A little tail happy

[Token]

so today i let my buddy drive my car for the first time. he has an e36 m3 with a pretty sweet autox/track set up. He was surprised how easily the back end popped out on the ZHP. I have fairly new bridgestone RE040's up front and older RE760's on the rear on stock 135 set up. The rears have decent tread left and don't feel like they are hardening or anything. I have 77k on the stock suspension so the rear might be getting a little soft, which might be the part of the cause. The zhp is my first bimmer so i have nothing to compare it to really.

we ended up swapping out the 135's with his kosei's with 245/40/17 dunlop z1 start specs on them for the a little fun. The car felt totally different. steering feel was lighter and crisper, turn in was awesome, and the car felt much more neutral. the back end stuck for the most part (unless you chuck it in a corner) and we could easily get minimal predictable under steer coming out corners, instead of the back end hopping out early on.

i could really feel the difference driving home with the 135's back on. it just seemed counter intuitive that the rear end stuck when I put skinnier tires (than stock 255's) on the rear and wider ones (from 225's to 245's) up front. I know i'm comparing two different tires so that may be a big part of it too.

I really liked the neutral handling feel. the car felt lighter and more agile over all.

just wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else has done something similar or has switched to 17's. The smaller wheel size definitely helped acceleration too. Its giving me second thought about keeping the stock wheels, even though I love how they look.

Here are a few pics with the kosei's
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143/wutupwitu99/IMG_0482.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143/wutupwitu99/IMG_0485.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o143/wutupwitu99/IMG_0486.jpg

[derbo]

Car looks good with the Koseis!

Koseis are one of the lightest cheap rims you can get for the car. ZHP rims weigh a hefty amount and unsprung weight makes a major difference in how a car accelerates and transfer weight. Dunlop Star Specs are an Extreme performance tire. These tires with lighter rims attribute to your feeling of nimbleness! With the added traction and a square setup, the car definitely should feel more neutral and less understeer. Tire compounds plays a major role as its the part of the car that sticks it to the floor!

Comparing Star Specs to RE760 is apples and oranges. They both are tires but they have difference attributes.


It does give you a taste of what something so simple as rims and better tires can do to the car!

[danewilson77]

Car looks great.

Sent from Williamsburg, VA USA

[static667]

Nice! For some reason, I like Kosei's...:shift...



They are not only light and cheap but, they are really durable. I've been daily driving mine for five years and they are still straight.