I've been running in our BMWCCA's autocrosses for a year now on my ES100's, and finally got tired of chewing up my street tires... After plenty of experimentation, the chalking, and probing, I found 37/32 (front/rear) to work best with the ES100's to get the rear-end to rotate as I wished and keep the fronts from rolling over...

Now, I've got a new set of 205/50R15 Azenis mounted on some new. lightweight track wheels... and, I'm not sure where to start. I've searched through all the forums and found LOTS of differing opinions on tire pressures...

The car is setup for STS. H&R springs, 19mm H&R rear swaybar, -2.0 camber up front and -1.0 in the rear.

I'm in Texas, so it's pretty hot right now (temp for Saturday's auto-x will be around 90). It would appear that everyone seems to favor running more pressure in the Azenis when it's hot out to help combat heat soak - I was going to start out at 38 psi front and rear and adjust from there...

 

Try posting in STX. If I recall the Azeni are not very fickle with pressures, jsut about any work.

Chris

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Yeah, I read through all those posts and lots of others... I think I'll still stick to my plan, 38 up front and 36 out back for the morning sessions and then check them... Our courses tend to have quite a bit of loose gravel until the line is swept clean, and the asphalt is pretty forgiving. Just want to make sure I've got the max contact patch down...

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Simple, they heat up VERY quickly. If you want them to (ie: cold day), run in the low 30's. If you DON'T want them to (ie: hot day, which is BAD for Azenis), run in the high 30's/low 40's. It's simply friction with this tire.
Anymore than 40 and you start loosing significant contact patch, which is what you may want in the rear for rotation.

Brian

 

Thanks Brian!

 

Forgot to post this, but:

I ended up running 38 up front and 36 in the rear... ended up feeling really great, and the tires never went away even though the temps rose to 91 for the afternoon runs... In fact, my fastest runs came in the heat of the afternoon, the 2nd and 3rd runs of a 4 run heat when the tires had plenty of heat in them (our format for our BMWCCA chapter is 4 morning runs, 4 afternoon runs, 100-120 seconds per run (more like a road course), pretty much back-to-back for each heat).

As people have said, the Azenis stiff sidewall is up to the task of running at nearly any pressure in the 30's. I think the high 30's in the front kept the front in line, keeping the tires from getting too greasy.

As we get into some cooler temps later this fall (in Dallas, maybe the November event!), I think I'll start with less pressure in the front and rear, say maybe 34 up front and 32 in the rear.

All I can say is WOW, what a difference from the ES100's I was running before...

 

What other mods have you put on your MINI????? What put u in STS???

 

I've got:

H&R springs (40mm drop all around)
19mm H&R rear swaybar
BMP/Promini Intake
Borla cat-back
MTH software
15" Flik Blast-C wheels with 205/50R15 Falken Azenis

Camber ended up at -2 up front and -1 in the rear... awesome!

The car is very quick and competitive in the few STS events I have entered, but I mostly run in our local BMWCCA autocrosses because they're waaaaay more fun and you get a BUNCH more seat time...

 

30 rear and 34-35 front psi hot worked perfect for me on track. I'm really liking the new Azenis tires. They do heat up quickly so watch your pressure between sessions. Good luck!