Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

G’day all. I need to get some better quality 17” tyres for the 32, something with a bit of a trackday capability, stickier for performance(I’m not so worried about wet weather or mileage issues).

It seems most quality tyre manufacturers don’t make much/anything in 17” anymore. I’d like something along the lines of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, Toyo R888R, Hankook RS4... Currently I’ve got 255/45/17 on 9” rims.

Has anyone got an insight in to who sells such things/where etc? Any help appreciated.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/478191-17%E2%80%9D-motorsport-tyre-options/
Share on other sites

All the above.

RS4 is good. I have them on my 32 now. They replaced Kumho V720. I think the V720 was actually a better tyre (grip & handling wise), but the V720 was so f**king noisy that I will never ever contemplate using them again. The worst tyre noise I have ever had to live with.

Had AD08Rs before the V720s. I still have fond memories of those. If you can trust my memory over a period of 2-3 years, I suspect that the ADO8R is probably better than the RS4 also. I expect to be chased by the Hankook fanbois carrying pitchforks now. I never drove on the RS3s, so have no way to know if the RS4s are as good (or better, or worse) than the RS3s - but I just don't feel that the RS4s are head and shoulders above any of the other good tyres I've used.

RE003s are not a performance tyre. Very disappointing compared to stickier tyres. And didn't even have the life that you'd want to compensate for not being as sticky.

Can't comment personally on Achilles 123, but I know several people who rave about their performance even without making it relative to their low cost.

There are others too. Whatever Falken's replacement for the FK452 is, is supposed to be good. Dunlop's latest tyre in the same space is supposed to be OK. It's one of the Direzzas or something. I think these are mostly available in 17".

Edited by GTSBoy
  • Like 1

255/40/17 is my tyre size. They're not hard to come by although agreed, 18 and up has far more options. In the 255/40/17 though, a few options/opinions>

- Hankook RS4. Not used them, and seen a few user reviews that don't rate them highly for track/performance use. I believe they're meant to be a step up from their RS3 - a tyre which massively underwhelmed me, so i won't be trying the 4.

- AD08r's - very good, as their reputation says. Also very expensive for what they are, and they lasted me the same time as RSRR's.

- RSRR's. In my opinion the best value (not the best) tyre in that size, at $170 fitted. Good in the wet until low-tread, and they get better with a bit of heat into them. I like them alot for great overall value, and suitable for low-level track stuff.

- RT615K - middle of the range price, and quite reasonable performance. However their build quality is really good, and that tread pattern is hottt. Would buy again and would recommend, although as said, wouldn't say they are top of the pile....just wouldn't disappoint, and present good value for money.

- V720 - is likely to be my next tyre. Haven't used a set myself and noise isn't a concern for me, but seems for the price and reviews,  they present good value, have a sexy-as tread pattern, and perform pretty well overall.

 

I wouldn't look at anything over a 200 treadwear for any serious performance/track use, and seems the Pilot Sport 4s are more of a performance daily-driver tyre? 

  • Like 1

Im loving my Nitto NT01's in 245/45/17's on 8' front and 9' rears.

Cheapest place I found was St George Tyres in Rockdale.
Don't buy them from their ebay store as calling them will get you a better price :) $240 compared to $269 each.
Been told they hold their performance pretty well as they age also.

  • Like 1

Can't really comment on real world results, but after a lot of research I ended up getting falken RT615k+ they come in 255/40/17 and at the time seemed to be the best price wise to grip ratio and also apparently good in the wet, if I didn't care about wet performance at all then I might've chosen something else.  I don't have them on my car yet so I don't know what they're really like.

  • Like 1

Falken FK452 is a street tyre like RE003. I had them on my car, great street tyre but on the track they overheat.

As mentioned, UTQG should be 200 or less for "proper" track day tyre. Remember it will be a compromise, but from my experience AD08R and RS3 (on my car) do very well in the wet.

  • Like 1

RS4 255/40 17

4 for $845

Excellent wear, cheap, great street tyre, brilliant in the dry, acceptable in the wet, acceptable in the cold (below 5°c they are sketchy, they do warm up quick though)

Track? I had RS3's on my old boat years ago, acceptable, but they aren't no semi-slick

https://www.jaxtyres.com.au/tyres/hankook/ventus-r-s4-z232

For the money I rate them well over the RE003, not as noisy either, not quite though, but not as noisy as the RE003, Disclaimer:I'm deaf(ish) now, noise levels may vary.....

  • Like 1

As an additional thought: 265/40/17 on 9” rims: has anyone run this width and had any rubbing issues on their R32 GTR? I don’t want rubbing, and I am def’ NOT rolling guards to accommodate rubber...

255/40/17 is the preferred size but 235/45/17 is alot cheaper.

