The suspension on our Si, while pretty impressive for a first attempt, definitely needed some tweaking. We wanted more rear rebound control and some changes to the front end geometry to allow us to clear bigger tires. If you recall, our original setup from Progress netted over 5 degrees of negative camber on the front tires. This was fabulous for front end grip, even on street tires, but it meant that anything bigger than the stock tires needed to be spaced out - a lot. And this meant extended wheel studs or some unusual offset wheels. Not something we wanted to deal with (we'd like our modifications to be representative of what our readers will do). Additionally, one of our rear shocks was slightly bent after the car was returned from SEMA. We suspect that someone may have put a tie down hook around it for the trip back.

We picked up our new shocks from Progress the day before the car was scheduled to go to Sport Compact Car's test. This meant a thrash to get everything installed and aligned. We couldn't get into our favorite alignment shop, so we used some simple alignment tools from Smart Camber to do our own alignment. We got the toe setup correctly on both the front and rear wheels, but we couldn't do a four wheel toe alignment. We also found that Progress had gone a bit _too_ far in dialing out front camber. At maximum adjustment, we were at around negative 1.5 degrees of front camber. No clearance issues now, but a lot less grip too.

At the SCC test, our alignment appeared to be decent, but the car was pushing too much for our tastes. Despite performing admirably (look for the results in a couple issues - the car should be on the cover), we weren't happy. Furthermore, we corded one of our Avon Tech-R Tires after relatively little usage. Wear on the other three tires was very reasonable, so we suspect this was a defective tire, especially based upon how it failed. Additionally, the grip of the tires wasn't any better than what the other car in the comparison (also on Progress suspension) was generating with Toyo RA-1s, which should have been less sticky.

This led us to make two changes for our trip to the Streets of Willow Springs. First, we put the old front shocks back on the car and dialed out camber with our camber adjustment bolts. We ended up with about 3 degrees negative camber for our track day. Much more front grip, but not as much as with the 5 degree setup - darn compromises. Second, we picked up some heavily used 235/40/17 Toyo RA-1 tires from our friends at Special Projects (SCCA Honda Cup competitors). While SP was very generous in giving us these tires, they were not perfect. These were somewhat unevenly worn, with a few small flat spots on them - but they were free, so no complaints from us. With our new setup in place, and another last minute thrash alignment, we headed out to the track.