This past Sunday the 10th of february I tried it. Hankook Z214 C51 medium compound DOT race tires mounted on my Forgestars. 245/35/18’s and 275/35/18’s. I purchased and mounted them several weeks ago, talked to my alignment shop about transporting them for me to the track, made a deal (I promised not to be faster than his car ..... I lied) and got to work on preparing the car. Turns out it needed quite a bit. To be honest, I was nervous. I rebuilt my Stoptech calipers, replaced the discs and stepped up to Carbotech XP12 pads. New alignment too. Lots of new untried changes make me uneasy. I arrived early, finished taping up the car, paid to compete, went through inspection, mounted the transponder and went to look for my tires. Got them on just in time for practice. I used practice to bed the brakes and heat cycle the tires. Back in my paddock I pulled the front tires off to check the calipers for leaks, none found, checked the air pressures, let some out (I overfilled them for the break in) and shot the breeze with the Honda gang. (kids mostly) I moved up to group A this year because of the tires .... and headers that are in transit . I was grouped with 2 Ariel Atoms, 2 GTR's, and 2 EVO's. I warmed up my point bye arm just in case. I went out behind a GTR that's well driven and fast. He was going rather slow the first lap and a half warming the tires so I did the same. The tires felt a bit funny at first. As they got hotter they felt better. Then the GTR took off so I did too. First shock was the braking. Holy mother, I thought I could stop before, the grip under braking was mind boggling. I never found the limit, I should have tried harder. The lateral grip felt good so I started pushing harder little by little especially where room existed just in case. The rear stepped out on me twice but it was easy to recover. Great! The car was behaving exactly like on street tires, only the limits were higher. I caught an EVO and passed him. He was faster on the straights but I could out brake him by 50’ from 120 to 20 mph and was quicker in the curves. I came in feeling good. Miguelo (chief steward) came over, chico, el carro esta saliendo duro!! It looks fast! When the times were posted I ran 2.1 seconds faster then my previous best. Unfortunately my day was over. I boiled the water in the heat exchanger and it blew out my reservior. I was 6th fastest of the day behind 2 Atoms, 1 GTR and 2 EVO’s. There’s still a lot of speed left with these tires. The stopping distances were so different that I found myself misscalculating them, as well as turnin points. 39 to 40 psi hot works good just like the RS3’s. -2.5º camber in the front is close to ideal. I’m told Hoosiers like a lot more. -1.5º in the rear is too much. When I get the cooling problems controlled I’m going to have big fun and great videos. Speaking of which, I placed the camera in car and you can’t see anything outside the windshield. Bummer but now I know not to place it there.
Rob has a new Bosch pump on the way. 2nd place trophy is on the shelf and I’m on cloud 9.

Les

 

Love the updates Les. Congrats.

 

What he said.^^^^^^

 

sounds like u had fun,, when things work right is is so much better ,,now go out there and reel them in, great update thanks jim

 

2 questions if you dont mind.
How did you get 2.5 camber up front, most we have is 1.8 and 1.7? Also what kind of toe might you find best, im at 0 toe but since we have a traiker might try and adjust toe on the other srt
How do you like the xp-10 pads on the road or is this just your race car, we co drive and cook the brakes a lot Blacksrt like the porterfield brakes but im hearing good things on the carbotechs if they will stop on a daily driver

 

Thanks for posting up, Les! Congrats on the 2nd place trophy! You're the man, yes you.

 

WTG Les! Thanks for the write up, always fun to hear about your races and your work on the car. Sounds like you're in for a fun season. Hard to believe this car can compete against Atoms!

 

I broke down and bought KMacs for the front. Now I can dial in as much as I need .... unless the suspension gets in the way. If you have room a 5mm spacer that moves the rim outward will increase the negative camber around .4. I've tried 1/8" toe out in the front and it gives you much faster turn in. I liked it for the track but driving on the street was tricky. The car would dart from side to side on uneven pavement. I currently have 0 toe but am thinking of going back to toe out with these tires. The XP10's stop great on the street but they squeal and dust a lot. The Porterfield's aren't in the same league as Carbotech's. The XP's have instant bite, are easy to modulate and can take the heat. The Porterfield's melt if they get too hot. Ask me how I know. Any complaints you may have about using the XP10 on the street will be gone after you track your car with them, I promise.

Les

 

The Atoms are in Unlimited and I can't compete with them. They grouped the A, AA and U together for this event. Only a few showed up for U and AA. But, they didn't catch up to me.

Les

 

The R-Compound tires compound the dive and roll too. I need to stiffen up the car some more but hate to think how uncomfortable it would be on the street. The K&W's are a max street setup and not a hard core race setup. I'm holding off on getting stiffer springs for now but that may change.

