[OG Shark]

medphysdave the answers to your questions are yes, no, and maybe...

rbahr put it perfectly when he said suspensions are a collection of solutions that are really compromises. Essentially what we are doing is trying to find the least worst set of compromises for any given situation. When you are talking about a dual usage car there are a whole lot of situations you have to try to account for. Even singular focus builds (street vs track dedicated) are a series of finding the best compromises to complete the task as best as possible.

On the F87 I believe the best money spent is in dampers (which is why I started down that path with Nitron). Using the dual usage setup as an example - we worked the dampers to deliver what we found was the best mix of street manners and performance for us. For us is key as we are all a bit different in our preferences but I do think it translates to others in this case. But while the improvement in the dampers fixes some of the issues they are still a compromise in other areas. If you lower the car the stock geometry has now been compromised. Now if you address this situation you have now possibly opened up the door for increase NVH. So do you just keep heading down this path until you have a race car or do you at some point call it good and stay put? For each of us that answer is for sure different. My tolerance for a harsh car that is driven quite a bit on the street is very low - I'm past those days of beating myself up regularly. On occasion I'm ok with it for sure - but definitely not an everyday thing I want. So for me this kind of thing is what dictates my development path for a street/track car. From there we branch out but the bulk of our focus started with the dampers. Not sure if this helps at all but this is how I view it and what dictates our development.

But the dampers are just a part of the whole system. If you are changing other components then you need to make sure they are working with them instead of against. You mention aero - effective aero is going to need stiffer spring rates. My Pcar we are getting ready to go with 1250/1400 due to the aero load and that might not even be enough. That's going to be brutal on the street so will be doing this only for track time. With our street/track M2 we are still working our way up to find the spring rates for the Zebulon aero package we just installed. We will likely be in the 1k range and this is the smaller of his two packages that was legal for the street class at SLB. What I'm getting at hear is that once you start moving into other areas the focus becomes not just on that part but the whole system. As you add more they changes must work together and be driven to compliment each other. There is no secret sauce in just for instance focusing on the alignment - the focus is on everything in the system and how they interact with each other. The more narrow the usage of the car then the more narrow you can dial in the peak operating range and develop towards the benefits being realized in that window. The more generalized the usage the less focused you can be in one area and have to keep the car happy throughout that range. So really for you as the end user your job is to know what your goals are and then work to align the modifications with that. How do you know which modifications are best? Unless you have access to all and the ability to test then you are really limited to research and discussion.

When it comes to your personal usage and wanting to shave off as much time on the track as you can - I can build you the most edged out setup that is completely capable of a very high level of performance. Once we have Schnucki dialed in and everything playing nice then this car is going to be very quick. But in it's track configuration it is not a car that appeals to me to drive on the street much at all. It will be way too stiff for my liking. Now the car is still very much a street car and we will soften her up considerably between full bore track outings (i.e. competitions). Being a shop owner however makes this feasible for me while it might not be exactly the most realistic option for most. With our dampers we have several options but the most common by far is the one that plays friendliest in the general usage. While we have shown these to be extremely capable yes we can push further to start to shave time - but is that a direction you would want to take your car? No right or wrong answer there just something you need to factor into a build.

You want to know something that is readily available that can help lap times (besides driver mod)? Tires. Tires are the most powerful tool a track rat has for improvement. They are consumable so you have ample opportunity to either keep status quo or make a change. They have a huge impact in every facet of performance and they have a very wide range of characteristics. When you can master a "low grip" tire you can easily move up and start working on improving your skill set to master this next level. Rinse, repeat. Suspension obviously has its benefits but do not overlook how powerful tires can be.

The part that is most prone to failure in my experience is the driver... I can tell you that as a driver I suck right now. Last year I had I believe 5 total track days. ThreeStripes and Anonymoose got to see about half of that time and can attest to how long it takes me to get up to speed coming off of extended layoffs. A dialed in and consistent car certainly helps the process but nothing can overcome the amount of time it takes me to knock the rust off and get to 9or10/10s with the car. Now it is what it is on my part - my life dictates that right now but for lap times that is where the greatest failure is on my cars. There is just no replacement for seat time. I am also out of shape and overweight. This is big negative on pace - endurance, strength, focus, reflexes are all negatively affected as you get tired. Again this is a failure on the driver not the car. This is the area I can tell you will realize the most benefits in pace - the driver of my cars needs to get on the same level as the performance potential of the cars...