Any tire advice for ST2 Miata?

[Jeff Stuart]

Kumho Tire flexed some muscle at the Sports Car Club of America San Diego National Tour and the El Toro ProSolo over the past two weekends. The proven Ecsta V710 and hot new Ecsta XS ended at the top of the podium.

Jeff Ringer of Los Angeles, California competing in the Index 1 street tire class in a Honda S2000 and Morgan Trotter of Temecula, California, driving a Subaru Impreza in the Index 2 class both swept their respective street stock classes on the Ecsta XS on back-to-back weekends. The Ecsta XS is Kumho’s newest Ultra High Performance street tire designed for extreme handling capability for the most demanding cars and drivers. “Back to back wins in the street tire classes where we compete against all the best performance tires in the world proves the unbeatable performance of the Ecsta XS,” said Rudy Consolacion, Kumho’s Motorsports Manager. “

Where is that from Arthur?

[Jeff Ringer]

the beauty of google

http://www.kumhousa.com/News_Article.as ... e12d2eb7a2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


btw if anyone wants kumhos send me an email please

[Steve Collins]

Well the house has that new-tire smell. I'm looking forward to scrubbing the stickers off them this weekend.
I went with the Hankooks on the advice of my crack team of nationally ranked tire testers.

Thanks to all for your comments.

steve

[Jonathan Lugod]

steve where did you get your hankooks?

[Steve Collins]

TreadZone. Apparently Drop shipped straight from the harbor. Van showed up with them at 8:00 AM.
You have some on order too right? DId yours show yet?

sc

[Jonathan Lugod]

TreadZone. Apparently Drop shipped straight from the harbor. Van showed up with them at 8:00 AM.
You have some on order too right? DId yours show yet?

sc

i ordered mine from Tire Rack and its WAYYYY backordered.
I need to call TireRack for a more specific ETA, if they can't do that then Treadzone maybe the way to go.

[Steve Collins]

TreadZone. Apparently Drop shipped straight from the harbor. Van showed up with them at 8:00 AM.
You have some on order too right? DId yours show yet?

sc

i ordered mine from Tire Rack and its WAYYYY backordered.
I need to call TireRack for a more specific ETA, if they can't do that then Treadzone maybe the way to go.

Great customer service from TreadZone. I called a few weeks ago and said I was interested in the tire. They told me there was a shipment coming into LA harbor Thu or Fri of last week. When I said I was going to hold off ordering to see if my other tires held out, they offered to call me with an update on the shipment when they had more info. They called last week and confirmed that the shipment was in and would be shipping to folks Mon or Tue of this week and wrote up my order. I somehow had the impression that they were being drop-shipped from the harbor (or nearby) by Hankook (as opposed to moving though some TreadZone warehouse).

It might be that TireRack now starts shipping pretty quickly. I bet you could get them in a day or two from TreadZone if they have them. My price was ( $115 + $16 ) * 4 = $524

[Steve Collins]

Toyo R1R 195/50/15

http://treadzone.com/tireDetails.aspx?tID=5451&tab=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks to Jeff for the hot tip!

[Jonathan Lugod]

TreadZone. Apparently Drop shipped straight from the harbor. Van showed up with them at 8:00 AM.
You have some on order too right? DId yours show yet?

sc

i ordered mine from Tire Rack and its WAYYYY backordered.
I need to call TireRack for a more specific ETA, if they can't do that then Treadzone maybe the way to go.

Great customer service from TreadZone. I called a few weeks ago and said I was interested in the tire. They told me there was a shipment coming into LA harbor Thu or Fri of last week. When I said I was going to hold off ordering to see if my other tires held out, they offered to call me with an update on the shipment when they had more info. They called last week and confirmed that the shipment was in and would be shipping to folks Mon or Tue of this week and wrote up my order. I somehow had the impression that they were being drop-shipped from the harbor (or nearby) by Hankook (as opposed to moving though some TreadZone warehouse).

It might be that TireRack now starts shipping pretty quickly. I bet you could get them in a day or two from TreadZone if they have them. My price was ( $115 + $16 ) * 4 = $524

Placing order as we speak. Thanks a lot Steve. This ends up being cheaper and a whole lot quicker.

[Jonathan Lugod]

wow. Great service from Treadzone. Tires ordered yesterday and arrive at my door this morning. All before the guy can call back for a confirmation on the billing and such. Don't know if thats a good thing or not. I guess we'll see how much they may have potentially raped us on shipping. Steve we tried to get the price down to $524 like you said but no word of what was charged just yet. lol

[Steve Collins]

Woot!

I was surprised the shipping was so low when the guy gave me my order total. I was expecting ~$100 based the web page's estimate. I figured the diff was because they were being drop-shipped from LB. (The shipping labels on mine said Hankook on them. )

sc

[Doug Kott]

Tire Rack says they're getting some RS3s in the next two weeks, at least enough to cover the pre-orders. That'll coincide nicely with the arrival of my new 6UL wheels!

