swimming108

iTrader: (3)

ok guys, I am tired of street tires on a turbo car at the autox. I have a set of 15x9s that are ready for some fresh rubber and cant decide what to put on them.

Last year i used a set of 225 NT-01s and liked them a lot. they were resistant to flat-spotting, easy to feel the level of grip, and were pretty damn good even when i wore them down to a semi-slick surface.

This year i want something that is equally resistant to being tossed around (lock ups, and slides) since my girlfriend is still a fast learning co-driver. I would also like it if they were ok to use for HPDEs without overheating.

-V710- i hear they are pretty close to the hoosiers in raw times but will tolerate more heat and shenanigans. only down side i see is that the 225 width is a 225/50/15. Will i be fighting this extra tire height all season?

~Z214~ these hankooks are the right side 225/45/15. I have heard raving reviews about them from the lotus guys in the C51 and C71 compounds. Will these be very forgiving to the girlfriends lockups? or are they pretty knife edged like the almighty A6? Can anyone comment on the longevity of either compound in autox/ hpde use?

~NT-01~ Should i just say screw it and get these again? they were pretty damn good and lasted all season with more than 2 drivers beating the **** out of them.

~RA1~ slower than the NT-01... i think i will pass

~R888~ same as or worse than the NT-01... pass again

~A6~ too much money and a flatspot will ruin my summer! i know i want them, but i also know that i am not competitive enough to start on the purple crack this year.

~other suggestions???~ dont know of any others

Cheers,
Jared

tpwalsh

What class are you running? The 710's and 'kooks are ok, but definitely not top tier. They will probably overheat at HPDEs though since they heat up pretty quickly.

TNTUBA

iTrader: (1)

For what you are wanting to do with them..I think the NT01 is a good choice.

swimming108

iTrader: (3)

this is club level autox and we use an index system for annual points... I am always within the top 10% and can squeak into the top 5% of my clubs points board on the NT-01s. I was hoping that i might be able to steal a couple of raw time FTDs away from the cobra/hoosier crowd this year.

The GF has 1 year of autox under her belt. She is a top 25% finisher and is rapidly improving.

i have one solid vote towards the NT-01 again. Any comments on the 225/50/15 V710 size? any durability reviews on the Z214s?

tpwalsh

I ran a couple of sets of v710's in 225/x/14 through my ES car. I was happy with them in terms of grip vs. longevity at that price point. No experience with the kooks or nt01s.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

There's also the BFG R1s. No one is running them though. They seem to not like being crammed onto too small of a wheel so stock class doesnt like them (based on the like 3 out of 4 cars that I've heard of running them in stock), and for miata's no one serious in SP or above run them because they dont come in 275s.

2ndGearRubber

Buy the A6, sell your body on the streets.

swimming108

iTrader: (3)

The BFG R1s i have heard nothing but reports of them being rubbish...

The HooHoo crack will call my name soon enough... but i am resisting for as long as i can.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

I've heard the opposite as long as you use them on the correct width wheel. Everyone I've ran into that has run them in an SP class thinks they're faster than the hoosiers when they're new and dont fall off nearly as quickly. But stock class guys look at their data logs, see the same max lateral grip as hohos but they dont transition well when crammed onto too small of a wheel. Of course I only know of like 20 people who've tried them, so the data pool is pretty small.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

V710 205/50/15 has worked well for me and will not be too tall.

blkmkiii

iTrader: (2)

z-214s are a great tire. This is now my 2nd set First on my Evo, 2nd on my miata. If you want to be top 3 every event and get frequest FTD's. I suggest them,

bbundy

225/50/15 is too tall if your suspension is really set up well and your really cornering hard it will rub all sorts of places in the inner wheel well. It works but not well.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

I've run the 710s' and the older Z211 in the med. compound. I had no problem with either set. The 710s seemsed to be more predictable and last longer. I run (ran) 710s in 215/40-17 and one set lasted me two seasons rather well. I was running in the ATL region autoX events with a lot of people. Specifically, I was in SM2/SSM and my only real competition was a guy in a C4 ZR-1 'Vette that was trailered/prepped/babied/setup/built for autoX and running 315 A6s......we battled very closely, but his tires were able to give him an advantage :( Then again, I was showing up in my daily driver, on narrower tires, not adjusting crap between runs and on a crap alignment....the two of us were polar opposites lol. The A6s are the way to go if you're really looking for the 1st place trophy.

