This weekend the Tour is at Texas A&M's Riverside Campus which is a great tire-eating concrete surface. If the rain holds out we might be able to get some more good dry data points.

 

Hey I'm racing my first event in STU (fifth event overall) on may 3rd at Daytona International Speedway. I have some questions for the more experienced racers. I have a IX GSR, stock suspension, running BFGoodrich G-Force Sport Comp 2's 245/45/17 on the stock Enkei's. Needless to say I messed up with the tire size. Looking for suggestions on tire psi. Ive been running 34 in the front and 32 in the rear but my sidewalls are melting. I tried 36-38 in my previous event and grip was minimal. So what do y'all think would be a decent pressure i should run? I know ima need to get better tires soon but wont be able to for a few months and also what alignment would you recommend?

 

What sort of alignment settings are you on right now? If you can get a proper alignment from a shop that knows how to handle custom alignments and will take the time to do it right, you'd be in much better shape. I believe you can get about 2 degrees of camber up front on the stock suspension if you flip the camber bolt around. I'm drawing a blank on what rear camber settings would make sense with only 2 degrees up front, but I'd guess somewhere around 1.25 degrees in the rear.

As for tire pressure, you'll probably just have to experiment as I doubt you'll find someone else with experience on this platform with the exact same tires. Check in between each run, because the pressure will go up as the tires heat up. With more negative camber, you'll be able to get away with slightly less tire pressure and still keep the outside shoulders happy.

 

I believe I'm around -2 in the front, I'm really not sure what I have in the rear. I wanna say -1.5 but don't quote me on that. I haven't had an alignment since I did it myself when I use to work at Toyota but that was last June. I'll try and ask around where I can get one over here and for the tire pressures, I'll just start at 34front and 32 rear and monitor it like you said. Appreciate you taking them time to respond to my post btw.

 

If you plan on doing a lot of events then camber plates would be a good investment at this point.

As for pressures, I'd start a bit higher. 34 front and 32 rear is at the lower end of what I end up running with -3.5 degrees of camber, so you may need to start up around 38 / 35 or more.

Just be careful to take measurements and make notes until you figure out what works the best. You can grab shoe polish, chalk, or something similar to mark the shoulders between runs to see how far you're rolling the tire over on each run.

 

My set of Rival S wasn't expected to arrive until as late as mid-June, so I cancelled and ordered a set of RE71R instead. Two tires shipped from Nevada and another two shipped from Florida, so I should have a full set by end of week.

From what I've read, the Rival S and RE71R are quite close. My gut feeling from reading others' accounts is that the Rival S would have been marginally better, but I would have had to run an additional 5 days of local events on my old tires before the Rival S even shipped, whereas I'm going to get the RE71R in time for this weekend's event.

Although, given how soft these new "200 Treadwear" tires are, I might just need a new set of tires after another 5 events.

 

I noticed the top 4 or 5 cars in STU's didn't have awd at nationals college station..... This 245 rule is ****ing lame.

 

It is, especially with the Corvette allowed 285 wide tires. If I were still running in STU, I would have all the STU AWD competitors write letters to the SEB asking for at least 265 wide tires. Even ask for support from members in other classes to write letters (eg: Street, SP, etc). The more people who write in the more likely it will go through. Ask the guys in the BS thread here, ask in local SCCA forums, I'm sure most will support it. I have a strong feeling the rules will change next year to allow wider tires on the AWD cars in STU and those who sold their cars as a knee jerk reaction may regret it.

 

So, the Crows Landing NT has come and gone - 5 people in STU, and Jon Lugod and Jeff Stuart were flying on Saturday and Sunday. I didn't do so hot, left some time out there both days by shaving too much speed in certain areas but even if I was able to improve on that, I probably would've only jumped 1 spot in the standings (Mark DeShon didn't have a great Day 2). Great seeing Geoff Clark and Dallas out there as well!


Here's my videos from the event, feel free to offer constructive criticism (sorry for the wind noise ):

Day 1 -
Day 2 -

 

It's interesting that this seems to be the perception, that we didn't write letters, and that they snuck this one past us. This perception has come up on here a few times, and many times in other discussion elsewhere.


It didn't help, or maybe all the folks that said they sent in letters didn't, I don't know.... but yeah, I guess we try again.

 

Hypothetical question that may lead to a letter:

Assume for the purpose of this discussion that the C5s and Zs on 285s are outright faster than boost buggies on 245s.

Do you think that removing width restrictions on tires would promote parity or skew favor in one direction or another?

AWD cars would effectively be limited to 285s by bodywork and C5s would likely be on 315s or 335s. Would opening up the fastest ST class be a problem?

I suspect there would be diminishing returns on wider street tires on the RWD cars, and I think we're all in agreement that the AWD cars would be more entertaining on 285s.

Just a thought... curious to see what the rest of you think.

-Bryan

P.S. - FWIW, I haven't driven on the latest crop of ST tires yet, so not sure if that would change my thinking on the topic.

 

I wish you guys the best, really I do... but the disdain for AWD cars from the SEB & AC is obvious, reason I am moving on... c'mon someone wants to campaign a 28xxlb AWD STU car right!?!? mine's listed!

 

I don't think that is the perception, I'm sure all the AWD STU guys wrote letters. But the STAC mostly took it as the STU AWD guys over reacting and decided to play the wait and see approach. But given the new tires and supposed improvements in longitudinal acceleration due to the RE71Rs that the SAC and the STAC didn't see coming, it has changed the game and there is now data out there that shows the STU AWD cars are out matched.

That can be used as facts to back your argument up. Additionally there are many other members that don't have a fight in STU that see the disparity that would gladly support allowing wider tires for AWD STU cars. Get the number of letters up, I believe numbers do matter!

It would probably skew things too much in one direction turning it into a spec class for 1 car. I don't think STU is completely broken but just needs a few things balance out the power so all cars have a shot at winning. The easy button would be to allow more tire to the AWD cars.

What are you thoughts of the 2015 WRX in DS? That seems to be the car to have in DS and its AWD, no?

 

With fatherhood the last year or so, I don't follow scca babble, let alone street err.. stock.. err street stock.. err stock street. err.. whatever it is... I'm selling to move to a dedicated track car, and enjoy the premier course in my back yard. (plus a big 'bucket list' of tracks to drive)

 

I mentioned this on the other forum, and few replies were in the line of Zs with 335s would take over the world. I don't think it would be that bad though, especially since X could run more than 285s, which might help to get them to be a bit more competitive with 8s and 9s. Just guesstimates though....