Novice with a WRX. (Rant)

DaveEstey wrote: It's sprung so soft that when I get on it the front gets VERY light.

You realize that spring rates have nothing to do with weight transfer, right?

The only tranny issues were in the bugeye WRXs and were generally related to abuse.

ProDarwin wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: It's sprung so soft that when I get on it the front gets VERY light.

You realize that spring rates have nothing to do with weight transfer, right?

If the rear springs were stiffer it wouldn't be able to unload the front end so much.

Springs have A LOT to due with weight transfer.

On a local board we have this same debate. One time there was a guy with an STi talking E36 M3 about how fast his car was and we eventually talked him in to bringing it to an autocross so "he could beat all of us". I brought my old beater, a stock 200k mile CRX Si on borrowed 5 year old r-comps and questionable brakes. I ended up beating him by a full second with a cone.

He never came out to an autox again, lol.

Another guy that came out to the autocrosses fairly often and used to talk a lot of E36 M3 had a 2010 911 Turbo. I overheard him talking about my fun car once (95 NSX) and how they looked fast, but their performance was just disappointing. I ended up besting him by a full 2 seconds. Towards the end of the day he came over and looked at my tires in disappointment when he saw they were just boring run of the mill RT615s and not something super sticky.

A friend of mine has an S2K loaded to the gills with aftermarket parts, suspension, bracing, sway bars, turbo, etc. We tried telling him so many times that he just needs to learn to drive the car before he throws parts at it and starts chasing his tail trying to figure out what the car is doing. But he didn't listen and we continued to beat him in our basically stock cars.

The moral of the story? seat time > *

I wish there was some magic way to convince people of that, but it seems like everyone is just determined to learn it the hard way. Hell I'm guilty of it myself, I ended up with a car that was so far beyond my abilities I decided it was best to just sell it and start over.

DaveEstey wrote: Springs have A LOT to due with weight transfer.

Negative. Total weight transfer is still the same regardless of what springs are used. This goes for cornering and braking as well.

njansenv wrote: I'm just tired of hearing so many self-righteous people brag about how "they drive a 80hp XXX and beat a 300hp XXX at the . He's such a loser for having a nice car." Some people drive what they want to drive. Is that such a problem? There's LOT's of responsible people with over-powered cars that aren't capable of extracting everything from them. So what? As long as they're reasonable drivers on the street.

I've got no problem with what people choose to drive untill they start talking E36 M3 about how fast they are solely because their car has 11ty billion hp and is a XXX.

Then it's just fun to crush their egos.

ProDarwin wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: Springs have A LOT to due with weight transfer.

Negative. Total weight transfer is still the same regardless of what springs are used. This goes for cornering and braking as well.

Yes, but they change the rate of transfer and the impact of the weight transfer on suspension geometry.

You must be really bored today to pick this as an argument point.

ProDarwin wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: Springs have A LOT to due with weight transfer.

Negative. Total weight transfer is still the same regardless of what springs are used. This goes for cornering and braking as well.

Every drag racer on the planet will disagree with you ProDarwin.

In reply to Javelin:

Is that due to springing soft enough to actually change CG height and so forth (kinda old-school gasser style?), or is it more rate of transfer?

I mean, total weight transfer is a function of CG height, wheelbase, and acceleration, full-stop, right? Springing can effect what happens while that's going on, though, right?

For instance, the front end, when x load transfers off of it to the rear will rise by (weight transferred divided by wheel rate ) inches, which in turn may raise the CG, which in turn would affect total weight transfer. If it's more softly sprung, you get a larger change in height for a given weight transfer.

So, for a given CG height and wheelbase/track, weight transfer isn't dictated by spring rate or damping, though they affect speed of transfer. However, depending on spring rate, CG height (and location) may not be fixed, resulting in spring rate changing the fundamental inputs, fundamentally invalidating the phrase "for a given CG height and location" as a fixed value.

z31maniac wrote: Yes, but they change the rate of transfer and the impact of the weight transfer on suspension geometry. You must be really bored today to pick this as an argument point.

1) True

2) I'd say its a better argument point than the original post. :)

^Agreed.