On a side note: There is huge amount of tire noise - I have Yokohama AVS ES100's. Can anyone prescribe/reccomend an S8 tire that provides performance without high levels of noise?

 

A lot of tires provide great performance without high noise level. It really all depends on how it's made though, and how many plies are inside the tire (nylon, steel wire, etc.). Tirerack usually tells you how noisy a tire is from their rating diagram. Off the top of my head I'm not sure of any nor have I had much experience with noisy high performance tires. But I'll try to get some more info.

 

Here's a good article that explains tire noise, and a research plan from Purdue University that is looking to reduce the noise they create.

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever...ton.tires.html