New tires front-used rears?

[Rfpauly]

I am having to fight to get my FL5 to turn in for the low speed corners. Would it be a bad idea to run newer tires on the fronts with older tires on the rear?

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[dandaman15]

Would you run the same exact model?
What is the difference in life between the front and back?
Have you checked your alignment?
What do you consider low speed?

With the little information provided it could be as simple as tire pressure change or alignment rather than putting new tires on which would only return the steering to where it was when they were new. If that felt good and now you think its fallen off maybe it would work.

 

[Rfpauly]

Thank you for your suggestions. I am running Toyo R888R on 19" OEM forged wheels. My front alignment was checked at 1.6 negative camber with pulled pins, and zero toe.

I am running 34 cold fronts (39 hot) and have been gradually bumping the rear pressures up to 38 cold and haven't noticed much difference.

I would be buying the same tire for the fronts. The tires that I would leave on the rear have five track days (approximately 500 minutes), but only look half worn.

The low speed corners that are giving me trouble are turns 4, 7 and 11 at Sears Point and turn 11 at Laguna Seca.

 

[Rexpelagi]

Thank you for your suggestions. I am running Toyo R888R on 19" OEM forged wheels. My front alignment was checked at 1.6 negative camber with pulled pins, and zero toe.

I am running 34 cold fronts (39 hot) and have been gradually bumping the rear pressures up to 38 cold and haven't noticed much difference.

I would be buying the same tire for the fronts. The tires that I would leave on the rear have five track days (approximately 500 minutes), but only look half worn.

The low speed corners that are giving me trouble are turns 4, 7 and 11 at Sears Point and turn 11 at Laguna Seca.

If you want to keep modifications minimal and if you don't want to run a reverse stagger I'd recommend trying 0.125" total rear toe out (and then go up to 0.25" if that's not enough), and I'd also recommend trying at least 10-15psi more in the back. Obviously some combination of my suggestions may be too much, so work up to it to verify the balance.

 

[Rfpauly]

Thank you Rexpelagi. I am trying to stay as stock as possible, as I am mechanically challenged. The only things that I have changed are the tires, pulled pins and brake fluid.

I will hold off on the new front tires, as they have tread depth left, and see if the higher rear pressures will improve the balance. I don't want to go any lower on the fronts because these Toyos are rolling over in the slower corners already. If you don't mind me asking, what would you recommend for hot front and rear pressures with this setup?

I will hold off on the rear toe until I get a chance to try out the higher rear pressures at Sears Point next month. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Rexpelagi]

Thank you Rexpelagi. I am trying to stay as stock as possible, as I am mechanically challenged. The only things that I have changed are the tires, pulled pins and brake fluid.

I will hold off on the new front tires, as they have tread depth left, and see if the higher rear pressures will improve the balance. I don't want to go any lower on the fronts because these Toyos are rolling over in the slower corners already. If you don't mind me asking, what would you recommend for hot front and rear pressures with this setup

Thanks again for your help.

Pressures are very specific to alignment/wheel width/tire size/tire type/driving style/suspension setup/etc, so my pressures shouldn't be used directly, but just as a reference point, for 285/30R18 RE-71RS on an 11" wheel width (front) I run ~27psi cold, and on the 255/35R18 RE-71RS on a 9.5" wheel width (rear) I run ~42psi cold. Even on stock suspension I ran a similar pressure stagger, but I've always run with the wide wheels up front which helps with turn-in as well.

In your case, I'd recommend trying some rear toe-out, and maybe try 45psi cold - I think given how high you need to run your fronts already though the toe-out will be the bigger change.

 

[dandaman15]

If you are running the car hard with that high of pressures hot and still see sidewalls being rolled, its time to look at adding more front camber.

This would also help turn in significantly if you are able to run closer to -3°.

Its simpler to run some extra toe out but this will also chew up the tires hard. If you plan to keep tracking, I would strongly recommend adjustable lower ball joints or something to add more camber.

 

[AZCWTypeR]

Worth trying, but lift oversteer may occur.
I've done the same thing before on an '87 CRX Si after cooking the fronts at a track day. Swapped to the rear and started spinning-out in autocross, but that's decades before stability control.

 

[iforgettopee]

Thank you for your suggestions. I am running Toyo R888R on 19" OEM forged wheels. My front alignment was checked at 1.6 negative camber with pulled pins, and zero toe.

I am running 34 cold fronts (39 hot) and have been gradually bumping the rear pressures up to 38 cold and haven't noticed much difference.

I would be buying the same tire for the fronts. The tires that I would leave on the rear have five track days (approximately 500 minutes), but only look half worn.

The low speed corners that are giving me trouble are turns 4, 7 and 11 at Sears Point and turn 11 at Laguna Seca.

Unless you're against adding front camber for separate reasons, adding front camber is the way - everything else would just be compensating for lack of front camber.

Start at -3 in the front. (Pulling the pins and maxing out at -2 isn't going to be enough.)

If you can post pictures of what your front tires look like right now, the wear will tell the full story.
Pictures of all four of your tires would be even more helpful.

