[ausgeflippt951]

Greg -- love the car. And love the rack. Must be so cool for people to see an old, green 911 fly past 'em on Rt. 7 with four track tires on top.

Irfan, I swap tires at the track. Except thanks to the prodigious space afforded to me by my 944, I can fit all four tires inside!

[CanAm]

OK, just got back from VIR with the 997 on R888s, getting in about 6 or 7 hours of track time over 2 days. First day, temps were about 40 and overcast, second day also about 40 but sunny.

I tried to keep the hot pressures around 35 front and rear, since that seems to be about the average of the what I've been hearing, and had to take out air a lot to do that. Those pressures put the edge of wear at about where the little arrows are, so seems about right, and the wear looks pretty even across the width the tires, so no hurry to change the alignment of the car yet. I didn't bother with using the pyrometer for this event.

When the hot pressures were closer to 37 or 38, the tires did seem to get greasy, but colder track could also have been a factor at that time. I didn't notice as much greasiness when the hot pressures stayed closer to 35. Overall, I wasn't impressed with the grip; seemed similar to the summer tires I'm used to (PS2, AD08, and RE11), so I wasn't wowed. But at least the breakaway was nicely progressive.

I did also notice that the tires seemed squirmy under heavy braking, but that could be due to other factors too.

So first impression is that the tires are just OK, but I'll do more days on them and see how it goes.

[BlackTalon]

Congrats -- you seemed to have 'gotten it' -- i.e., drive 'em and see how they work for you, and figure out what pressures give you grip while not resulting in greasyness later in the run session.

I'm not sure about your grip comments though; were you sliding? If you exceeded grip, that tells me you have one (or both) ends of the car breaking free, which does not sound like Irfan-driving. Were you really exceeding the grip, or just feeling the tread blocks and/ or sidewalls deforming? You indicate 'breaking away', so were you going into drifting-style drfits and/ or did you spin? How many track weekends do you have in the car to form the basis for your comparison? (I thought the car was new to you)

One thing I have not heard (or experienced) before was 888s not having good grip on the first few days. Once again I return to "how many track weekends do you have in this car"?

Squirminess under braking can be tread block deformation, soft bushing, etc. Again, how many track weekends in this car on other tires to for the basis for comparison?

[CanAm]

Originally Posted by BlackTalon

Congrats -- you seemed to have 'gotten it' -- i.e., drive 'em and see how they work for you, and figure out what pressures give you grip while not resulting in greasyness later in the run session.

I'm not sure about your grip comments though; were you sliding? If you exceeded grip, that tells me you have one (or both) ends of the car breaking free, which does not sound like Irfan-driving. Were you really exceeding the grip, or just feeling the tread blocks and/ or sidewalls deforming? You indicate 'breaking away', so were you going into drifting-style drfits and/ or did you spin? How many track weekends do you have in the car to form the basis for your comparison? (I thought the car was new to you)

One thing I have not heard (or experienced) before was 888s not having good grip on the first few days. Once again I return to "how many track weekends do you have in this car"?

Squirminess under braking can be tread block deformation, soft bushing, etc. Again, how many track weekends in this car on other tires to for the basis for comparison?

Definitely sliding, drifting, and rotating, pushed it about as hard as I ever pushed the Cayman. Went out with a checkout instructor in a Vette on different R-comps and he was sliding/rotating even more than me - people kept saying 'looks like you're gonna spin' but he never did, fabulous car control.

Maybe I just expected more from these tires. Or maybe high-end summer tires are closer to R-comps than I thought. Or maybe the R888s didn't like the cold temps? But I'll give them more time, and will hopefully have the car at SP this week, the track I'm most familiar with it.

[CanAm]

After 9 days and about 40 heat cycles on the R888s, they're done. Tread is worn and the grip is like a crappy street tire (though progressive and predictable breakaway). I re-read this thread and fall in the camp of the many people who don't like the R888s. The grip was never all that great, and they're very sensitive to pressure. Time to try something else - may need to get 18" wheels to increase the range of options.

[N Fotouhi]

^
I would not complain about getting 40 HC out of any R-compound tires

Tires and brakes are consumable. If I buy Hoosiers for racing in addition to Nittos for DEs, I figure $5-7K/yr in tires and pads. If I (and now my wife) had not gotten into driving on the track, we could have been at least a decade closer to retirement.

[Trak Ratt]

X2, except I'd use ra1 and older hobos for des

[Trak Ratt]

Aren't the intro r tyre the same compound as ra1s?

[CanAm]

Originally Posted by N Fotouhi

^
I would not complain about getting 40 HC out of any R-compound tires

It's debatable whether I really 'got' 40 HCs, since the grip started going downhill well before the end. But I wanted to drive them until the tread was pretty much gone, even if the grip was low, to see how they behaved. As I mentioned, a positive with these tires was that I never experienced abrupt breakaway, from beginning to end (but all days were on dry pavement).

[N Fotouhi]

^

Some of us use the little trick to mark our tires to keep up with HC. I do not bother with Nittos, but I do it with Hoosiers.

It looks like you put these tires in Feb/March and by mid-April, you have 9 days on them. That is a lot of days, especially considering the cold nights. For us with 2 drivers on a >3K lbs car, at 6 runs/day, the tires are not going to be in the best after 9 days.

If I keep the tires on the car for 9 days, I expect 1-2s slower and that is no problem for me.