Advice for a noob at autocross / lapping

[Heeley]

I'm going to make my first foray into lapping / autocross this spring. I've been working away at prepping my car for the season. I think being my first season of lapping & autocross i'm going to try to stick to street tires, although we'll see how long that'll last. I'm sure i'm going to be pretty slow at first though.

I have a few questions though:

1. Brake pads... which to choose? It seems lots of people have their own preference. I'm running stock brakes, although i'll be using fresh rotors. Not sure what to use for a pad. EBC Greenstuff? Yellows? Hawk? For the first while, i'm sure i don't really want to be swapping pads at the track if it can be avoided. That, and I don't think i'm going to get a ton of heat in them at autocross.
Maybe eventually a BBK, but for right now, i'll concentrate on getting faster.

2. Wheels... I'm currently just driving on stock wheels. I know everyone eventually wants to go to a 17 or 18" wheel. I'm just concerned about the reliability / strength of stock wheels. I've heard horror stories of cracking and complete failure of stock wheels. How big of a problem is it really, given that my FD is an early R1?

Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance for suggestions!

- Heeley

[Black91n/a]

I'd stay away from EBC pads, the Geenstuff have been known to melt in a single session, and I know a guy who used Yellowstuff and they suffered from serious pad fade when driven hard. That said, the Yellowstuff are probably ok for you at first, or the Hawk HP+ are a decent dual duty pad (which will also pad fade if driven too hard), but neither will be able to keep up when you get going faster and driving well, especially if you go with R's in the end. There shouldn't be any need to change brakes for autocross, just about any pad should do you just fine.

If you're worried about the wheels, take them off and give them a good inspection. It's easy to do a dye penetrant test to look for cracks and that might be worth doing, but I suspect that on street tires, there's nothing really to worry about.

At first your driving will be by far the weakest link, just go in with an open mind and be sure to get instruction on track, then listen to the instructor, they're much better at it than you and can really help you out.

In terms of modifications, at first stick to reliability and safety mods, then wheels and tires, brakes and suspension before power, so that when the more power does come, the rest of the car can cope with it.

[JDK]

Hawk pads work good with a stock brake set-up, stock wheels are also fine for lapping days and solo1 events.