Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hello all,

I'm planning on hitting Wakefield soon in my 330i for a bit of fun. It has new shocks and lower eibach springs and that is the extent of my changes to the car. As I've always been out using street tyres and how everybody who uses semi's have told me that they are just so much better I thought I'd do that this time around.

My daily wheels are 19's and wont be used. I have a set of MSport 17's that will become my track wheels.

First question - my rears on the 17's are 255/40/17 and I'm wondering if there'd be much of a problem to use a more common size, such as 245/45/17 ? 

Second question - I do not have much money for this, it really needs to be a budget hobby. I was looking at using KENDA tyres but most feedback for them is from people drifting. The next cheapest are the Nankang NS-2R which have great feedback and are pretty cheap still. What are people's opinions here? Is there another tyre I should consider? 

Anywhoo, I'm seriously looking forward to getting out there again.

Thanks all.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/481309-track-semis-question/
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, PranK said:

my rears on the 17's are 255/40/17 and I'm wondering if there'd be much of a problem to use a more common size, such as 245/45/17

Assuming you have 8.5" rims, 245 should be ok. The 245/45 will be a slightly larger diameter, so acceleration will suffer a bit.

13 minutes ago, PranK said:

The next cheapest are the Nankang NS-2R which have great feedback and are pretty cheap still.

We tried these a few years ago, and compared to a "real" semi slick they weren't very good. I thnk the AR-1 is a better track tyre than the NS-2R, but not sure how the pricing compares. Have you tried to find used tyres - there are some bargains to be had sometimes.

I'll chime in, AR-1 tyres are good for 1~2 hot laps, but they don't progressively fade and just go from grip to shit in half a lap..

For the beginner however I would say they're a pretty good budget semi, I personally preferred Nitto NT01 over them and of course if budget can be stretched further Hankook Z221 would be preferred.

Hit up Taleb Tyres or St George Tyres - they seem to have old stock (approx 2 year old) Z221 at a reasonable price.

  • Like 1

Im going to be that guy and say the opposite of dosepipe. AR1 bang for buck cant be beat. I seem to be able to have grip for 5-6 laps before needing a cool down lap. My best ever time was on lap 8. 

 

My current  set has completed 190 laps so far and still look great. My first set went close to 300 laps, started going backwards at around 250.

Unfortunately can't upload pics as the forum isn't allowing files larger than 2mb for some reason. Maybe the server has covid.

But if you can get z221 handcocks cheap, then it's a no brainer.

  • Like 2
1 hour ago, admS15 said:

Unfortunately can't upload pics as the forum isn't allowing files larger than 2mb for some reason. Maybe the server has covid.

That should be fixed now? Missed config from server migration.

Thanks all, thats some good info.

Firstly, I'm assuming that if possible it'd be better to get 245/40's instead of 245/45's ? 

Then, I guess I need to work out my budget per tyre and then from there see what I can get. 

245/40/17 AR1's are ~$250.
255/40/17 NS-2R's are ~$200.

I've noticed nobody mentioning the KENDA's. So message received there. :)

I forgot also about treadwear. If its an option, what is best for tyres lasting longer but still a good performer? I'm not doing time trials, just trying best bang for buck.

don't worry about wear on a track tyre, nothing will last compared to a street tyre. You are heading out in summer for 20min sessions so you need a medium/hard or hard compound.

Do you have a second set of rims or are they going on your dailies?

I'd go cheapest 245/45/17 in the following order - Hankook z221, Yoko A050, Dunlop DZ03G, Kumho V70a, Bridgestone Re11s, Toyo 888R. There's a bunch of other ones but I don't know them and haven't seen them used seriously

And let me know when, I'm just up the road and can drop by with some kitty litter for the oil down.

  • Haha 3

Going from a street tyre, the AR1's are going to feel pretty good anyway. So if you're concerned about money, AR1's are ok. Personally I agree with Dose - they seem to have a really tight performance window, where to get the best times out of them you really need to dial the pressures in for each corner (of the car). And then when they are gone, they are gone. Which makes it really hard to have confidence in them, because you'll go out for a couple of laps, get some heat into them, love the grip, and then go into the next corner like you're on ice. All well and good if you aren't actually trying to dive later and later into each corner and really trying to find those tenths, so they aren't a terrible option if you're really just wanting a bit of fun while going faster than you would on street tyres. If you genuinely want to drive on the limit of what your car can do - the AR1's wouldn't be my choice.

