A follow up:
Feb 18th we had at least 3 autocrosses worth of driving, totaling ~12 autocrosses, and the tires looked like this:
https://goo.gl/photos/9596ydGD3ry1cdiB6The tire with the melted rubber boogers is the front; the other two pictures in the album, including the one above, are from the rear tires.
The tires are worn to the wear bars in the rear.
Feb 19th I went to Orange County for another autocross, expecting to fail tech because I was at the wear bars. There I was told that as long as cords weren't showing I was good to go.
After I got home ~13 autocrosses +8K street miles the tires looked like this:
https://goo.gl/photos/ZJmNUCfH9zA4tZkv8There seems to be little areas of very shallow micro chunking that exposes areas of rubber that have color like the sidewalls. (Visible in the picture above)
Would these tires pass tech?
I have ordered a set of Yokohama AD08 Rs that should arrive and be installed before March 4th AX. I would have gotten RE-11s again, but they seem to be discontinued. I also was interested in Hankook RS4s, but I wasn't able to get a firm commitment that they would be delivered and installed before March 4th. RE-71Rs aren't available in my exact size and I'm a little worried about changing rolling radius messing with ABS/PSM.
Has anyone tried the RE-71Rs on a 987 Cayman/Boxster with 18in wheels? (Stock tire size is 265/40R18, RE-71Rs are 265/35R18 or 265/45R18)