cgomez

From prior posts it seems that the PSCs don't work well on lightweight cars....?

I'm considering these tires not for my P-Car but for the Lotus Elise (1950lbs). Is it really an issue or does it just require more warm up laps than usual, but it is possible to get them to heat and stick if you drive hard enough?

Thanks for any feedback

911S3.6

Hi there,
Yes, the talk is true, the MPSCs are hard to warm up on lighter vehicles. I believe they were initially developed for Porsche Cup cars which were more in the 2500 - 2800 range of weight. My car weighs 2200 lbs and I do not run the Michelins in weather below 60-65 degrees or in the pouring rain. Also, tire pressure is key. Use a pyrometer to find the car's (tires) sweet spot and record those figures. When you go out on the track cold, you really need to be easy for the first few laps as the tires a greasy cold. Then come in and adjust them to your spec. Once mine are dialed in, they stick great and are consistent and predictable. When the tires, car and driver are really synched, I can tell if the pressure changes even one pound! One good thing, their life is long with a lightweight rear or midengine car- drove mine to track events (5000 + miles >over inflate tires for longevity>) and 20+ track days and they lasted the entire season...still had tread but they were done cycling wise.
Hope this helps,
Nick

mooty

cgomez, i am "polar" on e talk.
though i never tried mpsc on my ex-elise, i think you will have a heck of time to heat up those cup tires. on my 3000 lbs p car i need at least 1.5 laps to get them to heat up.

i suppose if you drove it really really hard, slide it around a lot for 5 laps or so, they may warm up, but usually a 30 min session only gets you 10 laps or so and one cool down lap. so you wont really get to have much fun.

i would really suggest that you give toyo RA1 a try, shave them to 5/32 or 3/32, they are a lot better than yoko's on the sport pck. btw, enigma on e talk is pretty fast and he knows what he's talking about. he and i both love RA1's. and they are cheap.

mooty

nick, wow you get 5k miles on you mpsc!
i get 800 track miles and about 1000 miles on the street. after that, the grip falls dramatically.

cgomez

Thanks Nick and Mooty. Though I can (over) drive in a a way to generate enough heat, I indeed I'm very tempted to run RA1s and wear those only on track days. Will also downsize to 15"F and 16"R.

The fact is that I only get 2-3 track days with really good grip from the Yokos (Having to be very close to being fresh) since the car is now run as a timeshare where the co-owner autoxses the car frequently (with Yokos or Hoosiers if with co-driver to transport tires) and the car gets now used every single week logging in plenty of street miles.

Now for the Carrera S I might go with MPSC but the Pirelli Corsa seemed to have a better "rain" tread and they sure seem to stick very well on my friend's 2950lbs MCoupe.
Is the MPSC a better (more grip) tire than the Corsa once hot?

mooty

if you like, RA1 can be driven on street. they dont die from heat cycle they are good all the way to the cord. i use them on street as well. you can also flip them on the rim to even out wear if you have lot of camber, but judging from wt of elise, i doubt you need to do that.

mpsc is much grippier than corsa on my GT3, provided ambient temp is hot and tire is warm AND tire pressure is right on (very sensitive to tire temp). corsa is better when temp is cold. my corsa and my friends' all blister when ambient temp is 90+. corsa is also better in the wet. since you are in nyc and i assume you drive to track, then i would use corsa.

NJ-GT

Living in the NE means 2 summer months, and 10 cold months. I ran the MPSC for three years as street/track tires. They get shot with street miles , scary on cold weather track days, super scary on rainy track days. Tested in the Boxster and the GT3.

The only way I would run them again is by mounting, drive to the track, back home, dismounting, but not as daily driver anymore.

The RA1 is just the best all-around track tire available. It's the spec tire in the Speed World Challenge, and you can check the lap times from those heavy Vipers abusing them. I ran 275/35R18 and 335/30R18, because that was the closest to stock 996 diameters, unfortunately I didn't have wider wheels then. Funny thing is that I ran my fastest lap at Pocono North with the RA1 (59.6) under light rain, so they're that good.

I took my car out on RA1 with confidence regardless of frozen weather, rain, hot summer days, etc. They just work anywhere. I got 8,000 miles out of them last year, including 5 track days, several autocrosses and street miles. I tested them back to back against old A3S04, fresh A3S05, fresh V710. They were faster than the A3S04, .3 secs slower than A3S05 and .8 secs slower than V710. Still, quite a few FTD last year on RA1.

My advice, get a set of 996TT Hollow spokes wheels (extremely cheap these days, I've a set if you want them), 8" ET52 and 11" ET45, put the 245/40R18 and 305/35R18 RA1. The 305/35R18 is as tall as the stock 997 rear tire, same thing goes to the 245 front tire. The stiffer RA1 on 18" will give you better feedback than the softer MPS2 on 19".

Dan in Florida

Yes.

10 GT3

There are 2 thing I have learned about the MPSC's: they take about 2 laps to warm up and they need a lot of camber to work well. With only .8 degrees negative per side in front, I am not even using half the tire. They need at least 1.5 degrees negative camber per side and work best close to 3 degrees.

cgomez

These tires will not be daily drivers I'm getting another set of rims for the Elise to drive only on track days (including mileage to the track).
Seems that the RA-1s are a safe bet for that car. I just need to find a set of 15"/16" track wheels.

For the 997S I'm very inclined towards trying the Pirelli Corsas. AC's car (2950lbs) seems to work very well with those, and the tread pattern is better for rain days. 18" wheels is the way to go. 19" is a waste of $. For this car, those wheels and tires will not be daily drivers either (nothing beats PS2 as daily drivers!).

Kumhos and hoosiers are out of the question as I dont trailer the car, and running such grippy things on a OEM car and suspension is looking for trouble in the long run....