Street or R-Compound Tires?

[Topless]

Welcome to the slippery slope Thomas. My general recommendation is to run DEs in your car for 1 year on street tires and re-evaluate. You are here... join the party!

Some considerations:

R-comps crave negative camber so you may want to do PSS9s first to get the most performance and life out of them. Otherwise you will shred the outer edges of your new soft compound tires and tire costs will soar (ask me how I know this ). $$$

You may find that you actually need two sets of wheels/tires with R-comps. 1 fresh set for timed runs and one older set for practice runs. $$$

888s are really nice tires for the first 10 HC but fall off fairly steadily after that. They also run best with -3 deg camber which requires lots of suspension $$ to get there. NT-01s have softer sidewalls and are more camber forgiving on our cars. They also seem to be more consistent throughout tire life. If I manage my tires well I can get 50 HC (10 days) on a set of NT-01s.

Lastly, R-comps are marvelous once you have them dialed in and are totally predictable during all day lapping. They have often been compared to crack cocaine in terms of addictive properties except that R-comps are a lot more expensive. $$$

So if none of this frightens you, put $2k in the bank for your 2012 tire budget and start shredding some soft rubber.

If you come out to the PCA Pomona Fairplex TT in Nov, look for me & I'll take you out for a session. My car is a fully developed BSX Boxster on PSS9s, comp sways and NT-01s at min. class weight.

[j.fro]

At our last autocross, the DE/AX chair wanted to show us just what the difference between R-comps and street tires is. He did 3 runs on street tires, then swapped wheels and did 3 on R-comps. The car is a modified 914 with a late 911 SC 3.2. On the street tires he was high 50's...the r-comps consistently dropped 3-4 seconds from his times.

Using R-comps, I can get about 16-18 AX's from the rears (a bit over 1 season), and 25 or so from the fronts (end of the second season is pushing it!) I drive to and from events on these tires, which is 120-150 miles round trip.

Just did the math...looks like I'm paying about $50/event for tires! That's just under $10/run. Nothin cheap about racing Porsches!

[BYprodriver]

Michelin Super Sports