^The Enkei's would be alot cheaper then the Advans. But both great choices. Send me a PM, I can get them both for you.

 

Hey boosted, just a heads up that 5 seperate instructors of mine on a event a while back talked to me about tires..and all 5 said the same thing. Do NOT get Bridgestone RE11 for our car. GREAT tire, high grip, great tread and all that...problem is is that the sidewall is softer and really isn't as great as it could be for cars that are 2700 lb and higher. Anything under, like a miata, S2000, Civics, etc it works great for. We have a G35 and another car I can't think of a the moment that are heavy cars that run it..it really doesn't look like they're getting the grip they should for the sizes they got and all. So thats why I went with the Dunlop Star Spec Z1. Insane grip, very predictable, very consistent, very friggen cheap, great in wet, and everyone that drives my car loves it, and is being used by tons of other rx8's in various classes by guys that are way up in the ranks.

 

I'm using the RE-11. The on-center feel isn't fantastic (it's not 'snappy' or 'crisp'), but it's still an awesome tire - and understand I've driven a lot of tires over the past several years.

See above for the summary of my season so far. I am certain that I'm not driving these tires as well as I could be yet. I tend to find huge chunks of time on my last run, so I need to adjust my attitude on my earlier runs.

Anyway, the RE-11 works just fine on our car, trust me.

The grip is astonishing.

Now, I'd be very interested to try the XS. It fared just as well in GRM's tire test as the RE-11. It was even slightly better on that day, on that car, on that course, with that driver. And it's much cheaper.

I hear the Star Spec is a great tire. I'm sure it is. I think it got sort of screwed in the GRM test. I'm sure you'd do just fine with it. I just wouldn't outright say 'do NOT get the RE-11 for our car.' That's horse-puckey.

 

Zelse, the RE-11's can work well on heavier cars, they just need higher pressures. Pressures in the low to mid 40's seem to be where most people run the RE-11's. With that said, the Dunlop Star Specs are still a great tire.

 

Gotcha, see. I should've posted here before buying the dunlops...lol. But I mean I'm exceptionally happy with my tires, and a lot of people that drive my car love them, so I can't complain. Thanks for the input there though Pockets and chiket. I didn't expect that. It's too bad you guys don't live closer, so we could swap eachothers cars and compare tire feel. When I did that with BRODA, it was VERY useful. Almost too useful

 

So far I've been using 40psi in the front and 38 in the rear. That seems about right, though I need to test it out more. My temperatures seem even across the tire, so I can't be too far off.

 

Thats interesting to hear. I run 40 both front and rear and it seems to feel perfect. Why lower pressure in the rear Pockets?

 

Hey Nick, did you ever get a chance to check your ride height?


Zelse,

I would be curious to know what your ride height is set to also, if you're willing to share.


If I haven't already posted mine, I'm right around 13 1/4" at all four corners (measured from the center of the hub to the lip of the fender).

 

That's just where I ended up. For one, I like the rear a little softer because it's more predictable. I can be very accurate with the rear of the car because I can feel what it's going to do. Second, that's what seemed to put the center of the tire in the sweet spot, temperature-wise. I'm sure I could go up or down a couple degrees without much change in temperature, but if anything I'd go up.

When I used Azenis, I had a much bigger difference in pressures between the front and the rear. That's not...great. I had to lower the rear pressures to soften the rear of the car up and calm it down some, but it meant I wasn't getting the most out of the rear tires.

 

What kind of surface are you running on? Are your sites mostly concrete? Here we don't have any good concrete venues, all our sites our asphalt. I've actually had better luck running lower tire pressures, but that's just on our local sites. I'm kinda bummed I haven't been able to get to a national event yet this year. Blytheville was the last one within a reasonable distance, but somehow missing my graduation to autocross seemed like a bad idea. (Although I did end up going to a WOR event the day after instead).

 

Good to know Pockets. I find that interesting is all. I tried higher pressures with my tire and it feels like the limit predictablity gets smaller, so that when I'm on the limit, it's harder to control, where as 40 all around just feels very balanced, and high, consistent grip.

As for ride height, I believe I was very close to you BRODA? I honestly don't know, nor how to measure it, so perhaps next time we meet you could measure and let me know :D it's not too aggressive, but def not conservative.

 

Very astute; most of our events are indeed run on concrete. I struggle a little on asphalt. I'm okay with my car being set up that way because the national events I'll do this year are on concrete.

