Anybody autocrossing 6s out there?

[hobie237]

My girlfriend goes to the autocrosses occasionally with her dad. While I usually try to nudge her to run in her dad's Vettes, she is way more comfortable in her old Grand Am, she's even nervous to take my turboyata out. Anyway, we're looking at cars for her, and the 6 seems a logical choice.

Achieving the fastest time of the day is not the goal, the goal is simply to have a car that handles reasonably well and is reasonably predictable that she can learn and improve on. We'll put a decent set of tires on it.

[swingdancr]

Racing Beat makes a handling package for the Mazda 6's. It's $425 plus shipping and includes adjustable sway bars and springs.

Makes a HUGE difference!!!!

[hobie237]

Hm, how do they work with the stock shocks? Is there a hot aftermarket shock to use? $425 sounds fantastic, and ideally I could just stick 'em on with the stock shocks to minimize costs, but if the stockers can't handle it, it'd be nice to know what to replace them with.

[swingdancr]

Racing Beat recommends either the stock shocks or Tokico Illumina's as an upgrade. They work fine on my wife's 6 with stock shocks.

[hobie237]

Hm, good to know. I assume they're pretty hard on front tires under those circumstances?

IIRC the front and rear tires are the same size, so I can just even out the wear via an aggressive rotation schedule, right?

[swingdancr]

Haven't noticed too much difference in tire wear.

I rotate ours every other oil change just to be safe.

[hobie237]

Is there any significant reason to choose the 6-cylinder over the four? I'd lean toward the four, because neither of us need big power. Wasn't there a 2.0L four in the past, or am I thinking of the 3?

[swingdancr]

The 3 is available with either a 2.0 or a 2.3L four.

The 6 is only available with either a 2.3L four or a 3.0L six.

We took my wife's 6 to Indy and back and averaged just over 27mpg. Hers is a 5 speed V6. Power is there, and gas isn't much of a problem.