If you want properly good semi slicks go and see the nice folk from Yokohama - A050's.

Sizes are:

215/45R17 87W 7.0 - 8.0 216 623
225/45R17 91W 7.0 - 8.5 227 631
235/45R17 94W 7.5 - 9.0 237 642
245/40R17 91W 8.0 - 9.5 252 629
255/40R17 94W 8.5 - 10.0 263 637
  • Like 1

Nankang AR1 are a solid budget option, I ran those last season in 255 R17, won my class on that single set of tyres and was still setting PB's at the end of the season. They are very sensitive to tyre pressures vs grip though and seems to vary widely depending on weight of the car and camber. 

Went back to an old set of 235 RS-Rs for one session while I was doing some testing and almost died lol

 

 

  • Like 2
On 07/08/2019 at 11:52 AM, WR33KD said:

NITTO NT05s are a great tyre also archilles 123s.
I run the nt05s on the front and the 123s on the rear

NT05 aren't really a motorsport tyre, it's more of a UHP. I ran them before I switched to NT01 for circuit use and shaved over 3 seconds off my time. NT01 are a proper motorsport tyre.

If budget comes to mind, these semis are a good option:

  • Achilles 123s (as mentioned)
  • Nitto NT01
  • Nankang AR1 (I'm running them now, yet to test them on the circuit)

If it's mainly for street with light track work (still budget range):

  • Bridgestone RE003 (when there are buy 3 get the 4th free sales)
  • Nitto NT05
  • Hankook RS3 (when they're on sale, old stock, etc., superseded by RS4)
  • Nankang NS-2R (there are two version, get the lower tread wear option)
  • Federal RS-RR (they still split after some age, I would avoid)

 

If you have coin to blow:

  • Advan Neova AD08r
  • Hankook Z221

All the above are tyres I've used and recommended, either on my own car or other cars I've driven on the track.

 

 

 

 

My 2 cents, do not ever put NS-2R on your car, they are rubbish in all conditions, both treadwear versions. 

They would be the last choice of those street tyre options.

Be intertesting to see how you go on the AR1, I think they were happier on a lighter car. Sidewall may not be up to a heavier rig with more grunt. 

 

