Racing tires vs street
 

Sorry at the start. If I could get the search feature to work for me, I would not be asking this question. How much better are racing tires vs street. If I put racing tires on my 370, approximately how much better would a lap time be.

Example: At Laguna Seca Randy Pobst can manage a 1:46 while I can only do a 1:56.

Thank you.

Whats up,

I have some experience at the track ive been going for about 3 years. Alot depends on knowing the track/driver/car. I managed to drop from 1:42 to 1:38 with the same tires from the first time to just a couple of track days. Then got better tires and went down to 1:36.
With time got some Re'11s and got some tips from advanced drivers and went down to 1:34... Finally with time I went down to 1:32.

So tires have alot to do but More important is the driver in conjunction with the car and know ing the track.

Someone from Forged performance posted that he was about 1.5 seconds behind the Toyo R888 with the RE11s. The Re11 is very agressive but is still a full time street tire.

I see you have the Michelins, from reviews and what some people have told me the Pilot Super Sports arent too far behind the RE11s at the track.

Hope this helps

When you still have that much gap of a time difference, I strongly suggest getting more seat time and if you really want to get faster you will need some instruction or a friend to show you "faster" lines or where you are not on full throttle. For example at big willowsprings I was running 1:38-1:37 with stock setup, with rs3 and suspension upgrade I automatically dropped to 1:35 on the first lap. To be honest I wasn't going to upgrade anything until I ran 2 second faster but I got a great price on oil cooler, camber kit, used rs3 etc.....


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.157855,-118.465439

in autox, difference between a6 and rs3 is about .98 to .985.

I had a bad set of r888, they were 2 sec faster than same car on star spec at vir

I was turning 1:43s on A6s in my 2010 Nismo on Laguna Seca. On Laguna Seca an a6 or r6 will get you about 2 seconds over the fastest street tire. I can't wait to get out there with new Supercharger! I suspect my car is easily sub 1:40 on Laguna now. I want to go GT3 hunting!

You'll gain way more time putting time into driving. Get a good instructor and spend lots of time out there!

The time differential depends on how much time you spend on the track grip limited. It can be anywhere from 2 to 5 seconds depending on the track and tires. I would suggest an intermediate race tire as the next step, you'll pick up a little time and get a feel for more grip that comes with less feedback. Look at Nitto NT-01's and Toyo R888's. After you feel you've mastered those you'll be ready to try out the full DOT slicks.

This months issue Car and Driver rated Michelin Pilot Super Sport #1 in comparision to 10 performance tires. It was a good read- unfortunately I don't have a link.
I've done 8 track days on PSS and very happy with performance, feel etc- in the wet too worked very well

The Super Sport is a very good tire, it is not a race tires and most importantly, IT IS NOT FAST compare to many options on the market.

Lay off the marshmellow man.

At the limit, on most tracks, and r-spec tyre will generally give you around 2 seconds. Someone in this thread has already made he comment about time in the lap spent grip-limited and that is where you gain time.

When I say "r-spec" I refer to a competition tyre that is DOT approved. R888, NT01R, DZ03G, RE055S, A050 etc. These are all treaded, race construction with race compounds. Most carry DoT approval and "can" be used on the road (but why would you - they are usually so soft that they would wear out in 500kms).

There is an addiitonal full-race slick which is purpose designed for racing and which are not DoT approved for road use and can only be purchased thru specialty suppliers.

The gap, same car, same driver, same circuit, same day, same conditions is usually ~ 2 seconds from premium road tyre to R-spec and 2-3 seconds for full race slick.

Personal experience on my race car (not the Z34) betweeen Dunlop Motorsport slick (290/625R16) and DZ03G or Kumho V70A (265/45R16) is 1.8 secs/lap at Sandown International Raceway but Sandown is point and squirt - Philip Island has 4 very high-speed corners (entry well above 200kph and mid-corner 200+) and the gap is more like 2.5 to 2.6 seconds.

Check out KF365 in the Aussie ZClub forum for difference between OEM to DZ03G at various circuits and you wil get the idea.