macr88

I read the same thing about ATE so I used it and had issues with it boiling at the track, no issues with Endless RF-600
I might go with SRF next if I can't easily source 600 for a decent price.
T-Hill is a grippy track and you might be surprised how much braking you can do on street tires.
BTW it looks like the box has two pads so two boxes equals a front set? If so what are you doing with the rears?

andrewhake

There are four pads in the box. Front set in one rear set in the other. So HC+800 all around.

macr88

Coolio

andrewhake

20121026 driving impressions:



Tonight was the night everything just clicked. Make no mistake, I was having an absolute blast driving the car from the moment I got it to today, but tonight it came alive. When I picked up the car the tire pressures were likely set to the standard 32psi all around with a bit of margin of error by whoever checked it. Some probably higher/lower than others. I of course checked the pressure not many days after owning the car and all seemed normal, but I am guessing what was going on is I was running just a little less pressure in the fronts and more pressure in the rears. After very carefully adjusting them for tonight to 32psi rear (cold) and just a hair higher in the fronts, right around 32.5-33psi, the way the car behaved tonight made it feel quite numb back in it's earlier state by comparison. What a difference! It would never do anything crazy that wasn't predictable, but I just couldn't feel what the tires were doing the way I can now. Driving before I felt I was balancing more on the rear tire grip, now I feel all four tires are doing the work the way they should be, and response from the front of the car is increased. Although I am describing these as massive changes in the cars behavior, I think most people would barely notice them and would feel the car drives the same, but it is an absolute night and day difference for me. Everything about the car seems better, even the engine is saying "nice you finally got the tire pressure right idiot, let's do this." The change in tire wear also makes this difference pretty clear, the front tire wear has balanced out with the rear.

This is why I spend so much time driving in whatever setting available. As much as I can't wait to go to the track, dialing the car in on the street is far more rewarding, as there are many other variables to consider when setting up the car and it isn't just about outright speed. To put it simply there are way more things on the street that are trying to slow you down, so the car must be setup in a way that the driver is comfortable with so those things can be overcome. The only way to really learn is by putting yourself at a disadvantage and finding ways to change your own approach to overcome them. The great part about learning a new car is when you think you have reached it's limit and get in a bit of a slump, you re-evaluate and try something different and realize there is still a lot to learn. A week ago I was starting to get pretty disappointed in my tires, but now I realize that the S2000's limits are still incredibly high, even when it is lacking tire grip, and you don't have to rely just on the tires to go quickly and have fun. I still have a lot to learn, and I couldn't be happier about that.

I think the 1 psi higher in the front balance is great on the 2006 AP2 suspension, but I am going to try to increase by 1-2 psi all around keeping the same balance, test the car, and keep increasing until I find the sweet spot.

andrewhake

These tires are BS..



..Potenza RE-11 in 225/45/17 front and 255/40/17 rear. These will be mounted on the stock AP2v2 wheels, and by all accounts they should be glorious! I really wanted to stick to 215/245 OEM sizes even after plenty of people recommended the 10mm + size option, but the deal was too good to pass up. Thanks again Andrie for the great price! I was planning on buying some star specs but there was more of a wait than I wanted to deal with. I managed to get my S-04 left rear tire in a state where it doesn't hold air well anymore. There is a bit of chunking going on so it could be that it lost structure in a specific area or possible something made a slight puncture. All the other tires are perfectly fine, the right rear shows no signs of chunking or anything else. The rear tires were probably at less than 25% when I got the car so no big worry. Can't wait to get these fresh Bridgestones on tomorrow morning!

andrewhake

If you tell me my car or my wheels are dirty I will be offended.

New tires! Unfortunately I got a puncture in my left rear tire and it was no longer holding air very well, the tire would lose almost all pressure after about 12 hours, and I believe the front may have had a small puncture or developed a slight leak as one of the tires was losing pressure a bit more than normal. I was planning on getting new tires before the upcoming track day in November but this forced me to get a set a bit earlier. I was planning on getting Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Specs in oem 215/245 sizes but shipping times were a bit longer than I wanted to wait as they weren't in stock in the nearby Nevada warehouse. Luckily Andrie saved the day after posting up some 225/45/17 and 255/40/17 Bridgestone Potenza RE-11s for an amazing price, I bought them right after he posted them up and had them fitted yesterday morning. I was really set on keeping the 215/245 OEM tire size with whatever tires I purchased, but this deal was just too good to pass up. When getting the tires installed I also had a fresh OEM alignment done as it was on my list of basic maintenance and I wanted to make sure it was to spec before going to the track and to make sure I was going to use the tires efficiently. Caster before was at 4.9 F and now at the standard 6.1 F. Camber was at -0.3 FL and -0.1 FR and now at -0.5 F. There was a very slight Toe on the front which is now at 0. Camber in the rear was at -1.3 and is now at -1.5. And toe in the rear was already correct at 0.15(degrees) or .30(degrees) total toe. The alignment was done at Tech 3 in San Jose along with the tire mount and they did an excellent job. No complaints what so ever and everyone at the shop was great. A very nice FR-S was there ahead of me getting an alignment done to match a new wheel/tire/coilover setup, and all the mechanics were very familiar with the S2000. Thanks to Edwin for the recommendation.













