Sebring is an awsome track. You all should try to run that track someday. Make it a Florida vacation!
We will be at Sebring with the Steeda SVTOA on-track, Memorial Day Weekend May 23-25th.
There are guys coming from all over the country for this one.

 

Ended up going with 40 front, 32 rear, was very effective on Firebird's East course yesterday. Car had crisp turn-in, and felt more communicative than previous track days w/ lower pressures. Was able to push the car a little harder and still maintain the same wear pattern (according to the wear-triangles). Going to continue to use this in the future...

Bonus pics:

 

how about+1?

I am looking at those wheels and Hoosiers 275/40-18.

 

40f, 32r Hot or cold?
I think Hoosier only makes 275/35/18's.

 

IMO, starting out at 40 cold is too high. On a hot day, and running your car really hard, the tires will come up to 45+ pounds. That is probably higher than the maximum recommended pressure of the tires. I don't know about your driving style but I would never try that. I would skate right off the road. You need to have some lateral give for the tires to work properly. Plus an 8 pound difference is really pushing it.
Did you check your pressure right when you came off the track?

 

Negative, I only checked it cold before each session.

edit: For reference, the manufacturer's max pressures for the 255/45/18s are 50psi (fronts), and 44psi for the 285/40/18s (rears).
Again, this is on NT555 street rubber, not R-comps. Visual wear showed to be dead-on the triangles in the front. (No pyrometer for in-depth data gathering )

 

Next time out, have someone take the pressures for you as soon as you come off and
see where your at. They probably won't get as high if they were R compounds.
I haven't run on street tires for a while so I guess I'm not too familiar with them.

Great shots by the way!

 

I'll grab the pressures AFTER the hot-laps as well for comparison. Next HPDE is about a month away.

I'll be looking for some R-Comp advice later this year

The shots are a little washed out because my buddy had to shoot through a chain-link fence...not many places for photog. at FIR East. At any rate, better than NO photos!

 

The important is not the cold pressure but the hot pressure. Toyo RA1 like to be run around 38 psi hot. I usually aim for 38 psi Front & 34 psi Rear hot. This means it can be below 30 cold; sometimes they were even around 26 cold ! They were 275/40R17 in size BTW.

 

Well I think my "Street tires" question just became irrelevant, I stumbled into a set of un-used/un-mounted Hoosier RS305s in 255/45/17 for a STEAL of a price...picking em up tomorrow!

I wanted to get 275/40s all around but at the price I'm getting for this set, the 255/45s were too good to pass up!

 

Nice find! They will probably have more stick than a streetable tire in 275.

 

I picked up a "set" of 3 of them, unused, unmounted, w/ the stickers still on for $200. I was expecting to get 4 for $250, but the 4th tire was a 275/35/18 (wtf).

So I bought the 3 255/45/17 R3S05s and currently have an email out to the Hoosier distributors in North America looking for a 4th, lol.

Worst case, I'll buy an R6 from Tire rack for the 4th tire.

Currently I'm trying to figure out the best way to do the heat cycling on these...I've read Tire Rack's article, and I'm thinking run the first 20-min session of my next track day w/ the slicks, w/ progressive increase in speed during the session.
Then take them off and put my street wheels/tires back on and run the rest of the day w/ the street setup...don't get to use the slicks again until the next track day after that...

Thoughts?

 

I think a lot of people just go for a 20-30 minute drive, then remove the wheels for a day or so (or put it up on jackstands). It also helps scrub off some of the mold release compound, so you will be ready to run as soon as you hit the track.

 

Once you run the track tires you'll hate going back to street tires. I'd take Slaya's advice and run them a little hard on the street for a bit on on a nice warm day, then let them sit. Then just run them at the track. It may not be optimal, but for open track days it'll be fine.

I'd also see if you can find the manufacturers recommendation for proper tire temperature. Depending on how hot the ambient temp is, start with maybe 37 lbs cold all around (maybe less in the rear if your car tends to understeer) and then try and check both temps and pressures as soon as you get off the track. Adjust from there.

Most track tires require at least -2.5 degrees camber to really work well. They're soft and you'll chew up the outside edge fast (usually the left front) without enough camber. You may have to run higher pressures in the front to try and avoid that.

I had a set of track wheels/tires (Toyo RA-1s) for my SHO and even with -2.5 degrees camber front/-2 rear I would end up rotating my rims/tires left/right, front/rear, and even eventually swap the tires on the rim to get the most life out of them.

Dave Kegel

 

Yeah right now I'm running the FRPP kit which has about -1.5 camber in the front. I need to get a set of camber plates to adjust it any further...not sure when I'll order those right now, however.

I might try to get away w/ running the slightly higher pressure, then swapping sides and mounting on opposite sides of the wheels to switch the wear off the shoulders. Still open for options at this point.

How do these things handle on the street if I'm just doing the first heat cycle? I don't want to be driving sideways for the break-in, if they're too slippery cold

 

Thanks for the tips on tire pressures, everyone. I'm very happy with how the RII's performed. Plenty of audible warning at their limit and nice overall feel for a streetable track tire.

I started out at cold psi's of 35F/33R. This was a little too much, as I was coming up to 44 psi hot on my front left, 42 psi on the front left, and 40 psi in the rears.

I bled down to 40 psi hot on both fronts and 38 psi hot for the rears and that seemed to work pretty well. I may try 1-2 psi hot lower next time. Something tells me a pyrometer is going on my "to get" list...

 

Word. Lots of good info in this thread.