I was thinking about getting into autocrossing. I want to lower the car a bit, for looks too. I dont want to dive into the most expensive stuff, but my car needs shocks anyway. I figured I might as well upgrade. What parts and what manufacturers are inexpensive yet good? I have about $1000 to spend right now. I have a 98 Z28 t-tops, 6 speed.

Thanks in advance
John

 

If you lower your car, it'll bump you into E-street prepared, which is a more competitive class than F-stock. I'd suggest you try running the car as-is first, and put your money into shocks first, then some extra wheels so that once you are hooked on Autocross, you'll be able to buy someone's half-used autocross tires, and put them on the race wheels.

Tires are a much better performance investment for autocross.

 

I think I am getting some Y2K wheels for it. If it looks ok at stock height I suppose that will work, but I have always thought it looked too tall stock. With the other things I plan on doing to the car I suspect I will be in Prepared anyway.

 

I've gone way, way beyond ESP and I'd be in prepared, too! There's some hairy cars in that class. Weird bug-eyed Mustangs with twenty inch wide tires on the front and back, stuff like that. Fastest ride I ever had was as passenger in a shell of a '79 Mustang with a really hyper, rattle-can V8 engine. It was like being injected into a video on fast-forward. Mine's too fat to be a threat to any serious prepared car.

 

I am not really expecting to win anything, just show up and flogg the car for an afternoon. I would like to set it up so I can do some road course racing eventually too. I have wanted to get into some racing other than Drag racing for a long time.

 

If you're not interested in partcipating in every race of the season, building up points, and moving on to regional competitions, etc, then it really doesn't matter what class you run in. Might as well do whatever you want to the car!

That's what I'm doing. I have a friend that races his WRX in the STX class. He's always talking about the mods he wants to do, but says he "can't" because it would put him in a different class. I laugh at him.

FWIW, an airbox lid technically puts you in ESP anyway.

 

That is kinda what I figured. I am planning headers and a cam too. I am not trying to really compete, just beat on the car a bit, and look and sound good doing it.

 

Thats what sux about having a SS, I'm automatically put in the Preparred class. So I'm gathing all kinds of goodies to make the car more competitive.