Any news on new 200TW tires for 2018?

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

RS4 is fine in the rain.  We Chumped them in a gulleywasher last year.

red_stapler said:

Trackmouse said:

In reply to red_stapler :

No 15”! What kind of future is this? Lol. 

Continental Extremecontact Sport can be substituted for Pilots where applicable.

 

Agreed.  I've been really surprised with the set I put on my 330i.  I did TNiA event on them and was super impressed.  They didn't get hot or chunk in 20min sessions.  For a do-everything tire including light track duty, they're tough to beat.

Ian F said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

IIRC, the "go-to" full-wet  tire was the Conti DW, but it seems those are NLA. 

The new version is the Extremecontact Sport

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Ian F :

I also need a 275-40-18 which isn't the world's most common size. 

Edit: Leaning toward the RS4. I just don't want to die in a sudden Houston downpour.

If you're more concerned about street/rain driving than ultimate competitiveness, the Riken Raptors I put on the Vette are ridiculously cheap and do well in the rain, with fairly good dry grip.

I'm running the 15 inch Continental ExtremeContact Sports on my miata. It's done a couple autocrosses and HPDE 2 weekends so far. They have more grip than the corded Z2 star specs that were on 14s before. Seem to be wearing fine and are great in the rain.  Haven't taken them out sub 40 degrees to know how they hold.

Brotus7 said:

NickD said:

nderwater said:

I'm curious to know what today's fast tires are like to live with on the street since that's where my car spends 99.9% of its time.

I ran both RE71Rs and ZII Star Specs on the street on my Miata. The ZIIs wore longer and still had plenty of tread when I got rid of them after 2 seasons of autocross and 18k street miles but had turned hard as a rock and had no grip.. The RE71Rs were practically corded after 12 autocrosses and 8000 street miles, although part of that might have been due to cranking in a much more aggressive alignment. Both were easy to live with on the street (as long as temperatures were above 45) and I could do 70mph in the rain without any issue. Very noisy though, especially with it hucking every pebble and grain of sand up in to the wheel wells.

Seeing as how I'm shopping for tires for a fiberglass (fibreglass?  ) deathtrap, I hadn't thought about the erosion that might happen from the tires slinging up all the gravel on the road.

 

Yeah, it actually sandblasted the front fender behind the wheel well opening on my Miata, so I had to hit it with some black rock guard paint.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Ian F :

I also need a 275-40-18 which isn't the world's most common size. 

Edit: Leaning toward the RS4. I just don't want to die in a sudden Houston downpour.

The Continental ExtremeContact Sport (the tire we used for OLOA) is ridiculously good in proper wet conditions. If you haven't been on something with that sort of wet grip I think it's akin to the first time you try winter tires or the first corner you threw a car into on re71's. It just sort of defies your senses that a tire can do what it's doing in the conditions it's doing it.

I'm sure it does give up a touch of grip to the RS4 in dry weather but if you aren't chasing every tenth of a second the limits of grip it offers are plenty high. I was so impressed with their performance during OLOA that I ordered a set for pickup for my personal car when we returned to the rack.

I did check, and 275-40-18 is one of the sizes offered also.

In reply to klodkrawler05 :

Thanks. That's the kind of good first hand info I wanted to know. We'll be discussing One Lap tires next weekend when we get start getting the Civic ready. One more year on little tires. 

Can confirm, Conti ECS is ridiculously good in the wet (and, to an extent, in the cold)

As for even newer tires...

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to klodkrawler05 :

Thanks. That's the kind of good first hand info I wanted to know. We'll be discussing One Lap tires next weekend when we get start getting the Civic ready. One more year on little tires. 

We will be following along closely!

As we march closer to OLOA it is looking as though our collective budgets do not have the required heft to attempt OLOA this year so we may have to wait until 2019 to spend a week with you guys! If Brock substitutes MIS with any of the other MI tracks I'm planning to come out for the day and cheer you guys on though!

SnowMongoose said:

Can confirm, Conti ECS is ridiculously good in the wet (and, to an extent, in the cold)

 

My emphasis added... I'm interested in hearing how cold of temps you're running the ECS in?  I bought a set for street tires, but they have the same temp warnings as some of my 200TW tires have had so I've been reluctant to run them in colder weather.  It can easily be in the 20's overnight here, but often hit's 50s-60s in the afternoon.  The ZIIs were never bothered by it, but they didn't have the same warnings...

Interested in hearing others' experience with the ECS... 

In reply to Rodan :

Have daily driven and AXed them in and around the mid to high 30's with zero issues, cannot speak for freezing temps though

(Says the guy who has for sure run his Evo on RE71's in 20 degree weather on multiple occasions (street and AX))

The new Conti's are GREAT street tires for the money. 

Hasn't that Star Spec ZIII been on their site for a while? I hope we hear something soon about them!

