbia Sports Car Club) and there is also www.vcmc.com Vancouver chinese motorsports club... lol but %75 of the members are not chinese.

When is the next event in Bellingham?

The Pitt Meadows skid pad is about 15 minutes past the Lynden/Aldergrove border. We have a number of people from WA come up to run.

There is more to under/oversteer then just a rear sway bar. You should look into alignment, spring rates, shock settings, and tire pressures before calling out "noobs" with no sway bar. Of course, I've been racing with no sway bar for 3 years and I am intrigued by someone who calls countless other "no sway bar" drivers noobs.

Otherwise interesting thread.

No rear sway is a good budget way to set up a stock or STS car. A properly set up Miata should not need the rear bar removed to have optimal grip.

Didn't read the whole thread but try and take some caster out of your alighment to make a manual rack easier to steer.

Jeez I wasn't being super cereal.

It made a huge difference in my car. The car was much less forgiving to mistakes and sharp inputs but if you drove it on the hairy edge it was much more responsive.

The sway bar is entirely a tuning device. If you are oversteering, a quick disconnect (if you don't have an adjustable one) is a very quick fix when you are at the track. I have run without it before when I needed to depending on the design of a specific autocross course. There is not a mountain of difference between having it connected and not if your car is set up half way decently - it's a subtle increase in rear grip and squat. If your car understeers so badly you cannot possibly get it to oversteer with the rear bar disconnected, you have serious suspension issues. What many completely ignore is that what works very well for many who run similar alignments will work horribly on a car that has a different alignment. For autox and track use, there is a narrow range within which most miata guys' alignment specs fall - if yours are not similar, which would be my best guess, then that's an entirely different issue.
In terms of the power steering, you may like the power steering, but most of us don't. I have been autocrossing for 4 years and hate power steering. Sure, it takes less effort to turn, but it magnifies little inputs and makes the car more touchy, and offers less feedback to the driver. I will point out though, that the power steering rack and manual rack have different ratios. The power steering rack IIRC is a shorter ratio, so you turn it less to turn a given amount that the manual rack. For this reason, I have a power rack that is de-powered. I found when driving someone else's manual rack miata that in a slalom my arms crossed over each other and hit each other because I had to turn the wheel so far each direction so I couldn't keep my hands on 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock through that section. In mine it was just a simple back and forth steeering motion, hands didn't have to move..
-Ryan

That is exactly what i'm planning to do, depower a power rack.

And for the record, I haven't had an alignment done yet this year so i'm sure that is an issue. I will probably disconnect the rear bar for rain events still.

Alright Anton.. guess I'm keeping my rack :D...

We can have a "depower" day... lol? I have two to do. My Miata's as well as my FD's... they are very close to the same..

Ya I figured you'd want to keep it :)

I've read that there is a part you want to weld to make it as good as possible.

you're thinking of the quill shaft. It takes away a bit of play in the steering wheel or "slop"/

Yes that sounds about right.

There is an added benefit of no rear sway bar you are missing out on. Not having a rear bar allows the inside tire to maintain full droop travel on the inside tire, possibly maintaining better contact patch in certain situations.

A proper alignment is the fundamental step 1 - the beginning building block. If you don't know your alignment specs, there's no point tuning the rest of the suspension, playing with disconnecting the rear bar, messing with shock settings, nothing, because if your alignment is wack, whatever suspension setup and settings you come up with are all going to be wrong the minute you do get the car a proper performance alignment.
If you haven't done it, you have to throw out any experiences you've had with anything suspension related and how effective or not effective it was, because you were operating from an incorrect starting point.

When I added the big hollow front sway bar 4 years ago, I started understeering in the slow section. I had done an alignment recently, but one that didn't take that bar into account. I had John Stimson (sp?) drive the car, and he suggested that the current alignment wasn't capable of utilizing the improvements that the new front bar could offer. I went back and had the front camber increased from whatever it was before that, something around -1.8* to -2.2*. At the next autox front grip was worlds better, and the understeer was gone - and the car was faster than it ever had been. Just an example to show that the alignment drastically changes whether any given suspension part is going to have a positive effect or not.
-Ryan

I had an alignmnt done last season, just haven't had it checked up this season so i'm assuming its wack. Either way, I understand what you're saying.

Sorry to derail, but it is an autocross discussion...

I really really need autocross appropriate brake pads. I'm currently on Carbotech XP8 all around, FM/Wilwood prop valve, all 1.8 hardware. I have had no bite while cold issues in the past, and don't want it again. I know I should probably go with some stock/NAPA brand fronts and autocross compound rear. But I will probably be doing 1-3 track days this year, as well. I don't want to have to re-bed my Carbotechs before a track day.

Questions would be: are the Carbotech 1521 compatible with the XP8 in terms of bed-in? If so, I'm thinking I could do a 1521 front with a AX6 rear, then put in the XP8s for track days. OTOH, is there a cheaper option where I wouldn't run into compatibility problems?

For some reference and discussion, I have Satisfied Grand Sport GS pads on my wife's N/A STS classed car, and have had big cold brake no stop issues with these as well. Do not like. I need braking now!

I've got XP8s on the car right now as well for autox. Having the same issues. Just cannot get them hot enough til the very end of the run to get any good use out of them. But I fade my HPS at autox so i'm not sure what to do at this point.

Hawk HP+ perhaps?

I run hp+ on my dad's sts car. They lock-up fairly easy. I liked the hp+'s better on my car, they seemed easily to modulate, 1.8 vs 1.6 brakes?

FWIW,
I run a proportioning valve, 1.6 fronts and 1.8 rears with Axxis ultimates on the front and hawk HP+ on the rear.

Do you ever get fade on the big/fast courses? Any stopping problems when they are dead cold? Do you warm the rears on the e-brake while gridding?