What Tires are You Running? - 2015 edition

[protomor]

I try not to go by what I hear on the internet simply because someone's experience level and difference in car is trumped by personal experience. But seeing those nankangs delaminate after a single run is worth not buying them to me.

I've seen triangles work real well for wear in person. I might try those out. I still like my feddies. But I'm starting to kill them REALLY quickly these days (since I gained the ability to stay on throttle more).

[JesterMX6]

I ran the Triangles up front 2 weeks ago and they were great. Plenty of grip and didn't chunk even with my massive understeer due to driver inability.

[Novablue454]

I like Triangle 968 the best and get them for $65/each installed
I won some Kenda's and they are good (slightly prefer the Triangle's)


Also this happened below to my buddies Nankang AS-1 first run out
Attachment 572983

Ouch!

[Novablue454]

Here's my pile after last weekend.


First off the Kuhmo Ecsta ASX 245/40/17
Great grip. These tires lasted the longest of any so far, but didn't have any hot lapping done on them. The tradeoff to them wearing so well is pretty low amounts of smoke, Did not try to delam.


Next is the Nankang NS-20 245/40/17
These are probably my favorite so far. Loads of smoke but still wear decently. Grip is OK as well. They wore pretty quick but I was also hot lapping them on a real rough surface. However, one of them did fail pretty bad, so I guess time will tell if that's going to be an issue with them. They're the cheapest in my size that is easily available, so these are likely to be my go to.


last is the Achilles ATR Sports 225/45/17
Holy crap these tires are fun to drive on! LOADS of smoke. Grip is low, (probably contributed to by the size difference) super easy to keep the car sliding. Terrible wear. These lasted 4 laps whereas the Kuhmo lasted 10ish. Started to Delam once they were hot lapped.

[tptrsn]

Whoa, you did some work! Lol

Looking at the Nankangs, I was thinking you were going to say they were OUT. It will be very interesting to see what you think of them after more experience with them. Thanks for sharing!

[Novablue454]

I ran 2 pairs of Nankangs that day, and the 2nd pair wore down to the cords fine, so I'm hoping that was just a fluke.

[DjTyfighter]

Just bought 4 ATR Sports to try out... hope they last me longer then they did for you

[s50b30]

Here's my pile after last weekend.


First off the Kuhmo Ecsta ASX 245/40/17
Great grip. These tires lasted the longest of any so far, but didn't have any hot lapping done on them. The tradeoff to them wearing so well is pretty low amounts of smoke, Did not try to delam.


Next is the Nankang NS-20 245/40/17
These are probably my favorite so far. Loads of smoke but still wear decently. Grip is OK as well. They wore pretty quick but I was also hot lapping them on a real rough surface. However, one of them did fail pretty bad, so I guess time will tell if that's going to be an issue with them. They're the cheapest in my size that is easily available, so these are likely to be my go to.


last is the Achilles ATR Sports 225/45/17
Holy crap these tires are fun to drive on! LOADS of smoke. Grip is low, (probably contributed to by the size difference) super easy to keep the car sliding. Terrible wear. These lasted 4 laps whereas the Kuhmo lasted 10ish. Started to Delam once they were hot lapped.

What was the test car? Hp?

[Novablue454]

E46 w/ LS6 swap (380ish whp) and SLR ultra kit

[Chase R]

Just bought 4 ATR Sports to try out... hope they last me longer then they did for you

I think part of it was due to them being narrower (225 vs 245). Less rubber to distribute the wear. I had ATR Sport 2s and I thought they lasted a long time for being such a cheap tire. Good grip too, even in the rain.

[s50b30]

More grip CAN mean less wheelspeed (less wear) aswell.
Maybe not so much with ls6.

When I had my m3 I could cook a set of low grip tires in one lap. Stickier/wider tires would last forever.

[Novablue454]

I think part of it was due to them being narrower (225 vs 245). Less rubber to distribute the wear. I had ATR Sport 2s and I thought they lasted a long time for being such a cheap tire. Good grip too, even in the rain.

I had them on my car back when it was the DD for a bit (hence the size difference) and loved them. I am sure the .75"(ish) width difference contributed. The achillies also just plume out smoke. I was trying to find comparison pictures but there are no great ones, but on the same corner the Ecstas were leaving a transparent haze in the air and the Achillies were leaving a full on white out cloud.

