That last one is great. IMO RX-8s don't seem to have that much body roll compared to other cars. Here's one from Packwood:



Too bad I couldn't get any pictures of you on Sunday, Mike. It was great photography weather! Wait till you see the photos of the other silver RX-8.

While I'm at it... some extreme body roll shots!

http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/66052325/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/63802107/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/63801932/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/65509034/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/62280372/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/66447903/original

But this guy takes the cake...
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/40638882/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/40638883/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/51348732/original

And how about some extreme trail-braking?
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/66448117/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/51348730/original

My car stays pretty flat (considering the soft springs) thanks to the massive front bar and Koni SAs. This is about as bad as it gets:
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/57670696/original

However, my old car... (circa 2001)
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/50693276/original
http://www.pbase.com/bryanh/image/50693261/original

 

guys takes the case.....I guess the class letter GS kinda go with what you say when you see that car lift....GeeeSh.

 

Did he ever try the 245 V710s? The only time I saw the car was at the DC Pro and he had 245 A6s.

 

That's not quite the mirror of our experience with them. We ran them for three events. We started with pressures that were way too high and had mixed feelings. Over the course of the three events, we kept dropping pressures, and they just got better and better. After 33 runs on the tires, one corded slightly, and we still had mixed feelings. We both thought that there were improvements we could make to the rest of the car's setup to take better advantage of the 285 A6s, but we had run out of time before Nats to continue the experiment.

What was clear from the start was that braking was phenomenally better with the A6s. It felt faster in sweepers (which was backed up with DL1 data) and it only got better as we lowered pressures. Transitions weren't so good. It just felt sloppy. It seemed to get better as we dropped pressures, but it may have been a byproduct from us adapating our driving to the tires as well. Like I said, I think we could have made it better in transitions if we'd had more time

One of the other things we learned was that they tolerated heat much better than the 245 710s...especially with two drivers. Two of the three events were on days in the upper 90s and the other event was upper 80s or lower 90s (I forget). While they still got a little too hot by the end, it wasn't nearly as bad as our hot weather experiences with the 710s. The counter point to that was that we felt like it would be a lot harder to get the tires up to temp in colder weather (like what we wound up having at HPT for Nats). That weighed pretty heavily in our decision to take 710s to Topeka.

On the whole, with two drivers on medium grip asphalt, I think I'd rather have the 285 A6 on a sweeper heavy course if ambient air temps are into the upper 70s or above. If it's below 70, I'd want the 245 710s. As a single driver, I'd want the 245 710s on that same course until the air temps were above 90. I'd rather have the 710s on any course that's transition heavy in any temp. Anything in between those extremes, it's probably a wash and would therefore prefer the 710s due to their lower cost and longer life.

 

He had 710s on at Ft. Myers. The car was running well then. They were laying down times .5 sec faster than the rest of BS during friday testing but couldn't capitalize on it during the event.

 

I ran 275 A6s all summer. They were definitely faster than 710s in the sweepers as long as you were on line and didn't have to pinch the exit. Any excess slip angle really scrubbed off the speed. I think that's why the slaloms were hard to execute as well. Properly driven though they were just as fast as 245 710s even with the gearing disadvantage. I'd have to think the 285 A6s would be faster with the superior gearing.

What killed the A6s in my book was a test and tune 2 weeks before nats. It was a new surface and the car was horrible. Took me 6 runs to adjust the car back to where I wanted. Since I'd never run at HPT before, i saw the writing on the wall and switched back to 710s.

Bottom line is A6s can be just as fast, maybe faster, it's just much more difficult to get there.

 

Yeah the writing on the wall should be the fact that you need a 40mm wider A6 to just match the V710 performance.

 

Speed is speed. I'm not above using inferior technology if I have to to go faster.

At the end of the day though, the joke was on me. I wasted most of the year on a setup that was tempermental and ended up right back where I started at.

Now that I'm back on 710s I have no plans to go back just because Hoosier wants to slap a new name on the same tire every year. May give the 285 710s a try now that I know how to mount them. Even if they aren't any faster, they should last longer and if I can get 25 more competitive runs out of a set for $25 a tire, I'm there.