Unfortunately the A6s are stupid expensive and really only last one season. The 710s are less, but they have gone up in price a lot since I last bought a set (IIRC I payed $160/ea for mine and now that are like $220/ea....$60/ea adds up to be too much for me and is why I stopped running autoX in the past couple of years :(
I'm hoping to start up again in PDX and give them a good run....unless Bundy shows up

Side note- I have run the 710s on Little Tally several times as well as Road Atlanta for a few short sessions and I didn't have any problems with them...but that was sometime ago.

Pitlab77

iTrader: (3)

Jack of all trades, master at none. I would say if you dont want a street tire get the NT01 (i have not driven on it but only read good things about them)

I think you will need to sacrifice a bit if you want the best of both worlds. the A6 (GOOD GOD do they really cost that much now), and V710's I think would heat cycle out quickly at the track.

I use to run a 225/50/15 v710 in CS when I was serious about autoX several years ago. I think I was only paying about 140 to 160 a tire then. They were great for the price. The last longer than the Hoosier but were not ultimately as fast.

What is making you want to move away from Streets. I am surprised at what the RS3 and Rivals can do now vs the good street tires 10 years ago. Nothing a water sprayer and some cooling time wouldn't fix.

swimming108

iTrader: (3)

I bought the 225/45/15 Z214 Hankooks in the C71 compound back in May. First event with them was super cold and slightly damp and the normal Hoosier FFR Cobra crowd did not show up. I easily took FTD when we got a little bit of heat in the afternoon. Then i went and made the mistake of letting the course designer drive my car. He beat me by almost a second.

Since then, they have been doing quite well. I am having a little difficulty in getting the right tire pressures for them and even found a little extra grip by using a tire sprayer on them at a particularly hot event last month. I have not been able to get many FTDs with them so far but have been close at every event. I am not sure if it is my driving or not, but i seem to be loosing a little bit of the edge that i had for the first couple events. They have 48 autox runs and 2 track sessions on them right now and seem to be wearing well. they wear a little quicker when on the front than the rear but with good rotation i have them all at roughly 2/3 of the original tread.

On the Summit Point Jefferson circuit, i was quite impressed with them. I was able to get them up to temp quite quickly and did not get them to overheat or display any greasiness at all. I was especially impressed with their braking ability. With my TSE BBK and Carbotec XP12f/10r pads, it was like they would rip my face off without even hinting that they were close to lockup when i hit the middle pedal.

Overall, i like them most on the road course. They are great autox tires, but i just cant seem to be able to knock down the guys with fat wallets running A6s. I am thinking that i will just have to buy those expensive purple sticker gummies next year if i want to win autoxs.

For DD and road course duty, i am looking at the Rival, RA1, R888, or possibly even RS3 again. The Z2s are amazing DD tires, but i just cant seem to be able to keep them out of the Greasy squirmy range on track days and the sidewall is to soft no matter what pressure i am running.

blkmkiii

iTrader: (2)

I would like to see a back to back nt01- rs-3 or current contender. I put the nt01 in the same class as a good street tire.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I can tell you the 225 S3 tires are less sticky than the older 205 RA1 Toyos I have.

swimming108

iTrader: (3)

NT-01 is mountains better than the RS3. Like just about everyone here, i can't afford to do such a back to back comparison for the hell of it. I have however run both the RS3 and the NT-01 in 225 width for complete back to back autox seasons on the exact same 15x8 wheels. I will try to capture my personal impressions below.

