After spending close to $3,000 on new BF Goodrich R1 tires and D-Force LTW wheels, it seemed documenting the purchase, installation and following track days was the right thing to do. It took me no less than (10) solid hours of searching the web, reading articles, speaking with professional drivers, instructors and track junkies to make up my mind. But I’m pretty sure I did the right thing and my first track days with the new tires and wheels confirmed it.
My car is a 2008 M3 E93 (hard top convertible) and it has about 420+HP but weights close to 4,000lbs. While this car is clearly not track ready out of the box, it only takes a few thousand dollars to get you to the promise land, as I’ve learned. My ongoing dilemma has been that all I did was use racing brake fluid (Motul 600 or 660) and pop on racing pads before each event. The stock tires are Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 265/35/19 rear and 245/35/19 front, which are great tires but at 6,000 mi I’ve shredded the fronts and the rears have less traction than the reunion tour of New Kids on the Block. My goal is to be safe, go fast, finish track days without mechanical issues and save money without tearing up my street tires or my wallet. This all led me to the purchase and now I’ll outline a few reasons why I decided to do this.
Speed
Slicks provide better grip which allows me to go faster. Also I dropped close to 20lb of unsprung weight going from stock 19″ wheels to these super light 18′s which makes the car easier to stop, keeps the brakes cooler and lightens the load. 20lbs might not seems like much but it’s huge when it’s unsprung.
Brake Preservation
Dropping the weight on the wheels really does allow them to run cooler which will positively affect the entire braking system and will hopefully allow me to get through events without significant brake fade or other failure.
Tire Preservation
Since my stock tires are staggered (larger in rear, smaller in front) and the new ones are 275/35/18 square (same size all the way around) I can rotate the tires front to back, sided to side, corner to corner, flip them or whatever I need to do to extended the rubber life.
Money Preservation
While I had to drop $3,000 to buy everything, I can sell the wheels, spacers and lugs for pretty close to what I paid for them and I can even resell the tires if need be. So my actual cost when it’s all said and done will be far less than $3,000.
One issue is that since I am still relativity new to tracking my car, I’m learning in leaps and bounds as opposed to tiny increments. The events I frequent use different “run groups” which separate drivers by skill. Everyone starts in green, then blue, then yellow and after that you go red. After red you can probably be an instructor if you want to but I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would want to do that aside from the free track time in the instructor group. We are running at Texas World Speedway this weekend and I will be starting in the yellow group which is a step up for me but I have earned it by consistently driving faster than others in my run groups and by being safe, no spins and never had I gotten more than 90 degrees sideways. Which brings me to my next point that these tires are not very “audible”. In other words they are pretty quiet on the track so if you start to slide you don’t really get a warning, it just happens all of the sudden. The PS2′s scream like Richard Simmons at a George Michael concert. They let you know what’s going on and you can use that sound to make corrections. Slicks are not that friendly so when they let go (as I’ve heard) they just let go really quickly. So I’m a bit apprehensive as they also require a couple more laps for warm up. In fact I run (2) laps briskly and midway through the 3rd lap, lower the boom. At Eagles Canyon I got to run this new setup for a couple sessions and got sideways in a turn only to later lose all (4) wheels in another. Luckily I was able to reel it in quickly on both slides. Texas World Speedway is much faster so I will have less time to react but it also flows better so I’m not running 140mph to a hairpin turn and wailing on the brakes. On to the purchase and installation..
Tire Purchase:
BF Goodrich R1 275/35/18
Two words.. Tire Rack. They kick ass, heat cycled them for me, had them in stock and I got tire totes so I can transport them in the car without messing up the interior.
$1,048.00 – (4) tires
$ 30.00 – Competition heat cycle all (4) tires
$ 39.90 – (4) tire totes which are great BTW and highly recommended if you don’t have a trailer.
$ 82.64 – Shipping to Dallas TX
$ 1,230.54 – Grand Total
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Wheel Purchase:
D-Force LTW5 Lightweight Forged Alloy Race Wheel 18×9
Bought these at Turner MotorSports which is a great place but they did muff the shipping. They quoted me an extra $100 for 2nd day and when they realized they under quoted me, rather than calling me to ask what I would like to do, they shipped them regular ground. This could have caused me to miss my Sat track day because if they did not arrive on Friday, I was screwed. We were lucky and they arrived at 1PM on Friday so I had time to get them balanced, installed, spacers tested and then uninstalled and put in the tire totes. They sent me a sweat shirt as a “sorry about that” gesture and I appreciated that. Decided to go with flat black since they looked nasty and I like it like that.
$1,159.80 – (4) wheels
$ 89.95 – pair of 12.5mm spacers (front)
$ 96.95 – pair of 18mm spacers (rear)
$ 69.60 – (10) 75mm studs (12 x 1.5)
$ 69.60 – (10) 90mm studs (12 x 1.5)
$ 45.00 – (20) 17mm (12 x 1.5) open lugs
$ 0.00 – (2) loctite 262 thread lockers
$ 204.32 – Shipping
$1,735.22 – Grand Total
Here are the tires delivered to my office and the wheels delivered to Autoscope with the spacers and lugs..
These things obviously look great and the weight savings combined with added grip means they should absolutely kick ass at the track.
