Best street tires for the track?
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depends on what you consider street tires. Kumo and Hoosier both make dot certified R-compound tires that are perfectly legal for street use. I wouldent recomend driveing too far on them however. you really need to qualify exactly what you are looking for in a tire. Street tire is to vauge.....
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You also need to clarify which Advans you are referring to (I'm assuming the Neova not the A048 :shrug
, how many miles and what type of driving you did on them before your track experience, etc.
FWIW, I haven't found a "street tire" that performs well on the track. That's not for what they are designed.
, how many miles and what type of driving you did on them before your track experience, etc.FWIW, I haven't found a "street tire" that performs well on the track. That's not for what they are designed.
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the R888's that came with my car are great, I'll get another set when there are out unless there's a killer deal on something comparable. $710 + shipping from tiredeals4less.com, won't find a better deal anywhere else, believe me I looked. I was thinking hankook RS-2's but for 200 bucks more I could have the MUCH sticker Toyo's in stock size
Agree !
Has anyone ever run these on their Lotus? They are good when hot, but suck when cold and I would predict that on an elise or exige you could never generate enough heat on the street, and maybe not for some time on the track, to make them work correctly. Seriously, these tires are like ice cubes when cold.
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R888's... or R1R's as a step down.
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It all depends...
The other tires mentioned and other good quality tires (not Mexican recaps) will all function pretty decent as street tires (i.e. good wear, good all around traction, smother ride), but will not be all that great on the track or with aggressive street driving.
Bear in mind that with tires you are always balancing lots of mutually exclusive factors: dry grip with wear, wet grip with dry grip, smoothness of ride (softer side walls) with precision of turn-in / slip angle (harder side walls), cost with wear and performance, etc...
The issue of tire selection is a bit like asking what the greatest rock band of all time, everyone has an opinion...
IMHO the Toyo R888 tires are the best combination of track focus / street performance tires. But be ready to replace then after 6-7000 road miles or 6-7 track days. The sidewalls are pretty stiff so don't expect a smooth ride on rough streets.
The other tires mentioned and other good quality tires (not Mexican recaps) will all function pretty decent as street tires (i.e. good wear, good all around traction, smother ride), but will not be all that great on the track or with aggressive street driving.
Bear in mind that with tires you are always balancing lots of mutually exclusive factors: dry grip with wear, wet grip with dry grip, smoothness of ride (softer side walls) with precision of turn-in / slip angle (harder side walls), cost with wear and performance, etc...
The issue of tire selection is a bit like asking what the greatest rock band of all time, everyone has an opinion...
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I have always found it intersting that a tire other than what Lotus puts on the Elise would be needed unless racing the car. The Elise handeliing was designed around the tires and the shocks, so if they are changed for any other reason than racing I believe the dynamics of the car are drastically changes. My mechanic says that the stock tire on the Elise are without a doubt the best choice for road and track. Check out the owner comments on Tirerack.com for the road choices and you might come to the same conclusion. Just my opinion.
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No, it's quite the opposite in my experience.
I've had my R888's on for a long time including a few track days and they still almost look like new :shrug:
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I have RE01Rs on my car right now. My experience with them is that they are fine for street driving. I got them for a 2000 mile road trip. Aggressive street driving, not so much. I had to stop doing a hill climb that we have here after switching to them. Track, no way.
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Two thoughts on this....if the car and tires were designed with each other in mind...how come the car comes with two different types of tires (Neova and A048)I have always found it intersting that a tire other than what Lotus puts on the Elise would be needed unless racing the car. The Elise handeliing was designed around the tires and the shocks, so if they are changed for any other reason than racing I believe the dynamics of the car are drastically changes. My mechanic says that the stock tire on the Elise are without a doubt the best choice for road and track. Check out the owner comments on Tirerack.com for the road choices and you might come to the same conclusion. Just my opinion.
Also, let's hope this isn't true, as I don't believe Yoko is making the LTS version of the A048's anymore. There apparently still are plenty in inventories, and Lotus must have a supply for new cars.
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IMHO, the old saw about using only OEM brand tires or OEM brand tires are optimized for the stock set-up is a bunch of who ha. This MIGHT be true if you drive your car like the engineers intended and your OEM tires happen to be from the same lot of tires the test tires happen to be from.I have always found it intersting that a tire other than what Lotus puts on the Elise would be needed unless racing the car. The Elise handeliing was designed around the tires and the shocks, so if they are changed for any other reason than racing I believe the dynamics of the car are drastically changes. My mechanic says that the stock tire on the Elise are without a doubt the best choice for road and track. Check out the owner comments on Tirerack.com for the road choices and you might come to the same conclusion. Just my opinion.
By the same logic you should utilize the same brand and grade of gasoline as specified by the engineer to get optimum engine performance. Since we don't import UK spec gasoline for our cars, this logic would indicate that Yanks are being cheated of performance! DANG! :wallbang: those crafty Brits did it to us again!
But let's be realistic, the performance of a tire varies from tire lot to tire lot. Tires (even unused) age with time and thus have variable characteristics over time. Heat cycles, tread depth, tire pressure, all have an impact upon tire performance when the rubber meets the road. There are too many variables that an engineer simply can not take into account in the real world, thus I am VERY skeptical that the old saw "OEM brand tires give the best performance" is true.
Another factor to consider, the Exige S has the Yoko AO48 LTS as the OEM stock tires. These tires are expensive to make because they are specialty tires for a specialty car, thus they are expensive tires to stock for a dealership / mechanic and even more expensive for the consumer. So do you think the mechanic has some motivation to up-sell the OEM stock tires he / she has on the shelf to keep that inventory moving? You bet he / she does! Keep the inventory turns high on those expensive tires and make more money! I'm sure that a mechnic's opinion would not be influenced by a customer decision that puts more money in his / her pocket.
Also let's face another reality, 99.9% of the driving public probably would not notice the difference in tire performance between premium high performance brands of tires. For 99% of the driving public, tires that hold air pressure and don't wear too quickly are sufficient. It is only when pushed to the limit of traction that premium high performance tires express the subtle differences in performance. IMHO, you'd have to be driving like a grade 10 idiot to be pushing the limits of traction on the street.
So the real questions goes back to the OP,....
What style of of driving?
Under what conditions?
What kind of performance?
How much money are you willing to spend?
Answer these questions and you'll be a long way to answering your own question.
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I recently did a track day with the RE-11. I was very happy with the way they performed over the day. Temps were at 95 F and they did very well. I got an entire new suspension setup at the same time(kw Variant 2), but no complaints about turn in, feel, wear, or anything for that matter. I would welcome anyone in socal to try a few laps in my car and give me their opinion on my next track day about my setup. In fact that is exactly what I want from some experienced drivers.
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