sjfehr

Who's running the new crop of fast tires? What sort of tire life are you seeing so far?

I've put about 5000 street miles, 105 autocross runs and 40 miles of time trial (on a very abrasive track) on my Dunlop ZIIs in my 986S. Frustrating, as I still have plenty of tread on the inner corner but the outer corners. Tire guy said "I think you've got an alignment problem" and I agree completely- shame SCCA won't let me fix it! The rears are wearing more evenly but will be shot in the next month or two, too.

PedalFaster

Too late now, but I would have flipped those a while ago, which would have evened out the wear.

sjfehr

I was thinking that, but to be honest, these are my DD tires and it's down to the bars in the middle. Flipping wouldn't have made much of a difference.

abqautoxer

You're a confusing guy. You complain about the wear and blame the SCCA and then when it's pointed out to you that it could worn better with a flip sooner, it doesn't matter?

sjfehr

I can't just go to the local tire store I usually use to have my tires flipped due to corporate policies and other BS; would end up costing me about $60 with gas and all driving to a specialty shop to get another maybe $60 worth of use out of a set of front tires. Or I could slot the towers for free and improve performance and tread life at the same time. (Granted, this would likely result in better front tire life at the expense of wearing the rear tires out faster... but I'm willing to live with that if it dials out the horrible understeer!)

Didn't want this to get off on a tangent about SCCA; was wondering how many runs other people were getting from their tires.

CKit

We flip Hoosiers after 6 runs on our WRX, so that kind of wear and life seems magical to me...

burglar

Not the best pics, but probably a similar number of autocross runs and street miles as you, with only 5 time trial laps.

Apparently the front tires on my car do nothing, as you can still see the ghost of the 2nd wear marker. Rears are almost down to the bars, but still in pretty good shape.

msterling

Not the same tires but I have about 150 autocross runs on my Nitto NT01s on my nearly stock 1988 Carrera. My son is co-driving this year so the runs are multiplied. They are maybe 2/3 done but still stick very well. Yep, the Hoosiers are quicker.

85Gold

ROFLMAO. Shoulda kept da Civic

Peter

BayArea911

Not to nitpick but the Yokohama is the AD08"R" not "A"

OP- how much camber are you using up front?

My rivals just came in but I have not had a chance to test them at the track yet. Next month though!

allen_skillicorn

105 runs sounds disappointing, but those didn't look super bad for not being flipped. I do understand your issues about finding a shop to flip them. I also worry about scratching my 18's doing them myself at a buddy's shop (his machine has a lot of flex in the arm and I need more practice using it to feel safe on low profiles). Next year we get camber though!

My square 245/40/18 Rival setup is wearing like iron, but I only have 50 or so runs and 1000 miles this summer on them. The outside front shoulders are purple, but there's almost no appreciable wear. I will be able to use these next year, but I hope to autox my racecar more than my 986 anyway.

Our cars shouldn't wear tires like fwd or awd wrx's, but our front strut suspension surely leaves a lot to be desired compared to a miata or S2000.

allen_skillicorn

How are your rears wearing? On my 986, I probably have more camber wear from DD and a little inside wheel peel.

I will probably dismount the tires and rotate them front to rear next spring (another benefit of the square sizes).

sjfehr

105 autocross runs + 19 time trial runs; and I'm roughly guessing worth 2 autocross runs. So, ~146 runs + 5000 street miles doesn't seem bad, and they still had some life left at the end. The rear tires are still holding strong; won the state championship on them last weekend. Not a whole lot of life left, though- they're getting rather squirrely on the highway with standing water.

sjfehr

Well, the grip in the rear went off a cliff after the Virginia Autocross Championship, and was even showing some warnings signs then, though at the time we were just happy to finally be able to get some rotation. In the end, I got about 210 runs worth & 7000 street miles from the rears, though grip honestly fell off pretty quickly after about about 170 runs. That was also about the time I started spraying (I hadn't sprayed earlier in the season), but that could be coincidence. Grip was gone about the time they hit the wear bars. For the penultimate two events, they would still give pretty good grip but needed a run to heat up- at the last event (another time trial @ Academi/Blackwater), no amount of heat made any difference at all.

Click for hit-res:

burglar

Wonder if the time trial runs heat cycled them out?