RE-71R heat cycling
 

running re-71r's in 205/50/15 on a daily driver that's slowly transitioning to a weekend/trackday car. Love the feedback and response, and loved the initial grip, but they don't seem to stick like they used to. I did not get them heat cycled, which is a service tire rack offers, and I did drive them in the cold. I've got tons of tread left, and the tires are almost never pushed hard (mainly have them for the feel and the safety of really short braking distance, have wilwoods and a prop. valve, will probably ask for a "transient" when it goes to track to make learning easier). Would getting the next set heat cycled help? would storing them indoors for winter help? Can I thow money at my problems until they go away, by buying a tire with as much feel and grip but lasts longer, would the trofeo's accomplish that? should I wait for review on the new nankangs? Heard AO52's don't feel as good. before "overkill for road use", yes, so are my brakes, so will my xida ace's be when I can afford them, so is not driving a corolla, isn't it just great?
Side note, who sells a good roll bar with build in door bars these days? Moti's facebook page told me no....

The tires aren't sticking as well recently because the temps are colder. That is normal. And no I would definitely not recommend heat cycling for a street car.

It was colder when I put them on than the past couple months when I've been disappointed with them, I appreciate the response

How old and miles?

nearly a year, probably around 8k

If they've been frozen that's going to affect peak grip. If they were frozen and then driven on before allowing them to warm, even worse. Regardless, with tires of this type you get the most grip when they're new. After a few heat cycles they're no longer going to grip the way they did on the second or 3rd cycle.

for roll bars, I don't know of any that have door bars built in but the hard dog stuff goes together nicely. https://supermiata.com/chassis---rol...-interior.aspx

Performance tires wear in two ways, from cycling and abrasion. If they were only used on the track you might only get 5-7 track days before the tread was worn and maybe 3-5 before they were heat cycled out. 1 year and 8kmi is not bad, but for a dual duty you may only get half that. It’s nice to have 2 sets of tires/rims. The cold seems to be more of a factor with cracking then altering the compound.

RE71Rs love the cold (or at least CA cold- 40-50F ambient). After tread temp goes above 150-160F they drop grip pretty aggressively. They usually give me the most grip in the first 3-4 laps. I usually get 3 events out of a set but by the 3rd event the grip level is noticeably lower. By the 3rd event I’m usually at ~3/32nds and my times will drop a bit but they also wear MUCH slower at the end of their life.

my understanding with tire break in is it’s more about carcass flexing rather than putting heat into them, so it sounds like you’ve already performed that “heat cycle” service tire rack offers... or at least good enough to where 99% of people wouldn’t notice the difference. At this point doing it again wouldn’t help anything.

A lot of people use the RE71Rs at autox. When new, RE71Rs require a little heat cycling before they get their grip. Usually, autocrossers will run an event or two, and then the tires are good until about 120 autox runs. Then, they drop off in grip pretty noticeably due to heat cycling out, and I suspect this is what you are experiencing. This can happen even from just daily driving the tires. I drove to Lincoln, Nebraska on my RE71Rs for Solo Nationals after I did about 70ish autox runs on them prior, and they never felt the same after the 1600 mile trip. Key signs that these tires are heat cycled out: tire wear is less, tire is tougher to get up to temperature.

RE71Rs are great in the cold, like duthehustle93 said. They are typically better than the other 200tw offerings, except for the A052s (at least to my knowledge based on other peoples experiences).

Not sure if you guys know this, but the RE71Rs are getting discontinued for next year. Because of this, I'd suggest you to try the Falken RT660s. They wear probably a little faster than the RE71Rs, but they have really strong grip. But if you don't care much for the higher grip, Falken 615k+ will wear like iron. My current favorite tire is the BFG Rival 1.5 (which have poor feel, but good trailbraking/multitasking characteristics), but I'm going to try the RT660s this season. I don't recall the RT660s needing a heat cycle to get up to speed.