I'm looking for a well-rounded performance tire. Great dry traction, decent wet. I will be driving on the street for most of their life so I'm not looking for an r compound race tire. Friends have sad good things about nitto 555's, also looking into t1r's. These will be my first set of good tires on 4 wheels (have bought multiple sets for the bike) now that I can afford them... Open to suggestions. 18x8.5 245F 18x9.5 275R Thanks in advance

 

Michelin Pilot Sport PS2
/thread.

STAY AWAY from bf goodrich kdw 2's.

 

anything japanese and away from bridgestone.. Pirelli rosso all the way

 

What will you be doing with the car? Street driving only? Some autox? Some track? Some drag?

If you are only looking for a street tire, don't waste your money on some expensive tire which you'll never really use. Get something decent, but not over the top. There are a lot of good street tires which are much cheaper than the expensive ones:

Kumho Ecsta XS
Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec
Falken Azenis RT615
Sumitomo HTR Z III - https://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php...&postcount=184

 

I would love to get into autox. My work schedule isn't playing along as far as spare time goes. Anyway, for now I drive the car daily. I have researched a few of the tires you have mentioned and don't want a tire that is too over the top or, along the same line, won't perform as a FD's tires should. I would rather pay $200 more for a set of tires I can count on in a hard corner... If that makes sense

 

You'll never over-do any of the tires I mentioned on the street.

 

Thanks mahjik, I respect what you have to say. I've read a lot of your posts and you have helped me indirectly on more than one occasion... I'll take a look at the sumitomo's, havn't heard much either way about those.

 

Why no love for Bridgestone? They make some very good tires. Yes they're on the expensive end of the spectrum, but so is Pirelli.

I'm using Bridgestone RE-070's and they've lasted longer than my two previous sets of tires combined, and they had tread wear ratings of double or more what the 'stones have, which makes the price more than worth it. They're great on track (for a street tire), giving good, consistent grip and showing no signs of excess wear and don't form "worms", like most tires would (wasted rubber). They grip pretty well in the wet too. The only real downsides are they're a bit heavy (but they've got nice, stiff sidewalls) and they're only available in a very limited number of sizes. I'm absolutely 100% happy with them and would definitely consider getting them again.

The RE01R is the reigning king of street tire autocrossing.

 

I really liked the Kumho MXs on my FD. The new replacement for the MX - the Kumho XS looks really nice. The inner tread is designed to improve wet weather performance. Pricing should be extremely competitive.

The Dunlop Star Specs will have better dry grip but probably not as good in the wet.

The T1R is pretty nice but the sidewalls are kinda soft so the tire feels a bit mushier compared to others.

Friend of mine runs the RE 01R on his 911 and loves them but they are pricier than the others. Other Bridgestone's might be nice but I don't have a lot of experience with others.

Spend some time on Tire Rack's site for some good test reviews.

 

Spent about 2 hours there last night... some of the reviews are helpful and informative, but then there are the "deez r da bess tyrez in da world" so it kinda throws it off. I would rather hear it from RX7 owners and what has worked specifically on cars like my own.

 

I prefer Trojan Magnum...oops, wrong rubber, actually the best tires, IMO, are Yokohama ADVAN A048, they are sweet looking and preform great, I have always been a fan of Yokohama! (and yokozuna oddly enough)

 

Dunlop Star specs have the best dry traction out there right now from what I hear.

I've been running BFG KDWs for a couple of years now and I have no complaints. They have the hands-down best wet traction I've ever driven on, and they really surprised me at Laguna Seca last summer. I've put probably 15k+ hard miles on them and they still have PLENTY of tread life left on them.

lol, I like 'em so much I talked my mom into putting a set onto her Jaguar.

 

RE-01s if you want the stickiest thing out there. Mine are actually holding up pretty well, at least as well as my Falken Azenis did last year (120 runs, 5-8k road miles).

If you are rarely gonna actually auto-x or are mainly just going to DD it, step down a tire class. My old RE750s have well over 15k on them (with a few auto-x runs thrown in too) and aren't down to the wear bars yet. They are more than sticky enough for anything on the street.

 

hankook RS2's are also a great tire.

 

If you're looking for daily driven performance, mileage, and handling - The Bridgestone 960AS Pole Position is going to give you the best of all the above in an "all season" package. they also cary a 40K mile treadwear warranty - nothing in that performance category will even touch that tire as far as performance and longevity are concerned. For street applications it is by far my tire of choice in the bridgestone lineup. it's designed for great dry traction but handles wet conditions better than just about anything else out there. will be putting them on the rx8 at the next tire change.

Ray

 

Sorry, I actually meant to refer to the tire tests that Tire Rack performs. The user reviews are hit or miss - but you'll get the same here.

I also like to do tire research on bimmerforums.com. I usually find great info there as well as here. You'll find the same references to the same tires listed here.

 

+1 pirelli pzero rosso assymetrico all the way
im on my second set now
they are awesome, exelent wet grip(i havent hydroplaned once,and i run 285`s)
and reeeally good dry.
ps:they allso smell better as smoke au`de burnout

 

Bang for the buck autocrossers choice. They're kinda like what the T1-S was 5 years ago.

 

Funny, I've loved the BStone Potenza S02s, S03s, RE01-Rs......can't stand pirelli. Think they're overpriced for the performance. Look on the tire rack rankings, pirelli is almost always towards the bottom

 

great info, will have to remember those

 

For the price, the new Direzza star specs are amazing. If they came in my sizes I would definitely be running them.....

 

I'm going with the Sumitomo HTR III's. The test reviews were very good, and people seem to be pleased with them so far. Very good price. I'll definitely get back on here and update once they arrive and I've put some miles on them. Hopefully I'm making a good choice... I think I am

 

those are the tires howard coleman is running on his fd and he absolutely loves them. he had them shaved to 6/32" and they work well apparently. read his chassis suspension thread

 

pilot sports are comfortable and quiet but they tend to get heat cycled quickly and become hard after a year or so. for the price i would think they would last longer

i had the bfg KDW2s and they were great, although fairly noisy in comparison to PS2s (both were on a benz)

i just picked up another set of RT615s for the miata. good dry and wet grip but kinda heavy.

 

I think one of the best bang for the buck street tire with some AutoX use is the Falken Azenis RT615. I actually ran these on the street, 2 AutoX's, and 2 track weekends(I did use my Kumho V710's too though) when I was home on leave in October and they worked great all around.