Bridgestone Potenza RE760 vs S-04

[JohnT]

I had to go look at the review for the Primewells. Although Chump/lemons are a special bunch, it seems like the tires hold up to abuse decently then they are worth a shot. Will they be fast? Probably not, but thats ok if thats not the goal.

A national champ on all seasons CAN do very well at a local autocross as driver is the most important part, but to be honest that speaks more about the level of competition than the driver. Some clubs have many excellent drivers with well prepped cars while others, not so much.

What I've noticed is that a beginner on all-seasons will actually do comparatively worse as they reduce confidence and generally are less forgiving at the limit. If you are perfect with you car placement and line you can overcome a lot of this because you will ask less of your tires, but a beginner won't be and will have to steer out of trouble. Its probably better to learn on loose tires, just not as fun.

But again I'm looking at things from a competitive autocross perspective, not for someone who wants to casually come out and have a good time. If I couldn't be competitive at an autocross I'm not sure the 4-6 minutes of driving would get me to come out.

 

[firstorbit84]

our club has anywhere from about 30-60 people at a given event and we run anywhere from 12-18 events each year. we try to hold most of the events at a Navy runway, which they let us use for free and keeps our entry costs down. the surface is honestly the best i've ever raced on: clean white concrete with no cracks and thin seams, thousands of feet long by 150' wide. speeds easily get into the 50-60mph range at each event; i've even seen over 60mph a couple times but they try to keep it from getting too fast. it's tremendously grippy on race tires, and also lets street tires perform to their maximum.

We have a few drivers that are EXTREMELY good with similarly well-prepped fast cars. There are also a few VERY good drivers with VERY well prepped cars, but more in the realm of catching up with their raw times.

Personally, I just like continuing to improving my skills (and car setup without spending too much) and trying to catch that second group of very good drivers/cars, while comparing my times to others in similar classes.

I've been autocrossing about 5-6 years now, so I have enough experience to be quicker than newbies in much faster cars, which always gives me great satisfaction. At the last event I was a hair quicker than a new STI on re760s with tons of engine and suspension work, and I beat a new Mustang 5.0 by several seconds (not to mention the 4 second lead I had on two SRT8s that came out). At the same time, I was about 4-5 seconds off of that group of VERY good drivers/cars and almost 10 seconds behind the top times of the day.

Finally, there's few enough people in some classes and enough freedom to run different classes with the same setup that if I was really concerned about taking home a trophy at the end of the year, I would just pick a class with very few people and make sure I show up to the most events (I won GS last year in my Jetta on OEM street tires because I didn't run in the street tire PAX class)... This year I've been running in the HS street tire pax class, which lumps all the cars together that are running street tires in a race tire-allowed class and judges event winners based on pax times... but who knows, I may get springs and want to run my tune which will bump me into SMF street tire or something. I'm just really not all that concerned with being "competitive" as I am with driver improvement (and simply learning the car at this point). I know that better tires will give me the biggest bang for the buck at events, but after thinking more about this, I just don't think I want to pony up the extra few hundred bucks for the best stuff... just to put it on a sonic... My goal is to pick up an MR2 or a Miata in a few years (or a V8 swapped RX7), and then I will probably be more concerned with being competitive in that car.

 

[JohnT]

Sorry I wasn't trying to step on your plans or criticize them, just letting you know the way I tend to look at things.

Most regions have a handful of really fast guys...I like to metric off of how fast they are going. In fact I don't really care what class I run in or about winning a particular class as much as knowing that I drove to the potential of the car. Its just hard to judge whether its you or the hardware holding you back if you don't give yourself an even playing field. I go off PAX multipliers and assume the car is well fit to a particular class, I know its hardly perfect but it does offer a glimpse.

I also want to get myself into a more competitive car, and plan to do that in the next year or so. I did not expect to seriously campaign the sonic.

 

[firstorbit84]

so, i went with the primewells in 215/45/17. they were stupid cheap at $68/ea, but i won't be buying them again.

i've put on about 300 miles since saturday. they seem to grip well in the dry, but i noticed a little more tendency to hydroplane in the wet. they have pretty stiff sidewalls too. my main complaint is the ROAD NOISE. from about 15-35 they are seriously loud compared to the oem hankooks. however this noise seems to be most present when i first start driving and seems to quiet down when they warm up a bit. it also was worse when i first got them and seems to be calming down a bit (or i'm just getting used to it).

also, here are the results from my last auto-x on the stock hankooks with stock suspension: Buccaneer Region

 

[firstorbit84]

After living with the primewells for a month, I couldn't live with the noise anymore and I returned them for a set of Firestone firehawk wide ovals; just had to pay the difference. The guys at the store were really nice about the exchange. (I think they've gotten complaints on the primewell before, and I'm a long-time customer.)

I don't know how well these will perform but at least they're quiet. In retrospect I should have just gone with the hankook v12 from the beginning.

 

[rdss]

At least they took care of you and you can live with the new tires. How do they look?

 

[firstorbit84]

Round and black

J/k Pretty similar to the primewells

 

[rdss]

Exactly how I imagined them!!

 

[T-BONE]

RE11s or Starspecs

best non R-compound tires out there