Mingofish

Hi Linus,
welcome and congrats on acquiring the car!

few questions & comments:

1. why 54 et wheels then spacers? Why not just a set of wheels made to spec? Around 37-38 imo would be the best for track. I’m currently running 35et.

2. You car looks very low. Does the tires scrub under full compression? Especially on track during high speed compressions ? Fender liner still intact ?

3. R888R is my go to tire. Biggest complaint is they don’t like repeated heat cycle. The grip is dramatically less after 5-6 track days. The best is typically the 2nd one after the treads are shortened a bit. I too run 295/30 square. Looking forward to your feed back on the 305/30 set up. That’s my next goal but I’m hesitant due to high probability of scrubbing.

4. Trofero is an awesome tire. Just doesn’t last long at all. Costly tire to run but if you have the budget, highly recommend. Hope no rain !!

5. curious where your rebound and compression settings are front and rear with your ohlins. I’m using ILX so it’s a different shock, but still curious of your preference.

6. I’m very surprised you took off the oem Ti rear exhaust !
ever tried using Ppe mid pipe and oem rear. Bet it will tame the sound db a bit and give a more special note.
Pretty sure it will bolt up.

7. I too thought about the omp seats in a Japanese car scenario. I’m using HTE-R in fiberglass. But ultimately I wanted the safety of halo seats plus the fit for my body type was correct. I think if you’re building a hardcore track car, the fit and safety should be paramount, then the styling. Their carbon Kevlar version is very tasty !!

linpaul76

Hi there Ming,
First of all, I really love your car and what you have done to it, it's crazy 👍

To answer your questions I feel I need to explain some things first...

Living in Sweden and being a car-guy isn't very easy if you have a rare car like the RC-F. By saying that I mean that it's very very difficult to find parts, and if you find any, they are super expensive! Why is it like that, you might ask? Isn't Sweden a good country with a solid economy? Yes, it's a very nice country to live in, and the financial status is great. But remember, we are a country of only 10 million people in total, so when it comes to ordering parts for rare cars, it really sucks. I won't lie to you and over stretch the fact that it's difficult to get hold of parts if you drive like a Supra or GT86 or even a S15... then it's not really a problem. But if you have a Lexus RC-F your in really deep water... I knew this from the beginning, so it hasn't been a surprise for me after I got the car. But still, it's a fact, and it's a bit annoying. The other bad thing about living in Sweden is our super crappy currency, the Swedish krona (crown). We are one of few European countries that still not are a part of the European Monetary Union, which means that we don't have Euro as our currency. Long story short, this means that everything that I order from abroad gets ridiculously expensive. And to make things even worse, there are two foreign currencies that are the badest of them all to trade in... US dollars and Japanese Yen. I think you get the picture 😉
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All of that, makes things a bit more difficult when you order parts for your RC-F here in Sweden. There are no parts to be found in Europe, so you have to order from the US or Japan... not the best deal 😉 And then there is this other thing called double tax when you order from the US 😳 Yes, I pay American tax when I order things from the US, and then I pay Swedish tax when the things arrive to Sweden. Which is pretty stupid. And we also pay a customs fee (on the whole amount incl shipping and tax) plus super expensive shipping. Enough nagging... It is CRAZY expensive to get stuff to your car here in Sweden. And besides all that, I don't have unlimited resources of money to spend on the car. I have a budget that I don't want to overdue. I need to do this project step by step. The things I've done so far, is just the beginning... more will come 👍

Sorry for the side story Ming, I just needed to explain that first 😊

1. Well... my Apex wheels are actually Mustang wheels, and they were the best choice for me given the price I had to pay. Of course I could have ordered a custom set of forged wheels, but the price I would have had to pay wasn't reasonable for me. And besides, I do like that they look a lot like the oem BBS-wheels. I'm really satisfied with them 👍

2. Yes the car is quite low, and I want it that way for the track. As you might have guessed there was some minor scrubbing at first, but not anymore. The fender liner is no longer intact. I have spare ones to change when I sell the car 👍 it's a shame that it's so hard to fit wide tires at the front.

3-4. ​​​The R888R is basically a nice tire. But on a heavy car like the RC-F, it doesn't do the work I would say. They get slippery after 5-6 laps when you start pushing the car harder. Then you are all over the place and you need to cool them down. I do like them though, because they are very forgiving, and acts consequently, you know how the car will react in every corner at all times, even though it some times means that you will go a bit wider than you'd prefer.
My favourite tire is kumho V70A K91... but they don't make them bigger than 18 inch, so maybe in the future I will try a set of 18 inch wheels.
The Tofeos are great, but very expensive and they don't last long, which is a pretty bad combo 😉
The Nankang AR-1 I haven't tried out my self yet, but here in Europe a lot of guys use them and like them a lot. They are about the same price as the Toyos. I will probably get them for the next season, after the winter.

5. It's so cool that you have the ILX Öhlins on your car 👍 hope you like them!
My settings so far isn't tested so much that I can say that it's the right way to go yet. Right now I have the dampers in mid mode, which works quite nicely. For the next track day I will test to stiffer the compression in the rear just a bit. It depends on what track I will go to of course, but I think that's the way to go. How do you have your setup?

