Road Racing Tire Question - Going tomorrow (sat)

[isanti]

I am going road racing tomorrow and am going to run some Toyo R888s on the rear. I don't have anything good for the front.

1. I have another set of rear wheels available to me, should/can I throw the rear tires off that viper on the front of my car?

2. My buddy got this car a year ago with all wide wheels on it. Is there any issue or concern about running with 4 rear tires on the car?

3. Do you think this will better my handeling? Seems that I would get more grip on the fronts. Am I overlooking something?

Going tomorrow, Sat sept 5th.

Thanks,
John

 

[FrankBarba]

First do not mix & match tires. Use your street tires...Pretty late to be worrying about this now...

 

[Leslie]

what are the rear tires you have to put on the front?

I would think the closer 'gap' in sizes would be better for handling, however all that is out the window if you don't have good tires... what is your alignment, is the car lowered, etc. It all has to be 'orchestrated' together for the ideal track setup IMHO.

I am with Frank, I am usually putting this equation all together a week or two before an event.

 

[NI-KA]

Yes, Do not mix and match. That would be a bad plan.

Old rubber gets harder. Wider widths than stock might rub dependig on what you are talking about.

 

[isanti]

Well I was going to use a set of his PS1s I think on the front... Not now. If I had the time I would have swapped to Toyo R888s on the front and back and go with all 335s. Other tires were an hour away so I didn't care to go.

Why does the same brand matter? A sticky set of rears and a less sticky set of fronts doesn't seem to be an issue. Seems to be better than less sticky fronts and rears...

 

[CCBrian]

Well I was going to use a set of his PS1s I think on the front... Not now. If I had the time I would have swapped to Toyo R888s on the front and back and go with all 335s. Other tires were an hour away so I didn't care to go.

Why does the same brand matter? A sticky set of rears and a less sticky set of fronts doesn't seem to be an issue. Seems to be better than less sticky fronts and rears...

Car would be unbalalnced. Depending on whether the stickier tires were on the front or rear the car would understeer or oversteer-neither one is a very good idea. You want a matched balanced set. I have gone out on tires of same type but different age-remember tires like the Toyo's heat cycle and their hardness changes-and handling was a mess. Going fast is hard enough-doing it safe with mixed-match tires is nearly impossible. Different tires /tread/age could also affect braking. I would rather go watch than run in that situation.

 

[isanti]

Well I ran today with the toyos on back and PS1s on the front, no issues. I still don't see how ti chould be an issue....

I am definitly a beginner to this but last time I spunout 2 times and I was on the track the whole day today. Next time more planning and I will be running 4 Toyo 335s.

 

[NI-KA]

Please do a seach on tires here on this site. If you spend a little time here and on other sites you will see a very definite and strong recommendation not to mix and match.

From what I can see and understand alot of it has to do with the tire compounds. Old compound is harder than new. Different tire different compounding.

As a newbie you probably aren't pushing the tires or the car to the limit. As you get closer to driving at the limit the more important having uniform road grip will be. In addition, the feel of the car will be affected and at the newbie stage of driving you need to experience uniformity without introducing other elements as much as possible.

just my 2 cents...

I am by no means an expert. I am just a sliver ahead of you in learning to drive at the limit. I just reaserched this topic 6 months ago before I purchased an entire new set of tires instead of just replacing one old "run crap". I decided after reading everything I could find it would be better to be safe than sorry.

 

[Leslie]

Please do a seach on tires here on this site. If you spend a little time here and on other sites you will see a very definite and strong recommendation not to mix and match.

From what I can see and understand alot of it has to do with the tire compounds. Old compound is harder than new. Different tire different compounding.

As a newbie you probably aren't pushing the tires or the car to the limit. As you get closer to driving at the limit the more important having uniform road grip will be. In addition, the feel of the car will be affected and at the newbie stage of driving you need to experience uniformity without introducing other elements as much as possible.

just my 2 cents...

I am by no means an expert. I am just a sliver ahead of you in learning to drive at the limit. I just reaserched this topic 6 months ago before I purchased an entire new set of tires instead of just replacing one old "run crap". I decided after reading everything I could find it would be better to be safe than sorry.

DITTO on the above post

be safe and don't run those older PS tires on the track, I think you got lucky this time