Best 14\" tyre for occassional track work

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:51 am

I have 14\" wheels and have no idea of the offset nor the width.
Can someone point me in the right direction.
I currently have Bridgestone GIII and very happy with them. I guess what I am after is something very sticky, with a lower profile and/or wider footprint than 185/55.

Also, what pressures should I run for 5 lap sprints?

StanTheMan · Postby **StanTheMan** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:02 am

how many K's P/A do you expet to do in your car?

do you intend to use these tyres on the road or are you thinking of getting a seperate set of wheels.

best choice of tyres for racing is undoubtely in the 15\" catergory & will also give you a sghorter sidewall

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:14 am

I realise if I go 15's then the world's my oyster, but I'm working on a budget and also super-limited storage space, so I just want to have the same wheels&tyres for road and track.

As with km's p.a. = 4,000km max so tyre wear over time is not an issue as soft-tyres will last me quite a while.

StanTheMan · Postby **StanTheMan** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:26 am

start thinking about tyres like the Falken RT615, toyo R888. there is a few others......but don't bother going to full semislick tyres like DO1's and the like

R888 are R compound warm up pretty quick but ar not as soft as the DO'1

RT615's are a road compound with a semislick tread pattern warm up real quick on the track and ar not affected so much by heat cycles like DO'1

although RT615's do need w arming up around the street in winter but in Brissie I doubt you'll ever have any issues

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:31 am

[thumbs up] thanks Stan.

I've used various Falken's on another car and have been very happy with it's value.

RaYmO · Postby **RaYmO** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 4:33 pm

I'm getting Toyo R888s in the 14\" size next time (in the next 6 months or so)...

I don't go on track days so it should last me a good 20k km

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 4:44 pm

OK, so tyre brands has been answered.
What about pressures for 5 lap sprints?

StanTheMan · Postby **StanTheMan** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:03 pm

1red5 wrote:OK, so tyre brands has been answered.
What about pressures for 5 lap sprints?

I've only spoken about a few....there is many more. They are the 2 I know a little bit about. And have had first hand experience with. Wait for a few more suggestions.

However pressure will depend on weather conditions, hot day, cold day, wet weather, slippery track, grippy track & which tyre you end up choosing.

Postby **orx626** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 6:52 pm

RaYmO wrote:I'm getting Toyo R888s in the 14" size next time (in the next 6 months or so)...

I don't go on track days so it should last me a good 20k km

Hi Raymo, I run Toyo R888 in 185/60 R14 for track days on a stock NA8.....they have only lasted 5 days which equates to approximately 1000km (including travelling to and from the track). So I think you'll be hard stretched to get much more than 10,000km.

Cheers,
Danny

RaYmO · Postby **RaYmO** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:35 pm

orx626 wrote:
RaYmO wrote:I'm getting Toyo R888s in the 14" size next time (in the next 6 months or so)...

I don't go on track days so it should last me a good 20k km

Hi Raymo, I run Toyo R888 in 185/60 R14 for track days on a stock NA8.....they have only lasted 5 days which equates to approximately 1000km (including travelling to and from the track). So I think you'll be hard stretched to get much more than 10,000km.

Cheers,
Danny

Really?

Hmmm scrap that idea for the R888s then...

Postby **orx626** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:16 pm

RaYmO wrote:
orx626 wrote:
RaYmO wrote:I'm getting Toyo R888s in the 14" size next time (in the next 6 months or so)...

I don't go on track days so it should last me a good 20k km

Hi Raymo, I run Toyo R888 in 185/60 R14 for track days on a stock NA8.....they have only lasted 5 days which equates to approximately 1000km (including travelling to and from the track). So I think you'll be hard stretched to get much more than 10,000km.

Cheers,
Danny

Really?

Hmmm scrap that idea for the R888s then...

Yep...the R888's are plenty sticky though :twisted:

.

Cheers,
Danny

Hellmun · Postby **Hellmun** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:36 pm

The R888's are real semi-slicks.... they heat cycle, they're very loud and the sidewalls make it sound like your in a constant industrial zone(Some say it's a whirring sound). If you have a headache or are plain tired and trying to get home...they suck. I havn't heard the toyo's personally but I'm told my RE55's were similar.

I believe the RT615 is a tyre designed to last a while and still give a decent amount of stick. Not considered very sporting if you used those in the standard class but for modified they'd probaly suit. Fastest standard road car in the club at the moment is running Dunlop Direzza DZ101's IIRC.

Tyre pressure is more...variable(compound, track temp, wheel temp etc). I found easiest way to do it was just use a infrared temperature gauge. I just reduce the pressures until the Outside edgeof the tyre and the centre are the same temperature directly after a lap session. Should mean you have the biggest contact patch. Camber will control the difference between the inside and outside edge.

For Reference my RE55S's have been to 3 track days..and I'd put my front left at about %30-%40 max left....Those were $304 and the Toyo's are about $274 at Blairs.

phatMX · Postby **phatMX** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:00 pm

*Cough* Wow haven't been on here for a while. *cough*

-My 2 cents on Rt615's

I've got the RT615's and don't rate them highly for the price. Mind you as a road tyre I guess they are fine, but I don't do silly things on the road so wouldn't notice the difference between them and something cheap. On the track I find they heat up and get squirmy towards the final laps or the end of the day. (this was on QLD raceway) Lap times I dropped a smidgen from my old Potenza G3's which had come with the car from Japan and were rock hard.

Pressure wise I had listened to people say to drop the pressure to ~28psi but they just slipped around. I found the best pressure to be 33psi mind you I had no way of measuring heat in the tyre. Best to test it out and adjust to your driving.

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 9:50 pm

Thanks for the responses fellas. Unfortunately I now know that semi-slicks are waaay out of my price range.
Phatmx, I was running 32 psi at QR and it started to feel like it was \"folding\" under on the last flying lap. Mind you, my alignment settings are not the best (needed more negative camber).
SteveS1 brought a laser tyre temp gauge and three corners were 45degrees, and left-front was 52degrees

makes sense as QR is mostly right-handers.

Hellmun · Postby **Hellmun** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:08 am

At wakefield last trackday I hit about 68C on the front left, 56 on the front right, 58C on the rear left and 44C on the rear right. Those temps don't really matter so much.

It's the temperature difference between the inner and outer section of the tyre. That tells you if you have the pressure right. The car will tell you the right pressure per tyre and that's usually dictated by the temperature they're hitting. On the Bridgey's I start off at 32psi and just adjust them after every session. Wakefield being only Right hand turns is destroying my front left massively though... which really sucks because they're an assymmetric pattern.