Tyre situation, Need help.

[Sasso]

I just need some help from people that have experience with poorness and with street tyres with a turbo.

Situation:
Two of my semis are bald, Unfortunately I just noticed one has a flat spot past the steel belt and its bulging out, I'm not going to risk driving into the city on it so need new tyres pronto. Two of them however are still ok, and probably have a few months left in them.

My friend is returning the favour and lending me his spare for a few weeks (323).

The main problem is, being a student, as usual, money.


Options in the next two weeks are:

1. Buy 2 new GIII's at majorly overpriced $150/tyre (I paid $120 last time)run the semis on the rear and GIIIs on the front for a few months, then get the other two G3's. When they wear out in a long time get a set of 15's and wider tyres.
Flaw is the GIII's in 185/60R14 most probably won't be able to handle 140wkw, R888's in same size should have not much problem, Is that correct??? (the diff would break before the tyres slip )

2. Buy 2 R888 semis now for hopefully $230/ tyre, run the new semis on the rear. Then in few months get the other two semis. When they wear out while later get a set of 15's and wider tyres to handle the power.

3. Get 2 used but legal tyres (maybe on stock rims or something) and when all tyres go in a few months get the 15's and new tyres. Flaw is that I most probably will not have $2000 to spend in a few months when the tyre go, and if I do have 2 grand, ill get coilovers.


What do you all think I should do?

I want to avoid option 1 even though its the most economic, its the most dangerous, might crash.


Will Adrenalines at 205 width in 15\" cost less than a R888 at 185/60r14 ($230/tyre) and will they be able to match the grip, but last longer?
The car will go to occasional track day, but as long as its drivable street tyres would be good since they last longer.

I just need some advice on tyre size and type for turbocharged 5's. I'll be running 6psi at first then get a clutch and flywheel in few months and run 12psi.

Thanks for any help!

Gerard

[Adam_NAclubman]

Cheap tyres on stock rims and dont drive like a cock. That'll do you until you can afford to do the wheels/tyres at the same time

[Mactype]

Come around, and pick up my spare set of rims and tyres , cause your driving around on a rather dangerous tyre at present.

Work out what you want to do in the next week then.

Darryl

[Sasso]

Hmm I've been thinking and decided that, if the price hasn't risen much, I'll go with solution 2 and get 2 new R888s.

For now I've borrowed my friends spare from his 323 but its the wrong profile, 185/65R14, so the steering is a bit off, but car feels much better already in terms of smoothness.

Mactype, Thanks for the offer! I'll find out monday how long it will take to get the tyres in stock, if its a few weeks I might take you up on it. Thanks!


Adam, problem with that is that cheap tyres won't be able to handle the turbo. I think I'll stick to semis till I can afford new wheels as well, probably next year.

I know I really should have checked it earlier, but my car is parked in a way that I can't get to the left side.


Does anyone know about how well the different tyre models and sizes grip with turbo?



Here's the tyre, I'd say that was close to an accident.

[Hellmun]

That's some major centre of the tyre wear. How much pressure are you running?

I'd save my semi's for the track personally...that's a lot of tyre and if your finding you need semi's for the road I'd be just as worried about keeping my license than having an accident. Throttle control is part of driving on the track too, brute forcing your way with Semi's is teaching you nothing on the road and is ridiculously expensive. Careful you don't get pulled up as well just for having them ...regardless of Dot approval you can get pulled up by cops. You can dispute it but I seriously would rather avoid that whole situation.

I'd just get the pair of good street tyres and as soon as I could afford it get the same on the front end later. While semi's can be used they are really not designed for it. They cost over twice as much and last maybe %20 as long. Plus everyday the car is parked in the sun your burning out the elastomers and it takes that bit longer to get any heat into them so they stick.

[Adam_NAclubman]

Adam, problem with that is that cheap tyres won't be able to handle the turbo. I think I'll stick to semis till I can afford new wheels as well, probably next year.

I'm not sure about your car, but all my turbo cars have been equipped with a responsible right foot. As long as you're sensible you wouldnt have any problems running a turbo MX5 on plain jane 185's, I ran some really cheap, really hard K-Mart 205's on the back of my FJ20ET DR30 for a year and a half and never had a problem

[TieNN89]

take it easy

turbo doesn't mean plant your foot

[Sasso]

Hellum the wear in the centre of the tyre was caused the first track day I had with them. Didn't have an accurate pressure gauge on me, ran WAY too high pressure I found out after. It was over 40psi hot, so thats how I killed the inside. I learnt from that and ran proper pressure next track days and was heaps better, but already did permanent wear.

