Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2

Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2

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Discussion

Steve Rance

5,435 posts

230 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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I'm still trying to establish the optimum hot pressure for the cup 2. For what they are worth, my view of the Cup 2 is that it has more ultimate pace than the original tyre by some margin. However, it is more difficult to maintain at a constant temperature, go's off a lot quicker and requires - in my experience - a lot more correction on the lap to find the time.

I find the original Cup more consistent and driver friendly. I would qualify this by saying that my experience of the original tyre was almost entirely GT3 based but mu experience of the Cup 2 is 964. On saying that, I've driven several 964's before and they were not as lose as my well set up car on cup 2's

jon-

16,497 posts

215 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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Steve Rance said:
I'm still trying to establish the optimum hot pressure for the cup 2. For what they are worth, my view of the Cup 2 is that it has more ultimate pace than the original tyre by some margin. However, it is more difficult to maintain at a constant temperature, go's off a lot quicker and requires - in my experience - a lot more correction on the lap to find the time.

I find the original Cup more consistent and driver friendly. I would qualify this by saying that my experience of the original tyre was almost entirely GT3 based but mu experience of the Cup 2 is 964. On saying that, I've driven several 964's before and they were not as lose as my well set up car on cup 2's
I'd suggest it's the car rather than the tyre.

One of the big drives with the Cup 2 is stability, and I had the chance to test the Cup+ and Cup2 back to back on the same car around Jerez. The Cup 2, at least on a 97 turbo, was leagues more stable and required much less correction.

http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Article/Michelin-Pilo...


Steve Rance

5,435 posts

230 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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I've never rated the Cup + compared to the original cup. Have you driven the Cup 2 in a direct comparison with an original cup?

jon-

16,497 posts

215 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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Negative, just the Cup+!

noneedtolift

846 posts

222 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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Also drove the old Cup/Cup+ and the Cup 2 back to back in Mai (on 997 GT3RS) - I must say I actually prefer the old Cup tyre. Yes it is more progressive and ultimately the "easier to drive tyre" but at least in fairly hot conditions the tyre let off considerably after about 5 to 6 laps. It "comes back" though if you leave it for 2 laps or so. Biggest plus on the old tyre is it's - compared to the old one - longelivety.

For me, it is not on par (overall) with the Pirelli but given the price a really good tyre and I run it when not running the Pirelli. Both cars (GT2 and GT3 RS) on them currently - haven't tried it in the wet but will next week by the looks of things...

Cheers
Felix

PS: I run them 1,6 bar cold 1,9-2,0 bar hot - like the old one really.

Cunno

511 posts

156 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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noneedtolift said:
Also drove the old Cup/Cup+ and the Cup 2 back to back in Mai (on 997 GT3RS) - I must say I actually prefer the old Cup tyre. Yes it is more progressive and ultimately the "easier to drive tyre" but at least in fairly hot conditions the tyre let off considerably after about 5 to 6 laps. It "comes back" though if you leave it for 2 laps or so. Biggest plus on the old tyre is it's - compared to the old one - longelivety.

For me, it is not on par (overall) with the Pirelli but given the price a really good tyre and I run it when not running the Pirelli. Both cars (GT2 and GT3 RS) on them currently - haven't tried it in the wet but will next week by the looks of things...

Cheers
Felix

PS: I run them 1,6 bar cold 1,9-2,0 bar hot - like the old one really.
Agree with the above and Steve's comments above. Cup 2 a lot harder to to manage on hot days gives up quicker on hot days too, but does come back to you. Not convinced either that there any quicker than the old cups tyres.

Jon

Steve Rance

5,435 posts

230 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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I also prefer the original cups as they required a neater driving style to get the most out of them. I find the Cup 2 more like the Toyo in that they require almost to be over driven to achieve optimum pace. Again qualified by limited experience of the new tyres on a 964. I will try more camber and see whether the tyre comes to the car. I'm only running -2deg and pushing the chassis quite hard.

jon-

16,497 posts

215 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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Has anyone tried the Dunlop Sport Maxx Race? It's the tyre Michelin were the most worried about at the time of my test.

LaSource

2,622 posts

207 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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Steve Rance said:
I'm still trying to establish the optimum hot pressure for the cup 2. For what they are worth, my view of the Cup 2 is that it has more ultimate pace than the original tyre by some margin. However, it is more difficult to maintain at a constant temperature, go's off a lot quicker and requires - in my experience - a lot more correction on the lap to find the time.

I find the original Cup more consistent and driver friendly. I would qualify this by saying that my experience of the original tyre was almost entirely GT3 based but mu experience of the Cup 2 is 964. On saying that, I've driven several 964's before and they were not as lose as my well set up car on cup 2's
Very similar to my experience.
I find on a track day during the morning session the tyre tends to go off after about 4-5 laps without much change in pressure...temps can go pretty high. However, the tyre settles down later in the day and then has much more consistency regardless of pace.
I also find I am a lot more aggressive with corrections etc since using the Cup 2s, however had put this down to an evolution of my style and hadn't thought it would be tyre based.

(I tend to run between 30F/31R and 31F/33R hot on a 996 GT3 with harder than OEM suspension)

Edited by LaSource on Sunday 13th September 22:04

PorscheGT4

21,146 posts

264 months

Sunday 13th September 2015
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jon- said:
Has anyone tried the Dunlop Sport Maxx Race? It's the tyre Michelin were the most worried about at the time of my test.
Yes I binned them 1/4 worn, very short window, no grip in low temps what so ever, hard side walls, did not get on well with them at all.

