TRAKCAR

^^ Thats what the Germans were doing ontrack when I picked up my car. They applied to RS and it did'nt work for RS. Too unstable.

MayorAdamWest

I'm running neutral front sway bar, full soft rear, and the tilted the wing to the highest position. I'm still getting quite a bit of understeer. I may move the rear bar back to neutral as well. I prefer understeer, being that I am not a pro, and do not wish to put my car in a wall, but it can't be so much that I destroy the front tires, as I am currently.

inactiveuser7616

Awesome. Thanks for the advice!

trakmor

Any thoughts on 19 inch wheels? Worth the minor adjustments that seem to be required (I have steel brakes)? If any of you have 19's, what tires are you running? I'm still on the fence on this one.

orthojoe

No 19" tire choices compelling enough to do it for me. If Bridgestone decided to make the re71r tire or nitto made the nt01 tire in 19", I would do it

Wooly1

I have some 19's on the way. I just couldn't keep paying 2K a set for the sport cup 2's any longer. IMO the Michelins don't perform well enough or last long enough to justify their cost. They wear funny in the center sections and heat cycle out very quickly. Tire choices that I have found for the track that become available with the 19's are the Toyo R888's and Hoosiers. Both ore cheaper than the SC2's and provide more grip. They should wear quicker than the SC2's but quite frankly I'm really only getting about 3-4 days on the SC'2's and can't see the new tires going for less than that, even the Hoosiers. Agree with Joe that I would love to see NT01's for this car in 19's. They would likely sell a bunch. Would love to hear some others chime in on this subject.

Tom Tweed

According to Damon @ Tire Rack, the 19" RE-71R rears in 305 are supposed to be available in August. They are accepting pre-orders. The 245 fronts are already available. I would prefer a 265/325 setup like my R7s, or even 255/315, but those are not showing up until next year, if then. Same with 20" sizes--there is no telling when they might be available.

I couldn't wait until August and just ordered another set of 265/325 R7s. I would run NT01s if they were available. Mooty says "Friends don't let friends run R888s" so I wouldn't even try those.
YMMV,
TT

mooty

^tom RE71 has 265/35 and 265/40 both in 19" now.

Tom Tweed

Ya, but they have no rear to go with them for the GT3. The widest tire on their schedule for production at the moment is the 305 that will hopefully be available in August. I would like at least a 315 for the rear if I was going to run the 265 fronts to maintain balance, and a 325 would be better. But after these new R7s heat cycle out, I may try the 265 on the front with a 305 rear just to see if it's too loose. I'm only autocrossing the car so it might be OK. Loose can be fast at AX. I don't think I'd want to be going full tilt into turn 8 at Willow Springs with that setup, though, at least not without a bunch more rear downforce.

TT

mooty

^ ah forgot right now 285 is the widest...

Wooly1

OK Mooty, I have yet to try them. So what's so terrible about the R888's?

mooty

^ no grip, noisy i have not met anyone who likes it

Wooly1

Tom, how many days/sessions do you get with the Hoosiers when tracking say at Willow or the like?

orthojoe

The problem with r888 is that they are good for 1-2 days and then lose significant grip way before they are worn out, which is why few people like the tires

Tom Tweed

I can't answer your question definitively, since I have retired from big track events due to health issues and have only autocrossed with my GT3, as mentioned above. I can give you my impressions, though, which may still be helpful, and leave it to others to relate their direct experience with the R7 as a track-day tire, if they want to chime in. I would be running A7s if Hoosier made them in the sizes I want, but they don't, so the R7 has been a compromise for me.

First of all, the R7 is definitely an improvement over the older R6 in terms of degradation. My experience with R6s has been in lighter cars, but I am definitely impressed with the more gradual drop-off in grip of the R7 in what is a much heavier car. They do not seem to just "fall off a cliff" after a dozen heat cycles like the R6 (or the R888s). With 12 heat cycles on them, they were still faster than a new set of MPSC2s, and over the next 9 heat cycles, they just continued to lose grip incrementally without becoming unpredictable or turning into bricks. At 20 heat cycles, I would say that they were a little less than "half-rubber" as far as tread wear, but they had probably given up 1.5-2 seconds a lap in grip on our typical ~80 second/1-mile autocross course. If you don't care about being competitive, you could get 30 heat cycles out of them, I would say, but you would be sliding around a lot more for the last 10. In track day terms, with four or five 20-minute sessions a day, I would guess they could last for 6 track days, depending on track surface, temperature, and how hard you drive them, if you flip them on the rims to even out wear after 3 or 4 days, as necessary.

For me, being a competitive SOB, I am throwing them away at 21 heat cycles, because 2 seconds a lap in an autocross is an eternity. That would be the equivalent of 4 track days. If you don't have to "win" the DE, they could be used longer.

Currently, the Hoosiers are only about $200 cheaper than the MPSC2s ($1700 vs. $1900/set). The Cup2 is a great tire that I used with good results for the first 9 events in this car (27 high heat cycles plus 3000+ miles of street driving) without hitting the wear bars anywhere but in the middle of the fronts. Since I am a cheap SOB as well, I would love to use a 200-treadwear tire like the RE-71R that gave 95% of the Hoosier R7 performance at $1200/set, but that day is not here yet. It would drop me down a class in PCA Zone 8 competition as well, but make it tougher to win TTOD against the typical 100-120 cars that show up at our events.

HTH,
TT