Of course, when I say I struggle, I mean I still win FTDI. I just overdrive the car a little. Softer tire pressures might help that a little, but I'm still going to be ham-fisted about it.

 

Gotcha, well that accounts for the difference in our tire pressure setups. For me the biggest thing this year is going to be focusing on improving as a driver and really learning the car. This is my first year driving the 8 and it is also the first time I've owned a RWD car. I've co-driven other RWD cars in the past but never for long enough to get really comfortable in the platform. Plus the cars I've driven are a far cry from the 8 (co-drove a C4 vette last year at nationals in AS) So really I think my biggest improvements this year will come from seat time and improving mym driver skill.

I must say though, it is really helpful to be able to get on here and have a bunch of experienced guys to ask when I have issues.

 

I drove a C4 'Vette (a '96 Grand Sport) about a month ago. It was...not what I expected. I mean, I'll always take up the offer to drive something I haven't before, but it was a little disappointing.

The power was great, but everything else about the car was frustrating. The owner tells me it had power steering, but I couldn't tell - it required huge effort to steer and I was literally tired after my runs. The brakes were awful. The car didn't communicate at the limit at all.

Again, it was great to try something different, but I was glad to be back in my car afterward.

 

^-- it's funny you say that because there are two REALLY excellent drivers that drive Z06 Corvette's, the last of the year they did the flip up lights, in black, in SS class with R comps..and seeing those things go was really impressive. So funny because you make it sound like it's a wild horse sort of. :D

 

C4 and C5's were different animals. The C5 Corvette was a quantum leap in making the Corvette a world class sports car. The Z06's you see are much better cars than the '96 GS.

 

Oooh gotcha. As you can tell I know nothing about Corvettes...lol. Good to know though.

 

Yeah, I had some of the same issues. In addition I was transitioning from my old car (a Mazdaspeed 3). So I had to go from FWD turbo to RWD V8. Plus I only got two events in the car prior to nationals. So needless to say I wasn't entirely comfortable in the car. Then I ended up selling the speed 3 for the 8. The vette was a fun car, but I was very frustrated with feeling like I had to fight the car, mostly because I hadn't had time to get used to it.

 

Just another data point on the RE-11s vs. Star Specs. I have a set of 265 RE-11s on 18x9s and 255 star specs on 17x8.5s. I ran the star specs at a track day a couple weeks ago, and did notice a bit less grip. (I figured the star specs would tolerate a track day better, and they did great)

RE-11s are working great for me on my 3200lb car, low to mid 40's for pressure.

 

Matt, thanks for the input. Glad to have you participating in the discussion.

 

Well, the KWs arrived very late. Having them installed by the folks at Adrenaline Racing as I type this, & if all goes well I'll be driving up to Packwood tonight. OR region event this weekend, and then a NW Region event next weekend, where I should get to run agains Karl & Ron Bauer, who also will be in Karl's WRX, as I understand it.

This weekend I'll just be looking at tire temps & overall balance, possbly adjusting rake & camber if needed. I'll probably just set the compression damping somewhere below the rebound for now and forget about that particular **** until I get the basics working. The course on Sat looks to have a nice variety of different radius sweepers plus some good slaloms, so it should be a good test & tune course.

 

https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/file...09_fin.htm#STX

 

Setup?

 

Oh, christ...

Well, okay, here's my update. We had another two-day event over the weekend, and I took FTDI by about a second and a half on each day. I still picked up the bulk of my time on my last run on Saturday, but I was much more consistent on Sunday with a spread of about .4sec between my runs. Either I was on it from the first run or just stuck. :P I know I would have had a much faster time on one run had I not made one error that cost me dearly.

I'm getting some odd 'bouncing' in the rear of the car, under throttle around tight corners. It could be the surface we were running on (old concrete with lots of seams), but I think I've seen it on other surfaces. I was going to stiffen the rebound and compression damping, but I talked to a friend of mine first. His recommendation was to look at the swaybar and make sure it isn't binding. If I have the time tonight, I'm going to jack up the rear and try to see that myself. I can just pull the springs off the coilovers and compress one side. It's possible that lowering the car so much is causing the swaybar to bind, as he suggests. It's certainly not being twisted as much as it would be in a stock set-up, but it could be hitting something since the car is lowered.

 

What kind of swaybars and bushings are you running again Pockets? And how long have you had them, as well as how many events have they been through?