RS3
This tire loves heat! On the first cold autox events of the season in 2011, despite the tires being new, it took at least 2 runs before i could feel any substantial grip coming out of them. I was able to daily drive on these tires and complete 10 autox events. For many of the events, my car had multiple drivers. I would have to say that these tires reached their peak in performance around July due to the mix of high ambient heat and reduced tread depth. I came pretty close to having FTD on our hottest event but that happened only once. The tires were pretty easy to set up for each event as they worked well with a wide pressure range. i typically ran them at 28psi cold. The stiff sidewall gave good tactile feedback but made them pretty easy to lock up in braking zones especially when cold. They also did not give a whole lot of audible feedback until they were right at or past the limit. When pushed past the limit i felt that it did not take too much extra correction to bring them back when turning or accelerating out of the turn, lockups i had yet to master though. I placed 10th in season points with the Capital Driving Club. The tires were completely heat cycled out by September and still had 4/32" of tread left. They were hard as a rock, bluing on the outside tread blocks, had different levels of flat spotting, and were dangerous as hell to drive on anything but warm dry days. Wet weather driving / autox was perfectly acceptable during the first half of their life, but they are slower than other similar tires in the rain (like the R1R). If i was to do these tires again, i would still DD them but i would have them shaved to 6/32 to start out.

NT-01
Definitely an R-compound tire! This tire is stupidly fast right off the stickers. For the first couple of autox events i drove on them to get there and back. On the way home after the very first event i experienced a loud vibration that sounded like rubbing. It scared the **** out of me it was so loud, so i looked over the car to see what i broke. There was nothing wrong, the tires were just loud like a mud-bog truck after being scrubbed in the first time. They seemed to not need heat to be fast yet never really got to hot and greasy on me. They liked pressures that were pretty low. I found my self adjusting pressures to balance how much grip i had versus how much i rolled over onto the wear indicator arrow. I found that 27-30 psi cold was the range i found my self working with most of the time with the rears being typically 1-2 psi lower than the fronts. I loved that the tires were not directional and that i was able to rotate tires both side to side and front to back to help keep the wear even. They wore a little quicker on the front than on the rear. Handling was very easy to get these tires to the limit. They communicated well through the wheel and were easy to drive on. There was not much of an audible feedback until you hit the limit, but they were so easy to modulate during a slide that i didn't care. I felt that the sidewall was perfectly firm. it gave me all the lateral support that i desired and did not seem to inhibit braking or accelerating forces. This was the virgin season for my co-driver. As she progressed, she was never fighting the car to hit her desired line or struggling with any handling quirks. I felt that she could have benefited from a little more audible feedback since i had a hard time getting her to push the limit. I placed 9th in points despite the tread wear handicap the 100tw tires gave my index. I was able to get 1 FTD with CDC and even 1 with another club in the pouring rain! I caution against high speed driving in standing water with these tires however as they will hydroplane above 70mph with full tread. Below that they kick some pretty serious butt as a ran tire. I completed a whole season of autox with the CDC, had a couple autox events with the local Mercedes Benz club, some drag racing, and did 1 HPDE weekend on these tires. They were trailered to events after the first 4 autoxs and they lasted pretty damn well for having many drivers and well over 100 runs on them. At the end of the season their performance had tapered off and it was a little difficult to get heat into them. They were down to 1or2/32" and i felt like i could still utilize them for about 2 more HPDEs but had run out of events to use them for. I decided to get rid of them so that i could run the new Dunlop Z2 on those wheels in the spring.

In conclusion, NT-01 > RS3. NT-01 will be 1-2 seconds quicker than the RS3 on a 45 second autox course. It evenly splits the difference between the top street tire and the A6 without any real issues. Is it right for you? answer that your self

ClubSport

Where do you normally find your best deals on the NT-01's

Thanks

swimming108

iTrader: (3)

i think the best deal online right now is Discount tire direct... There may be other deals available near you though.

Something of interest: the only tire in 225/45/15 that walmart.com carries is the NT-01 Price is not awful either.