Learn me: cheapo tires for rAllycross.

You'll need soapy water, good needlenose pliers, and like an hour per tire.

In reply to BrokenYugo:

Thanks! They pull out or twist out?

In reply to Trackmouse:

A little bit of both as I recall, I only did it once like 10 years ago. I remember it was a pain in the ass.

WD-40 works well too

irish44j wrote:

Matt_the_Wolfe wrote: Firestone Winterforces; the Swiss Army knife of the RallyCross tire world. Compound is soft enough to work in the winter but hard enough that they won't get destroyed in the summer even on hard-packed surfaces. Tread pattern cleans out very well with lots of depth so they handle sloppy conditions like a champ. They're also available in a myriad of different sizes and are stupendously cheap. We've used them on our Escort GT for numerous events and surfaces and have been very happy with the performance.

Having used both, I would strongly suggest Altimax Arctics over Winterforces. The Witnerforces work fine too but the Altimaxes have slightly stiffer sidewalls and better steering response with similar traction. They're a few bucks more but I'd consider them worth it. Just my opinion though. Either will work.

Would love to test them back to back, but so far we've been very happy with the forces. Will agree that the sidewall is a flexi-flyer though. One of the big reasons we prefer the Winterforce vs. the General is that the tread pattern is not only very open, but it also cleans out extremely well. Half of sites we have up here are quite soft, so that characteristic comes in handy. The other thing we like about them is that they're tough as nails. The the other half of our sites up here are hard packed clay-ovals that absolutely beat the crap out of the tires. The forces have held up extremely well so far, not that I've seen anyone really complaining about the wear on the Generals mind you.

Like I said, would love to test them back to back. We'll have a set of forces aging out soon so maybe we can give them a shot then.

Something to note about buying used tires for rallycross; the rubber does eventually age out. Its not quite like a racing tire in terms of heat cycling out, but the rubber will eventually wear and become harder over time. I'm not saying that they won't work, but a 2010 DOT code tire won't perform quite like a 2015 DOT code even if they have the same tread depth. This especially true when temps drop. General rule of thumb is any tire that's been run for 2/3 years and/or is 5+ years old has probably lost some of the life out of the compound.

Here's the other thing, its not like these tires are expensive. And having a nice new set (or several sets if you have to deal with differing site conditions) will drop way more time than any "go-fast" part.

I have these on my 2wd 1989 Nissan pickup. They are great and a good value at $74 including shipping. The sidewall is very stiff. The guy that mounted them called them mailman tires, I started looking at mail trucks and sure enough they use them.

https://www.tirerecappers.com/tires/all-terrain-tires/lt19575r14-retread-rambler-at/

In reply to pilotbraden:

Except "mailman" tires are 16.5" with a full steel case, including sidewall. I've wondered how they would perform, but the tread compound is super hard and designed to last 80-100k miles

Eww, re treaded tires

I'd stick to some type of winter tire. That compound is likely to be hard as diamonds below freezing.

Maybe I'm just jaded from years of buying road racing slicks, but seriously, tires for rallycross are not that expensive.

If you can find a good used set great, but having to buy them new isn't exactly a wallet crippling proposition

Matt_the_Wolfe wrote: Something to note about buying used tires for rallycross; the rubber does eventually age out. Its not quite like a racing tire in terms of heat cycling out, but the rubber will eventually wear and become harder over time. I'm not saying that they won't work, but a 2010 DOT code tire won't perform quite like a 2015 DOT code even if they have the same tread depth. This especially true when temps drop. General rule of thumb is any tire that's been run for 2/3 years and/or is 5+ years old has probably lost some of the life out of the compound. Here's the other thing, its not like these tires are expensive. And having a nice new set (or several sets if you have to deal with differing site conditions) will drop way more time than any "go-fast" part.

I've found that winter tires are significantly worse the second season as compared to new, so if you plan on dual-use tires the ideal may be to buy them for winter, then use them as rallycross tires in the summer, then discard and buy new for the next winter.

I've also destroyed the rubber compound in winter tires with a single summer rallycross, made them hard as plastic. (National Challenge held at I-96 in 2013) That is why I showed up THIS year with UHP summer tires. And I cooked the fronts, too, although not as bad as I ruined the snow tires.

No matter what, drive type plays a big role. I never had problems with hurting the tires with an AWD car since you hardly ever actually spin the tires. On either of the FWD cars I have had where I used all three types (VW Golf, the S40) snow tires (Blizzaks, Winterforces, Altimaxes) felt like all-seasons, no appreciable performance difference. Rally tires were merely acceptable although the rolling resistance sucks if you don't have any power.

In reply to Knurled:

That's one of the reasons we bought a set of Blizzaks last winter. The winter before that our Forces were new, but we've used in just about every event since then. We also bought a used set of winterforces off Craigslist for use at events like I-96 or oakshade Raceway. We use those tires at the hard sites so we dont beat our "good" ones up.

Side note, we also have direzza Z2's sitting on the shelf for that car. We should have used them at least on the first day at I-96 this year, But fear of the water truck coming out made us stay on the forces.

In reply to Matt_the_Wolfe:

Yah, got a little worried when the water truck came out during my group on Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised that the water truck didn't make the course impassable. I guess all tires are slicks if the tread is full of wet clay. Just don't lose momentum but also don't overdrive the conditions, and keep an eye out for any dry patches to exploit... key is not to make time just minimize time lost.

Seemed to work out