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Fast forward a couple weeks after I did Texas World Speedway, Nov 2009
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Got to run the entire weekend (4 sessions per day) on these new tires and wheels and as expected they made a huge difference. Had one spin coming off the front straight which caused me to slide at least (50) yards off the track into the grass backwards. Don’t really blame that on the tires because I has just passed a good friend and was going way too fast into that corner. The spin was going to happen one way or the other simply because I was way carrying too much speed into the turn and I’m apparently not good enough to convert a rotten corner entry into a blazing exit. On the bright side, my lap times were cut by about (13) seconds which for me is HUGE. I also ran more consistently and on (3) complete sessions, all of my laps were within a few seconds of one another. Best time for me around Texas World Speedway clockwise was 2:04 and my goal there next time is to get under 2:00 by a few seconds.
Here is the spin and BTW, this is after I passed a bunch of cars:
In closing, for anyone trying to figure out which tires, wheels and spacers to buy for an E92 or E93 M3, I can honestly say that I feel as though I made the right choice. It was cost effective, everything is very high quality, the tires are awesome, the wheels are light like you would not believe and the results are in the (13) seconds I shaved off my lap times.
Side note:
I switched to Castrol SRF brake fluid for this last track day at Texas World Speedway and completed the entire weekend without any brake issues. Highly recommended over motul (which is still great stuff).
Till next time ~ John
Those 275′s look awesome. Have you had any problems with them rubbing up front?
Thanks. No rubbing as the spacers takes good care of that.
Great stuff. Thanks for posting this up over at M3post. Some of us actually appreciate the information.
The track/autocross section is probably a better place to post than the general forum too…fewer haters and more like-minded (track folks) as well and probably more welcoming audience.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll do that.
Thanks for posting your experience. I have had similar problems with my brakes on an e90 m3. Driving with stock pads, I warped the front rotors slightly on my first track day. I thought bedding the brakes would alleviate the mild shudder but after the 2nd day they were totally warped.
I read a post on the m3 forum about brake ducts and had them installed by Cantrell Motorports in Seattle along with Goodrich SS lines, Motul brake fluid, and Pagid yellow endurance pads. Made a noticeable difference but still had issues with brake fade.
Then, I spun at Pacific Raceways and a large rock took out the oil cooler and the front right brake duct but suspension was fine. So I converted back to stock front ducts. Car is in perfect condition now and lack of brake ducts didn’t make a huge difference my last track day. But of course ambient temp was much cooler.
My friend has an e46 with Stop Techs and he has never had an issue with his brakes. I am now convinced that BBK is the only way to alleviate this problem and this will be my winter project. Probably Stop Tech due to costs but that AP racing BBK looks pretty juicy.
I was considering the tire rack light weight wheels (TRMotorsports MT1) which are only18.5 and 19 lbs f/r but now I might go for the D-force. They are similar in look and price. Did you consider these wheels? If so, why did you pick the D-force?
Nice post. Glad to see someone else out there with similar track fever! I’ll put these comments in the m3post as well.
Hi. No I never really considered those since the dforce were so light, so affordable and came so highly recommended. Thanks for the comment and info…
I have a similar set up on my 2005 M3 vert. I had my 18 inch D Force LTW5′s sandblasted and then power coated satin black for an awesome finish. I have some very nasty brake dust from my full ceramic race only Cobalt Friction pads for the Brembo GT 6 pot monoblock(front) and 4 pot monoblock rear i had fitted. I consider a BBK a must. I too use Castrol SRF AND titanium heat shields that fit right on top of the pads in the calipers. I heat the living be jezuz out of my brakes and never have even a tiny bit of fade. I can take much faster cars because i can OUTBRAKE them… Even the E90 with a good driver, which is hell to catch BTW.
I had almost all my dust shields sawed off too to allow more air to cool the rotors. I went to Hawk ceramic low dust for the street so dust on day to day is not an issue so much.
I am running the same BF Goodrich but in 265 square. I may change to 275 but i think that 265 square is supposed to be ideal for the e46.
I also run KW coil overs and POWERFLEX polyurethane bushings that helps immensely. Also from TMS: Camber plates, adjustable front and rear H&R (made to TMS specifications)anti sway bars. The front one is massive. Wow, what a difference.
All those handling tweaks did more good than adding several hundred horsepower. At least now i can put it all to the ground should i ever want to increase the HP significantly. I put down only 300-315 to the ground. That is maybe 380 at the crank. But everything is so TUNED. I have found that is the key. Its all in the tuning, even your alignment on track days.
Now once the car is so well set up it is so easy to do exactly what your instructor asks you to do with the car. There is no fighting, just a natural smooth flow.
All the mods i did for the track work just fine on the street too even though i dont use all of what the car has to offer when it is on legal highways of course. The ride is still very tolerable. Good eniugh to drive long distances.
My car DOES crash over any potholes and SHARP urban ridges. There is no getting around that. But it cruises just fine. I would not hesitate to dive it coast to coast.
It sounds like you have the bug. Dont stop with your mods just yet. The enjoyment for me anyway is worth adding some or all of the things i talk about. Every single modification i have made i feel very significantly in the final driving of the car.
When the 1 series came out, I did not like it. Suppose if it had been closer to what the 2002 was and was (much) lighter, more affordable, and had a really superb I4 (turboed or not, I don’t care) then I would prefer it better, but whatever. What side tracked me more was the predictable M design which should pragmatically be termed the M1. I believed that it just wouldn’t be correct to compare the 2 M1s. Nevertheless, since the 1 series debuted in the US, the M division has created 2 SUVs that don’t even come with a manual. The Porsche Cayenne has one, was it that hard? Anyways, times are changing so go on and call it an M1. Better to deliver a decent, or conceivably outstanding, automobile rather than not create it whatsoever just for the reason that a bundle of fanboys could get damaged.