Mixing new and old tires is fine - having brand new 0mi front tires will help with turn in, but the improved turn in won't last more than a couple of laps... it's not actually solving the issue you're trying to solve.

I'll be at Laguna Seca on Dec 6th... maybe see you there?

 

[Rfpauly]

Thank you for all of the good info Iforgettopee. I have attached photos of the front and rear tires. They have 300 miles of street wear since last weekend's Sears Point event.

I would like to increase the front negative camber, but I am reluctant to make any aftermarket modifications because I trust the judgement of the Honda engineers more than my own. At 73 years old, I seem to be making a lot of mistakes.

Also, I don't want to give the Honda dealer any excuse to deny warranty coverage, as I just bought the car in January and it only has 4K miles.

I'm doing Sears Point again with NASA on 10/11-12 and then Laguna Seca with the PCA on 10/18-19. 12/6 at Laguna Seca sounds great (if it's not raining), but I haven't run with Lightspeed yet. Do they run a good event?

Thanks again,
Randy

 

[iforgettopee]

My only challenge to your statement in trusting Honda engineers judgement, is that Honda didn't have track duty in mind when the FL5s left the factory - the setup is more for general street driving and optimized for tire wear while driving on public roads. I am confident that if you told Honda engineers to set up the FL5 for Laguna Seca, they would make significant changes to the car.

In the same way, adding front camber is just optimizing for tire wear (or tire usage) on track. All your feedback aside, I can definitely see where your tire is rolling over... and that would explain your feedback on how the car is behaving.
By adding front camber, you give your front tire the opportunity to use more of the ideal contact patch - my bet is once you're using the tire's full contact patch, you'll have more grip and turn in will feel better as a result.

Don't think of it as mistakes... it's an iterative process - it takes trial and error, the photos are data collected.

Ideally, you'd want to see the wear in red, cover the area in green below (roughly)
however, if you've done 300 miles since the last track day - these pictures may not be showing the full story anymore...

Adding camber, enables you to use the green instead of the red above. Using the whole contact patch would be most ideal.
BUT it's also a trade-off... because on the street... you will get uneven wear/wear out the inner part of your tires faster.
However, if you only drove your car on the track, then your tires would (should) wear evenly.
It's a balancing act.

When people talk about their alignment and settings work for them but may not work for everyone... one of the ways to know whats working or not, is tire wear.

Tire temperature is also an important data point... but that's a whole separate ted talk...

 

[Rfpauly]

Thank you for taking the time to help me Iforgettopee. I really appreciate it.

I understand that more front negative camber would help to correct my problem, but I am wondering if the tire rolling could be due to a design flaw with the R888Rs, because I haven't read any other posts about that problem with other tires. I saw some very good reviews about the Nankangs and I think that I will try them.

If I still have the problem, I guess that I will have to go ahead and add the aftermarket parts to increase the negative camber, and maybe add a little bit of rear toe and bump up the rear tire pressures as Rexpelagi suggested to improve the turn-in, but I would really like to keep the car as stock as possible.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Rfpauly]

Unless you're against adding front camber for separate reasons, adding front camber is the way - everything else would just be compensating for lack of front camber.

Start at -3 in the front. (Pulling the pins and maxing out at -2 isn't going to be enough.)

If you can post pictures of what your front tires look like right now, the wear will tell the full story.
Pictures of all four of your tires would be even more helpful.

Mixing new and old tires is fine - having brand new 0mi front tires will help with turn in, but the improved turn in won't last more than a couple of laps... it's not actually solving the issue you're trying to solve.

I'll be at Laguna Seca on Dec 6th... maybe see you there?

Did Sears Point this weekend (I'm slow but at least I'm consistent some times) after replacing the R888Rs with Nankang CRS and had the same problem with the front tires rolling over in the tighter corners. I'm ready to bite the bullet and add some front negative camber. I would appreciate any suggestions about what kit I should buy and where I can get it (hopefully quickly before Laguna Seca next weekend). Thanks again for the help.

 

[iforgettopee]

I have the EVS tuning lower ball joint - will get you to -3 degrees on the middle setting with the strut pins removed - it was the option I could get quickly at the time, but I don't think there is much of a difference between the various lower ball joint options.

https://www.evasivemotorsports.com/...r-joints-front-honda-civic-type-r-fk8-fl5-17/

I've seen camber plates that replace the strut top hat, but I don't have any experience with those options on the FL5. A camber plate would give you more flexibility in adjusting camber. Lower ball joint basically just gives you 3 options: stock, +1 camber, +2 camber (stock, -3, or -4) - any flexibility in camber adjustment comes from the tiny bit of strut tower movement after the pins are removed.

Adjusting camber from the top hat is how you typically adjust front camber with coilovers - it is the more ideal way to adjust camber, but I have not had any issues with adding camber using an offset lower ball joint (nor heard of anyone else having issues - street or track).

 

[Rfpauly]

Thank you Iforgettoopee. I will check them out. I saw the camber plates on the Honda website but they want $900 plus for the set of two!

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