Circuit Semi Slicks

[260DET]

Those Nankangs look pretty good, unfortunately their 17's are not wide enough for mine http://nankangtyres.com.au/tyre/ar-1/

Have to say that my present Hoosiers are doing well, they are wearing very evenly across the tread with the shoulders holding up nicely, better than any other tyre I've tried. The other thing with Hoosiers is their sizing, plenty of 17" choice in 40 series which keeps the width up and the diameter down to help clear the guards. EG the 245/40 Hoosier is 622mm dia, 235/45 Hankook Z221 is 644, the difference allows me to use the wider 245's on the front, comparable Hoosier rears would be 275/40 only 648 dia.

I'm talking sprints where there is time to warm the tyres up, not time attack.

[hrd-hr30]

The Nankangs are brand new. I'm sure there'll be more sizes to come.

Of course you're not talking time attack when you mention Hoosier. Time attack have to use semis. Hoosiers aren't semis, they're 2 groove 'cheater slicks'. The latest ones aren't even 2 groovers, just a few broken dashes. Not semis by any stretch of the imagination.

[Dale FZ1]

I'd like to try the Hoosiers. And the Nankangs.

[Marlin]

Keen to hear your thoughts on those new Nankangs Harry.

[Komdotkom]

The NanKangs are seriously cheap too, I've seen 265/35/18 for ~$200 each!

[Marlin]

Would be bloody great if they were good as well as cheap!

[Komdotkom]

Lol, I think we both know that won't be true! I'll probably grab a set after I've killed my current tyres just to see how bad they are.

[260DET]

The Nankangs could turn out to be good going on the Hankook success story. Price them cheaply to get them out there and let word of mouth do the rest then when they get popular stick the price up.

Tried them yet Harry? C'mon, get a move on.

[hrd-hr30]

nah, I just bought crappy $200 tyres to get a ready made excuse...

[260DET]

[hrd-hr30]

Tried the Nankangs out last week. Ran a best of 60.3 but that was not really representative of their potential - the admin people listed me as entering a Toyota Starlet instead of the Soarer that has been in their database for years, so I got put in a slow group with cars running over 15sec per lap slower!!! That's alot on a 60sec lap. I lapped that car twice in one session... As a result, I was only getting one or two clean laps each session to set a time.

Comparison to other tyres I've used - no car changes:

235 Hankook Z221 soft C70 compound 59.8

265 Nankang AR1 60.3

245 Nitto NT01 61.3

The rear doesn't stay quite as attached as the Hankooks did on the fast turn onto the front straight. Mid corner to exit they start letting go just slightly. Other than that they feel good. They should be a bit closer to the Hankook softs than those times were, but I don't think they're quite a match for them. That's still an awesome result for a tyre that's $209 per corner, compared to arguably the fastest tyre available!

Wear was very good. The only question mark over them is a strange circumferential line that's appeared around the center of each tyre - it's not quite straight. I don't know what it is. It runs the wrong way to be a tread splice. It's not from contact with the body as it's on all 4 tyres, and there's nothing to hit in the rear wheel wells. there's definite contact being made on the body in the front right - you can hear it in the left hander "Hungry" corner.

Edited June 14, 2016 by hrd-hr30

[260DET]

What cold pressures are you running Harry?

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

I wonder how the NT01 in the same size would square up to the Nangers.

From what I'm seeing they perform well for you, but the adult in me is telling me to never buy Nankangs again because I'm not 18 anymore.

[Ke55pig]

Pretty keen to try the nankang ar1s to be honest quite cheap.Might give them ago next round of tyres im only on kenda kr20a and nakang ns20r at the moment so would expect large improvement

[hrd-hr30]

I wonder how the NT01 in the same size would square up to the Nangers.

From what I'm seeing they perform well for you, but the adult in me is telling me to never buy Nankangs again because I'm not 18 anymore.

I'd never buy NT01s again! Better off buying RSRs.

[Hadouken]

Such a statement.

I had rsr's they delaminated

I had nt01's they were 2 sec faster around Wakefield and did not delaminate

[hrd-hr30]

That's a strange result for RSR v NT01... Normally not that far off the pace of NT01, which is pretty god for a non R comp, alot cheaper, road legal etc

First I've heard of RSR delaminating too. Tread splice opening yeah, but delaminating?

Edited June 17, 2016 by hrd-hr30

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

RS-R will crack tread, the treads crack off their tits..

NT01 don't crack and happily will do lap after lap after lap.. with severe fade "butterness" by the 6th lap at Wakefield lol

[Hadouken]

When I reported it to federal they considered it delaminating. We are probably talking about the same thing here.

I don't think it's strange at all. Rsr lasted maybe 2/3 hot laps and then greased over, Nt01 I could go harder and get about 5 hot laps before they overheated.

But nt01 is still only a introductory semi whereas rsr is very much a street tyre.

Why would you never buy nt01 again?

[hrd-hr30]

1. They're the slowest semi money can buy.

2. They're not road legal so you can't even legally drive to the track on them which is a PITA.

3. They're not CAMS approved for production car classes.

You're better of doing very similar times on street tyres, or buying literally any other semi (other than R888 )