again, you are not reading the posts JIM!! i didnt gain 4 seconds, i gained about 1 second. the 4 second differential was from session to session and there were many other factors contributing to that differnetial. again, you need to READ. (previous best was in 2011 with anderson at a 1:36.1.... i ihadnt run uder 1:37.0 for many years due to tires. when i got the newish tires this past race, i equaled my best time there. the difference between decent used tires and almost new used tires (DOT hoosier) was about 1 full second at best.

and yes Jim, based on your response, i didnt make myself clear ... YES we changed shocks AND springs. (that early offering of the eibach, koni/bilstien match) I assumed you would remember that.


and you are incorrect with the tires.... tires will NOT make much of a difference.. especially street tires! the first thing we did with the 928 was bolt on the suspension kit. (in the beginning of me tracking the car) it was near undrivalble with the original suspension set up. I ran 1:56.5 at laguna my first time there , but second track day of my life! much faster than the prior DE day with the car in bone stock form. the shocks and springs control roll and dive. With it in stock form, the car is hard to control. with it , the car is well behaved and is pretty quick. Later, bolted on the rims and tires and had an even better experience. even with a shock change alone, you will have a lot more control, because it just doesnt resist "bounce" it helps with dive and roll (initial dive and roll) which is important on the track. more so than tires.

EDIT: if you rememmber, when i ran WCGT in 2001 we had to run 280 tread wear tires. they were HARD as rocks. we still ran very fast times relative to DE or time trial cars , as i even ran a 1:46 . to put this in perspective, that was with my 5 liter euro. a time that was as fast as some racers on DOTs. this was big proof that the suspension can make a LOT more difference going from stock to sport or race, than tires!

 

Bull$hit..... tires are far more important, they are the ONLY connection to the track. I would shred the edges off the tread blocks in chunks on newish street rubber then switch to DOT legal "race tires" of a much smaller size and gain seconds a lap same track same day !! Doing tech inspections I often did not have time to switch wheels before the first run group of the day.

And Mark if you SAY shocks it means SHOCKS !! not shocks and springs !!

Frankly the first few days that anyone does on track they have no clue what they are doing or what is or is not working....typically the style of braking, rate of turn in , and choice of apex point upsets the car so that roll, dive, and weight transfer issues are largely self induced as they upset the car. And yes over 20 years or so I have ridden with lots of new students always fun when they finally came back to tell me they were lapping faster than I was, took some longer than others.....

 

Jim, you need to take a deep breath... i have a few more HUNDRED hours than you do on the track and driven every combination of shocks , springs and tires imaginable.

the bottom line, a well set up car will do just fine on crappy tires. a stock suspension (and yes, i mean shocks and springs as no one usually changes just shocks out, but you have a good point... so sorry i left that out. it wasn't my intention )

you want to race me with great tires and a tired suspension? ill take trashed, old crappy tires on a well set up car, any day and have my way with you in a big way. again, proof was WCGT where we ran the toyo T1S tires at 280 tread wear. (like ice skates) with a good suspension you MAKE the connection with the track... with a poor suspension , the car rolls, the tires DONT make connection with the track.

the problem with this side discussion is the realtive scope of the comparison. i thought we are talking stock 928 vs the koni coil over set up vs a set of better tires (still i the same realm, not mud and snow vs a racing slick) however, my times with the 280 tread wear vs a newer driver on DOTs still didnt beat my time (a racer from the NW with a equal car)
the point is, for the same "type" of tire, change, good vs bad, the suspension willl always yield more gains from stock to modified . a DOT slick on a stock car will fail to handle as well as a good suspension upgrade. (shocks and springs). but, once the suspension is NOT stock, and doesn't roll and dive as stock cars do... .yes, then the tire change from street rubber to DOT can save 2-4 seconds a lap. (this is your point i think and i totally agreee.... if i go to the track with my car, DOT slick vs street tire is 4 -6 seconds a lap......my point refers to ONLY a sloppy stock suspension vs a tire change)

I was talking about a street car set up going to the track with good or poor tires vs that same car with a suspension change. (springs and shocks) the springs and shocks initially would make the greater difference. after that, i agree with you ... tires are Hugely important.
and you are right about the newbee's driving their first day.... nothing really matters, as they are generally all over the place and driving well below the car's ability, even with bad tires and sloppy suspension

