I am a new RX8 owner, and I am a weekend warrior. I keep this post updated with track times and set up feed back. I usually get pretty consistent
track times.



I went out to streets of willow and got a 1.34.3, kinda of slow but I'll explain

Car setup

Suspension JIC - street version
Wheels 17x9.5 et30
Tires 245/40/17 Michelin MXM4
Camber F -1, R -1.8 from what I can get from my own camber ruler. Tire temps were good they were about 10 deg difference from the inside to the outside 120 inside and 110 outside.


Initial feeling for the car - absolutely excellent, brakes stop on a dime, I haven't felt better brakes, handling easy as pie, power plenty for a small track like SOW, it gets great MPG on the track not much different from city driving. I see people here getting sway bar upgrades on their car, but I did not find that necessary driving this car it just rotates. I also love how much suspension travel this car has. The car currently with its crappy tires and feels neutral, but the back end does break lose because there is no grip.

Issues -
4th gear was hard to get into and 2nd gear grinds going in, a few more laps I found out that I have to rev it to 9K to rev match, solved the 2nd grind but still hard going into 4th. Going to switch out fluids to MT90

TIRES - I don't listen to my own advice, but I bought the wheels on CL and just ran them, the car was a handful and I came in too hot twice and got 4 wheels off, I checked the age of the tires and found out they were manufactured in 96! In the end - I wanted to live and drive the car home and just left the traction control on and I was 2 second slower in 1.36.

Things to get are new tires, alignment, and diff fluid.

For the alignment, I think I want to try these settings after some research.

Camber
F -2 , R -1.5 - a bit for rotation depending on how much I can get I want to have -5 dif in the rear.
Toe
F 0, R -1/16 - stable at high speeds, and stable under heavy braking, the car turns pretty well for me already no need to add toe.

I think for the rx8 - SOW is a good baseline place to test the car since this track is the most well suited for cars like the rx8. The fastest time for a complete stock FRS was clocked in at 1:32. Randy Pobst ran the BRZ stock at 1:30 and a FRS at 1:31 but his was a press car, so there might be something else, but he is an amazing driver. A stock s2k with street tires can do SOW in 1:28.

 

Those are basic all-season tires, aren't they? Obviously things are going to be sloppy with those...