Put my snows on yesterday - I like them!
 

Since boosting I've been running my car on 225/45 RS2's on 15x8 6ULs. My suspension is not the most street friendly with Tein RA shocks, 9/6 springs and a 12" ride height. The wide tires follow the ruts on the highway, the tires are stiff so they are jarring on sharp bumps and the weight is quite a bit more than stock. Makes for a rough ride. Steering feel with the wide/heavy set up is heavier too.

Swapped to my little skinny tall studless snows on the stock hollow spokes last night.

Wow what a difference. The car rides better. Steering is much lighter. The car feels more nimble even though cornering limits are greatly reduced. It's smoother on the freeway and tracks through the ruts better.

This has me thinking maybe I should rethink the wheel and tire set up for DD. Go back to a 7" wheel and 195's. This also has me thinking I'm getting old. Damn. I hate that I'm liking the better ride and lighter feel of these crappy snow tires.

Am I nuts? Should I go with Toyo's next summer that are softer than the Hankooks? What's a girl to do...

well, you still have to think about traction. 195's might inhibit that. I'm actually thinking of running r-comps on the street once my rs2's are worn out.

It's just the novelty of the suddenly light steering and highway ride, IMHO. Eventually you'll miss the dry traction of the 225 RS2s and there'll be a new novelty when you discover how much faster you can take off ramps and such with your newfound stick.

If you have depowered steering, back your caster down to 3.5-4 degrees. Makes the steering much lighter, like you have the skinnies on. I experience the same thing going from my street tires (185/60-14 Falken ZE-912s) to the slicks (225/45s on 15x8/15x9s). Dropping the caster back made the big tires feel a bunch lighter.

Depowered rack. Ha! I've got hundreds of pounds of added balast in my car! No options deleted here.

My last couple of alignments I've been using Emilio's settings which backed off the caster compared to Icehawk and FM's. That did help a bunch. Still it's hard to compare the steering of 8" w/ 225's to 6" and 185/65's.

And yes I would never be able to put up with the piss poor cornering traction in the dry. I am wondering if the newest Toyo's with the softer sidewall and tread might be a more forgiving DD tire than the RS2's. Are they going to be made in a 225/15?

I noticed the same thing when I put on my 175-65-14 snow tires the other day, its almost like driving a different car lol.

I originally drove a depowered rack car with 225 ra-1's...its much better with the 205's.

Thanks for the headsup on the caster deal, I'm going to take it out on the next alignment.

+1 on the caster. The only time I can't one hand the wheel is at a dead stop.

Hustler. Take a look at the 949 racing site. Emilio's set up info is there. I really like his alignment settings for the track. Much better for me than icehawk or FM's. So far better tire wear too. (BONUS!)

Sav and I have been using them and both like them. I'm sure others are moving that direction too.

I'll add a +1 here.

When I first started seriously experimenting with alignment and suspension setup, I was very nervous about going "too far" and ending up with a car that was overly nervous on the street and chewed through tires.

What I've come to find is that the famous "icehawk" settings, which at the time were revered as something of a standard, are in fact astoundingly conservative. Presently, I'm at -1° camber on the front, and -1.5° on the rear, with zero front toe and 1/16" toe in (total) rear. Front caster wound up being something five-ish. With those settings, tire wear is negligable and turn-in is good, though I'd like more ultimate grip up front.

I should really go much more aggressive on the front camber, and the rear a bit as well. I think Emilio's "Miatas between 13 - 12" front ride height" are probably just about perfect.

yeah light, wide wheels with wide sticky tires suck. sell them and enjoy the responsiveness of smaller tires.

oh and everyone should eat organic and buy/sell locally.

man you mounted those right on time!

Curly,

One of the few times I took the weatherman seriously. Since we rarely get snow I love it. If we lived where snow was on the ground months at a time I wouldn't appreciate it so much but it sure is pretty right now! Driving to work today the damn city of Portland is requiring chains on the freeways! God they are stupid. Chaining up for 2" of snow? WTF?

It helps that my store is attached to a Les Schwab tire store. They take pretty good care of me.

Emilio has settings for 12-13" and under 12" . I'm right at 12" ride height so I fudged the numbers somewhere in the middle. Works great.

I'll admit I'm getting old and the light steering feel and smoother ride was appreciated. I'm not dead yet so I'll be going back to the wide set up when the weather permits. It just made me think the softer Toyo's might be a little more comfortable than those hankooks.

Hmm. I was going to go with the same setup (225 RS2's on 8'' 6UL's) but maybe now I will just stick with 205's on the 7 or 7.5's. I wont be making huge power, nor do I have a real aggressive suspension setup.

shoot I need to look into emilio's alignment, I think I still have icehawk's and apparently thats slightly conservative? not what I want. although with the snow right now anything will embed my car into a tree so I'll stick to the quad.