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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

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Tring Man
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by Tring Man » Sat Apr 08, 2017 11:18 am

What is the concensus on best tyre sizes for the PSS? I am on the standard rims (229).

I was thinking of increasing width to 235 front and 265 rear, would that work with standard profile sizes (45 fr. & 40 rear)?

What are you guys running?

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Alan

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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by mmm-five » Sat Apr 08, 2017 12:52 pm

I'm running 225/45 front and 265/40 rear, but unlike some on here I used to get rubbing on the OSR tyre on hard/bumpy cornering.

Now that the car is lowered, on decent suspension, with a decent geometry, I don't get the rubbing.

I'm also going to take off the strut brace I fitted, as I don't think it offers anything other than extra understeer on the coupe.
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by TomK » Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:20 pm

I run 265/35, 235/40 albeit not mpss. Personally I think a 265/40 is going to be a little on the fat side.
mmm-five wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2017 12:52 pm I'm also going to take off the strut brace I fitted, as I don't think it offers anything other than extra understeer on the coupe.
If you're worrying about extra understeer wouldn't it make sense to keep the relative width front to rear the same rather than increasing just your rear tyre width which will inherently increase understeer?
Also not sure how a strut brace can significantly introduce understeer, a lower chassis bar perhaps but on the strut top towers :?
I'll take mine off though when I'm next on track and see.
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by Tring Man » Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:41 pm

So TomK,

You have also reduced the the profile size by 5mm front and rear to match 10mm increases in width.

That's what I thought, but wanted to check.

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Alan

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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by TomK » Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:57 pm

Actually the difference in height is about 9mm rear and 7.5mm front, the 35,40 45 part of these numbers denotes the height of the sidewall as a percentage of the width known as the aspect ratio. So the height difference of the sidewalls in this example is calculated 40% of 255 minus 35% of 265mm = 9.25mm.
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by mmm-five » Sat Apr 08, 2017 2:46 pm

TomK wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2017 1:20 pm I run 265/35, 235/40 albeit not mpss. Personally I think a 265/40 is going to be a little on the fat side.
If you're worrying about extra understeer wouldn't it make sense to keep the relative width front to rear the same rather than increasing just your rear tyre width which will inherently increase understeer?
Also not sure how a strut brace can significantly introduce understeer, a lower chassis bar perhaps but on the strut top towers :?
I'll take mine off though when I'm next on track and see.
I originally only bought the 265 size as the 255 wasn't available at the time. Liked the added grip that the PSS gave me over the Conti M3 and didn't consider the understeer was any worse than before.

3 years, 60,000 miles, 7 Ring trips, 5 track days later I added the strut brace and almost instantly found it was much easier to provoke understeer than before.

All this has to take into account that my driving style may be very different to another's, and it may just suit a softer front end :P

Of course I might just need to alter my geometry or suspension settings to get the best out of it, but I'm finding the front end much more jittery than normal over the last 20,000 miles & 2 Ring trips I did in it. Then I had my little accident, so I've not really played with/pushed it since.
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by WLH » Sat Apr 08, 2017 5:44 pm

I run and have been running PSS on my M since 2009 with 235/45-18 up front and 265/40-18 at the rear. I've never had a rubbing issue. Another advantage of the slightly larger tires is that the speedometer is almost dead on with my GPS where with the stock sized tires the indicated MPH was always reading 3 or 4 MPH high.
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by Tring Man » Sun Apr 09, 2017 5:52 pm

Bit confused on advice now!

TomK suggested running 265/35, 235/40. But WLH suggested running 235/45 and 265/40.

Which profile is best for the increased tyre width (on PSS tyres)?

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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by TomK » Sun Apr 09, 2017 6:14 pm

Either will work, though you may experience a little rubbing with the higher profiled 45 &40.
It's a personal choice really, I wanted something slightly lower profile as the car gets used on track a fair bit, and that's what BMW did with the CSL
which is the only other S54 car running 235 & 265 widths. It runs 235/35 and 265/30 as opposed to standard m3 19s of 225/40 & 255/35.
You may value the better ride qualities of the higher profile tyres over the handling, I don't know?
Why are you looking to increase the tyre width out of interest?
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by Beedub » Sun Apr 09, 2017 11:05 pm

i run 235/40 and 265 /35 ..... works perfectly for my needs.
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Michelin Pilot Supersports tyre sizes

Post by TomK » Sun Apr 09, 2017 11:36 pm

Beedub wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2017 11:05 pm i run 235/40 and 265 /35 ..... works perfectly for my needs.
Probably worth noting you're running at least 40% more power and I'm at about 10% more. Tyre width increase is about 4%.
I don't see the merit in increasing the tyre size on a stock car imo, amongst other things you're just increasing your unsprung rotational mass.
Depends on what you're doing with car I guess.
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