Tires - R compound or Street?
 

Hello all... Got a question.

I run my car in 1 or 2 high speed events per summer and I drive it VERY hard on the street if I do take it out (most of the time it sits in the garage).

For the last few years I've been running Toyo RA-01 as my only tire, but I'm getting ready to buy a new set and I have a question.

Taking into account that I do not daily drive this car, should I go with R compound tires again or go with a top of the line street tire? I don't care about treadwear or noise or wet traction or stiff ride at all. I want the maximum response and maximum grip.

My only concern is if I can get most of the life out of the R compounds before they get hard from heat cycling. I also have over 400 rwhp I need to hold on the road.... my thoughts here are that R compounds have more stick per unit of width, so I can run a smaller rear tire and still make it stick if it's R compound compared to street compounds.

Is it even POSSIBLE to keep R compounds close-to-warm-enough on the street given that you can't always be cornering hard no matter how hard you might try?

Re: Tires - R compound or Street?
 

No.

I think that is the simplest answer to your question and why R tires don't pay off for street duty: you can't get them hot. Cold R tires are only marginally better than good street tires (even worse than streets if it's cold out) and are pretty useless if it does rain on you.

I'd stick with a really good street tire in your case.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that most new R-compound tires are already shaved to 4/32nds of an inch! 1ST that makes them totally non street legal and I bet your local law would agree. 2nd most tire companies tell you not to drive them as a street tire for safety reasons. Hoosier even posts that in there website! I think that good street tires are the best way to go

if you want the maximum grip for the street i'd look into the bfg kd's i've heard they outperform some r compound tires and are great for the street.

I called Kumho a few years ago and asked them about driving on the street with Victoracers and they said that their tire was much more suited to doing this than that other company (starts with an "H" and ends with "oosier" was how he put it!). The "other" company only uses fiberglass belts to keep the weight down, but the Kumhos still had a steel belt in them.

I ran the Victoracers for one year before they got too hard (lots of auto-x and about 3-4kmiles on the street).

Now I have V-700's, but only a few auto-x's, a track day and not many street miles on them before I bagged them for storage. They seemed to work much better in the rain (I did't listen to the weather).

One nice thing is that Kumho's are cheap enough to buy 2 sets a year.

Re: Tires - R compound or Street?
 

You also might want to note that R-compounds also lose some of their stick from age. Unless kept in a cool climate with little exposure to moisture and sunlight, you'd be lucky to have any useable stickiness in a year's time. Most serious auto-xers and road racers keep tabs on how old their race rubber is.

There are quite a few street tires that do a commendable job in terms of grip and are available in sizes that should help with your lack of grip issues. Kumho MX's, Bridgestone RE750's, Goodyear F1 SC's ... to name a few.

Edit: On a further note, my brand new Victoracers lasted me about 6 months. They were trailered everywhere and saw a combined total of .. maybe 200 miles before they got hard and basically unuseable.

Redrotor, that's kinda misleading cause those were 200 TRACK miles, not 200 street miles ;)

I agree about the age thing, which leads me to agree with the street tire recommendation for a track/street tire.

However, as a dry street only tire, I'd go with Toyo RA-1s. Running Toyos on my TA, I had enough traction to kill my clutch before killing the tires ;) Phew, what a smell that was..

PaulC

I've tried them all, BFG TAKD.(period)

the Toyo RA1 has a stamp that says for competition use only on the side walls.

Anyhow... i think u need to drive your car more.

Yeah, you got me there.

One last thing to note ... R-compound tires are nail/screw magnets! And boy are you gonna be pissed when you find a hole in your big $$$ race tires!

Gennimens,
I recently spoke w/ Paul Marconnes @ radial tire (THE local shop for serious autox and track guys from porsche club etc.) about this. Paul is an SCCA racer himself.

Paul heavily recommended the Toyo RA-1 as the best street/track tire... even over the KDs, which he could sell me for more money.

It is his opinion that, in unshaved form, the RA-1 has the fewest tradeoffs (little tramlining, noise, etc.) and is perfectly streetable in decent conditions. He even believes you'd get more actual miles out of em than the KDs.

Just thought i'd offer someone elses educated opinion. :-)

LOL, helps if I don't have trailer mishaps on the way to the track :(

I missed the race last weekend, so next race isn't til April.

PaulC

You missed the race? WTF?!?!?! i want another video!

I'd have to agree with Mr. Marconnes on this one. I've been running an unshaven set of RA-1s for quite a while now, although this particular set hasn't seen a track day yet (their overall traction levels drop after numerous major heat cycles, as most DOT race tires do). Their ride isn't as harsh or noisy as the Victos, and their warmup-- even on cold days-- is actually quite good. While they are obviously a dry condition-only tire, they are acceptable in the wet (although any standing water is deadly, thus my driving is very limited in the wet on the street). But their traction, steering response and overall handling in decent conditions is excellent, and incredible fun to play with.

That said, as soon as I get an extra set of rims, I'll be getting a good set of street skins.

How do the Toyo's compare vs. Falken Azenis in terms of grip?

Lots of the autocrossers in my region run Falkens because they're legal for ST classes. BFG's are also used by some, but they're more expensive than the Falkens, so most people will buy two sets of Falkens vs one set of KDs.

-s-