Performance Tyre talk

[Evaded Motorsport]

I am leaning towards the Kumho Ku36 at the moment as I have been on many forums and web sites and rarely find anything less than praise for them. I have been quoted $255 for 225/45/17's which is a pretty good price.

No it's not we do them for $194 a tyre up in Brisbane.

The KU36 is a good tyre but it isn't a semi slick. It depends on your budget and how long you want them to last. They are still 2 seconds a lap slower than a proper semi slick.

[mtaoz3]

R Spec tyres definitely have problems with road use, and yes, they only really work well when they are hot. As mentioned before, they "go off" after perhaps 8 to 10 heat cycles and become hard, gripless junk. Mate of mine had some D93 Dunlops as wet race tyres. They are brilliant for a few cycles, super soft and heavily grooved. Then they lost grip so he replaced them even though they had 80% tread left. After having them sit in his garage for a year, he decided to "wear them out" on his road car. They had almost no grip in the dry, were absolutely dangerous in the wet, and roared like a brace of Land Rovers on bar treads. After 10,000km, his nerves wore out before the tyres.
If you can afford some R-Specs for track days, go for it, but they will never be a road tyre afterwards.

[kryten2001]

R Spec tyres definitely have problems with road use, and yes, they only really work well when they are hot. As mentioned before, they "go off" after perhaps 8 to 10 heat cycles and become hard, gripless junk. Mate of mine had some D93 Dunlops as wet race tyres. They are brilliant for a few cycles, super soft and heavily grooved. Then they lost grip so he replaced them even though they had 80% tread left. After having them sit in his garage for a year, he decided to "wear them out" on his road car. They had almost no grip in the dry, were absolutely dangerous in the wet, and roared like a brace of Land Rovers on bar treads. After 10,000km, his nerves wore out before the tyres.
If you can afford some R-Specs for track days, go for it, but they will never be a road tyre afterwards.

Yeah that's what I heard too.... Bugger that for a joke, just get a good set of road tyres and get some decent life out of them.

8-10 heat cycles and they'd be buggered after a week? No thanks.

[kryten2001]

And there it is, pretty much in black and white.

http://www.yokohama.com.au/trackdays/

In particular:

"You can use ADVAN A048s on the road but commuting to work every day would waste heat cycles reducing the potential competitiveness of the tyre over time. R-spec tyres have an optimum number of heat cycles. When the tyre heats up to operating temperature and cools back down to ambient temperature again this is called a heat cycle. The A048 maintains its performance though more heat cycles than any R-spec model before it but the performance does start to go down hill over time. So if you're chasing tenths at the track it's a good idea to limit road use."

[seangti]

so it's the tyre you can drive to the track with, rather than take in the boot and swap when you get there. Now, where to store the 2nd set.


Still 8 - 10 heat cycles, so 8-10 track days, is that really all the tyre will last? I've used road tyres for all track days I've done, I had a set of Yoko 539's do 9 track days and lasted around 25,000km (on previous car). My best time was my last day on them even though the tyre was passed its best. Certainly no track tyre mind you, it'd get noticable soggy after 3 hot laps but came back.

[Peter Jones]

It's pretty hard to get an R spec tyre up to temp on the street.

I've run about the place on mine and they don't even get close to warm.

Pete

[kryten2001]

So essentially, R specs will (generally) never get warm enough on the street to grip as well as good road tyres - and if they do, they'll go off after a very short while....

Not much reason to get them I suppose, keep them for the track (where you may as well use slicks anyway?)

Stick with very good road tyres I reckon...... The Pirelli's get my vote.

[bujna]

If you are after an inbetween tyre, then i found my bridgestone re001 adrenalins were fairly decent at a hillclimb. They were freshly bought at the time though, and i'm not sure how they'd deal with a lot of heat cycles.

For my track car, i'm about to get a set of Federal 595RSR's (140 tread wear) which seem to be good bang for buck. I think they are going to cost around 170 a corner for 205/50/15's. They aren't as soft as r888's but should be cheaper.
Although, what size were those r888's you quoted from Tempe Mal? They sounded very cheap....

