Toyo RA1 Wear Questions
 

Hey folks,

I'm running Toyo RA1s on my NA FC and I seem to be seeing some odd wear pattens. I was hoping someone could comment on if what I am seeing is odd.

Setup: RA1s 205/50/15 on stock rims, GC coilovers. -2.5 camber front, -1.5 rear. Normal caster, very little (if any) toe. Tires shaved initially to 6/32nds. Tires are only run on the track.

One the fronts I am seeing a cupping or scalloping wear pattern on the treadblocks, where I feel almost a sawtooth sort of pattern going from inside to outside.

Kind of like this:

inside _|\_|\_|\_|\_ outside

Basically, each treadblock is worn more on the outside edge than the inside edge. I've seen things like this on street tire when the toe settings were off. But I could also see this also happening as part of normal wear due to scrub on the front tires. I did not see this behavior on my old set of tires, but they were a well worn set of Kuhmo's with very little tread depth left. The Toyos I've had since they were new.

The rears are showing no sign of this wear pattern, and I'm planning to rotate the fronts to the rear anyway in order to even out the overall wear.

So, is this something I need to be concerned about, or just "business as usual"?

Thanks,

-bill

Yup, that's how they wear when they still have tread on them. The tread blocks kind of fold over as you start to push. Soon enough they'll be gone and you'll be down to a good slick-like surface.

-Trent

Okay, thanks Trent. I'll just keep rotating them until they get good and flat.

-b

the r888's fix this, but the ra1's at full depth let the tread blocks move around. best grip on the ra1 is basically when they look like slicks

Since it is only on the outer edges of the tires, it has me wondering if you need to raise your tire pressure a bit...

The wear pattern is pretty consistent across the face of the tire. I'm running around 39-40# hot (a touch less in back). The shoulder wear/rollover also seems to be about right. Unfortunately, I don't have a pyrometer to provide me more data.

-b

The outside edge of the tread block is taking the brunt of the cornering load. You are just wearing the tread off, this is normal for a full tread tire.

This is what happens to rain tires when the track is to dry.

The Toyo RA1 was the control race tyre for our category a few years ago. We would take a brand new set and buff at least 50% of the tread off them, otherwise the small blocks squirm around far too much. The R888's are a better tyre in the dry, but if it's a road car I'd be inclined to stick with the RA1 pattern.

how much camber do you need on a track FC? in my opinion ALL OF IT! regardless of the ugly wear pattern you might try more camber if you are track only, if you street the car at all oh well, you're about as far as you want to go ........the Ra1 loves whole-lot-o-neg camber.......... and the strut front looses neg as soon as you turn in.......

normal wear, also good hot tempatures. and yes, the r888's dont have this problem, and their is less of a time gap between full tread 888's compared to shaved 888's than the full tread ra1's and shaved ra1's