John McM

The danger, as exemplified by Macca, is that I fill in my time away from the garage by ordering things. An expensive pastime. I even considered buying and breaking the Red C4 Cab on Trademe, when the reality is I have no more car space.

My assumption is that I will be drifting all over the place on my Indonesian tyres, but the reality may be that my driving prowess is not going to put them under pressure. Roll on 29 March to see the reality.

I'm back in town on Friday, so my first stop will be looking at what I've actually got on this car.

kiwi 911

New tyres, slight lowering, dial up as much neg camber as possible and corner balance is a must, the difference between doing 1.30's coz your tyres go off after 4-5 laps and doing 1.23-1.25.

If nothing else, corner balance, lower and neg the cambers - $500 for 2-3 seconds.............its a no brainer. Use the tyre guy out the back of Conti's or give your car to Steve R to do a basic track set up.

Steve can probably help with some weight savings too (i.e. unneeded sound pads and other invisibles),

Toyo 888's are probably the cheapest and best all rounder as they are good (err....safe) in the wet unlike the others.

The best track tyre IMHO are RE55's - I am 2 sec quicker on these than Toyo 888's. But RE55's are very hard to get hold of as Bridgestone no longer importing.

peterC2S

Paul - any idea on the Hankooks and who is retailing them - they seem to be pretty niche so I'm guessing not a lot of stock carried.

Where do you get your 888s?

John McM

Thanks Paul. It appears I need better tyres first to give a good base. Landed costs in the sizes Peter mentioned would be:

GT Radial [my current tyres] $1,115
Michelin PS2 $1,575
Toyo 888 $1,845

With that price difference I shouldn't expect much from my current tyres, so no point setting it up with those still on it.

kiwi 911

Hyper where the cheapest for the 888's.

I am just doing some research on the Hankooks. I will come back with some findings shortly...............

kiwi 911

The difference is a sh*t load:

DE with racing Ray will find you 2-3 seconds.

Your tires are probably old rubber, fresh track rubber will find you 2 seconds, and track tires don't go off after 3-4 laps, which is what I found when I started on road tires even though they were new. Coming off the track the tread was pealed over (Toyo TR1's)

The biggest bang for buck for me was suspension rebuild (replacing 37yr old rubbers throughout), lowering 20mm, and corner balancing. I was surprised at how much of a difference this made - was a totally different car and much safer at the limit. Suspension is the best performance upgrade you can do (from my experience to date)

Macca

The 17" Sport Classics are much lighter than 12Kg (table below). That was their shipping weight with packaging. I also suspect the 260 GBP quoted on the type911 site may refer to the front wheels only but cant confirm as I did not inquire.

I know a crowd whom Im sure can get those wheels sorted for you for less than $600+GST. Contis use them (I've forgotten the name but can find out if anyone is interested). They quoted $500+GST for all 4 on the M5 last year.

Contrary to the belief I just buy stuff for my car and nothing else (I understand it was in jest) Id like in my defense to point out Ill have completed almost 10,000 km in the 993 over 26 months come the afternoon of our 29th Playday including (one hopes) two track sessions and a Targa. During the project of modifying the vehicle I spent 3000 development km trying out various modifications and fine tuning others on a variety of quiet back-roads and drivers around NI. Not so bad given the 60 odd days I was in NZ over that time....LOL!

I use RE11 street tyres. I have Bridgestone iport them for me and they are very reasonably priced (1800 nzd landed with staff discount). Have no idea how they compare on the track really as they are all I have used of recent. They are an aggressive road tyre and rate well on tirerack.com. If I was spending more time on the track I would use the RE555s same as Sean. For fast road, touring and Targa Id like to give the Michelin Super Sports a go (the carcass on the japanese tyres is heavier than the European tyres). For Targa and fast road I believe you need a tyre that at least has some wet weather capability. With long road stages the tyre is not as critical as on the track where you can measure the difference. For a Tarmac rally style event your driving and suspension is far more critical (at this level anyway). Here a picture from the first half of the first Targa day and you'll see why. The shot of the Monit reading was taken a few minutes afterwards down a long straight in 6th with the wipers barely keeping up with the rain. It was sobering looking at the speed achieved in the conditions and I confess to backing off a bit in the wet after those first few stages!