 

I did that every year with my Corvette, always thought I could make it better and would end up wasting all season.

In the last 18 months with the RX8 I have only changed the swaybar bushings. It was time better spent to work on driving the car than working on the car.

 

Eat me.

 

OK, we've covered turn in and body roll, re: why you need Konis? Now, how about brake dive...

 

that's where the compression setting on the Koni DAs come in to play ... as well as greatly sharpening the transient response

 

On the plus side, if you add a splitter you can moonlight as a snow plow.

 

Mike,

Was Joe Tharpe running those tires at Nationals? Second event in a Solstice and he was pretty fast if it hadn't been for those cones on day one.

I think the problem, actually just one of the problems, with the wider tires is that they will not warm up as quickly at Nationals. They might work okay in a two driver car. Two weeks earlier and at Forbes there might be more of a debate. The fact remains that all the tire you need is the 245 710's until somebody (i.e., Carter, Joe, or Jason) proves otherwise, and I don't see that happening because why fix something that isn't broke.

 

What is the best source for DA Konis?

 

What if it is broken, but no one knows it because the right mix of alternatives, setup ability, and driving skill haven't been tried...and fully developed to their maximum potential?

Autocrossers are like bandwagon hopping lemmings...particularly in Stock classes.

 

I would not have wanted the 285s this year. We ran early, the asphalt was cold, and it was so smooth the tires were hard to get up to temp.

 

Definitely aggree that it's more complex. Having driven a 350Z on both 245 710s and 285 710s I can attest that for that particular car (nose heavy/limited front camber) the 285 is a big step up. It really wakes up the car. Both the Solstice and RX-8 have better weight distribution and front camber so may not be as benefitial, but the I think the jury is still out. Up until a couple of months ago, alot of people were hesitant about going the 285 710 route because of mounting issues, so I don't think it's really had a fair shot yet.

 

Of course it's more complex than the heating issue. WRT the 285 A6 vs the 245 710, I wrote up my impressions recently (earlier in this thread, maybe?), so I won't rehash them here, but I do have another useless datapoint (that is loaded with other variables based on yet more variable) that I wouldn't draw any conclusions from...

In the 8 WDCR events (with 236-257 competitiors) where my car ran this year, 5 were on 710s and 3 were on 285 A6s. In the events on 710s, the average PAX for John and me (discounting cones) was 21.375. For the events on A6s, it was 12.200. John alone was 16.333 on 710s and 5.000 on the A6s. It was a more modest improvement for me going from 24.400 to 20.750. At the same time, our Ladies class codriver had an average PAX of 80 on the 710s and 95 on the A6s...but was much happier with the car on the A6s.

With more time and effort, I think we could have gotten even more out of the A6s at FedEx Field. But then, of course, without also testing the 245 A6 (and 275 for that matter), we still wouldn't know what the best tire was. And even then, without back to back to back to back testing, would we still really know?

In the end, it came down to us knowing the 710, having a well developed 710 setup, and real concerns about whether the A6 would be able to get to temp even with two drivers at HPT...so we went with the 710...and found that we didn't have the right setup on the west course, made changes and john turned the 3rd fast time on the east course. I really doubt we could have done better at nats with the 285 A6. The 245 A6? but probably not. Doesn't mean that one tire was capable of being faster than the other...only that given the circumstances, the 710 was probably the tire that was going to give us our quickest times.

The next question is where would the 285 710 fit in? Maybe we'll find out next year. Maybe not.

 

I thought you didn't like the RB front sway bar. That's much stffer.

 

What's the trick to getting the 285 710's mounted? Does it involve any Vasoline or heat or both?

And, again, where are some good sources for DA konis.

Thanks,

Brent

 

I have the 285's, but they are mounted on 18x9.5 wheels...so no trick involved.

From those I've talked to, mounting a 285 on a stock sized wheels is possible, but takes much, much time and patience, as well as a lot of leverage.