This being the only forum i subcribe to aside from my own forum, i thought id ask my question here...
We have a 1987 Porsche 911 Turbo Look, and ive been doing a good amount of Porsche Club Drivers Ed events. The tires are wearing down and im lookin at getting some nice tires for it. i dont want an all out slick becuase we do drive the car on the road occasionally. Anyone had any experience with the new Hankook race tire? or Kumho or Yok or whatever you might recomend, post it up and why you like it...

Sizes:

Front -225/50/16
Rear -245/45/16

...I know its not a Honda, but i thought you guys could give me some insight as to what is trusted, tried and true. Thanks in advance...

-Brian W.

 

Toyo RA-1 if they make the size you need. Fast, forgiving, and long lasting.

I've tried the Kumho Ecsta, didn't like 'em. I vastly prefer Hoosiers, but IMO that's a bit much on a car that's doing DEs. A DE car doesn't need those extra few tenths over a Toyo.

 

I would strongly recommend looking at the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup...

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/...t+Cup

Though very expensive, they are a wonderful track tire with extremely good wear characteristics. Run at full tread depth they are more than adequate for the street and are decent under light rain conditions with much better water evacuation characteristics than most other R-rated tires.

Since these were the spec tire for some PCA race classes, I suspect you may get some other impressions by talking to your DE buddies.

Once Michelin started selling sizes other than for Boxsters in the US, I picked up a set for my S2000. I didn't have them shaved, ran them on the street a bit and got about 20 heat cycles out of them before I had the most unfortunate of accidents. Tires still had a ton of tread depth to them and were mighty grippy.

My only complaint about them out on the track is that they do take three or four laps to get up to temp--much longer than Hoosiers, Kumho's or Toyo's. For this reason alone I don't know if they'd be too hot for Auto-X'ing.

BTW--BMW sells the new Europe-only M3 CSL w/ these tires.

 

thanks for the info fellas... anyone else have any insight?

-Brian W.

 

I do open track events on my 89 CRX Si running Advan 32r's in the hard compound. Good tire wear as I drove on them everyday when I first got them. Once they wore to about 3/32 of an inch a little hairy in the rain.

Track driving was excellent, very good grip once hot and did not need much negative camber. They are NOISY though. I plan on getting another set once I flare my car to fit 225/50/15's pricewise I think they are in the middle range of all the dot tires available.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Balled S2K &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">BTW--BMW sells the new Europe-only M3 CSL w/ these tires.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Wasnt there a rash of accidents because of it too?

Seems like it'd make a shitty street tire if it takes 3-4 laps on track to heat up.

 

yea, 3-4 laps?!?!?!?!?! damn, well it looks like im either gettin the AO32R or the Victoracer. But ow we are contemplating picking up a set of Fikse for it so these sizes will most likely be changing to accomodate a 10in. wide wheel ... hopefully

Keep the comments and suggestions flowing...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krshultz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Toyo RA-1 if they make the size you need. Fast, forgiving, and long lasting.

I've tried the Kumho Ecsta, didn't like 'em. I vastly prefer Hoosiers, but IMO that's a bit much on a car that's doing DEs. A DE car doesn't need those extra few tenths over a Toyo.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hey shultz, how about a link to a site with decent prices on these Toyo's? I even searched the Toyo official site one day but, didn't get many online sites with competitive pricing/shipping info for these, and many people suggest these tires for exactly the purpose I intend to use them.

Thnx

Anton

 

http://www.aimtire.com
http://www.1010tires.com/

I prefer aim because they are in my neck of the woods at Sears Point Infineon, and they have the best prices for the shaved toyos I have found.

 

http://www.racetire.com

 

I have been running the Sport Cups all year, and they are generally great. But not always.

I just ran an event with my ITR at Mosport in the cold and damp (7 degrees C) this weekend, and I promptly spun on the second lap of the event due to no grip. I am used to the car's grip in the warm and I was caught by surprise by the low level of grip in the un-familiar cold/damp conditions. I use a data logger, and when I checked the subsequent laps, the maximum I was getting was 0.8 lateral g's. In the same car, same tires at the Glen, I was getting 1.2-1.3 g's, and at Mont Tremblant I got slightly less at 1.1-1.2 g's due to the extra banking at the Glen. I just could not warm up the tires, due to lack of power I suspect. A guy running on the same tires in a new Porsche Turbo had no trouble getting them warmed up, but one of the event organizers went off in turn 5 in a Porsche on Sport Cups on the first lap of a run due to no braking while going up-hill on a damp track! Cold and wet are bad for this tire.

On the plus side, I have used this tire for my whole season and they are hardly worn. When the weather was warm, the car felt incredibly hooked up at the Glen on these tires (1.3 g's feelsa good). My buddies on RA-1 did not seem as challenged in the cold and wet, but their tires are wearing much faster (they see a lot of cords in my experience) than mine, and they were certainly not getting any better grip than me in the warm. Just don't do like me and expect a lot of grip until you are sure they are warmed up.