THSCC Forums

I posted out on the s197 forums looking for advice on autox tires for next year. As expected, just a lot of personal comments. One poster provided the following info....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kASM04zuHlo

Good review of the top tires to be used in autox'g and they tested with a heavy car, a '70 Satellite! I think this would be a good comparison for those of you w/ a heavy car. Their test tire was a 275x35x18, right on the ball park of what I'm hunting. Now I have a better view of my options for next year....

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

Revealing video. I think we should get some of those miniature cones, they are more in scale with my Miata

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92 Miata 1.9L naturally aspirated. SSM 21

The kart guys would probably appreciate them too.

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OK so I'm back in. Now which tire should I buy??

So would my front bumper.

Joking aside, so long as the car can't pass over them without contact, is there any reason not to use smaller cones (the ones in the video would probably be too small for many cars, like a Forester)?

Let's order 50 12" cones and not use any others. Need more than 50 cones? Redesign your course.

Scott, there is that problem with the mini cones disappearing from view when you're within 100 feet of them. But if we decide to use them, I think they should only count 0.1 seconds each

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Art McDonald
Premier Amateur #518
2008 Dishman Cup
Pivot Cone Snob

Rodney is a waxer (but in a good way)

Smaller cone, smaller penalty makes sense to me...would have helped my situation a lot this past weekend

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92 Miata 1.9L naturally aspirated. SSM 21

If you think about this whole "tire thing", from a very high level, it seems to me that the dispersion of "winners" is only going to continue increase with time all tied to the many variables involved in any such test (car platform (and how it is modified, setup, aligned etc), choice of wheel width vs tire tread & section width (I think this might be one of the most important variables with the ultra-high end "street" tires), course design (length, element content/type, element transitions, etc), pavement (aggregate type, surface type -- asphalt vs concrete, sealed or not, etc), and umpteen others.

Example: GRM mag just published a test of these same tires (most of the top ones), different everything from this MotorTrend test of course, and the BFG Rival came out as the overall winner with the ZII right behind.

So as autocrossers, we all have to be mindful that "the answer" to what is "best" really doesn't exist. We will only know that answer for any particular one of us if we actually test the top three tires on our car, with the wheel widths we use, on the courses/tracks we normally use. If we're going to nationals on fast concrete courses, our tire choice for top performance is most likely not the one that will perform the best on the wicked sticky unsealed asphalt at NCCAR.

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Agreed Chuck, but last time I checked, I didn't have 5k lying around to do that type testing =) This is about as close to testing as I can get. I did find it interesting that the ZII had a wider tread width in a 275 than the r-s3 in a 285.

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

Chuck has a point, but an underlying theme there, is that the tires are so close to each other, that perhaps chasing the best isn't worth the hassle. Pick one of top three that seems to meet your needs the most and don't look back.

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In need of car.

Agree.... That was my plan to start with. I'll never be a national level driver and I've come to realize I'm just a "good" driver, not great. The car is also woefully under prepped for STU next year, but that's OK. Like I said, the only person I'm battling next year is Jordan.

Right now I'm thinking I'll go w/ the 275 ZII. Decent price point and the best tread witdh of the 3. This one makes sense to me....

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

Honestly, I question whether any of the 275 street tires are good enough for a mustang.

The car is really heavy and the only way around that is with big sticky tires. I might be wrong, but I don't see this car ever placing at nationals in a class where you are limited to a street tire.

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In need of car.

How does Chuck's E90 M3 compare? It's 3200ish lbs and has 414hp and 300 lbft of torque and he's running 245 Rivals all around and he's plenty fast on that setup .

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2011/2012 Autox VP
2013/2014.5 President
2013 Top Gun

2015 Fit

22R-EC => 4G63 => D16Y7 + D16Y8 => EJ255 + K24Z2 => K20Z3 + K24Z2 => K24Z2 + M54 => L15B

FYI after seeing that video posted on another site I emailed Woody Rogers of Tire Rack to get more info on their Race Technology data acquisition setup and use. Bottom line they are very precise in their data collection and analysis. Woody also mentioned (and confirmed) that their normal tire tests involve 100 different drivers on all tires in the test. Keeping track of who was on what tire at what time involves, among other things, RFID sensor tracking that Woody developed with help from tire company engineers and others. Very impressive!

Also, hopefully Woody won't mind me sharing this quote:

"The Hot Rod test was an absolute blast. That car handles better than pretty much any autocross car I've driven. I wish my S2000 was as well balanced! And then there is all the power. Kinda makes me want to try CP or something. And for those who say street tires don't belong on powerful cars, I didn't fall off the track and burst into flames."

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

FYI the guys running Road Tire in an FS 2012 Mustang were pretty happy with the 275 ZII's abilities including putting power down. Plus they wore (or didn't wear) very well. Sounds like a reasonable choice plus they are decent in the wet I think.

The car owner normally drives an E Mod "Mustang" with a zillion horsepower on slicks by the way.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

I know the car cannot be that more different from each other but the ZII on the Abarth are pretty good.
That Satellite is cool , my dad had a 68 with a 383, he had some glasspack install on it, very nice rumble.

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Patrice
1973 911 former track and AX car.
2016 VW GTI
2002 Nissan Sentra (Olivier car)
2012 Nissan Juke (Kathy car)
2010 Suzuki Kizashi (Audrey car)