What tires for best wear?
 

Guys, I bought a dedicated autocross and track day car and I would like to know what tires wear the longest on a track car. I'm thinking that something like a Kumho XS would be the likely tire type. But do race tires or DOT tires last longer for racing purposes? Since buying the car (maxton rollerskate) I'm kinda broke so just getting going and not looking for killer times will be good until my finances recover. If the following info will matter it's a 1600lb. car with a arm front suspensoin and a solid 4 link rear. It has a 12A Street port, alum flywheel and a first gen trans. The current size tires on it are 205/60-13's and they are 1991 BFG Comp TA's so I doubt they will be on long.

Longer tire lifespan <---------------------------------------------------------> faster lap times

your budget will dictate where you fit in.

for autocross you want the widest possible tire you can fit on your stock/after market rims (the class you choose to run determines what wheels your allowed)
seeing that your auto cross times are short, like less then 60seconds you'll want an r-comp tire, like a hoosier A6 b/c they don't require much heat to be effective.

for track racing you need to have a tire that fits your rim, maybe even a a little on the smaller size. ie if a 255 tire lists that it fits a 9-10.5 rim. you'll want to have a 10 or 10.5 wide rim. this promotes better handling characteristics. in solo1 or time attack you'll have 15mins on the track so plenty of time to put some heat in the tires. again hoosier A6's seem to be the tire to beat. but a set of these will only last you a day. hoosier R6's seem to be the preferred choice as a set of these can last up to and entire season. however from the moment you buy them they'll turn out slower and slower lap times. if your driving remains constant your R6's will loose about 2 seconds depending on the track and your set up. so i wouldn't worry about these until you get into scene and can run consistent lap times. personally I'm favoring the nitto NT01. they're on track to last me 2 seasons, they maintain a lap time from their first day to their last, some say they even get faster. I've spit out faster times then some of the R6's but that was only on the hottest day of the year. down there in utah you should have no problem putting enough heat into these to worry about that.

some other r-comp tires to consider are:
Toyo advan A888 - these seem to be very hit or miss depending on the car.
Kumho Victoracer 710 - not a lot of people like these but the ones that do swear by them.
BFG R1 - have a great traction but zero slip angle. not a good tire for people new to the track

PS, r-comp tires are not a slick, the fit DOT certification but are not intended for street use. typically have a treadwear rating under 120

http://mxtnrollerskate.home.comcast....ate/thecar.htm

You can probably run just about any tire without worrying about huge wear in a 1600# car. I think your move from old Comp TAs to something like a Kumho XS should be a huge improvement, but if you went to Toyo RA1s or R888, Nitto 555RII or NT01 (which are streetable) I bet you'd get more than decent wear and a lot more grip. 205/60r13 should keep the tires reasonably inexpensive, too. You might check out the Hankook lineup, too.

Again, at that weight, with 205s, I bet you'd be happy with the wear. The RA1/R888/555RII/NT01 are a step above the best summer street tires, but a step or two behind the `real' DOT-Rs for ultimate grip.

It depends on how you drive it, too. I've seen full-tread street performance tires destroyed in one 20-minute session. The tread blocks overheat and chunk away.

A track-oriented DOT-R is probably going to be your best bet, longevity-wise. The new crop all seems to be oriented towards autocross and not track days, so your mileage may vary.

we do endurance racing and here is a short list of the tyres we've tried.

kumho v700, good grip, tire life is short, they last around 2.5 hours, which means the two times we ran them we DNF'd.... i think they would do better in an auto-x, we blistered them badly.

toyo Ra-1. good all around, everyone else thinks these are better than the r888, but we've found that to be wrong. tire life is about 4-5 hours.

toyo R888. same compound as the Ra1, they work better in the rain, and they are more solid, so you can start on full tread vs shaving the ra1. tire life is 6 hours plus, the rears can go 25 hours. we were faster on the R888's than the Ra1's.

hankook slicks; we dropped 3 seconds off our lap times vs the r888. we get 4-6 hours of run time on em. there is more in there, we need a couple more weekends to set the suspension up and find the right tire pressure to get good wear. i'd expect another 1/2 second, slightly longer run time, unless the car implodes. these tires have resulted in broken spot welds, and other weirdness...

Yes, I have heard of the 20 minutes for full street tires that's why the question of what will work best for competition use. Thanks to all for the info. Initially it looks like R888's.

I was going to say Nitto NT01 because they usually run cheaper than Toyos, but they don't make a 13 inch tire! So R888 or RA1 for you!

The thing about RA1s are you can heat cycle them more than the R888 so remember this if your just starting out and planning on autox and track days.