Ecsta

Achilles

[FIN]

I`ve been running Federal RS-R 215/45 R17 front 2 years now. Really like them, they give better grip in front than any normal street tire. Ofc they push like crazy when cold or if it is wet weather. Im also running 235/40 square setup on my grip driving wheels. Used to run Toyo T1-R back in the day in front, better wet grip and less dry grip than RS-R Fed.

Rears on drifting, lets see:

-Nangang NS-2
Is even dangerous on wet in normal driving, but does grip decently on dry track. Smokes well and is good to drift, but delaminates instantly and wears really fast if your running something more than 200hp. Delamination can be prevented some extend by lowering pressure (blowed up my almost new nangangs in 4 laps around local drift park on 2.8bar tyre pressure, with something like 2.2 these last almost double amount of sliding)

Rate: Never going to buy these again for drifting, even tho they are cheap but since grip on dry is only avg and they dont last even 1 hour drift track as new.

-Goodride
Less grip than nangang and tyre doesnt seem to wear at all, but enough heat and it just delaminates just like them.

Rate: Pretty much same as nangang, but this is much more popular tyre on used market for some reason, so i might randomly drive with these if I get em really cheap used.

-Federal SS595
Decent grip on both dry/wet and last about same as goodride, but without delamination till steel belts.
These are my favourites to run as rear, but their price has gone up in couple of years quite a lot. (They were about 50€ 205/40 R17 2012, but now same size costs something like 85€. )

Rate: If I had lots of spare cash, I would still only use these, but since theyre starting to be pretty pricey nowadays I´ll be mainly hunting these on used sales. Somebody knows shop that sells these for old price in EU?

Really interested on Triangle tyres. TR968 205/40 R17 seems to be around 50€ as new so might buy 4 of em for this summer/fall.

[DjTyfighter]

Just bought 4 ATR Sports to try out... hope they last me longer then they did for you

Unfortunately they wore down super quick... just a few laps on our skid pad.
Super grippy and TONS of smoke, but Triangle's and Kenda's easily last 3x as long.

Definitely not worth it for the money.

[Novablue454]

I went through another 4 pairs of the Nankang NS-20s this last weekend. I dropped the pressure quite a bit (45 down to 35) and they wore a lot better. A few of us at the track were using them and all were having delam issues at first, but only after multiple laps. I did some experimenting and I can get about 4 laps out of them before they need cooldown time to keep from chunking. Once I started letting them cool down for 15-20 minutes after every 4 hotlaps they lasted 2x at long. I took easily 40 runs this weekend so I was getting about 10+ out of each pair on smooth concrete.

[protomor]

Am I the only one that wants to have 1 set of tires and run all day? I remember when I had 100whp. Tire wear is just too fast. I'm gonna try the triangles. But I guess they don't smoke as well?

I do a brand new set of feddies and make them last all day. But since I instruct in the mornings, I really only get like 5-6 laps.

[Novablue454]

I mean, tires that last all day would be great. Unfortunately the Ecsta's were the closest I found and they discontinued them.

[DjTyfighter]

Am I the only one that wants to have 1 set of tires and run all day? I remember when I had 100whp. Tire wear is just too fast. I'm gonna try the triangles. But I guess they don't smoke as well?

Triangle's smoked great for me.

[protomor]

Might try out some triangles...

[DjTyfighter]

s52 on triangles
IMG_20160115_155701.jpg

[protomor]

I hear they don't grip too well. Since feddies run wide, my 245s should be more like 265s on triangles?

I'm bored at work today so yay post whoring.

[DjTyfighter]

I run 215/45/17 @ 40psi on an s52 for reference (From my experience... Kendas have slightly more grip and the ATR sport have noticebly more)
I have them on 17x9 wheels, best picture I have on me right now for you to gauge
Screenshot_20160629-100316.jpg

[Novablue454]

my 245/40r17 595s measured 10.5" wide, so yeah a 265 would be the same in a Hankook at least

[protomor]

10.5? damn. My balls just grew 2 sizes today.

[Novablue454]

I'd double check, but yeah my federals were biting my frame hard, and the hankook rs3 clear everything.