Speaking of Christmas-

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL.

For me, near term ski plans are in the works with thoughts of nifty car mods hanging in the backdrop

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

May the mods be granted and many track days next year.

Have a great time on slopes. Hope to catch up some time.

 

Same to you and yours!

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.

 

Hey all, who's looking forward to the upcoming track season and getting back out there?

I see that SCDA has come out with a flex plan to buy a group of event at a discount. The nifty thing is that you can then use them for any of the available able events.

Well, for as warm as it is in the NE here, I think the snow tires are coming off. The first step to heading out to the track.

 

Don't do it! That's the surest way to ensure a snowy rest-of-the-winter!

I am TOTALLY thinking about next season already, although I'm still going to mostly going to stick with my PMSP Club track days (schedule not announced yet - although I see an SCDA event scheduled there for April 10). Once I get the latest round of Mini mods sorted, I may come out to play with SCDA. I have some fixes and shot-parts replacements getting done in a couple of weeks, plus the M7 front suspension under-bracing kit.

 

Nah, not to worry. My all season tires are probably better than the snows at this point with all of the wear they have had this year.

Not sure if I will make it to anything in April but do have my eye on a mid-May date at WGI.

Let us know what you think of the bracing kit once you get it on.

 

R.S4 comes in 225/45/15 I'm thinking about these this season, anyone else?

 

I ran 225/45-17 R888s and they never felt good. My feeling was that the 7" wide wheels were pinching the tires and I didn't have enough camber for as sticky a tire I had. A slightly less sticky tire may do just fine. I know it isn't quite apples to apples, but thought I would put it out there

Right now I am running 205/50-15 RE71Rs and really liking them

 

I'm running 15x8" wheels, I have 205/50/15's on them now and they stretch to fit. They feel fine but I need more tire so I dont have to buy an LSD.

I have a set of r-s3's in 225/45/15 that are takeoffs and they seem to grip pretty good but I've not had them on the track yet

 

I would think 8" wide rim would be ideal for those tires. If you have them, try them would be my thought. Just watch for a bit of tire rub both on the front shocks and on the inside of the rear wheel well arch.

I'm sure you must have said before, but how much camber do you have?

 

-2.5 in front, wish I could get more on it. Not sure what rear is, but it's as much as I could get out of the stock adjustments it does look like it's stanced a bit in the back, but I still get a little drifty on the track if I am slow getting on the throttle in sweepers.

I run swift 9kg/mm front and 8kg/mm rear, no rub yet these springs keep the car pretty flat

 

Remember, these tires are street tires and it is possible to have too much camber. I am running -1.5 in the front with the RE71Rs and I am just getting into the markers for the edge of the tread. You should be better than that. I would think you will be just fine.

Depending on what you have for a rear sway bar, that could be part of the driftyness in corners if you are slow to the throttle. The stock suspension should give you -2 deg in the rear. I like to have a little more in the rear than the front, but, again, you don't want too much as the tires won't be working right/enough and you can loose grip.

It sounds like you are in the ball park for what you need to run those tires. Of course take it slow at first and work your way up to their limits. And let us know what you think of them.

 

i use a tire probe at the track and it shows I need more camber, the outside is hotter and i'm destroying the outer edge of the front tires. Increasing the front spring rate helped a ton

The re71 get real greasy when they get hot, when we have 20min sessions the last 5 min are slower

 

Is that with the 205s on the 8" wheels that you are seeing the high temps on the tire edge? Stretching the tire will put more load on the outside edge of the tire, too. Maybe that is some of the cause of the temps you are seeing?

The 225s will be a better fit on those wheels and maybe that will help some.

I find that my tires get greasy when their hot pressure gets too high. With the RE71Rs that happens at about 39 psi; I run them at 37 to 38 in the front. I have also seen this with the R888, ZIIs and ZIs I have used. At the lower pressure I can generally do a 30 min session.