WHen I say I need semis for road, thats for safety purposes. With a turbo I want big grip reserves so I don't swap ends all the time, especially in the wet. The GIII's did not give me ANY confidence in the wet at all, with stock power, the R888s gave me ALOT of condfidence everywhere.

I don't drive that fast on the road, all the damage was done on the track! That flat spot was caused by two incidents, first at wakefield, lost it second corner trying a new line and flat spotted it. Still drivable though. Then few months later went to eastern creek, and in the last session it was dark, and I misjudged the first corner and ran wide, and slid sideways at 180k for the rest of the little straight (near hit those cones, remember them). Basically I destroyed the tyres to save the car from hitting the concrete wall. They still had tread but big wobbles. And then I saw that major wear after driving on the road a bit more and need to change it, they still have plenty of grip. So to clear that up I wasn't doing anything irresponsible.

just get the pair of good street tyres

What's a good street tyre in 14\"? GIII is the only one I can see and its way overpriced.


Ah my car doesn't actually have a turbo in it yet, thats coming, which is why I'm concerned with grip with the GIII's, if they can't even handle the car in the wet with stock power, what hope do they have with boost?

Adam what tyres do you run with your turbo 5, if you have one?


AznTien, is amazes me to see how you think planting your foot in a turbo car can cause a flat spot. In fact its planting your foot on the brakes that would do it, and spinning on a track.


Anyone else know a good tyre in 14\" that would support a turbo safely?

[Slugoid]

Besides GIII, C-Drives are the only other alternative that I can see. I'm sure you know about those from the other thread. With stock power, either of those tyres are still ok in the wet as long as you're easy on the right foot.

Until then, save up for some 15's so that you can run a better selection of tyres, and keep your 14's for track with semi's.

[[Will]]

I've run Toyo R881 on the road for a few months and while they are very grippy in the dry and better than most in moderate wet, they can change very suddenly to zero grip in very heavy rain where the relative lack of tread grooves fill up with water quick.

With a turbo on a RWD car, you will be able to spin the wheels with any tyre in the wet. Decent road tyres cost less than semi-slick and are quieter and more comfortable too. If you think 14\" and 15\" performance street tires are expensive, check out 17\" and 18\" performance tires!

I'd save the semi-slicks for track use - and as you've found out, semi-slicks like much lower pressures to perform since their sidewalls are already very stiff. Try around 23 - 29psi and watch your lap times fall

[Hellmun]

I can crack the car sideways anytime I generally want with a quick flick. Tyres have very real limits you need to be conscious of, especially in the wet. I find that on the expressway with the 215 wide sumitomo's if I hit a decent chunk of water the car doesn't have the weight in it to cut through the water so the steering goes dead light and you can end up aquaplaning easily. The semi's are similar in the wet to the dry, much higher limit but when you cross it..you tend to get punished much harder and much faster. It's a part of driving you can minimise with a good tyre but never remove completely. We don't have heavy cars with skinny tyres.

I havn't had 14\" rims on the mx5. So I can't comment from experience but I'd probaly look at some dunlop's. Not sure if they come in 14\" but I know Ian Vickers uses DZ101's and he does extremely well in the unmodified 1800 class (He's using 15\"s though). You could come up next mx5 trackday at wakefield and just check out what the fastest standard NA6's are running as each will have 14\" street tyres. Other than that I thought RT615's were 14\" but they're an expensive sports tyre. Not sure how cheap they are that small. They're not semi slicks by any means but they're pretty sticky for a road tyre and they last decently long.

Unless the GIII's are low on tread or have been set rock hard in the sun though... that tyre should be pretty dam good. Also you can get tyre slip on Semi's. By no means are you going to have them hot all the time on the street and the street surfaces in australia and especially sydney are quite poor.

Don't underestimate car setup as well. If your concerned about wet weather grip you really need to soften up the suspension a bit. Also you can to a degree induce a great deal of understeer with suspension tuning which is safer to a point.

(near hit those cones, remember them).

Not as well as the VW golf GTI I saw on the kerb outside the circuit

[ampz]

kuhmpo ecsta ku31. You drove mine on the run (granted they were on the 16s) but they were only $110 a corner.