So, that means take care of them for the first time or two? Or, just that they will wear more and live with it?

Just means if you run them hard then put them away a lot and they sit for periods of time, they don't lose their ultimate grip as much as other tires would do if you did the same thing with them. It's a good beginner tire, since your just starting out your track days schedule may be sporadic, I know mine are! I'm lucky to get 4-5 days per year out so I need a tire that can "weather".

other tires you might look into these aren't R-comps but I race with people that road race a set of tires all season with good results. I think i've only seen one of the tires chunk and that was a pretty quick old camero with zero camber, nearly riding on the side wall tore off the shoulder of the tire.

Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec - no 13"
bridgestone RE-11 - no 13"
Kumho Ecsta XS - no 13"

damn you need some new rims....

Yea, I know that. In time 15's will happen but for now, 13's it is.

What rims are you running? If they are stock FB rims, you should get something wider. The amount of tire carcass roll the stock 5.5" rims allow with a 205 is hard to offset, even with 4 degrees of negative camber. I'd be looking for 13x7 or 13x8 rims.

-Trent

No experience with the Kumhos, but the other two are reminiscent of R-compounds from 15-odd years ago. I wouldn't want to drive a modern R-compound on the street, but I used to do that with my Bridgestones.

And yes, once you get into performance tires in a 205/60, the stock wheels won't cut it. Those tires will really want 13x7s. Unfortunately, streetable performance 13" are basically impossible to find nowadays.

A good street tire for the price is the Falken FK452, and a good all around track/street tire would be Bridgestone KDW.

I personally run RT615's but they went up in price so I'll be trying Bridgestone KDWs next summer.

i've run the falken 452, they are way to hard, with heat they get greasy and beating on them cold makes them chunk.
it's BFgoodrich that makes the KDW, i've heard nothing but bad things about them. everything from getting greasy to sloppy sidewall construction.


after all these suggestions I'd recommend the:
toyo R888

still an R-comp with give you lots of traction without heat for autoX. but the harder compound of the group so you can get some longevity out of them. street able, but i would try to avoid daily driving them as much as possible until you can see how your particular car wear's tires. r-comps are also designed to give as much feed back as possible, to do this their sidewalls are as stiff as can be, which will resist rolling over with a huge 205/60 wall. the R888's are also more designed for wet weather then the RA1, that should also help keep the cost down instead of buying a set of dry and wet tires.

Sorry I meant BF KDW not bridgestone, I screwed up! It's funny cause Ive heard nothing but good thing but it is a cheaper in price tire compared to the r888 so I could see the r888s being better. Maybe I'll give the r888 a try, the rt615 I had issues with when they were cold (when cold they were like PVC plastic, if the weather was cold with street driving they would never warm up).

Are the R888 really better than the RA1s in the wet? The RA1s come in at 8/32 while the R888 are 6/32. Nitto NT01 are also 6/32.

dunno it hasn't rained since the R888 came out! except for this year. and in the 25 everyone was running the hankook, cause its like 3 seconds a lap faster.

R888 "tread design improve dry performance while maintaining wet traction and control."

RA1 "Wet performance limitations are also evident on damp or wet roads when operating outside the optimum temperature."

the R888 has a much more obvious directional tread and has better water siping. meaning it pushes the water out from under the tire instead of trapping it.

So if the Toyo R888 are the same compound as Nitto NT01, and they are the same 6/32, one could "assume" wet performance would be similar only the different tread pattern and the Nittos are usually always cheaper. I've ran Nitto NT01s in the rain and was not that impressed. The reason I ask is I'm shopping for rain tires/backups. I was going to go RA1 up until now. But I don't want the marketing speak, I was looking for people that actually have run RA1 and R888 in the wet.

If you think an R888 is a good choice i would go with the Nitto NT01.

It is more consistent than the R888 and less finicky with alignment settings and tire pressures. I believe it also lasts longer than both the R888 and the RA1. But this does vary based on what car they are on.

I have run all 3 of these tires on the FC. The RA1 and the NT01 have the same compound but the NT01 lasts longer and is faster throughout the life of the tire than the RA1. The NT01 performs like an RA1 in that it just keeps getting faster and faster till the cords are showing. But with the RA1 you have to shave the tire else you go through a squirlly full tread 3-4 sessions before you get down to the race slick. And if you run them full tread their overall life is less than the NT01 at full tread.

While the NT01 is not as fast at full tread as it is in the slick of either tire (RA1 or NT01) it is not squirlly like the full tread RA1 initially. The same can be said for the R888.

Nice thing about all these tires is they require zero break in procedure.

The tread patter is way different. The full tread RA1 is a better rain tire by far than the NT01 and the R888.