--Doug

[Theo O.]

the beauty of google

http://www.kumhousa.com/News_Article.as ... e12d2eb7a2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


btw if anyone wants kumhos send me an email please

Whoo! hooo! Awesome buddy Save the Kumho for the new E36

[Karen Zaterman]

My experience with 205/50/16 Dunlop Z1 Star Specs has been a mixed bag - good tread life and easy to handle at the limit, but with one caveat: my last three sets have had chunking issues - could be due to my driving, but two other forum members have had issues as well (Tim Aing and Andrew Bingham) and we all drive street tire stock cars, so this might not be an issue with an STS car. I'm going to be moving to a new brand after the current set on my car is done.

Maybe you guys just need to invest a few thou in better shocks :ibrightdea:

[Leonard Cachola]

My experience with 205/50/16 Dunlop Z1 Star Specs has been a mixed bag - good tread life and easy to handle at the limit, but with one caveat: my last three sets have had chunking issues - could be due to my driving, but two other forum members have had issues as well (Tim Aing and Andrew Bingham) and we all drive street tire stock cars, so this might not be an issue with an STS car. I'm going to be moving to a new brand after the current set on my car is done.

Maybe you guys just need to invest a few thou in better shocks :ibrightdea:

<ahem> I don't recall your Miata being faster than mine when it was stock despite the higher priced shocks... <ducks>

[Mako Koiwai]

Karen was just throwing out another idea on why we never chunked our Z1's ... she got a good chuckle on your comment ... that yes, you are faster ... and better ... but are those Z1's getting over driven? If it happened to a novice, we would say he was overdriving the tires.

[Leonard Cachola]

but are those Z1's getting over driven? D

Oh, I guarantee you they were getting overdriven. I wasn't the one who overheated the last one - codriver did it by sliding around too much. I watched it disintegrate over the span of five runs. If it's the one thing I've learned the last three months is how to not overdrive the tires.

Both Tim Aing and I love sliding the cars around, so I could see why we both chunked our Dunlops. I can't speak for Andrew, however.

[Steve Ekstrand]

Hey! I offered you an instructor run Leonard!

[Doug Kott]

My RS3s just showed up from Tire Rack...only $50 shipping from the Nevada warehouse. A very square-shouldered tire...I'm guessing they might like a little more neg. camber than the Direzzas. Gotta love that new tire smell wafting through the office, and the little flames etched in the tread blocks!

--Doug

[John Stimson]

I've run a hand full of events with Dunlop Z1* tires on my S2000 and did not experience any chunking. No signs of severe wear of any type. Nice street tire, although they might be developing a mild hum after several thousand miles of use.

[Jeff Wong]

My RS3s just showed up from Tire Rack...only $50 shipping from the Nevada warehouse. A very square-shouldered tire...I'm guessing they might like a little more neg. camber than the Direzzas. Gotta love that new tire smell wafting through the office, and the little flames etched in the tread blocks!

--Doug

Sweet, what car are these for? The Mr2 in your picture?

[Doug Kott]

My RS3s just showed up from Tire Rack...only $50 shipping from the Nevada warehouse. A very square-shouldered tire...I'm guessing they might like a little more neg. camber than the Direzzas. Gotta love that new tire smell wafting through the office, and the little flames etched in the tread blocks!

--Doug

Sweet, what car are these for? The Mr2 in your picture?

Yep. Both tires and wheels (6ULs) were backordered, but the wheels should arrive at the Long Beach port today. While I'd like to try them out at the Divisional, I don't think I'll have time to properly scuff them in, etc. Car is borderline loose with 205/225 setup now, so going "square" with 225s ought to prove interesting! I may ditch the stock rear anti-roll bar. I could also go to stiffer front springs, but that's a last resort as it'll impact the ride quality.

On the other hand, I've heard the RS3 sidewalls are a little softer, so the extra spring might not be too bad...

--Doug

[Sebastian Rios]

My RS3s just showed up from Tire Rack...only $50 shipping from the Nevada warehouse. A very square-shouldered tire...I'm guessing they might like a little more neg. camber than the Direzzas. Gotta love that new tire smell wafting through the office, and the little flames etched in the tread blocks!

--Doug

Sweet, what car are these for? The Mr2 in your picture?

Yep. Both tires and wheels (6ULs) were backordered, but the wheels should arrive at the Long Beach port today. While I'd like to try them out at the Divisional, I don't think I'll have time to properly scuff them in, etc. Car is borderline loose with 205/225 setup now, so going "square" with 225s ought to prove interesting! I may ditch the stock rear anti-roll bar. I could also go to stiffer front springs, but that's a last resort as it'll impact the ride quality.

On the other hand, I've heard the RS3 sidewalls are a little softer, so the extra spring might not be too bad...

--Doug

You don't have to worry about properly scuffing your new tires in. If they are mounted on wheels in time for the divisional, they'll be ready to run. I've gone out with the stickers still on...that sounds funny, but is fine.

[Doug Kott]

Hey Sebastian,

You don't have any issues with burning off the mold release compound? When I first got the Direzzas, I drove them around on the street for a while, but they still felt a little greasy for the first couple of runs. Maybe with newly formulated MRCs, this is less of a problem.

--Doug

[Jeff Wong]

Hey Sebastian,

You don't have any issues with burning off the mold release compound? When I first got the Direzzas, I drove them around on the street for a while, but they still felt a little greasy for the first couple of runs. Maybe with newly formulated MRCs, this is less of a problem.

--Doug

Doug, I wouldn't take any chances and try to scrub them in. Seb and I have been running the same tires and I've always complained about them needing to be broken in.