Learn me... Victoracers

I picked up two sets of Victoracers yesterday. Eight tires in an RX-7. One had to ride standing up in the passenger seat.

Quick question: The sidewalls are marked for direction and inside/outside. Did Kumho do something funny with sidewall stiffness like that one BF Goodrich, or was that sidewall marking just for the tread pattern?

You can run Victoracers in either direction. The early ones were only supposed to be run in one direction, but that changed after a year or two

These tires are grooved slicks at this point so the "tread" isn't really asymmetrical anymore. My main concern is if they did some weird asymmetrical carcass goofiness like the R1-A or the factory NSX tires. They came from a camber-challenged Golf and I'd like to run them inside-out.

how old are these? Anything over a couple of years I would not want to run them

Yeah, later VRs came marked as directional but they weren't. I ran them on Stinky (my RX7) and was pretty happy with them. They will, however, go 'off' pretty quick even when they have lots of rubber.

As long as they aren't cracked, I'd gladly throw some traction compound on 'em and use them for AX.

I'm not looking for competitive autocross use. My aspirations are strictly to have fun in the MIROC series and free Kumhos is a lot cheaper than new sticky street tires. New Kumhos are right out of the budget, and my last experience with R-compounds leads me to believe that even aged, over-heat-cycled tires are still really, really grippy.

I fully expect to flat spot, overheat, and otherwise wreck these hoops. Better them than the street rubber! "Overdrive is more than just a gear in the transmission"

This is very much a "don't do this" response, but it is my experience. YMMV.

I bought a set of full-tread Victoracers for my MK. 1 MR2. I live pretty much in the middle of nowhere, sports car event-wise, so I only get to run maybe 4 - 6 autocrosses a year - and for the last 4 years, some track days at the relatively nearby Kart track, where each lap is about a mile, mostly second-gear with some third gear. To date I have more than 150 autocross runs on them, along with about 125 track miles. I am always very careful to store them in black plastic bags in a well ventilated garage that maintains temperature between 70 degrees in the summer and 45 in the winter. They are now 9 years old, with no visible sidewall or tread deterioration anywhere. With a good traction treatment, they are still about 1.5 seconds a lap quicker than the RE-11s I'm using now (the RE-11s allow me to run without changing tires at the track).

I know that this is an extreme case, and that old tires are generally bad, and these are pretty well done for, but my point is that these will get you a lot of laps and will last a long time, and will still work well - just buy a gallon of Formula V (or whatever you prefer) when they get kind of crusty and enjoy.

And yes, I asked Tire Rack about the directional indications, and they confirmed that Kumho changed construction shortly after releasing the tire so that they were no longer directional, but they never changed the moulds to change the sidewall markings. So run 'em whichever way you want.

If they have been running on a car in a direction, they should be mounted to continue to run in that direction. Cord delamination can occur.

4eyes wrote: If they have been running on a car in a direction, they should be mounted to continue to run in that direction. Cord delamination can occur.

Is that particular to the Victoracers? It's an old wives' tale for street tires.

4eyes wrote: If they have been running on a car in a direction, they should be mounted to continue to run in that direction. Cord delamination can occur.

I call BS on that.

I ran multiple sets of victoracers years ago. I ran them forward and backward never an issue. Same for Toyo RA-1 and toyo R888. Direction never made a difference. (wet running with tread depth was a different story).

I had the problem with steel belted tires on my tow vehicle. Figured it was common.

If it was true, you'd have to choose whether you only accelerated or only braked.