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Pilot Power 2CT Pressures

roytmani said:
I don't know about you but I'm a lot harder on my rear tire and require a lot more traction from it, hence I wear out 2 rears for every front on the street and 3 rears for every front on the track. All the recommended pressures for hypersport/dot race/slick tires I've seen are lower in the rear than in the front, both cold and hot psi.

The front seems to be great between 32 and 34. Anything more and you're limiting your grip levels, anything less you're limiting your precision and nimbleness. The rear's good from 30-34. While I agree that 36 or 38 might still feel good, traction level and feedback are going to be diminished.
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Interesting. I didn't know race tires called for higher front pressures. Learn something new everyday, as they say.

I always thought the reason for rears wearing so much faster was due to the weight being transferred to them constantly (and engine power), hence the need for HIGHER pressures in the rear?
 
Brown81 said:
Interesting. I didn't know race tires called for higher front pressures. Learn something new everyday, as they say.
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It depends on the construction and compound of the tire. In general, with the really low PSI rears (PR Slicks, etc) the front runs a fair bit higher, but that's because of oddball super stiff rear slick construction, designed to take advantage of additional contact patch afforded by lower PSI.

I always thought the reason for rears wearing so much faster was due to the weight being transferred to them constantly (and engine power), hence the need for HIGHER pressures in the rear?
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Yes. The front sees much less abuse, although it's a lot more important. The rear tire gets hammered all the time, the front only gets hammered under heavy braking. You can also see it in chicken strips.

My pressures range heavily, depending on the tires/construction and what I'm doing. While commuting on the ZZR, I'm at around 36f/40r. They have more than enough grip to play with the squids in the twisties like that too. When I actually used the throttle on my 929, the Pirelli Corsa 3s would go numb as hell after a little abuse if I didn't run at least 36 rear.

For track riding, it depends entirely on the tire I'm running...haven't run street tires at the track in years, so I don't really have an opinion there.

I wrote a big post on tires a little while back...it explains some of the reasoning behind tire pressure choices and such.



Low pressures are great until the tire overheats. Then they're really shitty. I stopped running low PSIs after dealing with tires getting numb and shitty after extended abuse. More of a problem with the rears than the front. Combine that with me realizing that I was just increasing wear for traction that I'd never use, and I moved from "30/30 all the time!" to a much more sane 34-38f and 36-40r. Now I get massive amounts of distance out of my tires and strangely I still don't have issues spinning the tires or sliding the bike. And I can keep up with just about anyone on the street. So the higher pressure doesn't hurt traction in any significant way and definitely reduces wear. Win/win.
 
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My heavy ass bike feels best around 37-39 up front, 34-36 in the rear.
 
About to get my 4th set and have been consistently running 2CTs at; street 34/34 and track 29/29.
 
Oh and it's worth noting that if you haven't calibrated your pressure gauge against a good known one, your pressure listings are worthless. :laughing

I've seen gauges be upwards of 5PSI off. It's great at the track when you wonder why your tires are tearing to hell. :laughing
 
Z3n said:
It depends on the construction and compound of the tire. In general, with the really low PSI rears (PR Slicks, etc) the front runs a fair bit higher, but that's because of oddball super stiff rear slick construction, designed to take advantage of additional contact patch afforded by lower PSI.

Yes. The front sees much less abuse, although it's a lot more important. The rear tire gets hammered all the time, the front only gets hammered under heavy braking. You can also see it in chicken strips.

My pressures range heavily, depending on the tires/construction and what I'm doing. While commuting on the ZZR, I'm at around 36f/40r. They have more than enough grip to play with the squids in the twisties like that too. When I actually used the throttle on my 929, the Pirelli Corsa 3s would go numb as hell after a little abuse if I didn't run at least 36 rear.

For track riding, it depends entirely on the tire I'm running...haven't run street tires at the track in years, so I don't really have an opinion there.

I wrote a big post on tires a little while back...it explains some of the reasoning behind tire pressure choices and such.

Low pressures are great until the tire overheats. Then they're really shitty. I stopped running low PSIs after dealing with tires getting numb and shitty after extended abuse. More of a problem with the rears than the front. Combine that with me realizing that I was just increasing wear for traction that I'd never use, and I moved from "30/30 all the time!" to a much more sane 34-38f and 36-40r. Now I get massive amounts of distance out of my tires and strangely I still don't have issues spinning the tires or sliding the bike. And I can keep up with just about anyone on the street. So the higher pressure doesn't hurt traction in any significant way and definitely reduces wear. Win/win.
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Good read. :cool

In this discussion though, talking PP2ct, I have put about 15,000 miles on these particular tires on my particular bike, and another 15,000 on the regular PP. I love these tires.
I can't imagine running a higher pressure in the front. Every time I have checked my pressures with these tires and actually found them to be like that(like 36 front and 32 rear) the reason I had been checking was because the bike was handling like absolute ass.
I guess it might work for someone? Just can't imagine why. It just felt entirely wrong to me. In fact, anytime these tires drop below like 34lb, they felt sqirmy and weird and not at all confidence inspiring.
Again, my bike is heavy, but not THAT heavy. :laughing
 
Winter I run 34 front 33 rear. Summer I run 31 front 29-30 rear, depending on the road. But these are sport riding pressures, not commute pressures. For posing at Starbucks, consider triple digit pressures.
 
i run 35 front 34 rear when it be cold outside.

33 32 when it be hotter days.
 
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