so a friend of mine at school brought up this question during lunch, and im not quite sure .. which is better, i personally said that a better suspension is better than good tires; but it really depends; define "bad tires" or define "bad suspension" because i mean.. the way i was thinking about it was.. what is better, a car with a suspension that has been perfected by race drivers with tires made for rain or offroad; vs a car with.. no suspension at all, with slicks

so .. what do yall think is better?

(in terms of racing / autocross)

lol well.. it has tires.. not 'good' tires, but something to get it around

depends on if whether the lack of a suspension can be made up by a soft chassis (think carts)

i think the problem with the question is, is that there are so many variables its not really answerable

hows this: a car with a suspension that has been worked on and like i said tested by pros, with tires that are meant for daily driving
vs
a suspension that has been worn for .. 10 years or more and is.. just.. crap, with autocross tires

I'd rather have great suspension and crap tyres (but use that crapness to it's full potential) than great tyres but suspension that almost flails around with no wheel control.

This is why I buy the cheapest hardest least grippy tyres possible for my MX-5, and it's not because I like to save the pennies. Less grip = more fun (Obviously for a track day or something I'd want more, but for roundabouts the less grip the better, and I can still keep up with most four wheeled vehicles, especially ricemobiles which infuriates them when I wave at them in a big slide as I overtake them round the outside of said roundabout [late at night only on quiet roads though]).

I'd so both equally important.
If a car has rigid suspension with no travel/rebounce at all, just a direct attachment, plus good tires. It would do great in a straight line, the tires would do all the work. Untill of course you have to take a corner, that's where the crappy suspension takes its toll and the tires prove useless.

Crappy tires though, would still be driveable and you can still make decent use of the suspension.. just not much. Because good suspension is only effective with good tires to actually hold the grip.

You need both for races. Just for drags, tires are more important.

So yeah, equally imporant but it mainly depends on the situation.

Tyres give grip until they "go" whereas suspension geometry is an ever moving gray field of improbabilities.

If you could give me one that was perfect, i'd take suspension and damn the tyres.

If you could give me only one that worked, i'd take the tyres and slap them on my suspensionless go kart...

doin a test with 2 AI's on LFS right now, tried supers with absolutely no suspension and one with the WR suspension and knobbly tires, but the knobbly tires.. grip like.. didnt exist, so .. those tires are .. well, those definetly wouldnt be DOT approved.. so far the car with supers is doing better than the one with the WR suspension and hybrids

not by much though

plus i dont know how much training either of them have..

edit-gonna get rid of that variable

edit2- i wonder if hybrids are really worthy of being bad.. because now the car with supers is... easily winning

ok so heres the update after 5 laps in the XRTT at BL with 40% gas and AI's which are brand new and set to pro here is what i got

WR suspension with hybrids
best time was 1:34.68
tires could go on for a little while longer

no suspension (everything set as low as possible) and supers
best time was 1:33.00
all but front right looks pretty good, front right is getting burned up though

i will now test with road normals rather than supers
AI reset, same settings, here we go:
after 5 laps
scratch that, emergency stop on this one:
4 and 3/4ths into the lap, the car with supers and no suspension blew its tire... er.. thats not good
car with no suspension and supers had a best lap time of: 1:32.01
(strange.. i deleted the files..)

car with normals and wr suspension
tires are perfectly fine, could probably go on for another 20+ laps, and its best time was 1:33.31

BUT
a big but in this one.. this has been a test with LFS during a time with the low speed tire bug, so this cant be true all the way

but in the end, it is better to have good tires and a good suspension (although you may get nocked the **** out and die lol your car would go faster)

Quote from XCNuse :

suspension that has been perfected by race drivers with tires made for rain or offroad; vs a car with.. no suspension at all, with slicks

Well that's a flawed theory because rain tires will give you more grip (much much softer compound) than slicks. Until they burn up (after a couple of laps) and become dangerous to drive with.

yes, but you can get softer compound slicks (er.. i guess.. you probbaly know more so i wont fight lol)

but either way, my final conclusion is that..
Yes, you can go faster with a bad suspension and better tires

but... you dont want to, because you'll only tear up the tires so fast and probably do some damage to the car (or atleast moreso than if you had a good suspension)

Quote from XCNuse :

yes, but you can get softer compound slicks

Yep but obviously if your slicks are too soft they'll overheat like rain tires.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I'd rather have great suspension and crap tyres (but use that crapness to it's full potential) than great tyres but suspension that almost flails around with no wheel control.

This is why I buy the cheapest hardest least grippy tyres possible for my MX-5, and it's not because I like to save the pennies. Less grip = more fun (Obviously for a track day or something I'd want more, but for roundabouts the less grip the better, and I can still keep up with most four wheeled vehicles, especially ricemobiles which infuriates them when I wave at them in a big slide as I overtake them round the outside of said roundabout [late at night only on quiet roads though]).

Remind me never to get in a car with you.

Ever.

I agree with Munko :yikes:

Quote from tristancliffe :

This is why I buy the cheapest hardest least grippy tyres possible for my MX-5, and it's not because I like to save the pennies. Less grip = more fun (Obviously for a track day or something I'd want more, but for roundabouts the less grip the better, and I can still keep up with most four wheeled vehicles, especially ricemobiles which infuriates them when I wave at them in a big slide as I overtake them round the outside of said roundabout [late at night only on quiet roads though]).

I thought you hated sliding your car around Tristian?

A average driver can get more out of good tyres then a complex (read: adjustable/good/expensive) suspension setup. Especially @ auto-x.

wtf!

that is a hard question

Put slicks on some family car and throw few laps around track, it is scary thing, it would not be even hard to flip if it has typical soft suspension. But with good suspension and normal road tires it is safe and enjoyable to drive

Oh yes, some guys think good tires is 19" rims and tires that scrub wheel arches if there is more ppl in than driver, also those wheels + tires weight 4 times more than original, yeah, good that is maybe not same good I'm thinking, lol.

But suspension vs. tires, when you look price, good suspension may cost quite bit more than tires.