Thinking about Tires

Yup... Time.... Started to get a pretty bad vibration today on the way home, jacked it up and checked it out.... good news, bad news.... Tire is shot, didn't pop, didn't cause an accident, wheels look true.... Yippy ! new tires !!!! I will order 4 from tire rack.... the Sumitomo HTR Z III's meanwhile the car is down till I get this fixed...I limped home at 30 mph as a roadside check revealed nothing, but the jack stand test was more revealing!!!

4 new tires due 6-3-09 - Thanks Tire Rack !! (dont think I could have driven any further on this set! )

I want to know how you like them. I've decided to stick with the PS2s. It's a devil I know (and trust my neck to) on the track (without having to bring track tires with me).

I dont know $1328 for PS2's ----- $1120 for RE050A'a ----- $580 for the HTR ZIII's 100% ---- 98% ----- 93% respectively Its hard to imagine that for my driving style and linited amount of track days I will realize twice as much tire (or more) out of the other brands..... I mean look what I was on!!!

Yep - anythings better than what you've got! I hear ya about spending twice as much for maybe 5 or 10% better performance... But I feel that I *will* notice a difference on the track, so I'm OK with the expense. Another example is brake pads... I spend an awful lot of money on very specialized pads - but I've been dissatisfied with lesser pads, so it's money well spent for me. It's a beautiful day here - I'm looking forward to a nice drive! (Going to visit a friend about an hour away to help him reassemble a 365 BB!!)

I've got about 3,000 miles on my HTR Z IIIs. I actually drove over to the Tire Rack store in South Bend and had them installed there. I am very pleased with them. They are very smooth and quiet. I haven't been on the track with them, however everything I have read indicates that they'll be a bit of a disappointment on the track compared to proper N-spec tires.

well I supose if they suck I could always re-sell them for some % of what I paid and buy the N-specs. Might loose a few bucks and chalk it up to "experience" -

I think the Sumi III are great for the buck. I had DE at Road America last week and the tires did great! 135 coming into to turn 1 and taking it at 90 felt good. I think you will be pleased.

I have the Sumi IIIs for two seasons now and have no complaints. Performs well enough for my needs.

I hadn't noticed these tires before this discussion - thanks for the heads-up - I'll keep them in mind when I need my next set.

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Ed, Man, I learn something every day. I didn't know that the Sumitomo tires had shiny silver side walls.

where the hell you been.....?? welcome back The mark is from a piece of chalk, the shiny sidewalls are for pure "bling"

I have been out of town with limited internet access. PM sent.

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Ed, don't let him fool you - the truth is that he has no clue how to operate MS Vista.

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MS Vista?? I thought it was MS Visa and that it would charge my credit card every time I accessed it. I guess I can start using it now.

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Should have bought a mac.

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Wow, that's a (Wait for it) BIG MAC Hahahahah

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Corny, but I like it.

I have the Sumi III's on my car. My indy shop lost his mind when he found out that I was not putting PS2's on the car. I have no problems with them at all. Also consider that I am a casual driver with no intention on going to the track. With shipping the Sumi's were $630. I personally cannot justify 2x the price for the PS2's.

Okay, so the Sumi's are Y rated, what negatives have people voiced about them? I see some pretty good positives listed above, so I'm left scratching my head as to where they might bee lacking - other than bias towards PS2s.

they scored high on tirerack rating IMO... ride, noise and dry performance looked really good.

Holy smokes, Ivangene. Are you actually using MSN Explorer as your web browser? Definitely get yourself Google Chrome installed. You don't know what you are missing.

HAHAHAHA I wondered why no one flamed me for that one yet.... SHUT UP!! LMAO!! I hate "new and better" HAHAHHAAA... thanks for the pointer

Besides, Google is the evil empire - getting even more evil than MS. Go firefox.

No, to Mac however the wires need to be covered

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Hard to cover wires when you have that much equipment packed in there.... dual monitors, 4TB raid array, 1TB scratch drive, speakers, scanner, label printer... and that doesn't even cover thee stuff that is USB and Firewire powered. The wires may be ugly, but the machine kicks the butt of anything else on the market right now.

