My summer tires are the conti ECS, and they are absolutely epic, but they're a summer tire. My winter tires are Nitto NT450 all-seasons, and they are horrible. Here's the constant PNW scenario: Leave house early in the morning & it's... well... roughly above freezing. It rained the night before, and the roads are still damp and cold. These Nittos would lose traction trying to take off from a stop in a N/A 1.6. They are totally worthless until they warm up, which is basically about the time I get to work. So, I'm looking for a cold temp rated tire that has epic grip even when cold, but it doesn't need to really evacuate snow or water for a damn. Oh, and it needs to fit a 15x7.

 

federal 657 all seasons. When i worked at schwab we sold a ton of them. They are decent and cheap but are nowhere near a real 200tw summer tire. Sounds like a good option for you.

 

I just run my summers year round, Dunlop Direzza DZ102's, they handle wet even when it's cold out, down to barely above freezing, with no discernible difference from my experience. They of course have no snow or ice traction, but I manage. I don't recommend them though. I did run Continental extreme contacts on a different car and even though they were a summer they handled snow about as well as most other people's commuter all seasons, just as bad on ice though.

 

I'm leaning towards the Michelin X-Ice Xi3. Maybe there's a unicorn all-season out there, but I really hate those Nittos. I had conti dws on my subie for years, and they always treated me right.

 

All seasons do all seasons poorly. I prefer just running a set of non-studded winter tires and a set of summer tires.

 

X2 for what scaxx said

 

I can dig it. That's why I'm thinking snow tires.

 

https://www.toyotires.com/tire/patte...v-winter-tires

My dad had these on his audi quatro and they have really good grip. They just kick *** in the winters here.

 

To reiterate what others have said : I used neo gens last winter and wasn't impressed. Granted they were a few years old but had plenty of tread. Couldn't go into boost at all if it was cold, even dry. The year before I just used my rivals year round (not doing that again lol) and it wasn't much worse honestly. So I'm definitely going to try some dedicated winter tires this year.

 

Unrelated to tires but does anyone have an extra set of front fenders and a front bumper skin i can buy off them. This winter i want to experiment with some front aero and do and air dam and fenders like the pass has.

 

I see that diff housings are breaking under power. I can add the necessary reinforcements for anyone interested in visiting the south-of-olympia area. I'm not really interested in shipping diff housings.

I've run Blizzaks with great success in the winter. I've noticed that they tend to wear a little faster when its anything above cold temperatures out, but they're unbeatable in the snow.

 

Smote, got any pictures of your work?

 

welded or bolted? If welded are you normalizing the housing post weld.

 

Anybody interested in buying my car?

 

Anyone have a compression tester i can borrow. Think I may have lost the poor little 1.6.

 

Yeah, I have the hf comp & leak down stuff. Kind of a drive though.

 

Are you pretty happy with it? There's a HF just down the road from my work i can grab one on my lunch break.

 

I mean... You get what you pay for. I wouldn't necessarily trust the values as absolute, but it works for comparison between cylinders. The leak down tester is designed to read at 15psi, which I found to be kind of annoying.

 

Free radio delete panel if anybody wants one

 

Solvent tank if anyone want it. I'd like to get $40. Its about 18" x 24" and set up to accept a pump I just never got around to getting one and now it's in the way of other projects .