 

To put that in perspective, I would probably be happy to run AR1's for testing/tuning purposes where seat time is really the ultimate goal. If I was entering a competition, I would stay well away, and go a proper tyre like A050/Z221/AD08 pending regulations.

2 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

Misha's Nurburgring M4 taxi runs on AR-1s. Flat out, lap after lap.

I'm sorry, Robert Kubica drove the car on these tyres, and I'll have you find that a regular track day user is significantly better than Kubica.

 

/s

Thanks guys, loving the info, much appreciated!

D I have a 2nd set of 17's that I'll use for track tyres. And, BMW's burn oil, they don't drop it. I'll just fill it up when I get fuel. 😂

 

1 hour ago, PranK said:

This is not the BMW bashing topic!!

Don't worry brah, I heart BMW too.

On the fence between stripping the R33 shit box, adding a bit of cash and getting either a M2/3/4

  • Like 1
54 minutes ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Don't worry brah, I heart BMW too.

On the fence between stripping the R33 shit box, adding a bit of cash and getting either a M2/3/4

How much would the BMW have cost you if it did what the R33 did?
(Sorry for BMW bashing)

1 minute ago, Kinkstaah said:

How much would the BMW have cost you if it did what the R33 did?
(Sorry for BMW bashing)

If I binned a BMW motor, I would probably just set the car alight, call it quits in the car scene and then buy a hybrid Camry

1 hour ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Don't worry brah, I heart BMW too.

On the fence between stripping the R33 shit box, adding a bit of cash and getting either a M2/3/4

Have you seen what r33's are currently going for with covid tax and yes they are changing hands. If you want to get rid of it, now is the time. Bang a second hand motor in it and send it on.

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

    • I have no hard data to report, but I have to say, having driven it to work and back all week, mostly on wet roads (and therefore mostly not able to contemplate anything too outrageous anywhere)..... it is real good. I turned the boost controller on, with duty cycle set to 10% (which may not be enough to actually increase the boost), and the start boost set to 15 psi. That should keep the gate unpressurised until at least 15 psi. And rolling at 80 in 5th, which is <2k rpm, going to WOT sees the MAP go +ve even before it crosses 2k and it has >5 psi by the time it hits 90 km/h. That's still <<2.5k rpm, so I think it's actually doing really well. Because of all the not-quite-ideal things that have been in place since the turbo first went on, it felt laggy. It's actually not. The response appears to be as good as you could hope for with a highflow.
    • Or just put in a 1JZ, and sell me the NEO head 😎
    • Oh, it's been done. You just run a wire out there and back. But they have been known to do coolant temp sensors, MAP sensors, etc. They're not silly (at Regency Park) and know what's what with all the different cars.
    • Please ignore I found the right way of installing it thanks
    • There are advantages, and disadvantages to remapping the factory.   The factory runs billions of different maps, to account for sooooo many variables, especially when you bring in things like constantly variable cams etc. By remapping all those maps appropriately, you can get the car to drive so damn nicely, and very much so like it does from the factory. This means it can utilise a LOT of weird things in the maps, to alter how it drives in situations like cruise on a freeway, and how that will get your fuel economy right down.   I haven't seen an aftermarket ECU that truly has THAT MANY adjustable parameters. EG, the VAG ECUs are somewhere around 2,000 different tables for it to work out what to do at any one point in time. So for a vehicle being daily driven etc, I see this as a great advantage, but it does mean spending a bit more time, and with a tuner who really knows that ECU.   On the flip side, an aftermarket ECU, in something like a weekender, or a proper race car, torque based tuning IMO doesn't make that much sense. In those scenarios you're not out there hunting down stuff like "the best way to minimise fuel usage at minor power so that we can go from 8L/100km to 7.3L/100km. You're more worried about it being ready to make as much freaking power as possible when you step back on the loud pedal as you come out of turn 2, not waiting the extra 100ms for all the cams to adjust etc. So in this scenario, realistically you tune the motor to make power, based on the load. People will then play with things like throttle response, and drive by wire mapping to get it more "driveable".   Funnily enough, I was watching something Finnegans Garage, and he has a huge blown Hemi in a 9 second 1955 Chev that is road registered. To make it more driveable on the road recently, they started testing blocking up the intake with kids footballs, to effectively reduce air flow when they're on the road, and make the throttle less touchy and more driveable. Plus some other weird shit the yankee aftermarket ECUs do. Made me think of Kinks R34...
×
×
  • Create New...