The title more or less states what I am leading you into.
I have started setting the car up to hit the track, in preparation for this, I have picked up some TE37s with R888's the difference is these tires are 215/45 and 235/45

Smaller than factory, HOWEVER, due to the nature of the R888, essentially creating more useable grip. Do you think there is going to be any issues here?

Yes - I am asking for opinions, not facts.

 

What size wheels did you get? I would run those tires for now

 

Sorry - i missed a vital piece of information.

Herderp.

17x8.5 and 17x9.5

Although I'm running a smaller contact patch, it also means less friction so I'm thinking if I keep in mind that my tires are smaller than factory, I should be able to get some decent acceleration?

 

Chrismx, your wheels are wider than Toyo recommends for these track style tires. I’m not sure how you are planning to exploit a smaller contact patch, but by mismatching tire-size/wheel-width you are not getting what Toyo feels is the optimum tire/road contact shape. Good luck with your experiment though.

 

If you noticed I stated that I picked them up with these tires on it.

Not my ideal sizing either.

But, it's all I can afford at the moment, so I will see how these go, I'm feeling that they should be pretty decent. Not optimal but shouldn't be too bad!

 

Mine will still spin 285s v12s coming out of corners if I'm not easy with it. 235 will be interesting. Just keep in mind that the tires will have a fairly low limit and you should do fine, especially if you're not a very experienced racer. Any track time is better than no track time.

 

Hate to say it, but after running R888s in racing (285-30-18s on RPF-1s), you'll have less usable grip than someone running a set of summer performance tires on stock rims. Friction from a smaller tread contact patch won't really play much of a part in it. Your Z will be a handful to drive, but get ready to be one of the slower cars on that combo.

 

What sort of power are you guys making?
This is a totally stock HR.

I'm not going to argue anything as I did ask for opinions

 

I don't know about anybody else, but I have a DE in the street car and an HR in the race Z. Your Z will plow on corner entry, be loose after that with the setup you have. Take it slow and learn to use what you have.

 

I'll definitely have a bit of fun finding out how it all goes, it's going to be my first real track time with proper tires vs general street tires.

Setting the final height of the car tonight, quite nice to have it at a usable height again!

 

So the tires were not actually too bad. Definitely would've been nicer to have wider rubber, but they held on fine, not too much plowing, oversteer was easily controlled. overall a great time!

 

Oversteer, not really, you will have understeer and throttle induced oversteer with that setup.

 

Oversteer was throttle controlled of course.
I expected more plowing when I when for oversteer, however it didn't happen.

The only time that the tires really struggled were through hair pins.
Other than that not to bad surprisingly. A dry track definitely helped mind you.

 

What track did you drive at?

 

+1 to dkmura's question..


I don't have a lot of track experience and wouldn't call myself a good driver by any means (especially with 4 month downtime and about 2 years without worthwhile roads to practice on), I would say I'm slightly better than average when I'm at my best. I went to Big Willow in Cali when I lived out there and I had 19x9.5 & 10.5 Volk GTS with 255/35 and 275/35s Hankook V12s on them and I did a couple sessions and was getting a lot of oversteer (or to the point it would START to slide and I would let off or brake) and I didn't know what to mess with. I think I asked Terrasmak and Jnathan(no longer a Z owner) but they recommended letting some air out of the tires (~5lbs I think) and it made a WORLD of difference. I felt the grip immediately even on acceleration.

This might be something you fiddle with when you have the chance.

 

There is a reason I didn't name the tracks! I am from New Zealand
I hit Ruapuna, Highland Park, Timaru Race way and Teretonga.

My tires started the day 25 PSI front and 24 PSI rear cold, and finished at 29/30 psi all around =]