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • The other problem was one of those "oh shit we are going to die moments". Basically the high spec Q50s have a full electric steering rack, and the povo ones had a regular hydraulic rack with an electric pump.  So couple of laps into session 5 as I came into turn 2 (big run off now, happily), the dash turned into a christmas tree and the steering became super heavy and I went well off. I assumed it was a tyre failure so limped to the pits, but everything was OK. But....the master warning light was still on so I checked the DTCs and saw – C13E6 “Heat Protection”. Yes, that bloody steering rack computer sitting where the oil cooler should be has its own sensors and error logic, and decided I was using the steering wheel too much. I really appreciated the helpful information in the manual (my bold) POSSIBLE CAUSE • Continuing the overloading steering (Sports driving in the circuit etc,) “DATA MONITOR” >> “C/M TEMPERATURE”. The rise of steering force motor internal temperature caused the protection function to operate. This is not a system malfunction. INSPECTION END So, basically the electric motor in the steering rack got to 150c, and it decided to shut down without warning for my safety. Didn't feel safe. Short term I'll see if I can duct some air to that motor (the engine bay is sealed pretty tight). Long term, depending on how often this happens, I'll look into swapping the povo spec electric/hydraulic rack in. While the rack should be fine the power supply to the pump will be a pain and might be best to deal with it when I add a PDM.
    • And finally, 2 problems I really need to sort.  Firstly as Matt said the auto trans is not happy as it gets hot - I couldn't log the temps but the gauge showed 90o. On the first day I took it out back in Feb, because the coolant was getting hot I never got to any auto trans issues; but on this day by late session 3 and then really clearly in 4 and 5 as it got hotter it just would not shift up. You can hear the issue really clearly at 12:55 and 16:20 on the vid. So the good news is, literally this week Ecutek finally released tuning for the jatco 7 speed. I'll have a chat to Racebox and see what they can do electrically to keep it cooler and to get the gears, if anything. That will likely take some R&D and can only really happen on track as it never gets even warm with road use. I've also picked up some eye wateringly expensive Redline D6 ATF to try, it had the highest viscosity I could find at 100o so we will see if that helps (just waiting for some oil pan gaskets so I can change it properly). If neither of those work I need to remove the coolant/trans interwarmer and the radiator cooler and go to an external cooler....somewhere.....(goodbye washer reservoir?), and if that fails give up on this mad idea and wait for Nissan to release the manual 400R
    • So, what else.... Power. I don't know what it is making because I haven't done a post tune dyno run yet; I will when I get a chance. It was 240rwkw dead stock. Conclusion from the day....it does not need a single kw more until I sort some other stuff. It comes on so hard that I could hear the twin N1 turbos on the R32 crying, and I just can't use what it has around a tight track with the current setup. Brakes. They are perfect. Hit them hard all day and they never felt like having an issue; you can see in the video we were making ground on much lighter cars on better tyres under brakes. They are standard (red sport) calipers, standard size discs in DBA5000 2 piece, Winmax pads and Motul RBF600 fluid, all from Matty at Racebrakes Sydney. Keeping in mind the car is more powerful than my R32 and weighs 1780, he clearly knows his shit. Suspension. This is one of the first areas I need to change. It has electronically controlled dampers from factory, but everything is just way too soft for track work even on the hardest setting (it is nice when hustling on country roads though). In particular it rolls into oversteer mid corner and pitches too much under hard braking so it becomes unstable eg in the turn 1 kink I need to brake early, turn through the kink then brake again so I don't pirouette like an AE86. I need to get some decent shocks with matched springs and sway bars ASAP, even if it is just a v1 setup until I work out a proper race/rally setup later. Tyres. I am running Yoko A052 in 235/45/18 all round, because that was what I could get in approximately the right height on wheels I had in the shed (Rays/Nismo 18x8 off the old Leaf actually!). As track tyres they are pretty poor; I note GTSBoy recently posted a porker comparo video including them where they were about the same as AD09.....that is nothing like a top line track tyre. I'll start getting that sorted but realistically I should get proper sized wheels first (likely 9.5 +38 front and 11 +55 at the rear, so a custom order, and I can't rotate them like the R32), then work out what the best tyre option is. BTW on that, Targa Tas had gone to road tyres instead of semi slicks now so that is a whole other world of choices to sort. Diff. This is the other thing that urgently needs to be addressed. It left massive 1s out of the fish hook all day, even when I was trying not too (you can also hear it reving on the video, and see the RPM rising too fast compared to speed in the data). It has an open diff that Infiniti optimistically called a B-LSD for "Brake Limited Slip Diff". It does good straight line standing start 11s but it is woeful on the track. Nismo seem to make a 2 way for it.
    • Also, I logged some data from the ECU for each session (mostly oil pressures and various temps, but also speed, revs etc, can't believe I forgot accelerator position). The Ecutek data loads nicely to datazap, I got good data from sessions 2, 3 and 4: https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-2?log=0&data=7 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-3?log=0&data=6 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-4?log=0&data=6 Each session is cut into 3 files but loaded together, you can change between them in the top left. As the test sessions are mostly about the car, not me, I basically start by checking the oil pressure (good, or at least consistent all day). These have an electrically controlled oil pump which targets 25psi(!) at low load and 50 at high. I'm running a much thicker oil than recommended by nissan (they said 0w20, I'm running 10w40) so its a little higher. The main thing is that it doesn't drop too far, eg in the long left hand fish hook, or under brakes so I know I'm not getting oil surge. Good start. Then Oil and Coolant temp, plus intercooler and intake temps, like this: Keeping in mind ambient was about 5o at session 2, I'd say the oil temp is good. The coolant temp as OK but a big worry for hot days (it was getting to 110 back in Feb when it was 35o) so I need to keep addressing that. The water to air intercooler is working totally backwards where we get 5o air in the intake, squish/warm it in the turbos (unknown temp) then run it through the intercoolers which are say 65o max in this case, then the result is 20o air into the engine......the day was too atypical to draw a conclusion on that I think, in the united states of freedom they do a lot of upsizing the intercooler and heat exchanger cores to get those temps down but they were OK this time. The other interesting (but not concerning) part for me was the turbo speed vs boost graph: I circled an example from the main straight. With the tune boost peaks at around 18psi but it deliberately drops to about 14psi at redline because the turbos are tiny - they choke at high revs and just create more heat than power if you run them hard all the way. But you can also see the turbo speed at the same time; it raises from about 180,000rpm to 210,000rpm which the boost falls....imagine the turbine speed if they held 18psi to redline. The wastegates are electrically controlled so there is a heap of logic about boost target, actual boost, delta etc etc but it all seems to work well
    • hahah when youtube subscribers are faster than my updates here. Yes some vid from the day is up, here:  Note that as with all track day videos it is boring watching after the bloopers at the start.  The off was a genuine surprise to me, I've literally done a thousand laps around the place and I've never had instability there; basically it rolled into oversteer, slipped, gripped and spat me out. On the way off I mowed down one of the instructor's cones and it sat there all day looking at me with accusing cone eyes as I drove past. 1:13:20 was my fastest lap, and it was in the second session, 3rd lap.  It (or me!) got slower throughout the day as it got hotter.      
×
×
  • Create New...