Having said all that Im only going for the Michelin SS if I can load them in the container coming from the USA (hopefully) in August/Sept. I believe they shouldn't cost more than 2.2k nzd landed this way....

Ive attached an interesting article by Adrian Streather on the 964 wheel options for you 964 lads.

John. My advice (for what its worth) is if that if you are keeping the 17" wheel size in the future planned wheel upgrade then consider getting some decent rubber before 29th and having the balance and alignment sorted out by Peter Alder (+64272505552). Depending on how old your existing rubber is or how "out" your alignment settings are, as Paul suggests this could for the money be the biggest difference between fighting the car or having a bit more predictable fun on the day. As a point of reference I had Peter set my car up with a full alignment and wheel balance last week including dialing in some additional negative camber for playday and adjusting my RS sway bars for 315 NZD including GST.

Macca

By the way. I concur 100% with Paul on suspension and corner balancing. I find it hard to believe there are so many 20+ year old 911's running around on their factory Monroes (or similar). Most performance cars will need some shock work after 10 years and 100k+ km, why is the 911 any different? The rear weight boas of these cars means its sometimes difficult to know when your shocks are shot. Furthermore shock technology unlike other areas has come a long way in 20 years. Over the years the "offs" Ive witnessed during PCNZ DE days and bent sprints have 50% been attributable to cars with improper alignment running original factory OEM struts. Especially with cars that make big horsepower (turbos etc) the geometry and integrity of the suspension can make the difference between "oops" and "off", particularly how the rear handles under load and transition (squat etc).

That said there's absolutely no point spending money on corner balance until you have sorted out bushes and struts. Road & Race did my last corner balance for $150 + GST. Make sure you provide them an accurate driver weight and leave what you would typically have in the car (spare, toolkit etc) when giving it to them....

John McM

Glad you took the comment in the way intended. I can't believe I repatriated and am still working offshore. They've put me down for Melbourne, Suva and Rarotonga, and that's just until September. The only saving grace is that it pays for this 911 affliction.

The current tyres were made in August 2011. Depending on the weight of the current rims, I may just keep the current tyre/rim combo as a backup and buy a complete second set of wheels and tyres for the track. Or I can just fit new tyres to the existing rims. An out of the box track day machine is not what I've bought.

As for Peter, he aligned the 996TT after fitting new tyres. Very happy to see him again. Champing at the bit to get back to Auckland and play with my new toys.

964X33

Anyone have any interest in the HDs twilight on the 6th April or playday on the 13th? I'm getting trackday withdrawal.

John McM

What does Twilight involve?

Macca

Here is the track version of the tyre Im running (top picture is RE11 street and bottom is track/dot). I had thought that Bridgestone made this the control tyre for the Porsche series but Im not up to play if thats the case or if they are even the sponsor any longer...

It may be worth looking into the RE11S to see how it rates against other options already explored. I believe they were quite "cheap" for a set.

John. It sounds like your tyres are fairly new. Peter can check you alignment easily enough. Hes very good with these cars setting up alot of the 964 race cars over the years. Maybe once that's done run the existing wheels & tyres on the 29th then buy a spare set for track use.

Im not feeling so alone now I know yourself and Sean are fighting a loosing battle with repatriation LOL! Its good to have an income however. Getting the C4 to the specification you desire will not be cheap!

Macca

From what Ive been reading just now the RE-11s is a step along from the RE55s....looks like 1450 usd a set of 17-225/255...

kiwi 911

2.5hrs of track time in the evening - 4.30-7.00pm.

Usually 3 groups of cars (fast/slow/prestige) and you get about 3-4 runs.

Not as intense as an all day Play-Day, I quite like them.

peterC2S

Yep - quite a different crowd usually for twilight. Mostly people who own their own businesses and can afford to bunk off for the afternoon

Last one had 2 Prestige groups and one normal group. And I think they run for 3 full hours - last one was at least 7:30 so definitely 4 runs.