Here is my review of the tires:

20121031 driving impressions (225/255 Bridgestone Potenza RE-11, fresh OEM alignment):
Bridgestone Potenza S-04 215 F, 245 R (280 UTQG) -> Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 225 F, 255 R (180 UTQG)

I will give my impressions of the tires in an order that matches my experience with them so far. Just initially driving the car it was pretty easy to feel a difference in the basic compliance of the car going over rough sections or bumps in the road. I suppose this could be a slight placebo effect after installing the tires but the car actually feels stiffer in the places it should and more compliant over the rough bits. Coming from a mid range tire like the S-04, which most likely has a softer sidewall than the RE-11, I wasn't expecting this, but maybe a stiffer sidewall is letting the dampers do the work they should be doing, and getting rid of a bit of extra slop? I suppose the slightly meatier tire may contribute to this as well but the car absolutely feels for stable during city/freeway driving. Also quieter! This was never a problem with the S-04s but the brand new RE-11s are definitely a tiny bit quieter under normal driving conditions

I of course had to give them a proper shake down so I made a visit to my favorite closed course test road and proceeded to give them the business. Basically my impressions are this: O_O but I will try to provide a bit more information than that. A more descriptive summary is that this is the best street tire I have ever driven on in my life.

Grip: Since I was coming from Bridgestones I think the UTQG ratings are pretty accurate, what a massive improvement in grip. I was testing on a road I know individual cornering speeds quite well and know where I would normally be shifting up. I am able to carry so much more speed through every corner, just an exponential increase in overall grip across the board. It doesn't matter if it is in a solid state corner like a long hairpin, I tight hairpin where the car can be tossed a bit harder, or long high speed corners where you need confidence in the tires to maintain momentum. Not only can I carry much more speed through corners, the car is much more stable on corner exit through tight low speed corners as well because of the basic grip improvement of the rear tires, and the stopping distance and braking stability is greatly improved when braking at the limit. The tires are a MUCH better match for the car than the 280 tread wear S-04s. It feels like a proper Go-kart now. While some of this can definitely be attributed to the slight upsizing of tires it is very easy to feel the difference in compound. I can't see myself ever wanting more grip than this on the street, any more and the fun factor starts to drop I think.

Balance: This is more a review of the tire size differences and slight alignment changes than the tire itself. I feel like the balance of the car hasn't changed due to the size up all around, and maybe has more to due with the slight changed in alignment. With the S-04s and the older alignment, I always felt like I was relying on the rear tire grip more than I should, a basic tire pressure adjustment definitely improved it as I mentioned on earlier posts, but wow this is so nicely balanced now. I am running 35 psi F, 34 psi rear in the RE-11s and am extremely happy. Although the balance feels the same at the limit, that limit is just so much higher now and maintains so much more momentum, which perfectly suits the engine.

Drivability: One of my favorite things about the RE-11 so far is that it makes the perfect amount of noise at the limit through a corner, it isn't wailing like some tires do and it wasn't near silent until it's over the limit like the S-04s were. I tend to not really rely on noise to determine grip obviously but when it is nicely matched to the tire grip it is never a bad thing. The RE-11s are so easy to predict, the amount of grip feels perfectly linear all the way up the limit and once past the limit the amount of grip decreases in a linear way. Never any wild snapping around and you really have to toss the car purposefully and shift weight rather than relying on the lack of tire grip to get the car sliding. I don't feel that the 225 tires upfront cause any significant problems, I would guess that there is a slight increase in the weight of the steering, but not enough to cause alarm, I don't feel like the front is any less responsive but it would be interesting to compare with 215 RE-11s or Star Specs at the front. I have SO much confidence on corner entry compared to the S-04s. All the tires are working together nicely. It only took a couple of corners for me to start using higher and higher entry speed into corners I know very well because they were so consistent corner to corner. I was actually joyously yelling mid-corner on some of the longer continuous corners because the corner speed was so much higher.

I will keep updating as I use the tires more and more, but wow, it will be hard to go to another tire after this I think, which brings me to the only bad part about the RE-11s, the price. Really if other tires were similarly priced to the RE-11 (more expensive than they are now) and always were that price I doubt anyone would complain, but with other tires like the Star Spec and RS3s available at that lower price point i definitely understand how the RE-11 is difficult to justify. Does anybody know how I can get Bridgestone to sponsor my touge driving? If I had some extra cash laying around I would buy another set right now.

macr88

Maybe caster is playing a roll in steering feel?

Stock sizes are more like 195-205f and 255 rear. A regular 215 is wider than the original 215 and a regular 245 is narrower than the original 245.

What made you go with .5 degrees camber in front and 1.5 in the rear? Is that just factory spec?

andrewhake

Yeah bringing the caster back to factory spec may be responsible for that. I think it may be helping to stabilize the car as well. Especially those moments of upshifting or downshifting mid corner where a hand comes off the wheel.

That's interesting about the OEM tire sizes. So the RE050 in 215 is narrower and in 245 it is a bit wider? I had the S-04s as my first tire on this car so I am guessing they were pretty similar to the RE050 sizes but much less grip obviously, and maybe closer to 245 rear as the rear definitely seemed to lack grip at times.

And yeah the camber is the factory 2006 spec. As much as I would like to go more I wanted a proper baseline before I go changing the alignment. It may actually be .3 and 1.3 as the baseline but with the listed margin of error of course. So I may have gotten away with a little extra negative camber all around but still within the factory tolerances and balanced the same front to rear.

macr88

More caster will want to straighten the wheel with more force so whatever equals stability in your hands I guess.

The factory tires are interesting, my thought was that they wanted people to get used to the car then when they go with regular tire sizes the car becomes a little less pushy. Just a thought

andrewhake

Yeah so more caster means the car will try to straighten the wheel with more force by itself naturally right, making the steering feel slightly heavier through corners at speed? Would have been interesting to see the effect the caster change had on the car with the same tires, but good to know!

Now off to Joey's to get my car some new fluids and brake pads.