sml

I have owned the 964 for a few months now and hit the track for the first time today in the 964 (I have 4 or 5 track days under my belt from 15 yrs ago) ... Here's the background ...

Car
964 C4 manual coupe - everything stock except ..
g-pipe
rear is very low & front slightly lowered
17" cup wheels with 205 front and 255 rear .. new chinese cheapest tyres

Driver
limited experience as above.
I am no expert but I was pushing the car sufficiently to get understeer/oversteer on all corners and occasionally engage the ABS with braking

Result
My 964 today .. 1.38
My 924 about 15 yrs ago .. 1.34
997 GT3 .. 1.17
Nissan GTR .. 1.14
M3 stock .. 1.22
WRX stock .. 1.24
Well sorted club older 911s pre-964 .. in the low to high 1.20s

The car felt normal (ie decent stock performance) with the acceleration and braking and it felt like the biggest potential improvements would come from:
(a) myself the driver and,
(b) better suspension and tyres as the grip in the corners felt comparable to a volvo 240 (is this normal?)
(c) i noticed a huge & surprising braking benefit when i perfected a few heel & toe downchanges. does this seem correct? could there be a brake bias issue? the car hasn't been driven hard for years. the brakes felt terrible initially, but after 10 laps, they started to work well & more as expected.

For my 1.38 lap time, what are the potential lap time benefits for ...
1. a decent skilled driver?
2. low & hard suspension?
3. R type tyres?
4. other ideas to make my lap time less embarassing?

GeorgeK

First and foremost, geometry. A wrong stance ususally means poor behaviour. The car shold have a slight nose-down, or level attitude, and correct camber, toe, etc..

Then brakes (make that first in fact).

Then driver. Even Derek Bell can't drive an oxcart fast.

falcor

Tires, tires tires.....your new china tires aren't made to grip but to last long, if you check the treadwear ration on them it's probably over 300. Get a set of decent tires and you'll shave lots of time. Bridgestone S-02's are a good combo for track/street use....full on R's are even better. You cant do quick times without spending some $ tho.

sml

You'll love this .... treadwear on the cheap chinese tyres .. 420! No wonder the grip is comparable to a volvo 240. If I used R tyres, what kind of ball-park improvement would I expect? 2 secs, 5 secs, 10 secs?

The car has a large nose-up attitude as the rear-end is dropped. No geometry check has been carried out recently to knowledge.

I don't want to be super competitive and spend big $ but today was embarrassing, so I need some cheap mods!

Unkle

Did you buy the cheap Chinese tyres?

rarebear

put 7 mm spacers on the front wheels, sets the car marginally lower on the front, improves handling enormously !

Jimjacqmx5

Which track?
Tyres, if inexperienced, I'd stick to GOOD road tyres rather than R spec. Learn to drive the car with it moving around a bit and you will learn more.
Secondly, until suspension better sorted, you will destroy r Tyres.

Set up, set up, set up.

Shocks, springs and adjustable swaybars and a good alignment will knock off the most time. If you don't want to spend $$$, get a good alignment done minimum.

If you are in Oz, drop me a PM and I'll give you my mobile and we can have a chin wag.

sml

No .. they were on the car when purchased a few months ago. Just the cheapest option for the guy to sell the car with 'new tyres'.

Unkle

Ok

A Geo will cost £160 in the UK and each N rated tyre will also cost £140. so i would do the Geo then the tyres. (and stick with N rated) As its continually said, the tyre is the only thing keeping you on the road so get some Porsche N rated ones. (Have you felt how hot the rears get next to the exhaust? I wouldn't trust cheap tyres)

If you do something more expensive first it could all be wasted if the set up is off, so Geo then tyres. The only caveat is that if the bushes are shot the Geo won't be worth a great deal unless its off the scale.

I do wonder though if you aren't super competitive why worry about times? Your car came home in one piece so did you, and you probably enjoyed yourself. Sounds like a good track day!

NineMeister

Fit good tyres (Toyo Proxes, Sport Cup, w.h.y) with a treadwear of less than 160, check & adjust geometry, my bet is 5-10 seconds a lap if you are on the limit of grip.

sml

Very good point .. but now that I have my track day laptime benchmark and knowing that the time is really bad, I really need to do some mods & improve my 964 driving to make reasonable times. Slower than my 924 is pretty bad afterall!

LouZ

I agree with Colin - get a good set of tires and the times will significantly drop. I run on Toyo T1R's which I find to have great grip for a true street tire.

You can pick up a few more seconds by fitting race pads. I like PF97's and Pagids.

My TIP doesn't have many mods, and I can keep up and/or beat slightly modded WRX, Mitsu Evo, and pre-964 911's, and not get embarrassed against stock 993's and early 996's.

My TIP's present set-up will lap Watkins Glen in consistant 2:26's. I'm finished DEing for this year, and my winter projects are to drop the engine and retime the cams, get a custom programmed Steve Wong chip and switch to BFG RA-1's.

clubrcr

Seat time. I raced for over 10 years. The best thing is time in the car. Too many people try to improve the car before the driver. It's all wrong. You"ll shave several seconds by getting more familiar with the car. If anything, just have it corner balanced and play around with tire pressures. Once you get a lot of seat time, then start improving tires, brakes, etc.

Just my two cents.

sml

I agree that a decent driver would 'shave several seconds'. I think around 2 to 3 secs would be realistic. Combined with the tyres/suspension mods suggested at 5 to 10 secs. And brake pads shave 1 to 2 secs.

That's a total of 8 to 15 secs savings. 15 secs might be stretching it .. but if I could drop 10 secs that would be fine for my casual fun days without the embarassment!

Unkle

You must be really good if you think a top driver would only go 2 to 3 secs quicker than you. lol I have driven on a few tracks and like most people consider myself competant, yet i know a decent driver is leagues ahead of me, But then i go to enjoy the laps and not times...