Race set with or without TPMS?
 

I'm going to be getting a second set of wheels and tires (ZL1 1LE reps with RE71r) for AutoX duties. The OE wheels and tires will be used for regular driving and road course use. Is it worth it to get TPMS sensors for the second set? I've seen a special device used to program the sensors, not too sure if its needed. It kinda seems like a PITA to have to do that just for a day or two. Especially if have to keep reprogramming every time I swap wheels.

Long term I plan on getting a tire trailer and swap for AX tires at the event. Not ready for that yet.

Any major negatives to driving without TPMS? Might be road trips of two hours or more to some of the events this year.

Your going to have tire warning light displayed on the dash. That alone would drive me nuts.

My track wheels don’t have TPMS. Just one warning to acknowledge on startup, never bothered me. No adverse impact on anything else. When you put stock wheels back on, nothing to do at all- Car recognizes TPMS automatically and warning clears after a couple miles.

Thanks! Thats pretty much what I needed to hear. I don't mind a few warnings as long as they are temporary. That might change though.

I would feel better checking my pressures with a quality gauge through out the track session than relying on the tpms system.

I presume you also lose the tire temperature monitoring. I haven't tried it on a track yet, but I suspect it would be very useful to know your tires are up to temp before pushing it.

Nigel

Yeah, you loose that feature. I’ve never used that feature, a little gimmicky if you ask me. Just like any other car, I explore tire grip with throttle and steering inputs before pushing.

Do you plan on using any of the PTM modes? The car will NOT allow you to access PTM when the TPMS warning light is on.

No Sean- it does allow PTM. A good friend co-drove my car at VIR in November, he used PTM 2 & race on my track wheels.

I agree. It's really only useful when the tires are transitioning from cold to cool aka the "glass" phase. Good drivers are constantly feeling their tires grip level.

I wasn't able to access PTM in mine :iono:

I thought you had a single sensor fail? Remember, it's an all or none system. If the system sees all four, you're good. If it sees none, you're good. It's only when it sees only one, two, or three sensors when it prevents you from going into PTM modes.

Me neither, I went for a couple weeks without them because my TPMS tool was faulty, once I got the sensors set, I had the PTM.

This. If you have 1-3 sensors missing/failed, you won't be able to use PTM. Might not even be able to turn off TC in that state, either.

If you're in a pinch from having 1-3 sensors fail/go out at the track, I think you can enter TPMS learning mode to "un-learn" the TPMS sensors? I haven't tested it to know for sure, but I'm pretty sure entering learn mode immediately wipes all the saved TPMS RFIDs from the vehicle's memory. You won't have tire pressure or temperature data if you look at that stuff in Cosworth, but you should at least be able to enter PTM mode after un-learning the sensors.