 

Mark one simply adjusts the chamber settings to compensate for body roll it really is not all that complicated nor nearly as much of a problem on double A-arm suspension. And while you may run a few qualifying laps and a 20-30 minutes "race" ....POC events it is very easy to get an hour or more of track time per day. And Newbies are NOT driving over the cars capability but actually have screwed up so badly that at that particular point in time the car cannot go quicker....They turned in too sharply, the front tires are screaming, and the car is plowing... BIG DIFFERENCE !!
I actually think you do know quite a bit about driving but think you articulate it very poorly.....the defensive , aggressive put down of others experiences while constantly waving your own flag does get rather old..... and your basic inability to admit you are wrong helps little. So redefine the issue, change the parameters, restate your position but never ever admit that you were wrong.....just misread, misquoted, misunderstood
I really think you get the last post on many of your "discussions" simply because it is so unpleasant trying to deal with you......and Mark last I checked you are "racing" on tired worn out suspension !! and proud of it....

 

I guess every racing team is world is wrong, then. Otherwise, why would they change tires in the middle of a race. That would just be a time waster.

Mark, with an attitude like that, you will never ever get any kind of tire company sponsorship, no matter how good you may be. Just sayin'

 

Tires are HUGELY important. thats why i finally bought some really good used tires and actually a new set too! once the suspension is dialed in , the tires are most important.. if not, the suspension can be a bigger factor..... but AGAIN, im talking a stock car vs a modified one. that first step is the suspension. its more important than tires at the start. later, once you are in the "performance mode" tires will be more dominant.

Jim, we sometimes talk past each other. yes, i do have a LOT of experience racing. i can safely say, ive seen it all. i can drive around most issues (bad suspesion) and have abilities to to detect where the dificiences are in a car on the track. Lots of guys i hang with and race with can do this as well.

the problem, is that driving, racing, car performance has SO many factors, so we do need to be clear when we make statements. you just cant change a camber of a rolly polly stock 928 with a worn out suspension and say its going to handle well .. it will help, but initially, the suspension kits will make the car much more driveable and fast, than any set of tires, especially in the hands of a newbee. once you get over that big hump of getting a reasonable suspension set up (koni/bilstiens and springs) the tires then become the dominant factor. is that clear enough.
you just cant "adjust camber" and not have all the other issues that i speak off. huge dive, roll, etc. just because you have adjusted camber, it doesnt solve those issues, in fact, with bump steer, you dont even need to change camber, it auto cambers quite well for old tired suspensions on the 928. any additional camber can actually make things worse.

I agree... we go off on each other, and thats too bad.. I speak from experience and you speak from theory and thats ok. you then discount my responses because you dont like the way i present it, and then yet you toss out insults as good as the best of them!

we both need to articulate the message better as much of what you say can be misunderstood, and some of what i say can also be misunderstood. there are a lot of assumptions. ive we nailed down every single variable for every single comment, the posts would be even longer than they are. so there is a little expectation that you "get it" and understand the message in the context for which it is said.

this discussion is a great example of that!!! i say that stock vs modified suspension is more benificial to handlign than tires. and you take it to mean race rubber vs DOTs vs street tires has less of an effect than suspension. thats not the take-away here.


side note: whats the meaning of your POC vs my SCCA racing? "a few qual laps"? Jim, we practice for 20mins, we qualify for 20 mins and we race for 30mins. (usually thats longer than the POC or PRC races) . by the way, i raced with POC for a few years, so i know their program well. in fact, i know you dont even own a POC racing licence! However, i have no idea what that dig was for.... to show i dont get enough track time??
as far as "tired worn out suspension" .. yes, i raced for many years with a completely blown out shock... the fact that i had to drive around that deficit is a testament of not only the driving, but the car. the fact that the car still has damping in the rubber bushings , enough to allow the car to still be driveable , is amazing . only a 928 can do this. i had a blown shock in a BMW and it was undrrivable. BUT, to answer your claim.... no, i have brand new shocks and the springs are still fine. all the bushings are original, but i dont seen to have any issues with them. after all, still just ran a 1:36 at laguna seca on almost new tires.

 

If one defines handling as being able to turn faster lap times then tires are clearly the quickest way to be faster or slower .....and easiest to measure as you can switch back and forth.