Understood, for most of us it takes years to become remotely fast so take your time, keep asking questions and learn as much as you can etc....etc....

Even in the advanced/instructor groups the driver is a huge reason a given car is faster than another. It's only when you have too very good advanced drivers or pro drivers that setup, car, tires, etc..... will separate them. In other words a good driver can go a long way in a bad car if his competition isn't experienced.

As I said a 1.30 is respectable especially in a green run group BUT I'm guessing your FD has 300 plus RWHP with decent coilovers, big fast/r compound rubber (275/255) and that's a 1.27 car at a jog at SPR. In my track setup FD in those TT videos I'm running 1.18s and it's about 2700lbs and 350 at the wheels (MAX).

In my opinion starting out on R tires is a mistake because you have a false sense of security and your reaction times are not where they should be so whatever you do don't increase your grip level until you run a 1.26 at SPR. You will learn faster on bad tires because you will find the limit sooner at lower speeds and be pushed to drive harder when the caymans etc.... are blowing your doors on R compound tires.

In the interim as mentioned beware of the advice you receive especially mine LOL because what works for someone else may not work for you. For example the 40 psi hot pressure that hoosier recommends for my car isn't right for me or I'll heat those tires up way too much it's actually about 6 PSI off. I like them at 34 hot which means I start at 23 or so. I was starting at 25 to 27 until some fellow racers helped me out.

In general the softer the tire the larger the slip angle. Having grip doesn't mean you go the same speed but have better control it means you go faster or exceed the tires grip creating the slip angle you are comfortable with and once again this is a big reason to start with tires that don't have the best grip. At this stage of the game you should focus on one thing and that's improving as a driver so don't worry about lap times they will fall rapidly as your driving improves.

 

like lots of camber; these tires work fine at -3, but you'd probably be faster at -5 or even more. i've never seen anyone have too much camber with an Ra1.

this is different than even an R888, where you are still running -3 camber, but if you ran -5 tire temps would tell you its too much.

 

Not related to the original discussion, but where did you see the 40 PSI hot for a 2700lb car recommendation?

http://www.hoosiertire.com/pdfs/tctR6_A6.pdf

 

Probably true

The only time a miata is using it's tires is going around a corner. No power to go forward so no reason to use the brakes

 

Leave it to the master to find the correct info

LOL.......as I said I'm the last person anyone should listen to. Probably thinking of an entirely different tire

 

Anyone notice that the new Conti slicks react and like camber/caster angles a lot like Bias ply slicks? Slightly off topic, but I wonder about how radial the latest radial slicks are?

Eric

 

And they have about as much grip as old bias ply tires

 

No problem. I was just making sure there wasn't other documentation floating around that I didn't have/read.

 

Thanks for not allowing me to confuse anyone and atleast now I'm using the right starting pressure

 

I'm going to pretty much say the same thing as everyone else. You need more camber, and less tire

starting off on street tires is probably a good thing, but the RA1s should definitely be shaved. Radial in rockville MD tire shaves tires I'm pretty sure. and I know tirerack does it.

to give you some comparison last time I was on summit main with my FWD corolla (about 2 years ago, 130whp, street tires) I was running ~1:32s with quickly disappearing brakes (it's a pretty terrible video):