THSCC Forums

Thinking of buying my first set of RA1's for track use and seems like folks are split 50/50 on whether or not to shave them. FWD car about 3000lbs with driver and a full tank. What are the opinions of those using them here?

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Stephen Westerfield
2009 Infiniti M35 | 2007 Honda Fit Sport | 2005 Ford Mustang GT |2000 GMC Sierra |1992 Acura Integra LS | Super Westerfield Bros Acura Integra

if you want maximum tire life, unshaved. if you want max speed, shaved to 3/32. if you want a good compromise,shaved to 5/32 (which is what i do). or get a similar tire (888, nt01) that doesn't require shaving.

i have done both Stephen. for a DE car i would suggest not shaving. you might as well get your money's worth out of them. the old RA-1s were a little squirmy when new but not so much to ruin a session or anything.

properly stored, flipped / rotated you should get two seasons easy out of full tread RA-1s i want to say i got eight or more events out of my last set.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

I've had at least one person tell me they actually last longer shaved. Anyone else experience that?

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Stephen Westerfield
2009 Infiniti M35 | 2007 Honda Fit Sport | 2005 Ford Mustang GT |2000 GMC Sierra |1992 Acura Integra LS | Super Westerfield Bros Acura Integra

I remember with ST* tires back in '04 we used to shave them to make them last longer. That was mainly due to massive tread squirm that would cause chunking, so shaving them from 9/32" to 4/32" eliminated the chunking, made them faster and they lasted longer.

I'm not sure that is the case with the RA1's. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

mine were never shaved on my integra.

i, too, was told i might as well not shave so i can get more use out of them for DE. they are awesome tires.

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

Shave them to 4/32nds or don't waste your money. I run them on a 3280# (wet) rear wheel drive, solid axle car. There is at least a 3 second a lap advantage and the feel is night and day. Full depth, you might as well be running street tires.

As for lasting longer, why is that a real concern? If you are trusting the track to shave them down, you are going to be very disappointed and pretty much be tossing money out the window.

Last month at VIR, when I slapped the tire wall, I cut down my left front, shaved RA1 getting back to the pits. I tossed my full tread depth rain tires on. What a waste of the rest of the day. Not only did the car handle like crap but there was no confidence under braking. Missing that practice time cost me the track record on Saturday.

Luckily, I had one of my new shaved RA1's mounted up for Saturday.

A set of shaved RA1's will get you through a season of THSCC events.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

I started with mine unshaved for the Spec Miata. You have to take it easy with then at full tread. The first event was in Feb so temps were very low to help with overheating the tread blocks.

I was able to get 9 events out of my set of ra1's. Careful rotation and a good suspension setup is key. They did get hard after about the 6-7th event on them. For the last two events (both at CMP) they were terrible. Almost 4 seconds slower.

Next year, ra1's shaved or NT-01. You can easily get 4-5 events before they cord and they will be fast.

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THSCC Timing & Scoring

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=329884 (relevant post http://forum.miata.net/vb/showpost.php? ... stcount=34)
Miata content but it may apply if you moved your Integra to 15" wheels and can fit 245 width under your fenders. For those who aren't familiar with the poster emilio700 owns 949racing and can be trusted to not be full of it.

The current rumor is that the tire Emilio is talking about a new NT-01 from Nitto in 245/40r15. Curious to see if they put a RA-1 tread pattern on it as well. I'm waiting to see what that tire ends up being before buying any tires for next year.

I have NT-01s for the Miata and do both DEs and AX on them. I have about 30AX runs on them and about 15 DE sessions. they are about a year old. while they give up a bit to real tires in AX, they are great DE tires. I think that they are a bit quicker than RA1s but probably have less life before they cord. The best part is they are less expensive

Rob

nt01 and 888s are kissing cousins, very similar tires. and they are molded with less tread so they don't require shaving. another option worth considering is the bfg r1, very sticky until it heat cycles out and even then it's pretty good. at the 13 hour this past weekend we took a set off one of the miatas after seven hours and they looked almost new. the shaved ra1s on another miata were toast.

Stephen,

I will echo the call for NT01s. You can run them as-is without shaving them.

While I have never ran a full-tread depth RA1, I have run an unshaved Kumho V700s on the Cobra. If an unshaved RA1 acts like an unshaved V700, then I definitely recommend shaving it. I would get about 3 laps out of it and the tire would get hot from tire squirm and go "greasy". Full tread depth would be good for rain though.

-Kevin

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2003 Torch Red Corvette Z06 ST3/TT3 #01

Road Courses: Rock - VIR-F - VIR-N - VIR-S - VIR-P - VIR-G - RRR - CMP - Road Atlanta - CMS - NSS - NCCAR - Mid-Ohio - Watkins Glen
Drag Strips: Red River - Byron - Cordova - Route 66 - Raceway Park - zMAX

i also reccomend the NT-01. i had a set on the BMW this season and was very happy with them. i got 6 events out of them one of which my dad codrove the car plus i had a couple thousand street miles on them to and from events. i chorded one the other weekend at cmp but if i had been better about rotating them and checking my pressures i'm sure they would have lasted even longer.

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#77 nasa spec 3
e36 M3

If they are kissing cousins, I would stay away from them then. I do believe people when they say how many laps they got of them and drove them on the street hundreds of miles. They will not wear out. But for track they were worthless, the triple 8's.

So much so, that every race group that had to switch from the RA1's to the R888 in 2009 raised such a stink, Toyo brought back the RA'1 after only one year. The NT01 are probably all the R888's they had stacked up

Edit (R888):

They sucked under hard breaking with a bad habit of flat spotting. Trashed 3 of them that way (same set up as I was running with RA1's). They gave very little feedback to the driver. My car just felt numb, slow turn in, no rotation. And they were quite a bit slower than RA1's. But they did last a while...until you flat spot them.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

NT-01s are pretty much RA-1s with less tread. Not sure about the carcass but the rubber is the same.