Vancouver Miatas

I have often heard that the most important mod. for autocrossing is tires and I finally have proof.  We spent the last few months questioning the setup of the car while running on older sets of V710s and V700s because we didn't want to cord new tires under braking, when the real problem was two fold: poor braking power and poor tires. 

While trying to work around the problem, I played with shock and alignment settings to keep the car driveable and, despite going off on a tangent that lead to the car diving on turn in and generally being slow, I discovered a couple of useful things.

I'm not sure I agree with the usual Miata alignment settings now, as I'm running camber numbers that are reversed front and rear and finding the car works well with them - especially now that the brake problems have been addressed and we have some decent tires on the car. 

Poor braking power has been addressed by swapping from the stock pads - which never really seemed to stop the car -  to some HP+s.  The car has been transformed and is feeling fast again. 

Now I just need to get some adjustable end links for the sway bars to help take out the slight right front lockup that occurs under braking...  Would it be inappropriate to buy some Maruha endlinks, or should I get the Racing Beat ones for a '99?

Speaking of Maruha, I'm reminded of something I ran across at the regional event that I was at.  It is funny listening to the talk going around in our local CSP class about the legality of other cars now that I'm not all that directly involved in this year's competition.  This becomes even funnier when some of the people complaining have run non-compliant cars in the past.  It's also funny to see competitors posting elsewhere about things they need to fix.  I guess that explains co-driving.  ;)

Oh yeah.  We just scrubbed in a set of brand new V710s for National Tour next weekend, so that should be a fun event.