guys i have a dilema here. im going to use three tires as examples:
1) s03's
2)v700's
3)a032r's
well what i want to know is about the ratings that tire rack has on their site. i know that they must be educated results with trial and error and not just someones opinion. questions time...
why would one want the v700's if they wear fast and are just as sticky as the s03's. when i say sticky i mean the dry handling. also the a032r's show higher numbers in handling then the other two. im talking about race situations(autoX road course). can someone that knows tires let me in on this. id really like to learn about compounds and what makes a tire good. also, does anyone know if i can run 245/45/16 on my stockers up front(93 fd). tire rack told me i couldnt.
kris

 

The ratings on Tire Rack are averaged ratings from site visitors, not test data. The ratings are not always comparable from tire to tire. For instance, say the Michstone Forever model turns out to have some stick. People will rate it very high in dry traction because it exceeds their expectations. Say it gets a 9. For the Yokolop Gripmeister, people will expect it to be sticky. If it is less sticky than people expect, it migth get a low dry traction rating. Say it gets a 7. Now, I bet the Gripmeister is way stickier than the Forever, but it scores much worse in that area because each tire is better (Forever) or worse (Gripmeister) than buyers expect.

If you want more objective comparisons, see their tire tests. They often test high performance tires against each other.

V700s and A032Rs are stickier, noisier, and wear faster than S-03s. The first two are streetable Competition tires and the other one is a Max Performance street tire.

245/45-16 is a popular upgrade size for the FD on stock wheels. Many people run these tires at all four corners without any problems. I have heard of a few people with minor rubbing with them up front, but I think that is more the exception than the rule. I ran them with no problems on my car.

-Max

 

damn max, once again you are at the aid of one of my posts. you are a suspension/tire/wheel/apexi single god. i thank you for your input. im really intrested in using hte v700's for autoxing and my soon to be road racing. what would you think compared to the a032r's? i would like to stay in the budget area. hoosiers are not an option as i would flat spot them first chance
kris

 

My previous tires were stock size S-03s and for me those were the first set of high performance tires so I thought they were excellent, road noise was pretty much quiet as hell..... Handling was awesome of course and I loved it.........

Now, I have the A032Rs and first thing I noticed was the road noise, for me it's tollerable, but kinda noisy. Now when the road is dry, these tires have a very noticable improvement over the S-03s, but then again my S-03s were stock size and I'm running staggered with the A032Rs.

Anyhoo these tires are a lot more responsive than the S-03s and grip insanely good on the dry. In the wet they're still pretty good. I love the thread pattern design too. I also noticed that these tires will pick up a lot of small dirt and tiny rocks and whatever unlike the S-03s.

-Dan

 

Oh one more thing, another good set of tires to consider are the Falken Azenis, they have thread pattern a little similar to those of the A032R from what I hear are very grippy as well....

-Dan

 

yes max is the man

Quote:

im really intrested in using hte v700's for autoxing and my soon to be road racing. what would you think compared to the a032r's?

Stay with the Kumho Victoracer V700s. They'll grip better, and are MUCH quieter than A032R. Also the V700 are better autocross tires; they heat up quicker than the Yoko A032Rs.

Quote:

i would like to stay in the budget area. hoosiers are not an option as i would flat spot them first chancekris

I've run Hoosiers at road racing events (ie, drivers ed and open lapping), and the stick is just unbelievable. You need a way to haul the Hoosiers with you because they're not streetable. We have ABS on our FDs, so we don't have to worry about flat spotting Hoosiers. If you drive with race tires on, then I'd try the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup Comps...they're expensive; Kumho V700s are your best bet.