Les

 

I ran the Hankook C71 compound in 2011 for autocross. They were grippy from the start, and didn't fade until corded late in the season. I went back to Hoosier's in 2012 because Hankook doesn't make a 19" option. Good Luck.

 

What size Hoosier's and how do they fit? I hear the Hoosiers run wide, as in a 245 Hoosier is like a 275 in a street tire. That's one reason I didn't go Hoosier. The other reasons are, Hoosier recommends at least -3º camber on the front and with that much I wasn't sure the tire would clear the inside suspension componets, oh, and they cost a lot more.

Les

 

Thanks for the info. I know a 245 35 18 and 295 30 19 hoosier a6 run great on the crossfire, but for you the r6 might be what you want. BUT its weird a 285 30 18 r6 was wider then the 295 30 19 a6.

 

I ran 245 35 18 A6's up front. I remember you ran the AD08's, so I've attached some pics comparing the 245 A6 to the 225 AD08. Converting to mm's (inch * ~25.4), both tires are very close to their advertised width.

Early in 2012, I did get a deal on 235 35 19 A6s, and when I mounted them in the back, they were actually just as wide as the 255 tires. As you know, the rim width will pull in wider tires, but they also gave back a little on the narrower tires.

I'm running a 1/4" spacer up front, and have the camber bolts, and I'm running around -1.8 +/- .1. I have worn the outside corner first on all sets of tires, but the treadlife I'm getting -- about 100 runs of 50 second Autocross-- is about typical. I'm not sure you would more than 10 - 20 more runs with additional camber. And I can't complain about the grip performance.

When the Z214's, first came out, about 4 of us all tried them at the same time. Main reason -- price. No complaints about the grip, but all of us noticed some cupping on at least one of the tires per car on the outside. Not sure if it was a production defect, or what. None of us noticed either a performance reduction, or faster treadwear, but it was a little distracting to see the unusual wear.

I would be happy if either the Z214s came out with a 19" tire, or if I got some 18" wheels, wider than the stock XF front rims.

All of that added up to a first place finish this past season in "D" in our local NASA club. The NA is an "E" car, but with SRT brakes, shocks & springs, Needswings CAI and Eurocharged tune I had to move up a class, but it wasn't a problem. I also beat a lot of C, B and even some A cars. Good Luck, and keep us info'd. We are all living vicariously through you.
Mike

 

On the camber issue, I found -2.3º to be perfect with the RS3's but they wore on the inside and outside. The stock lower control arm bushings give that much. I'm on my 4th set of lower control arm bushings the current ones being Kmac's. I've only run one event with the Kmac's at -2.5º but so far the wear pattern looks good and the tire temperatures were close.

Les

 

As always, enjoy your posts. Glad to see you move up to the next level. 2 second drop is serious! Will be interested to see how much further you can push it on the new rubber.

Concerning the camera depending on what the issue was you may still be able to go inside. I mounted my drift pro inside for a test and was able to get it working. The biggest issue is the auto focus when your inside, it wants to focus inside the car instead of out. If you can set the focus manually that can take care of the issue easy. If not playing with the view angle can help. With mine I had to tighten the angle up a bit to cut out some of the interior and the auto focus worked a lot better.

Again, respect for getting out there and showing people what's up with the Xfire, hope to see some vids of you chasing down those AWD beasts soon.

 

Also was just thinking. Have you ever considered a custom coil over setup? I know a lot of the JDM tuners and racers go that route. There are plenty of shock dyno numbers out there to look through to help get the right stuff for the application you are going for. Looking at the costs it doesn't seem like its to extravagant if your willing to do the building. Just thinking out loud

 

I have the K&W's right now. The spring rates on the car are (If I remember correctly) 640 front and 450 rear. Not so sure about the rear and quite sure on the front. I'm able to get just about any spring rate from K&W but going any stiffer would ruin the ride on the street. However, I am considering going stiffer. My biggest priority is to lower my IAT's and ECT's. I've made progress on the ECT's but the IAT's have gotten worse.
A few statistics from the race:
Faster than every Honda
Faster than every Subaru
Faster than every VW
Faster than every BMW
Faster than every Porsche
Faster than every Ford
Faster than every Chevrolet
Faster than ..... other stuff that showed up.
Modified well driven GTR's aren't sweating.
Atoms aren't sweating
EVO's are sweating
The rest are chanting "were not worthy" or wait till next time!

My GoPro took a wonderful video of my driving technique but you can't see anything outside the windshield. So, it's going back to where I know works. And I'm going to work on what the video showed that I was doing ..... incorrectly.

Les

 

You da man, Les! Proud of you brother!

 

LOL. Got to love it. Excitement in your posts. Kicking butt one model at a time.