Track Tire Performance

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Old 08-31-2011 | 08:14 AM
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Track Tire Performance

Looking for some help regarding the very rapid deterioration of track tires on my C63. This set of Hankook Z214's lasted only 5 sessions over 2 days at Roebling Road. The track conditions were very hot (Flatout Motorsports event 2 weeks ago) and the tires gave great lap times(1:22) when they were fresh. My friend with a similarly setup C63 on R6's had the same problem. My tires were heat cycled by Tire Rack and I remounted the fronts between days to switch sides but still this is what happened. I will admit that I could feel the fronts go away and tried to run some cool down laps but it didn't help. I am also surprised at the tread distortion that occured on the rear tires. The car has a Quafe LSD so I should not be having open diff issues although the car breaks traction exiting corners routinely. The car is about 3800 pounds, has ~470whp and has aftermarket springs lowering the car about an inch and giving about 1.5 degrees of negative camber. These tires are 245/35 and 275/35 Hankooks, I can fit up to 255/35 and 295/30 R6's on these wheels.

Any advice regarding tire/size selection, driving techniques, suspension modifications etc would be greatly appreciated.

 
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Old 09-04-2011 | 01:16 PM
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Hi HHughes... I remember you from mbworld.org when I had my C63 I sold mine and I've been modding and tracking my A4, but I still miss my AMG. I know you track your C63 often, and your car has several more mods then mine had so I don't know if I'll be able to help but I'll give it a shot. I never used slicks, just a set of Nito 555's and then a set of Sumitomo HTZ's, both were on the stock wheels, both sets were 265 on the rear and 235 on the front, basically the stock sizes. When track temps got hot, I was always playing with my PSI. I made sure I was running 35 all the way around. Just a slight increase and I would really feel it start to get sloppy, especially in the front. By the look of the tires it looks like your camber is really effecting the wear. Has anyone made a camber correction kit for the C63 yet? Usually wear on the outside of the tires is due to under inflation, but it sounds like you were keeping up with adjusting your PSI and usually the wear will be on the outside of the tire. Maybe invest in a tire temp gauge? I remember when I had mine there weren't any on the market and just daily driving would destroy tires. My first couple track days ripped through my Nitto's fairly quick. I changed my driving style and really made sure I had all my braking done in a straight line and was able to find that balance of exiting the turn and throttle application. In stock form the car is prone to understeer initially, then oversteer due to all the HP (probably x10 in your case as your car has probably has close to 100hp more going to the rear wheels). It might sound obvious, but is your car aligned? The amount of wear on the inside front looks really bad. Anyway, hope that helps.
 
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Old 09-04-2011 | 02:59 PM
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I don't think your wear is that unheard of in a car that weighs 3800lbs. It probably is a combination of alignment settings and over-driving the fronts a bit too much. I'm guessing that the car car understeers at corner entry and you're accelerating through that, making the car understeer more until you get to the apex, when the car starts to oversteer.

One thing you can see if it works is to trail brake into the turn to keep the weight over the front and get the back to turn at corner entry. That should help rotate the car better and make your front tires last longer.

But either way, the realities of running a heavy car on the track is pretty aggressive tire wear, especially if you're going as fast as you are.
 
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