^^It certainly sounds like you know what you're doing and it doesn't surprise me that "old(er)" tires felt different than "new(er)" tires. But what is very interesting is that once you got on top of them, you were competitive with cars equipped with Hoosiers. That says a lot and clearly the older PS2's were not giving anything up in the performance category. Well done and nice driving!

I also wonder what effect, if any, doing 75 runs in a short span of time would have? Race slicks and r-comps only have so many heat cycles in them before they start to "go away". I don't know if that holds true for a street tire but might explain some variation in feel.

I switched from PS2's to RE-11's last year and found them to be an improvement on the track but will probably try the new Super Sports when I run through these sometime this summer. Have a good season!

 

i personally hate ps2's. and when they get older (cycles) they get really slippery and crappy.

 

I should also disclose that it was Mark Daddio who was pulling in the guys with hoosiers...not me!
I was a full second off.
The 75 runs brutalized the tires. I am curious of what effect the crazy heat cycling does to the rubber compound. I admit that I eventually had to stop for fear of delaminating the tires and needing a tow to get home. (300 miles)
I was also getting some "curling" of the center tread blocks. The edges of the ribs were chunking off. My impression is that the PS2 is a great tire, but it is not suitable to what I am trying to do. (drive to auto-X, take laps and go home)
I heard the Pilot super sports were great, but I wonder if they will hold up. I know the RE-11s have a good record there.....

 

Yea, mine did too. It's important to keep hot tire pressures below 40 lbs (I prefer 33/37) which means you either have to start cold at ~25/28 or bleed them off after each session or some combination thereof. Once they get hot and greasy it's tough to recover them that day and I suppose it may have longer term repercussions too. It may also have something to do with the absolute number of heat cycles too but I'm just speculating on that. I find that my pressures go up 8-10 lbs from cold to hot at the track and once you start sliding around on a tire with 45+ lbs of pressure, the fun, if you can call it that, is just beginning. Best,

 

I know what you mean re: getting home. I've got a 250 mile jaunt each way to get to the track. At the end of the month I'm going to Road America in Wisconsin, ~1,200 miles, for a 3 day DE. Hopefully, I'll return on the same set of RE-11's that I started with. Scratch one off the bucket list. Best,

PS A second off ain't too shabby neither........

 

it will take some time if you want to keep in the stock class with stock rims and tire width. I found rear traction to get to proper grip level only after i got 12" wide rim in rear with 335 tire on it. will try for fun to run my next event on star specs in 235/275 but do not expect much - I tried them on a road and car 'steps out' rear end in a sweeper on them - 275 tires do not have enough of contact patch to keep heavy rear end stick to the ground. rear tire should be really flat and wide to grip properly and ideal camber would depend of what type of a tire you got and how stiff tire sidewalls are. it will take some time to experiment to get to proper setup. my wide 265/335 setup keeps me up to 1.5G in a flat sweeper what is quite a lot. on a street on a cold 235/275 star specs I think car was loosing rear end at 1.1G. I will get better numbers after this weekend after I play with those tires a bit.

as of pressures - use 30f/32r psi as starting point then adjust up or down depending of what you get. chalk up sidewalls and try to check tire temperature after runs to see where contact patch was - with some practice if you simply put your hands on tires you will feel what section feels hotter.

to run base/'S' car in a stock class is a tough job as stock camber settings are useless for sport. you really need a gt3 car that comes with adjustable LCAs so you could go to -2.5f/-2r degrees of camber right away. with -1/-1.5 camber on a stock car it is very difficult to get good level of grip from any kind tires you get.

 

Steamboat, It would be cool if you could give me some driving impressions on those RE-11s! I am staring at the TireRack pages for the Pilot Supersports and the RE-11s and I am stuck. I can't decide...... I should show you how bad my tires are right now....

 

Hey Utkinpol! I did not see you at devons this year. I was the only P-car there......You should give the Evo Challenge school a try. It is nothing like Phase 1 and 2. You get 35-40 runs and the course is a full length Solo course!

 

It looks like you've pretty well gotten your monies worth out of those tires.......

Not sure what to say about the RE-11's. I've put about 4,000 miles on mine including ~ 700 at the track. They are wearing well although my suspension setup is pretty mellow which helps. They are predictable at the limits and provide plenty of audible feedback. I only have had one "code brown" moment with them but caught a bigass fishtail in time and without too much drama and went merrily on my way. I run in an advanced DE group and at the last event out of 20-something cars there were only a few of us on regular street tires as opposed to r-comps or slicks. Several GT3's and trailered race cars were in the mix too. I am probably 5-8 seconds slower than the fastest guys over our 2.55 mile course but held my own with the majority of the group which isn't too bad. I figure r-comps or slicks, a more aggressive alignment and suspension setup and some professional coaching would each be worth two or three seconds a lap which is why I'm interested in hearing some track reports on the new Super Sports. If they are as good as initial reports from Dubai indicate and are indeed a couple of seconds quicker than the RE-11's, that would eliminate the need to have a set of track wheels and the attendant hassles of transporting them or renting a storage facility near the track.
So far, however, that level of feedback has been lacking. My guess is the RE-11's are probably a couple of seconds a lap faster than the PS2's but I don't have any hard data to support that. I'd also like to see how the SS's compare directly with the r-comp Sport Cups. I'll get after my suspension setup and hiring a coach later this summer and if that plan works out, the Turbo will be about as good as it's going to get - which is plenty good for recreational endeavors! Hope this helps.

PS If you go with the Super Sports now, please post your impressions. Thanks!

 

I haven't posted here for quite some time but this thread is interesting. My 23000 km (what's that - 14-15,000 miles?) old 2009 C2S still has it's original PS2's on it. I've done 4 track days in it and the outside shoulders are worn front and rear.

Last time at the track was a circuit training day where I was instructing so I only got limited time on the track in my own car. It was undrivable. Just no grip, front or rear. Fiddled with the pressures but no change so gave up.

There's still plenty of rubber on them but I guess I've both gone to the hard rubber on the shoulder and run them through to many cycles.

I'm not going to put Super Sports on it because of warranty concerns in Australia so it'll be another set of PS2's for now and N-spec Super Sports when available.

 

Yeah aggie, your experience is exactly what I was feeling. It felt like the rubber went "hard" and did not like transitions. One odd thing is that both my front and rear tires are toast. Both are down to wear bars. I thought the rears would go at 10K miles........
Anyway, I think the super sports may be my next tire. i just emailed damon at tirerack to ask about them......

 

That's exactly it John - turning in or changing direction and it justs slides, both front and rear. Kind of OK in steady cornering but really horrible to drive.

In over 30 years of track driving I have to say I'd never felt anything like it. Old slicks slide around but get better as they warm up and old road tyres are generally better than new ones but it sounds that these ones, at least in both of our experiences, just stop working. Maybe what they need is a couple of quiet laps to warm up first. Doubt I'll get a chance to try now though.