I've seen a lot of individual posts on tire wear, and I know, its very hard to give advice on it because its hard to know how hard one drives their car on the track.

I have PS2's and am contemplating buying a second set of wheels and putting SCups on them.

One of my thoughts was to just drive the PS2's 6 months of the year for street and probably 6 DE days (if I put 10K miles on them in a season, I'd be very impressed). Then probably buy a new set each year?

Other thought was to get wheels/track tires and then I thought I could buy PS2's every other year, and track tires every other year, would have better dedicated tires for both street and track. I thought I would just be "out" the money for the extra wheels.

So, I guess the question is this: with what I've explained, are my wear assumptions reasonable (again, I know its hard to quantify)?

Will SCups wear less than PS2's on the track?

Other thoughts?

Thanks-

John

no, unless its hot and/or you push really hard. ps2 (closer to full tread you are the worse this will be) will chunk, did it myself after back to back auto-x runs. seriously consider the cups or RA1 (cheaper), or if you want a street tire get neovas. the ps2 are kinda lame at the track.

And now I'm hearing that I can't get 265/40 18's for the rear anyway.

Nittos NT-01 are mfgd. by Toyo, have the same composition as the RA1, are cheaper by about $200 for four, don't have to be shaved due to the tread design AND are available in optimal sizes 245/40 & 275/35/18! Check out Nitto's site for specs and Discount Tire for best price.

nd, as you may have already seen on some of my other posts, I got the extra set of wheels and the Cups for track and autocross. The OE tires have little wear, and not too many miles for that matter. The Cups have done 10-11 track days and about the same number of autocrosses plus all to and from events. I switch sides with the Cups to equalize wear, have a performance alignment with max negative camber and try to avoid over driving the car/tires yet with decent lap times. The front Cups have only a few more event days left and the rears may(?) last most of this season. Thus I think the extra set of wheels and two sets of tires is the way to go. At least I am happy with my choice to do it that way.

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Formerly 914Geezer

I recommend buying used tires for the track. Just about anywhere there's a track, someone sells used track tires. I buy RA1s for about $70/tire, or $80/tire with shipping. They last a while if you're just an occasional track day driver (maybe a full season for you) and so a much better value than buying tires new.

@objectuser, can you pm me where you get those used RA1? Cheapest I can find is $160 + shipping.

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drive it like you stole it

I haven't tried the Nittos yet, but have been very happy with my Sport Cups on the track. I've got 285/30-18 rears, but pushing Dunlap 225/40-18 on the front (I got 'em for free, so I may as well chew them up). The Dunlaps make about 5-6 track days, while the Cup rears holding up very well (almost NO visable wear), MUCH better that my PS2's which chunked, as did Pirelli Assymetrico Rossos.

I keep my 19" PS2's for street use, currently have 17k miles with probably 2-3k miles left, with 18" wheels for track (since I can get used track tires cheap in 18" but not 19")

Greg

My PS2s also started chunking on a cold day. I don't think I even pushed the car hard as it was my first track event.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'll start looking into all of that. This is going to sound like a dumb question, but where do I find the criteria for when a tire is wearing out. I'm coming from an SUV background, so my tread depth gauge is my best friend. Just run them down to the wear indicator?

For the first time in my life I'm going to have to become a lot more knowledgeable on diagnosing wear.

Objectuser

Let us know where you can get Toyo RA-1s in 18" sizes at those prices!

275/35, 285/35 x18's or even 295/30 or 35's should work fine. With 295's however you may want to run at least 10" wide wheels. I'm certain that list opinions on this will vary substantially. As re fronts, 245/40's x 18 are also a viable option.

Just google it. I found this one pretty quickly.

I highly recommend just using your PS2's for street, and getting track tyres for the track. The PS2's are good tyres with good grip don't get me wrong, but the track tyres will work better hot, can be used with much lower pressure, and will last much better in a track environment. If you get your performance driving out of your system on the track and trundle around on PS2's they will last a long long time. If you drive hard and do 1 track even a month (say Porsche club sprints) and only use your track tyres at the track you will probably get 12 months out of them. They are cheaper than PS2s.

If dry weather lap times are your priority and cost is no issue get sport cups. Otherwise get cheaper track tyres as they will last longer, and work better in the wet anyway. If you really want to save money get track tyres than can be rotated and flipped as the tyres will wear unevenly on the track, especially if you much around with camber etc. to maximise contact patch in corners.

Don't trash your PS2s. They are expensive, and designed to work in a broad range of conditions for street driving. Your wasting money to use them on the track, unless you only do one or two events per year in which case you probably can't justify track tyres at all.

Totally agree with DT. In addition (as I think I said in another thread), start tracking with cheap street tires until you move up a couple of run groups. Then move to a cheap R-compound tire. I recommend getting all your track tires used and replacing them when you start to see cords.