6. The choice of exhaust was quite easy for me given this... I don't like the way the oem TI tips look (too small and not a very nice design) and I just wanted a mean sound and raw power. Why didn't I get a nice TI system from Novel or some other manufacturer? Well... now we get down to the thing I explained in the first part... money... Even for you guys it's very expensive to buy a TI exhaust system. For me, it would be like 20k USD. I just don't think it's worth it right now. Maybe, I will have one in the future, but not right now.
I've had some experience with PPE before, and I like what they do. They could make the exhaust just the way I wanted it to be, and I'm very happy with that 😊 It sounds a lot, but I have nothing to worry about, since we don't have any law issues with sound in Sweden (almost anyway).
Of course I have saved the oem system, it's sitting nicely in my garage 😊

7. I've seen that you also have a OMP-seat, which is very cool 👍 And I'm glad to hear that we think alike about the JDM standards for seats 😊 OMP make great seats, no question about it! One thing that has put some trouble in my decision to what seat I was going to use, is the fact that I can't have a seat with head flaps (not sure what it's called in English), since it is not allowed on the Nürburgring. And I want to go with the car on the Nordschleife. Otherwise I would have gone with some of the Recaros with "head flaps". But that is another story...
​​​​​​Your seat looks awesome, and I'm excited to get mine in the car soon 👍

I hope my answer is okay with you Ming? And I'm sorry for not having the best English when I write. If there are things that I mess up when I reply to you, don't go too hard on me 😊


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initiald2k

iTrader: (2)

Wow ... awesome car!

05RollaXRS

Great work man. Keep this thread updated. Will be watching.

Mingofish

Linus,
pertaining to R888R being slippery after 5-6 laps???
very strange. I run those tires in 100 degree days and no issues.
What pressure do you run?
I suspect there’s issues there. That or your alignment needs sone tweaking.
If the tires are under inflated you’ll get tread squirm which heats up the tire, which in turn makes them greasy.
I know 888 doesn’t have small tread blocks but it still happens a little.
Also the side wall suffers really bad with our heavy car if under inflated.
I shoot for 39-42 hot on those depending on the track.

what about camber? you have figs FUCA right?
3 degrees ?
if not, shoot for that.
Rears set to around 2.5-2.7 degrees, just slight less than fronts.

Lastly, does car want to spin on track? If so may be it’s not tire but toe settings.
Try neutral front and rear toe. Will make steering in the corners slower and easier to recover.

Hope that helps.

linpaul76

Ming...

I appreciate your inputs. I run about 29 PSI in the R888R (cold pressure), and the alignment is as you guessed, -3 camber front and -2 camber in the rear. I will order the rear adjustable camber links from FIGS soon, hope those will make some difference.

About the R888R feeling a bit slippery after 5-6 laps on the track, I must say it depends on what you compare with and what type of track you drive on. As I mentioned I am used to drive the Kumho V70A K91, which is a super sticky tire that performs flawlessly in almost any condition (except in the wet). And compared to V70A, the R888R is a "slower" tire if you will. Not saying the R888R are bad in any way, just not as good as the V70A. I've run R888R on other RC-F:s on track before, so it's not a new experience for me. And another difference is the type of tracks we have here in Sweden. We have very small technical tracks with a lot of sharp bends and tweaks, which builds up hi temperatures in both the tires and the brakes. If I drive at a faster track with less curves, it's not a problem.

Just my own opinion 😊

05RollaXRS

Your cold tire pressures are too low. I run 41 PSI rear and 39 PSI cold on my Michelin Pilot PS4S (XL). The recommended pressure is 36 PSI on the door jamb cold so going 29 PSI cold is way too low and the tires will not be too soft and not handle hard use on the track well.

flowrider

iTrader: (9)

^^^^Tire pressures run on the street and track are quite different. Pressure builds up rapidly in track use so initial pressure is set much lower than for street driving.

Lou

linpaul76

Flowrider... You're right about the difference in tire pressure on the track. When I run 29 PSI cold, it makes about 37 PSI warm. And that is what I find perfect for the R888R. It's a big difference to what kind of pressure you normally run on regular street tires.

Mingofish

Linus,
I totally get what you’re talking about with the tight tracks. My local track is a very tight technical track but not very “fast”. Highest speed is around 110 at the end of the straight. On that track, I like tires with stiffer side wall like Michelin cup2 run flat or yokohama Advan series.

May I urge you to try to start cold pressure at 32?
If you get 7-8 psi increase that will put you at 39-40 hot which I think is where 888 likes it with our car.
My first set of 888 I aimed for 36 hot and the turn in was not sharp and front end always want to push.
The side wall needs 40 with our car’s weight.
The most recent track days with 888 I run them at 42 hot on cooler days and 40 on hot 95+ degree days. Felt good for my driving style, although on higher speed tracks (Road Atlanta & NCM).

Love to hear your feed back if you decide to try running higher psi.

Btw I just recently bumped my rear camber up to -3. Will see how it goes. Been running -2.5 to -2.7

mjn88

Woooooooow. Amazing ride!

admnEffect

beautiful ride! Any sound clips? Also are you 100% road course focused? Have you played with quarter miles at all?

cvt

Any track times of before and after the mods?

linpaul76

Thanks 👍 Don't have any good sound clips yet, but will have some clips soon 😊
Quarter mile is not my cup of tea. I'm very impressed with all the guys that performe really fast times though 👍 And it's good fun to watch 😊

linpaul76

No I began putting the mods on the first day it arrived, so I didn't drive it one mile before I started to modify it 😊 Maybe ashame, but I was eager to get going right away... I waited 8 months for the car, so I very excited when it finally came.