And Its BIG Hahaha I built my computer from a pile of trash, its a P4 3.6 with 2 gig ram and 180gb HD. I spent less than $150 including the 19" LCD so even though its slow, it was cheap AND serves purpose for now. When and if it dies I won't do it this way again, but it was fun. Trouble is it keeps running. It looks like frankenstein too, but at least that GT2 cup car front spoiler looks good on it. Hahahhaha

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Well, it has to be big to fit in the 2 internal drives of 1TB each and the 8 CPUs. It fits 32GB of RAM and 4 internal drives, but I'm not yet up to capacity. I do a lot of video and photography work, so there's no such thing as too much computing power. Need more power!

Holy sheeeeeat! Just reading those numbers startled me! 1.21 gigawatts!!! Haha

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yup, it's a screaming machine... top of the line MacPro.

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I actually didn't notice all the computer stuff... my eye went to the scale model of your car... nice!

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To be honest, that's what I expected people to see in the photo. I love that model. I have that white Cup car and a Mk1 996 GT3 with racing decals that I've not yet managed to find a home for since the second monitor evicted it from the desk.

+1 for the model !

Tires?

I went with these LINK they came in this morning, I ran my wheels down, they had them done by lunch, picked them up and they are sitting in the back of my suburban..... cant wait to get home and put them on the car!!!

well, I can honestly say (in my case) these tire made a HUGE differance! So I put a quick 10 miles on them, they are everuthing you would expect in a brand new tire....now we drive the wheels off it and see how the do as they grow older...I have an autocross on the 13th i might try and make....I need about 500? miles by then? --- enough talk, time to drive! on a side note, the tires I had on the car came with it. I asked my tire/alignment guy if they went out from age or from driving style (ie I did something wrong) We had been watching this tire for a while as it had a "funny spot" on the bead...when we looked inside the inner cords on the bead had came apart and rusted (from age he says) and there was a huge separation in the tread area. So for kick he flips the tire over and asks how old they are.... pthhh I dont know.....he looks at the numbers for a minute, counts up and say "holy **** these are 14 years old!!" Now I am not going to say this is true, but this guy is very good and heavy into racing and tires...so if it is..WOW...they must have came from somewhere second hand before I got the car. Sneaky seller, or he just got a good deal and they lasted long enough... either way, I fell pretty happy having tires on the car that are from this millenium !!

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Why? Tires don't have a break-in period (that I know of). Just go to the autocross and have fun!

Interesting comment about the age of tires. A few years ago I participated in an event called the Saab Aero Academy at Road Atlanta in Georgia. We basicially ran stock Saab 9-5 Aeros through a closed course, much like a DE event. Over the course of the 3-day event, each Saab essentially burned through a set of tires. At this particular event, we had a rare opportunity to compare tires on the road course, on essentially the same vehicle. I drove a car with new Pirelli P-Zero Rossos, a car with worn Pirelli P-Zero Rossos and a car with "new" Pirelli P-Zero Rossos that had been sitting in the back of the warehouse for a couple of years in a corner. They had never been mounted on a wheel, but they were a couple of years old. These "new" tires were the worst of the bunch, by a large margin. I was actually shocked at the difference. I don't know if it was the heat in the warehouse, or something else. Whatever caused it, it taught me that age does affect rubber, as well as mileage/usage. BTW - if any of you ever purchase a Saab Aero, make sure to participate in the Academy. It's free to Aero owners, and well worth the time.

something interesting I forgot to mention.. the Sumi's are non-dirrectional ??? I am calling the tire guy this morning to confirm

According to Tire Rack, they are "asymmetrical" - meaning one side should be on the "outside" of the rim, but they are not directional - meaning they can be mounted on either side of the car.

OK I saw the "outside" and I was on the last tire when I thought "Oh sh*t!, did I put these on the right side?" I must have stared to the sidewalls for 10 minutes looking for an arrow...hahaha, I have some stuff to do today with the truck but I am going to push it out till tomorrow so I can put some miles on the car... I miss it since its been down a week and the weather has been AMAZING!!

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It's usually good to get at least 100 miles on a tire before pushing it for grip. They tend to be a little greasy until the tread gets some grain to it. Try accelerating on a new rear tire on a motorcycle, and you'll find out VERY quickly just how much of a difference it makes. Also, probably heat cycle has something to do with it - I'm no expert, just offering some first hand experience.

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New tires will have a slippery chemical on the tread, which is a releasing agent used to help the tire slide out of the mold. It will take a number of miles for this to wear off.