Dudley

My Nittos are near slicks but the outsides have a little more wear than the insides. Can NT01s be flipped? The tire has the Outside marked but I wonder if that has any bearing when the tread is nearly gone. I have a new set but I am trying to squeeze ever last cycle out of these tires.

jpk

My understanding is the outside/inside directional rotation thing is only to ensure the grove pattern is oriented properly to disperse water instead of forcing standing water under the contact patch. If you are not driving in the rain or have no grooves left, it makes no difference.

cello

^ +1. I flip mine side to side after every event and on the rim after every other event to equalize wear.

huangover

i flip mine every set. in the dry it wont make a difference

RSAErick

If so, then is it safe to say that Nitto NT-01's will wear out before heat cycling out?

Dudley

Seem to in my application.

Thanks everyone for the input.

JackOlsen

If I can tag a question onto the thread...

For those who have reversed the direction of the tires by rotating wheels left to right instead of unmounting/remounting the tires left to right, have you noticed any performance drop-off when running in the new direction?

I have, by my data could be very unreliable, since ambient temp changes at my local track make A/B comparisons hard. I also haven't run all that many sets of the tires during stretches where there weren't other setup changes on the car.

I guess the answer is to rotate them between sessions on the same day. But if anyone has noticed a change when the direction gets reversed, I'd love to know.

Deadeye

Switched sides and flipped on rims, doesn't seem to make a substantial difference

MelanomaMan

I've done both on mine as well without issue. The caveat for mine is that I run them for practice and less for hot laps so I'm not as concerned about the fall off in lap times. For me they absolutely heat cycle out before they wear out. I managed to stretch out my last set almost a year with 1-2 events a month. I'm at 2500 lbs wet w/driver.

garrett376

Jack, I flip them from side to side all the time as Cal Speedway eats the right rear, WSIR eats the left rear -I always change side to side each race day and I've never had a noticeable change in lap times. This is on a 3100lb J/GTB1 car with PCA, or V3/GT4 car with POC.

Krokodil

+1. I have not driven on them in a few years, but we always flipped them without issue.

Ran decent all the way to the cord and no grooves (about 4-5 days), but even when new they are only really good for a couple of fast laps then they get slick.

Cheers,

NC TRACKRAT

Just ran my first set of NT-01's at VIR this past week-end in 100 degree heat. (Brutal!) Fortunately, I had them heat-cycled when purchased. Pleasantly pleased with their performance. Didn't seem greasy and didn't tend to fade out mid-session. Certainly on a par with TOYO RA-1's. Glad to know they can be rotated from side-to-side to equalize wear.

JackOlsen

The heat cycling part is interesting, to me. I've never heard of anyone heat cycling an NT01. I haven't seen it recommended by the manufacturer, either.

But maybe there's something I don't know. Does anyone else heat cycle new NT01s and then let them cool for 24 hours before use?