Today a friend of mine and I went out with a Escort Passport GT2 G-Timer to see what my car could do. He has a ~400hp 1G DSM that put down 1G lateral, 1G Braking, and 0.84 Acceleration G's. I know I have no chance of matching his acceleration g's, but I was fairly confident I could pull 1G laterally.
The Car:
2003.5 MazdaSpeed Protege
AWR Coilovers
Modified ploy swaybar bushings
Falken Azenis (215/45/16)
16" Rota Slipstreams
We were both running the same tires (but he has 225/17's), my car weighs 2760 with no passengers, and my CG is lower then the DSM's. We used an empty parking lot as our makeshift skidpad and mapped a traction circle. It appeared as if I could make 1G, but the lot was really bumpy and we thought that might be inflating the accelerometers numbers.
Traction Circle
So we drive around various on/off ramps waiting to find one that was perfectly clear with a near constant radius. After easing through a few I was feeling more confident going into the next one. I entered the curve fast and continued to accelerate until the car started to push and the tires were audible. From my traction circle measurements it appeared as if my limit was about 1.04 lateral G's. Going through this curve the accelerometer was peaking at 1.04 with an average at about 1g for about 2 seconds straight.
Lateral Acceleration
I actually hit 1.05 G's on the highest peak but that's the limit of adhesion.
*Disclaimer: All roads were scouted out before hand and were clear. There was no traffic nearby, no boxes of kittens, no kids on bikes, etc. I am a trained professional. Do not try this at home.