S4 sees track time! Road course mini review

=.= At a track with lots of straights for cool downs like Mosport… Stock brakes were more than sufficient as long as you do fluids and lines. The main reason I went for BBK was cause New Rotors and Pads are half the price of a BBK already, and I wanted more reliability and heat dissipation at smaller tracks. However, even with a BBK at a small track I managed to over heat my brakes. I think the biggest issue is the lack of brake ducts on our cars.

Why not run 275 35 18? A friend with a B8 is literally slammed and he tracks, and he runs 18x9.5 et 45 with that size. I would love to get 18s that size and run the race car look

1/ I don’t think T2 at Laguna is a trail braking turn (it’s basically a slow U-Turn after a downhill braking zone). T5, T8, T9 maybe. T11 to greasy at the end.

2/ I think an S4 owner would find the e46 M3 to be a bit slow, particularly an intermediate driver who couldn’t carry crazy enough speed to keep that sewing machine motor over 5000 RPM at all times. A base 981/987 Boxster/Cayman is about that slow, and is a much more modern interpretation of what a light, stiff, high revving NA sports car should be.

3/ I’ve been running that aggressive alignment with -2.6 camber for a little over 2 years. Will likely dial in the same when I get the JRZ setup installed. I had more aggressive toe out, but the toe seems to naturally step out further as the alignment goes out of spec. So I started with less toe because

4/ I started running Pilot Sport Cup 2 and it’s an expensive tire ($450 on tire rack), it wears twice as fast as a Pilot Super Sport, and it’s shaved to 7/32". Haven’t had enough track experience on the new setup to say how much better it is than PSS; I think it’s just more consistent without overheating late in the session (25 minutes).

What type of camber is he running? I bet all that camber from being slammed helps fit the wide tires.

I got word that none of the 18" enkei’s will clear my brakes w/o running a spacer. So I think I’m gonna go with TSW nurburgrings 18x9.5 et 40 with some 265/35R18 ADVAN A048 tires. I’ll probably run a front camber near 2.4 deg and rear 2 deg, which should hopefully help with rubbing.

And btw west - that achievement unlocked alignment thread you made on AZ is one of the most useful things I’ve seen on that site.

Drob, hes running less than 2 degrees each corner with no fender gap.

I still see no reason to go wider than 255 on the S4 with a street tire. With a sticky tire under 200 treadwear or a race tire with barely any tread, you get loads more traction than stock (even going down to 245). Unlike a high horsepower RWD drive car, the S4 doesn’t break traction necessitating wider rears. I think it does better in accelerating and braking performance with a narrower, lighter setup.

This is my Pilot Sport Cup 2 in 235/35ZR19 on a 19x8.5 BBS flow formed wheel:

http://i61.tinypic.com/2ludv0w.jpg

Wow.

I still see no reasoning with your logic.

It’s the simplest thing that works.

235 or 255?

Is that because it’s cool to make fun of/disagree with West?

I can see his logic. If he has tested his theory, why not respect it?

The problem with west’s analysis is it’s all assumptions. I for one respect that west does things and makes informative posts, but the minute he becomes Carroll Smith the f1 tuner all cred goes down the drain. I’m fine with him saying “a 235 r-comp works great for me and it would be hard to imagine having a wider contact patch” and I’d take that as a data point. But saying “anything wider than 255 is wasteful” is just assumptions. I’m not saying he’s wrong. …but he never provides a compelling argument, or any argument for that matter. Hence westlogic.

I like to provide a counterpoint to forum monoculture. Conventional logic says you always go wider (heavier) with wheel/tire combos. I’m saying I run narrower and my car doesn’t break traction.

It’s probably a complex question without a simple answer. How much power are you losing due to the weight of 20mm wider tires. Wider wheels? Might matter for 1/4 mile, but probably insignificant on the track.

You can safely run a lower pressure and get a more favorable contact patch with a wider tire. The thin tires are not going to meet load ratings also, which is something I wouldn’t mess with. It will take longer to heat up the wide tires. It will be harder to roll on the sidewall with wide tires.

Here is a link to a post that has discussion on the impact of contact patch and tire size…

http://audirevolution.net/forum/index.php?topic=1849.msg48201#msg48201

Nice link and some good discussion there. Most looks to be about how different rolling radius will affect acceleration. It’s pretty clear that the lightest setup will benefit straightline acceleration, but it’s unclear to me at high speed while trying to stay near the edge of the realistic friction circle. Will also depend on your alignment and suspension geometry. But west will need to run higher pressure since his tire load rating is below factory spec.

Thanks for sharing this.

You get to run an 8.5" instead of a 9.5" width wheel with a 235-255 tire. If you’re loading the car up to 5000 pounds of people and gear you should run 43 PSI instead of 41 PSI.

The difference in load rating comes more from the smaller tire diameter, not from how wide the tire is. This PSC2 is about 25.5" instead of about 26.0" like OEM. Of course, I enjoy this from a performance perspective because I’ve changed my effective gearing. I’ve also lowered the car by 0.25".

I guess I should return my 18x12 BBS e88’s for something smaller

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/10/06/eduby3an.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/10/06/ugajagam.jpg

Heh. I put a 20x10 on the rear of the Boxster and I thought that was absurd. The 265 tire has a little bit of a stretch (not much curbing protection). Porsche runs 27.0" diameters on these cars stock.

http://i57.tinypic.com/jg5u0n.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/292nxn5.jpg

Holy matchy match batman!

@Primetime - Drob is right on. And Just seeing his previous posts he’s lost all credibility in my books.

@Drob I don’t want to run anything more aggressive than PSS or AD08R because I daily drive my car and I don’t like taking another set of wheels with me to swap, and I prefer to run street tires. I personally like street tires more because I feel like I can learn and feel the car better rather than just relying on tires. I think it’s much more impressive being faster on a street tire than an R tire or slicks. I am thinking of going 9.5 and adding wider tires to add more grip. Plus, the track I go to frequently, mosport, is mostly high speed corners, hence I was thinking adding wider tires will help make my car more stable in my high speed corners.