Carrera GT

The Sport Cup seems to be a compromise of heat management -- clearly their weakness is building up too much heat -- and the more void they introduce, the less contact patch and the less heat.

One trick for those finding the MPSC cycles out too quickly (it does) and gets ridiculously greasy and over-pressure (it double does) is to warm up and especially to cool down. If you can find it in yourself to do a "real" cool down lap (I mean positively off the pace and down to smooth sailing for the last two laps) which requires anticipating the cool down lap by one extra lap (or having a white or "1") then backing off the pace, especially acceleration and braking, the tires reward you with a smooth and uniform heat loss. If you just plain can't bring yourself to do a full cool down, at least move the car repeatedly after getting into the paddock. On hot days, when the asphalt is already at or over 100 deg F, leaving the tire sit on one hot patch makes for huge differentials and I think that contributes to the tire growing weary too quickly. I've taken to parking on wood planks (making it easier to jack up and getting the tires onto ambient air temp surfaces instead of the heat soak of the asphalt (plus the luxury of the whole car under the trailer awning ... that's worth 50 degrees in tire temp compared to direct sunlight.) Sunlight is also your enemy -- if you park the car with one side in the sun and the other in shade, the tires in direct sunlight will be high temps and higher pressures ... this can really mess up your numbers and it shows up in crappy times.

This temperature compensating gauge from Longacre is brilliant. Costs less than one tire, easily gives me an extra cycle or three just by managing the temps and pressures accurately.

http://www.longacreracing.com/catalo...d=1520&catid=8

wanna911

I don't know, Dunlop can make some fast tires. The Dunlop Sport tires for the GT-R look like that too (in terms of grooves) and have been tested back to back with R888 to equal times by pro drivers on multiple occasions. And those are runflats. I would bet this compound has some similarities and the tires are as fast or faster than R888's. If they are significantly cheaper, should be competition for NT-01.

Jamie_GT3

If anyone has contact info for Nitto at a sufficiently high level, I can draft a letter to circulate for Rennlist and 6speed to get them off the fence for the 335 35R 18 and 335 30R19 in NT01

Doc GTO

LOL, the Trofeos walk all over the MPSCs. I've personally ran the MPSCs, Trofeos, and R888s on my 2 911s.

Mvez

Narrow body 997's can't use 335's, so if you want a shot at a tire that they will make in a 35 aspect ratio that ALL 997 cars can use, I'd ask for a 305-35-18 or 315-35-18. This makes the best business sense for them, not a tire that only the RS's can use. But who knows.

Trust me, if Nitto offered a 315-35-18.....every RS running 335 RA1's would switch to these. It's a faster tire.

wanna911

It depends in driver, car, conditions etc. I personally have not driven on any treaded tire faster than non n-spec mpsc. Those things are the truth. NTO1 are 1.5 second slower. Never tracked the Porsche spec ones. There is good reason why they are factory equipped on the fastest production cars. You gotta get the real deal though.

911rox

Definitely intended as a true R comp.... Found info on a number of sites including this from a local motorsport dealership... Will try to visit them today and get some specs...

http://www.stuckey.com.au/news_201202-01.aspx

Agreed, but a broader range of sizes... They don't need to go crazy but it they did the 2 oem sizes for the GT3 and RS, they would be majorly tapping into a market largely under serviced by Michelin and Pirelli where R comp is concerned...

Its a shame that Toyo hasn't catered with the RA1... 19" options for quality track tyres are wayyyyy too limited and with Porsche seemingly building the 991 around 20" the tyre situation is only going to get worse unless paying top $$$ for the oem tyres...

Agreed! And oem sizing too... I'm thinking most companies don't bother because they figure customers will be loyal to the N-spec created by Porsche...

911rox

And there in lays the problem... Michelin have stopped offering the non N-spec MPSC in our sizing.... They certainly sound a far better option so they should have just left them available and allowed owners to choose between the oem and non-oem....

Jamie_GT3

I'm running 305-30 NT01's and 315-35-18 would be ideal.

Is this what we'd like to ask for? 315-35-18?

Jamie

jparker36

There's another thread on here about the NT01 situation - and a nitto rep has confirmed to one of them that they plan on launching the NT01 in a 305 or 315/35/18 for us. Most likely happening at SEMA in a few months. So all these other tires are junk until those get out into the system - NT01 are the only tire we'll ever need in this category.
I also emailed nitto separately and they told me to hold tight and they would have news for us soon - IMO confirming they're going to be launching the tires we've been petitioning them for

Mvez

I've already been told by Nitto that they intend to offer a 35 aspect ratio in either the 305 or 315 size. They won't say when or which size will be offered.

Jamie_GT3

Excellent, hopefully 315, the extra 0.5" would be nice...

DC640

I got a flat spot like that - melted my tires on a 107 ambient air track day on my Corsa... sucks...

markus_t19

Just found a test of sport auto (German car mag) comparing
Pirelli Trofeo (not the Trofeo R), Conti Force Contact, MPSC+, Dunlop Maxx Race and Toyo R888

They tested on a 997 S using 235 front and 305 rear

Results in dry conditions:
lap time [sec] - no idea what kind of track
Trofeo 56.9
Conti 57.2
MPSC 57.3
Maxx 57.0
R888 57.9

weight for all 4 tires [kg]
Trofeo 44.6
Conti 41.8
MPSC 42.0
Maxx 44.2
R888 50.8

precision in turns [max 25 points; judgement of tester]
Trofeo 24
Conti 21
MPSC 25
Maxx 23
R888 18

breaking [in meters form 100 km/h]
Trofeo 34.5
Conti 34.4
MPSC 34.8
Maxx 33.9
R888 32.9

Have tried to format as a table this using spaces for easier reading but all additional blanks are being removed when posting

This confirms my own experience with the Maxx Race. Based on just 2 laps on Ring in a try-out offered by Dunlop in the Scuderia Hanseat sessions) I thought the felt very similar to the MPSC+ . In Germany availibiilty is not good (yet?) compared to MPSCs and they are about 10% MORE expensive

if there is interest i can also post the result in wet conditions.

brad@tirerack.com

Keep in mind that's a European website. They may not be available in the US.

I'll look into!