Edited by PorscheGT4 on Monday 14th September 10:10

mpit

373 posts

169 months

Wednesday 30th September 2015
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Apologies for hijacking the thread with non-Porsche content, but I found this thread after Googling for info about the Cup2s.

I'm currently looking at tyre options for track days in my E92 M3.

How long can I expect these Cup 2s to last in terms of road miles and track days?

I'm trying to work out whether it's worth having these on one set of wheels for convenience when I do around 700 motorway miles per month in the car, or to spend out on a second set of wheels.

PorscheGT4

21,146 posts

264 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
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on a m3 about 3k miles lol

on a porker many more.

BK911

61 posts

185 months

Tuesday 6th October 2015
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Mpit,

I've just bought a set of Cup 2's for my E92 in prep for two days at Spa next weeksmile

Will report back but tbh from what I've read it's a no brainier and the wear should be alright.

Cheers,
BK

Steve Rance

5,435 posts

230 months

Wednesday 7th October 2015
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Thought I'd update this thread. I added some more camber to my 964 and there was a decent improvement in performance. More grip, less scrubbing and more consistency up to and beyond 10/10'ths.

Overall much better. More like the original Cup.

For lighter cars at least they definitely reward a sharper set up.

DiscoColin

3,328 posts

213 months

Wednesday 7th October 2015
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mpit said:
How long can I expect these Cup 2s to last in terms of road miles and track days?
Too long would you believe. Once baked in with heat cycles the inner tread block (they are a multi-compound like bike tyres) gets quite hard and just lasts and lasts. I had my first set of Cup2s on my GT3 for 18 months and it is almost as if they stopped wearing at all from road driving. However they did lose a lot of their grip and eventually the inner tread block delaminated half way around the circumference at about 130mph at the 'ring. Which gets your attention. No other real damage, the tyre continued to hold pressure as it should and TTC in Meuspath were literally just down the road so I slowly limped there bought another set of the same. But would I pass on the caveat that they are best replaced for grip loss due to heat cycles rather than waiting for the tread depth to wear down.

The salient point is that they are not like the older Cups where on cars with any camber they used to wear down on the inner shoulder over very short road mileages. You really can put >7000 road miles and a double digit number of track days on them if you look after the pressures. Just don't leave it too long before renewing them as by that point they will be a very long way past their best.

acey81

177 posts

109 months

Wednesday 7th October 2015
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DiscoColin said:
Too long would you believe. Once baked in with heat cycles the inner tread block (they are a multi-compound like bike tyres) gets quite hard and just lasts and lasts. I had my first set of Cup2s on my GT3 for 18 months and it is almost as if they stopped wearing at all from road driving. However they did lose a lot of their grip and eventually the inner tread block delaminated half way around the circumference at about 130mph at the 'ring. Which gets your attention. No other real damage, the tyre continued to hold pressure as it should and TTC in Meuspath were literally just down the road so I slowly limped there bought another set of the same. But would I pass on the caveat that they are best replaced for grip loss due to heat cycles rather than waiting for the tread depth to wear down.

The salient point is that they are not like the older Cups where on cars with any camber they used to wear down on the inner shoulder over very short road mileages. You really can put >7000 road miles and a double digit number of track days on them if you look after the pressures. Just don't leave it too long before renewing them as by that point they will be a very long way past their best.
This is my experience as well. The tires will heat cycle out, rather than wear primarily, They are also quite sensitive to alignment. Even though a quite well sorted, corner weighted setup, my last set wore on the outer edges more than anticipated. Mine wouldn't last double digit track days when it comes to grip levels (but could probably take it wear wise).

ttdan

1,091 posts

192 months

Wednesday 7th October 2015
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Was running cup 2 last week at DN13 on the e46M3, quite a bit of camber (3.5 front, 2.5 rear) and i thought they were great. They did start to go off a tiny bit about half way into the second lap which is about 12 to 13 mins of fairly hard driving but for £159 a corner in BM sizes im not complaining in the slightest. Very progressive too.

Whos tried the Dunlop Direzza? Have heard some great things about these but the range is a little confusing so not sure what their "road legal" track tyre actually is.

jon-

16,497 posts

215 months

Thursday 8th October 2015
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ttdan said:
Was running cup 2 last week at DN13 on the e46M3, quite a bit of camber (3.5 front, 2.5 rear) and i thought they were great. They did start to go off a tiny bit about half way into the second lap which is about 12 to 13 mins of fairly hard driving but for £159 a corner in BM sizes im not complaining in the slightest. Very progressive too.

Whos tried the Dunlop Direzza? Have heard some great things about these but the range is a little confusing so not sure what their "road legal" track tyre actually is.
The Cup 2 was benchmarked against the SportMaxx Race during development: http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Dunlop/SportMaxx...

braddo

10,399 posts

187 months

Thursday 12th November 2015
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How are people finding the Cup 2 on the road in autumn, with greasy/leafy roads?

Harris_I

3,225 posts

258 months

Thursday 12th November 2015
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I used them on a damp track recently and struggled to get the front end hooked up. That said, they have more wet weather grip than my previous experiment with Yoko Advan AD08.