Rodan said:

 

SnowMongoose said:

Can confirm, Conti ECS is ridiculously good in the wet (and, to an extent, in the cold)

 

 

My emphasis added... I'm interested in hearing how cold of temps you're running the ECS in?  I bought a set for street tires, but they have the same temp warnings as some of my 200TW tires have had so I've been reluctant to run them in colder weather.  It can easily be in the 20's overnight here, but often hit's 50s-60s in the afternoon.  The ZIIs were never bothered by it, but they didn't have the same warnings...

Interested in hearing others' experience with the ECS... 

I personally think it's an incredibly overblown issue. I drove my Miata on R888s mulitple times in sub freezing weather with no issue. One trackday the first session of the day was still only 31 ambient. It took an extra lap to get the tires up to temp. 

The cold weather thing is very tire dependent.  I've seen some that feel fine at 25* and just need a little warm-up for full grip.  And others that get rock hard and want to skip / stutter across the pavement when it's cold if pushed at all (turning or under power) and have to be babied until they start to get a little heat in them.  

Cold weather driveability also seems to change with age, so tires that worked last winter might not work this winter, with normal tires as well as 200tw ones. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Cold weather driveability also seems to change with age, so tires that worked last winter might not work this winter, with normal tires as well as 200tw ones. 

I think at that point the Toyos were 5 years old (Great deal on existing stock) of course with normal street driving they were like billiard balls.

In addition to degraded traction, some of the super-mega-extreme performance tires/compounds can crack when very cold.

The Z1 Star Specs we had on our '07 MINI were downright terrifying at temps below 40 deg F until at least a little bit of heat got into them.  And the tires were maybe a year old at the time.  

I ran ZII Star Specs on the BRZ through two winters......including slush.

You know they aren't going to be as grippy cold, so you don't drive like a maniac. Took a road trip on the wear bars, in the rain, to go see a concert, also didn't spin off in the ditch and die. 

Drive to the conditions and your machinery.

collinskl1 said:

In addition to degraded traction, some of the super-mega-extreme performance tires/compounds can crack when very cold.

This was my concern... physical damage to the tire.

Though I drove my ZIIs in snow once, it's unlikely my ECSs will be out in anything but dry weather.  I'm just worried about temps in the low 30s.

Low 30s won't be cold enough to hurt the tires I would think.  No idea how they'll behave in those temps though.  

Haven't heard anything on new 200TW tires. Direzza ZIII says February. Probably won't come in 325-335 width so I wouldn't care anyway. I'm not driving at the limit on Rival S either. I wouldn't mind trying the RE71-R, but they don't really make a size that fits the C6 Z06.

For the person that doesn't autocross a lot you would never want to buy an autocross tire. They wear fast and at least in the case of the Rival S are noisy as hell. The Rival S is also terrible in wet weather. I was on new Rival S and I got caught in a rain storm on the way back from a track day and hydroplaned driving in a straight line on a level highway. I pulled over and let it pass.

Regular tires I'll probably get some Pilot Super Sports or the Conti Extremecontact to put on my stock wheels, but when the weather is warm I leave the Rivals on the car as swapping wheels on and off the car all the time is not why I got into street class. When winter arrives I put any autox tires that I want to keep using next season into the basement. There is no way they survive.

I'll drive regular summer tires in colder weather assuming there is no rain/snow, but colder to me is still above freezing. Once they start putting salt down on the roads I put the Vette away. I'm not really thrilled to store the car on summer tires in my unheated garage, especially with the near 0 temps we have had lately, but I'm not buying all seasons for a Corvette.

Rodan said:

collinskl1 said:

In addition to degraded traction, some of the super-mega-extreme performance tires/compounds can crack when very cold.

This was my concern... physical damage to the tire.

Though I drove my ZIIs in snow once, it's unlikely my ECSs will be out in anything but dry weather.  I'm just worried about temps in the low 30s.

I know that GM tells you not to move the Corvette Z06/Z07 if the temperature has been below freezing in the past 48 hours because the 60TW Michelin Super Mega Ultra Pilot Sport Cup Alpha Omega Remix tires will crack.

NickD said:

Rodan said:

collinskl1 said:

In addition to degraded traction, some of the super-mega-extreme performance tires/compounds can crack when very cold.

This was my concern... physical damage to the tire.

Though I drove my ZIIs in snow once, it's unlikely my ECSs will be out in anything but dry weather.  I'm just worried about temps in the low 30s.

I know that GM tells you not to move the Corvette Z06/Z07 if the temperature has been below freezing in the past 48 hours because the 60TW Michelin Super Mega Ultra Pilot Sport Cup Alpha Omega Remix tires will crack.

On the S550 forums, that's supposedly why the Level 2 Performance Pack Mustang GTs aren't starting production yet.