Hello

I have a 997.1 C4S that I finaly put on Lime Rock, this past weekend. I have some experience on a PCA track days at Watkins Glen , with my former 2001 Viper, which was a blast, however, the 911 is "the car" . You feel like one with the car. I had a great friend who races vintage class, with a 240Z and a 69 Corvette, get in the car, for the last session of day one ( he was late to the track otherwise would have been the first!). He gave me some great pointers about some of my mistakes and it improved my time as well as the car was not being as bound up, felt better over all. I am a beginner/novice and don't claim to be good, but am improving. I have P4S's on it, running 40 front/44 rear, stock sizes. Car has B16's all around, ran PASM active, aligned, some addition neg rear camber and scaled and balanced at 50.9% cross balance. I ran with a hard top and am a manual trans and have a FSI R40 under the boot for power. The car runs great, great power. My friend Glen said the tires feel "pretty good" for my driving and they wore faily well. I did not heat gun them but they felt HOT Now..I have BBS's on it now, stock offset and dia, so I have my old "Lobster" wheels that I want to mount "track tires" that I will not run on the street, could but prob will not...What have you guys run that you like, for wear, cost, etc. I want to have the best tire I can run for the best times, that will give me some more confidence( which I fell I need). I want to run Thompson and the Glen next, will do Lime Rock later this year. Thanks

 

You had me at "a manual trans and have a FSI R40 under the boot for power" . Did you say say something about tires or wheels?

 

 

Once you get more confidence and ability. Ditch the ps4s on track. They are garbage. And your max grip will come in the mid 30s on that particular tire.

 

While PS4S aren't as capable as 200TW tires, they're far from "garbage" and perfectly capable to use on track, especially while you're learning. Eventually you'll be on 200TWs, high temp brake fluid and track compound brake pads. But on a wet track or a cold morning, I just keep my PS4S on the car. Definitely agree with cwheeler on the hot pressures, tho, mid 30's for sure.

I don't work for Michelin, but their tires sure seem to work well on our cars. You might be interested on Patrick Long's take on the PS4S-
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-car...sport-4s-test/

 

I have fresh ATE Type 200 , did a brake flush before I went, stock pads were at 75% and have min brake dust. Next time I'll flush with 660 . I will heat gun everything next time, just to see where it was for temp, but had zero brake fade, and I push on the brakes hard entering big bend (120 mph) and at the base of the up hill, pushed hard at 100 mph before I hit the apex. Totally impressed with the car, ran on my Stage 4 tune with 93 octane. I drove it for years but nothing like this. Tire pressure, I looked around on here and it must be some bad advise, that I ran high cold pressure..Mid 30's..wow! I has no one at the track that I felt to ask about this. But some P-zero's..or some cup tire will be coming. I DO know that P4S is a great tire if it's damp..

 

If you want higher confidence, lower the pressures as advised and drive the crap out of those tires. They are more than suitable for track use at that level, I have them on mine. Anything you do to add stickiness is going to make you faster without any additional skill and that kind of defeats the point of confidence/capability right? You'll get more confident when you learn how to manage traction closer to the edge of adhesion. Sure you might not be setting track records, but you'll get to e a much better driver so when you add grip you'll be even faster than just adding tires alone!

Having said that, I'd love to know which tires people like too

 

As a suggestion I would learn the car as is. Drive the crap out of it and when you can handle the drift that will occur then you can move up to stickier tires. Learn in small doses and change something performance wise on your car a piece at a time. Brake fluid, then pads, then sway bars including links, then control arms and on and on. If you do this all at once you won't really understand the inputs and the outcomes.

I like Toyo R888R's for my car while on track.

 

Since you are a beginner - this:

Also invest in some safety equipment.

 

In NASA HPDE 1-3, I just ran Hankook RS3, Nitto NT05 (mostly), and Dunlop Star Specs. Those are all really similar (but arguably inferior) to PS4S from my experience.
Only when I started competing in Time Attack and was up in HPDE4 did I step up to RS3Rs and then later NT01s. The NASA instructors were pretty adamant about how these non-R-comp tires gave you a lot of verbal feedback, and also they are at temp pretty much right when you drive away from the pit lane, which may be a few seconds slower but with good driving habits, will make you smoother, and therefore faster in the end. R comps stick to the track great...until they don't, and without much warning usually.
Without a long involved story, I had a Garage-mate have a really bad day-ending-OFF on the second lap in the first session of the day when his R comps were not heated properly. He assumed one warm up lap was sufficient and put the car into a ditch on STREETS before the hill going up running CCW.
I have also ruined a pair of pants when R comps did NOT warn me until after it was too late at Buttonwillow in the esses. To be completely honest, PURE LUCK is the only reason I did not have a BIG off because I overcooked the esses with NT01 R comps. The R comps did improve my time by 2-3 seconds on average but when I think about it in hindsight, I would have been better off running NT05s a little longer rather than stepping up to NT01s. This is especially the case because more aggressive brake pads also helped A LOT. That is just me though. I am consistently mediocre at best. I can get the same lap times over and over but no one is dancing around me and congratulating me on my innate GOD level driving skills...lol. My biggest accomplishment is consistency.

 

+1 on what Sticky Pete and Frank suggest. I really try to encourage folks who are new to HPDEs and track days to just run what they have and learn. Stickier tires will raise the limits but on the flip side is that you'll be pushing much harder when you reach those limits. If you haven't developed the skills needed to recover, it becomes much harder at the speeds you find limits for stickier tires. PS4S aren't a track tire but they are a great learning tire and their breakaway points are predictable. There's no replacement for seat time, good brake fluid (I like Castrol SRF myself), and decent pads.

If you're shopping for tires though, I like Hankook RS4s, Goodyear Supercar3s (good inbetweener for ps4s and cup2 level tires), or NT01s.

 

+2
some great advice. Once the PS4’s are toast, go for the Supercar 3’s. They seem to be loved by most and supposedly wear great amd have good feedback.
I went from noisy RE-11’s to quiet Cup 2’s, And I can say that not having the audible sound as the tire slides makes it a lot tougher to drive at the limits. The only time my cup 2’s make noise is when I’ve spun out at the track 🤪

 

Yeah not having a noise would be different if that's what you're used to. But real track tires don't make skeeching noise. You have to feel what the tires are telling you. They do talk to you. Granted, the more experience you get, the more they talk, but you have to be in tune with your car while pushing to the limit. Expecting just audible noise to alert you is not the norm.

 

^^ This is probably the best advice and should not be put off because you're only focused on "making your car faster."

Our cars are already fast, the modification list should have our personal education and safety at the top. If you don't have harnesses, Simpson makes hand and neck restraints made to work with factory 3-point belts. Get one, they're not expensive, they're essential.

 

On my Spitfire racecars I have Hoosier TDR's and they do not make a peep so I agree with the noise comment not being the norm...my butt listens better than my ears. Also agree on safety. I have a Simpson Hans device and it works great with 3-point belt and with a full harness as in my race cars.