Good in the wet, although they are a good street tyre, they are prone to graining on a spirited run. I haven't tracked them, but if they hold up like the cdrives gthen they should only get squirmyafter 4 laps.

You should know when you're close to their limits because they squeal like a stuck pig before they let go.

[Boags]

AznTien, is amazes me to see how you think planting your foot in a turbo car can cause a flat spot. In fact its planting your foot on the brakes that would do it, and spinning on a track.

Re-read his post. That isn't what he said at all. I agree with him; I really don't see why you need different tyres... What are you expecting from 6 PSI? I run at 6 PSI and it's more powerful but you still have the same speed limits to abide by (which you can get to fairly easily without a turbo).

I'm just a little confused, not trying to be a d!ck.

You're doing what I did too: get the turbo in as quick as possible with the first $$$ available and fix everything later (diff, brakes, clutch etc). You won't listen to me (as I didn't to those who warned me), but it is the wrong way to go about it.

I have a set of semi slicks for the track: R888 205/50/15 and I run 195/50/15 Yoko C-Drives on the road. If I take off aggressively I can get them to chirp without dramas. If I ease the foot in I can get away fast without chirp.

As AznTien said; "take it easy, turbo doesn't mean plant your foot."

I'd be happy to talk to you about the sh!tty tyres I had on before the c-drives, and the massive difference they made. PM if you want to talk; I went down the exact same road a year ago.

Boags

[Sasso]

Thanks for the replies.

So does a wider tyre actually give you more grip? I read in a few places that going wider makes the contact patch smaller or not much bigger. This is since the weight is spread more so it doesn't mush the tyre into the ground as much, so the contact patch gets wider but thinner too.

I don't get it, why would you go wider tyres then? Corvettes have like 375mm tyres, surely a wider tyre will give more grip. What about in the wet??


I've never had aquaplaining with the r888s in the wet unintensionally, despite all the rain we've just had. Except maybe a few weeks ago since theyre basically bald, but nothing unmanageable at all. The GIIIs I had to always be very careful in the wet as the car was so twitchy and a real pain in the round abouts. Couldnt imagine them with a turbo.

[Sasso]

AznTien, is amazes me to see how you think planting your foot in a turbo car can cause a flat spot. In fact its planting your foot on the brakes that would do it, and spinning on a track.

Re-read his post. That isn't what he said at all. I agree with him; I really don't see why you need different tyres... What are you expecting from 6 PSI? I run at 6 PSI and it's more powerful but you still have the same speed limits to abide by (which you can get to fairly easily without a turbo).

I'm just a little confused, not trying to be a d!ck.

You're doing what I did too: get the turbo in as quick as possible with the first $$$ available and fix everything later (diff, brakes, clutch etc). You won't listen to me (as I didn't to those who warned me), but it is the wrong way to go about it.

I have a set of semi slicks for the track: R888 205/50/15 and I run 195/50/15 Yoko C-Drives on the road. If I take off aggressively I can get them to chirp without dramas. If I ease the foot in I can get away fast without chirp.

As AznTien said; "take it easy, turbo doesn't mean plant your foot."

I'd be happy to talk to you about the sh!tty tyres I had on before the c-drives, and the massive difference they made. PM if you want to talk; I went down the exact same road a year ago.

Boags

Yah I see what he means but I wasn't asking for a driving lesson, just some suggestions on what tyres are good and what are outright dangerous with a turbo, that come in 14". Besides, the car should be able to handle you planting your foot otherwise its not setup right and is dangerous, with the exception of in the wet but you shouldn't really have to think about it. Its not formula1 without traction control, I don't want to have to drive every meter of the road when I'm just cruising on the street, in the wet or not.

Regarding the route I'm taking. I do realise that the car is not ready to handle 200whp, but the way it was, it was quite capable of handling 6psi. I bought the turbo ages ago and its taking them months to get it in, in that time I wrecked the tyres and busted the wheel bearing. I was planning on getting a new set of rims and tyres before pumping up the boost, but when does anything ever go to plan? I took a big hit financially before as well, and I was supposed to be much better off. Put it this way, by now I would have had a new set of tyres and wheels and coilovers too. There's nothing I can do about it.

As for diff brakes and clutch, they should be adequate for now. But obviously they're on my list, along with bushes and better coilovers.

I'd love to hear about your turbo journey, ill pm you tomorrow