[isaw]

I've run a set of KU36's on my GTI.

The Grip for a street tyre was amazing, yes its not a proper semi, but it doesnt have heat cycle issues. once they are warm they grip very well in the dry, the wet grip is good, but nothing to write home about compared to the ccs2's or the ku31's I'm running now.

I got 12000km out of them, and still had a good wack left (maybe another 2-3k?) They saw a track day at morgan park, and a mountain run basically every 2-3 nights (nebo return, about 50km of twists) for 6 months, and I'll tell you I wasn't very kind to them...

They are very progressive in loss of grip, and let you know where they stand constanty with very good feedback. On a price vs performance factor, they cant be beaten IMO, and at 160ish a corner (not fitted, or freighted from option1) are remarkable.
You can run 235/45/17 to make it cheaper, and have more rubber on the road at the same time while still being legal in qld (might want to check your state..)

they get a very big thumbs up from me.

[seangti]

isaw - you referring to the 31's or 36's?

[Peter Jones]

So essentially, R specs will (generally) never get warm enough on the street to grip as well as good road tyres - and if they do, they'll go off after a very short while....

Nah, even cold the semi-slicks still hook up better than any street tyre I've driven on.

Pete

[adzy]

I've run a set of KU36's on my GTI.

The Grip for a street tyre was amazing, yes its not a proper semi, but it doesnt have heat cycle issues. once they are warm they grip very well in the dry, the wet grip is good, but nothing to write home about compared to the ccs2's or the ku31's I'm running now.

I got 12000km out of them, and still had a good wack left (maybe another 2-3k?) They saw a track day at morgan park, and a mountain run basically every 2-3 nights (nebo return, about 50km of twists) for 6 months, and I'll tell you I wasn't very kind to them...

They are very progressive in loss of grip, and let you know where they stand constanty with very good feedback. On a price vs performance factor, they cant be beaten IMO, and at 160ish a corner (not fitted, or freighted from option1) are remarkable.
You can run 235/45/17 to make it cheaper, and have more rubber on the road at the same time while still being legal in qld (might want to check your state..)

they get a very big thumbs up from me.

This why I favor the Kumho KU36, there is no point having full semi slicks if 5 - 10% of your driving is track days then the rest of the time you are on the street on noisy, slippery, harsh tyres which will just wear out quicker than a high performance tyre.
The KU36's are designed for the odd track day and no big compromise on the street, just like the Pirelli P-Zero Corsa's and similar tyres. Once you go full semi slicks you just get excessive wear and less traction on the street as they are always cold (under optimal temperature).
When Motor magazine compared Michelin Pilot Sport Cup's to Michelin Pilot Sport PS2's, they left the wheel shop on the cups and went sideways accidentally due to the lack of grip without temperature ("when cold the cups have way less grip than road tyres"), but once warmed up, they blitzed the road tyres posting a lap of 1:09.90 compared to 1:12.03 at Wakefield.
But if I lived next to the Nurburgring - I think I would be rolling on Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo's its good to dream!

[schoona]

If you are after an inbetween tyre, then i found my bridgestone re001 adrenalins were fairly decent at a hillclimb. They were freshly bought at the time though, and i'm not sure how they'd deal with a lot of heat cycles.

For my track car, i'm about to get a set of Federal 595RSR's (140 tread wear) which seem to be good bang for buck. I think they are going to cost around 170 a corner for 205/50/15's. They aren't as soft as r888's but should be cheaper.
Although, what size were those r888's you quoted from Tempe Mal? They sounded very cheap....

225/45/17 i think Danny.

[isaw]

isaw - you referring to the 31's or 36's?

the 36's. I'm just running the 31's now as a daily till i find another set of stock gti wheels (or something else light) to throw the 36's on.

[Blitzen]

I have a set of Federal 595 RSR's on my Polo GTI...I have got 25,000km out of them so far, and I think I will get at least another 20,000km out of them...They are great tyres in the wet and dry, and are totally worth it...I did have a set of Falken Azinies RT615's, and they were great too...I got about 20,000km out of them.