The Road to Topeka - Chike's official 2008 Autocross Blog Thread (B-stock Mazda RX-8)

[SVXRide]

Originally Posted by Chiketkd

Bill,

Yes and no. The RX-8 comes with high pressure gas shocks from the factory. Switching to low-pressure konis casues the ride height to be reduced by ~1/2" iirc.

So no I haven't lowered my car (I'm still on factory springs), but yes the ride height is lower due to the koni shock installation.

Chike,
I'm thinking I asked the question because the most recent pic of your car was probably taken during a hard right turn and the car is squatting...
-Bill

[Chiketkd]

Bill,

The car only has ~4.5" of ground clearance from the factory - so there's not a lot of room under there to begin with! It's does lean a little in corners (much less than the WRX did) and it's just a hair too much for my liking which is why I'll be installing a Mazdaspeed FSB over the winter.

[Chiketkd]

My 2008 season is now over! My co-driver and I competed in our final autocross event with the VMSC @ Virginia Motorsports Park in Petersburg, VA.

The course was tighter than it needed to be (especially considering the size of the lot), but opened up near the end. There was one other person in our B-stock class. Shawn took the win on a very impressive run, while I was in 2nd.

Summary:
2nd of 3 in class
7th of 53 in PAX (Shawn was 2nd in PAX)

'B Stock' Total Entries: 3 (Total / Diff / From 1st)
1T 196 196 Shawn Roberts 06 Mazda RX-8 58.214 - -
2 96 96 Chike Dellimore 06 Mazda RX-8 58.909 0.695 0.695
3 33 33 Lorenzo Vazquez 06 Mazda RX-8 68.496 9.587 10.282

Btw, if '09 PAX numbers were used, Shawn would have had FTP, while I would have been 4th.

Shawn brought his MaxQ and datalogged our runs - the following is a plot from his best run (58.2) and my best run (58.9):

Shawn


Chike



Pics:

Shawn


Chike



Other pics from the event: