YearOne

As we know the 997.1 GT3 has an imbalance in tyre size front to rear. Why they went with 8.5 front and 12s rear i'll never know. As a lot of you have done you upgrade to 9s for the front and stick with the 12s on the rear however I have slightly different goals than lap times and pure track performance. For me a road car needs to be fun, this is the main criteria, I want to be able to use all of its potential on the road. I drove a 997.2 GT3RS and on a country road its grip levels with the wider fronts was so high that it was too fast for even a quiet rural road, the car had more grip than power (obviously it could be provoked but basically its grips and goes). On a circuit this is good, the more rubber down the better for for a street car whos job is to entertain it isn't.

In my opinion the GT3 does not need 12 wide rears. For the horsepower it produces this is too much rubber, first gear can take full throttle and not spin up even with some lock applied, not fun. Soooooo, whats the answer? New wheels but in what size? I am going to fit the wide Cup front wings, space the fronts, EXE-TC suspension and differential so which wheels:

Option 1: 9s and 12s

or

Option 2 8.5s and 11.5s


What do we think of option two? This is what I am leaning towards, get less overall grip (lower cornering limits, more fun) but bring the balance in line and address the issue of too much rear grip on these cars.

I realise most of you will not understand this and will think the more grip and rubber on the road the better but Im certain this will make the ultimate road car.

Thoughts please?

NorthVan

I ran 8.5 and 11's on my C2S and will run the same wheels on my GT3. I was however running a 245/35/18 and 315/30/18 on those wheels.

LehmanZ06

The 8.5 front and 12 rear is.................PERFECT

I tried the RS front wheels on my 10 GT3, and felt that the steering was more alive with the stock front wheels. Kept the balance stock.

You have to remember that there is not much weight on the front, and a whole hell of a lot on the rear.

Personally I feel....save your money and keep as is.

YMMV

TTurbine

From what i understand you want less grip and a slippery feel around corners?
If thats the case leave it as it is and just adjust the sway bars...

Mvez

I do understand what you are saying. Buy a different car. The GT3's level of performance is too high, even on smaller tires, so trying to constantly extract it's full potential on public roads is both unsafe and irresponsible.

Want to be entertained on backroads? What you need is an E30 M3....I'm not joking.

That said, 245/305 on the .1 or .2 makes for a very pleasurable setup on track.

BBMGT3

The GT3... does not have too much grip at the rear. At the limits, its tail happy.

Snowboarder54

Maybe just pull a Chris Harris and install a set of space savers like he did on the C63? He claims it turned it into the best handeling car he has driven in some time!
I can't find the link on this PIS IPad buts it's on YouTube!:

Hoosier_Daddy

Maybe take this up with the factory engineers.

I feel completely the opposite -- I think their millions in R&D turned out pretty well.

ATL Fahrer

/\ This /\

nick49

I own a Turbo not a GT3 but had a 996 C2 for several years that I simply tweeked the handling on to eliminate undesirable traits.

First off, in my opinion juggling wheel sizes around +- .5", add to the front, take from the rear will make some difference but very subtle. Tire size and contact patch area is much more important, the patch being determined and influenced by inflation pressures. The tire brand and compound has a great deal to do with "feel" as well. What I'm trying to say is forget the wheel sizes for now and work with the tires first.

Next, you can change an awful lot of the way the car handles and grip levels front to rear with sway bars. With adjustables on both ends you can experiment with what you like and get desired handling characteristics.

With just these two things, tires and sways adjusted to your driving style, I can't imagine you could out drive the cars capabilities on public roads. Also once you have done these things then if needed you could play with wheel sizes and start all over with tires. But frankly, I'd save the wheel sizes for last and improve the suspension with Moton, Ohlins or another high end shock. Frankly I don't think these would make any difference on the street.

Finally, I have no idea as to your driving ability, but often it will make more difference than anything you can do to any car. Once your driving improves, you'll get to the point where you'll be able to state exactly what areas of the car need to be sorted in order for you to go faster. Not meaning to butt in to this, but hopefully this may give you some ideas to chew on.

Antonov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=HPh90yNX-mY

Snowboarder54

That's it, thanks!

95spiderman

i would keep the stagger as is but switch out of cup tires. going narrow in rear could lead to dangerous oversteer at the limit.

i have all seasons on my gtr and i loose about 2 sec/1 min lap compared to summer tires. doesnt matter to me because the all seasons allow me to slide the car (a little) and have more fun in the process.

997gt3north

Looks like you live in a place where the weather isn't perfect year round - as such, and to address all of your above requests, let me suggest that you run High Performance Allseason tires - should should I think get you what you want - more fun.

Link below is from Tirerack and for Bridgestone Potenza RE970AS Pole Positions

They come with a 295 rear and can be used with either the 235, 245 or 255 fronts to keep ABS happy - all the fronts will mount on the 8.5 OE rim - the rears however at 295 will be stretched.

I get where you are coming from with your post and all things considered, the best solution is to have a set of these type tires mounted for daily weekend driving -> less grip = more fun.

For the track, simply running a 245 or 255 tire on the OE rims with a set of 7 - 10mm spacers if you have rotated the front struts - this will give you the track width of the new 991 911 - this is what i'm doing - works perfectly.

It also sounds like from your description that your car is pushing - do you run the GT2 rear bar? - if not that is another cheap upgrade that will I think give you more of what you are looking for.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....oModClar=Coupe

Fisher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=HPh90yNX-mY

Moral of this little story......

"Narrow tires = fun, and on the street fun is better than speed."

A bit extreme, but what's it gonna' be, fun or speed?