 

I have a set of 16x7 and 15x8 the outside edge gets hot and wears out fast on both. I found grip drops off fast over 36psi when I autocross

 

Hmmmmm....
I think I need to think if I'm pushing my car hard enough when I am out on the track.

As for camber, a while back I came across a test of a race MINI where they looked for the ideal front camber. They came up with -3 deg. More than that there was problems with braking. I think it was a Grassroots article. It wasn't ideal tire temp wise, but it was for fastest time around the track they were on.

At any rate, I think you will do well with the 225s on the 8" wheels. I'm interested in hear how you make out.

 

well crap, 225 r-s3 exceeded my front pads, ebc yellows. I was standing on that pedal to get the abs to kick and I ruined the pads this weekend.

There any other pads that are long life aka harder on rotors? I'm running R56 S pads on my r53 aka r53 jcw calipers

 

Those pads are not really designed for anything but light track use. You are over heating them and melting them. None of the so-called "street/track" brake pads are good on the track. It is like running all season tires on your car - not really good for any conditions and you don't want to push them.

You have basically a race tire on the car. You have a car that is pretty much race prepared and you are running on a race track at race speeds. You really need to put in a real set of race brake pads. There is no way around it. I know people who like the Hawk DTC60s. Others really like the Carbotech XP-10s or 12s. Personally, I found the XP10s worked really well on the MINI.

Now this just means that you will be generating more heat that will need to be dissipated. You may need to look at adding brake ducts. At the very least, you will be looking at melting the rubber boot on the brake piston.

 

Disclaimer, these pads were great on re71r with 205 width, no issues hitting ABS whenever I wanted and no fade. I'm no where near the max temp on yellows, the most I've seen is 500 on the pad after a cooldown, rotor was 650 these pads are rated to 1500F and they showed no signs of overheating, pad face has no pitting. I got 9 20min sessions at NCCAR, 1 autocross, and 12 20min sessions at CMP with them. I just measured pads and they are at 5mm now, with 1/2mm of front to back taper, they started with 12mm

that said, I could not abs with the 225 r-s3 unless I damn near stood on that pedal, not enough pad torque. The tires are not as sticky but make up for that in width
I would not recommend yellows for slicks or 225 tires, but up to that they worked well and I would run them again on 205's, 90 $ for that many trackdays is reasonable and they hit abs so I could not really ask for more.


I run ducting I ordered a set of DTC-60 to try out, that bumps the pad torque from 50 mu to 70 mu, that's a pretty big jump these things should have plenty for the 225s

 

I ran the Yellow Stuff and Carbotech XP10s back to back, the same day. No comparison. I gave the Yellow Stuff away for free and kept the XP10s...

Let us know how you make out with the DTC-60s

 

Say, what are you running on the rears for brake pads?

 

yellows now, I can't get the rears over 250 degrees, I have some hawk HP+ I might try back there.

I ordered some centric sport pads as emergency spares, I might try a session with them

 

with what tire? I hit abs easy with the 205 re71r's plenty of pad for my car and those tires

 

I ran a set of Hawk Blues in the rear my last time out. That was a nice step up from the Carbotech XP8s I had been using and a better match to the Wilwood Poly H pads I am using up front. Don't know what temp they were at, but I burned the paint off them.

It wasn't an issue of hitting the abs. It was control, bite and linearity. The XP10s were much more linear and had better bite. They were consistent braking zone to braking zone. With the Yellow Stuff I was constantly having to modulate the brakes to get the braking right every time I used them.

 

[QUOTE=Eddie07S;4279976]
You have basically a race tire on the car. You have a car that is pretty much race prepared and you are running on a race track at race speeds. You really need to put in a real set of race brake pads. There is no way around it.


+1 on that! I was down at NJMSP years ago with a set of "combo" pads that were designed to be midway between street and race. Ended up with a brake fire that led to my infamous Cajun Caliper. See attached pic. An hour earlier the caliper was bright orange, the same color as the carrier. Lesson learned. Race pads ever since.