3400 lb Mustang with a torque arm, mostly AX, some street driving.
Is it worth the extra $200+ dollars for Direzza Star Specs ($160/tire) over Hankook Ventus V12 evo K110s ($100/tire -$60 MIR)?
Also, for 17x8s... am I stupid to go down to 235/45R17s instead of the stock 245/45s (stock 225/55R16s)?
I'm ordering tonight, it's just a lot easier to swallow the price on the Hankooks.
How fast you want to go? The SS's are going to be a better tire for Auto-x, hands down. But if money is tight, go with the 'kooks.
I run the Star specs on the street.. NICE tyre. Much better than the 050s I was running before.
For what it's worth, I saw a set of Hankook V12s in the shop this weekend on a 911 that a guy put a few HPDE (blue group) sessions on, and they had some pretty severe chunking. Definitely not a performance tire in my mind.
Seriously? There is no other answer. You must stick with at least the 245's, and it better be Star Specs or Hankook Ventus RS-3's. Those other tires won't survive any serious autocrossing.
Javelin wrote: Seriously? There is no other answer. You must stick with at least the 245's, and it better be Star Specs or Hankook Ventus RS-3's. Those other tires won't survive any serious autocrossing.
A user on Nasioc, "Uncle Scotty" HATES evo 12's, and swears that a Federal 595RS-R (the RS-R part is important!) is a better tire in everyway. If you can find those, I'd buy 'em (should be good enough for auto-x/track days as well from what I understand).
the federal 595 rsr are awesome tires...... however also are in the realm of azenis 615's.... id rec either the 595 evo or the ss 595 if using for autox.
I had Firestone Indy's put on the Enkie RFP1's on my SN95, 17x8 wheel and 245/45/17 tire. The tread is just wider than the wheel, like 1/8th of an inch or so, if that. I don't think you would go wrong with the 235 but I prefer to go slightly wider if the other option is slightly narrower than the wheel.
This also assumes the Indy W/O and everything else you're talking about are the same width for width and I'm sure that is not the case, so your mileage is going to vary.
Okay, so I pulled the trigger on the 245/45 Star Specs this morning.
Should be here tomorrow or Thursday. Which is good, 'cause I need 'em on by Saturday, lol.
Any recommendations on break-in before autocross? Tire rack says 500 miles of easy driving, but I'm sure that's for warrantied tires, not high-perf, might-last-10k-miles-total tires.
Do a burnout to burn the stickers off, then go race.
The only break in advice I have is from drag racing world, so I am not sure how much it applies, but in the olden days, guys would light up a new pair forever as part of a break in procedure. Nowadays, they just drive normally and do a normal burnout. Anymore than that gives the tire some sort of a memory, so say the tire gurus, and such your first outing may as well be the trip to the autocross and the subsequent race.
Break-in for HiPerf tires - drive a continuous 5o miles - with some high speed - to get the tires up to operating temp. As soon as you get home (no stops!) jack the car up so all 4 are off the ground and let it stay up until they cool - preferably overnight. This heatcycles the tires once but lets them cool without setting in the flatspots. the heatcycle and cool process actually further vulcanizes the rubber slightly, crosslinking some of the rubber molecules. The result of the process is better wear and less flatspotting.
Sounds weird, but I can tell a difference on the tires I've done this with
Probably one good back-road romp should be good. Enough to get some heat into them... but this would be a good question for the ST group over on SCCAForums - which, IIRC, is where I read the above recommendation.
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