Lots of great words of wisdom for the inexperienced in this thread Dean, thanks. One of the reasons I've held off this long on seriously modding my car is the fact that I realized I wasn't able to get 100% of its potential as it was. right now at this moment I think I am within .5-1 sec of what my car is capable of on an absolute, but realistic scale on most courses. At least, I am when the front wheels are in agreeance as to which way is "forward" and I put the new sway bar on.
But I often have this discussion with Nate myself- if I want to have a faster, more competitive car, I should ditch my Prodrive stuff and build some coilovers. And he's right- I could build a basic set of GC sleeves on some AGX or Konis and get close to a second faster- but I wouldn't be
learning how to be fast. Right now my car is responsive, but it can be upset by poor driving, so it's to my long term benefit to keep trying to be smooth on a less forgiving car. Autocross is where I try to be smooth- racetracks are for goofing around and trying new things.
Tyson, if you're willing to get some competitive tires to run in NDS, with or without the Konis, it will make it a lot more likely that you will win your class (although, weren't John and Patty's kids running their old WRX in DS?). But anyways, your class standings won't tell you if you are improving as a driver. I personally would get the Konis, stay in STX, and keep having fun. I don't think I'm being very mean to say you don't have much chance in STX, but that doesn't mean you can't improve greatly over the season. And driving a WRX on springs, struts, and big sway bars is a whole lot more fun than doing it on stock suspension.
