PaConehead

• I'm thinking about squeezing in another event before the end of the season - at least up here in the NE! Looking at running Seat Time at Summit Point this Friday and wondering about how the Continentals will behave in the chilly morning air of W.V. I realize cold tires are not ideal and don't mind going easy first session, but anybody experience these tires in the 50-60 degree temp range?

johnny c

50-60 isn't too bad. anything under 50* is a worry and if the track is wet at all don't go out. the first few laps will have no grip, so make sure you heat them up as best you can.

emptnest

I run Continental Extreme Contact DW as my rain tire (on a Z07 1993 C4).

I ran them for 4 sessions in the rain at Mid Ohio earlier this month, with morning air temp starting around 47 F, and mid day topping out at mid 50's F. Front grip was pretty good all day; I had one occurrence of understeer, and one four wheel drift. Controlling oversteer was a daylong challenge, but do-able as long as I stayed gentle with the throttle. The tires never really heated up that day.

All that said, I was able to go about 5/10ths in constant rain, and was seldom passed. This was in Group 2 solo (or Intermediate). Also note, Mid Ohio is notoriously slick when wet. MUCH more so than Pittsburgh or Summit Point.

On the second day, rain was gone, track was dry (slightly damp to start the day). Air temps began in the upper 50's and topped mid afternoon in upper 60's. I ran the morning sessions on the Continentals, and they gripped very well, with predictable heating. So much that I switched to my Nitto 05 dry tire set for the afternoon, in order to avoid tire wear on my Continental "wets".

Hope this info helps.

johnny c

your talking Continental slicks right?

GettReal

If you are talking Conti slicks, I ran mine a couple weeks ago at the same temps..day started at 50 and got up to maybe 58 and there was very little grip in the first few laps early in the day. It took me about 3-4 laps to get enough heat into them but then they were pretty good. By the warmest part of the day (58) after a couple laps, they were pretty sticky. I started my pressures at 25r and 26f and only got them up to 30.

0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

We did a tire test a few years ago and it was 48-50 degrees when we started the test with a light drizzle and by the end of the day it was down to 38-40 degree's. The first few laps were tricky and you had to be careful handling the tires when they are that cold as they can crack the side walls if they are thrown or dropped. Once on track you can build temp and drive but it does take more time.

I think we started in the 22-24 psi range

PaConehead

yep - scrubs from a friendly CF vendor

PaConehead

I usually do 2-3 laps to warm tires and brain cells anyway. 22-24 psi seems a little low, but you probably build more heat in a session than I do!! Thanks for the info

PaConehead

That sounds good - pretty close to the temps I expect Friday, so sounds like they'll work good w/a few laps to build some heat
thanks

emptnest

Sorry for the irrelevant info.

0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

True, it is going to depend on the car, driver, and track as to what you set them at on a starting pressure (and humidity content inside the tire) to get to your final hot pressures.

J.R.

I agree with Anthony. I have run either Continentals or Pirellis for the last 4 years and found the 22-24 number to be right on, especially in temp ranges posted. I think LG probably has as much or more experience with slicks with Corvette race cars as anybody.

In my experience it was with Corvette at 3150 lbs and 50/50 weight split with 305x645x18 fronts and 315x675x18 rears.

Hi Volts Z06

I'm actually pretty interested in this thread. I ran the Conti slicks which were intended for the Prototype Challenge cars. Because of my fat *** my car weighs in at close to 3300 and Hoosier advised me to run a hot pressure of around 36lbs. That pretty much dictated a starting pressure in the range of 28lbs. These were the 325/710 and 320/650. Prior to this I ran the Yokos and starting pressures were in the 22-24 range. I ran them earlier this year at Palmer in 45-55 degree weather and while it did take time to bring them up to temp they were fine all weekend.

PaConehead

Well tomorrow I'll start these at a lower psi than I usually do and see what happens. I recognize that I will not see the psi built as much a you guys running 10/10 and pushing hard into the corners. I had a pretty aggressive alignment which I really liked and it seem to help w/tire wear, just had it dialed back a bit to make the car less twitchy on street. This a dual purpose street/tract car although not much street use anymore.

Hi Volts Z06

On the topic of alignment- Hooiser was pretty clear that these tires don't need a ton of negative camber and actually suggested I backed mine down to -3 or under.

Hi Volts Z06

FYI- I have a fair amount of Conti scrubs for sale in the 325/710 and 320/650 sizes if anyone is interested. $75-100 a tire depending on the set and number of heat cycles but most have 4-6 heat cycles. These tires last a LONG time as they are harder than R6's but faster and more consistent over the course of a session.

J.R.

The Conti's tend to like a little less camber than the Pirellis so with aggressive alignment you may be ok. Do tire temp checks across the tire to see how close you are on setup. Generally speaking ( This is somewhat track and driver dependent) if you are in the 2.5 to 2.8 neg camber front and 1.2 to 1.5 neg camber rear you should be close to maximizing effectiveness of tire. Also, the bushings you have (rubber/poly or spherical) may affect your need for increased camber.

Also, once camber is set then adjusting toe to eliminate twitchiness on street is a pretty simple by just turning tie rod a couple of flats on each side. I found that one flat turn (not a full turn) equals approx. 1/32 of an inch. of toe. Note that adjusting toe will not change camber setting.

If you have not tested any Pirelli scrubs I would think about trying them over Conti's. Frisby/Sierra Tire in Las Vegas or Chicago sells a lot of World Challenge takeoffs and are great people to deal with.

PaConehead

As an update I did start with less and the tire worked well, although I hardly built up any psi during 1st session (probably due to chilly temps and running rather easy). Second session started well, but had a mechanical melt down (that's another story)! Car ended up being towed off track and went directly onto trailer. There's always next year! Thanks for all the input - appreciate the advice

PaConehead

Great info - Thanks for the lead on the take offs