Budget tyres with not much grip...
Discussion
....looking at getting some new boots for the Eunos, its wearing Eagle F1's at the moment which have performed really well. What I really want (especially for the rear of the car) is some hard compound budget tyres that will let me exploit the handling a bit more. Also, I can't really afford F1's or similar this time round and the whole ethos of my car has been 'budget' really, as the whole thing owes me well under £1k and I'd like to keep lifetime costs as low as possible. Before anyone starts I'm not looking to compromise safety, just want to lower the grip threshold a bit. I only use the car for two days a week max, and only for pleasure. Any thoughts?
Try the Nexen N3000 for a decent budget tyre, I went for them for my evo at 225/45R17 and they were £47 a corner last year.
Found them again, and they've gone up about a tenner here
They were a sort of hidden gem when I got them, the US loved them, but there was not much info about them in the UK.
I found good reviews at the Lexus owners club amongst others, so I went for four.
Over a year later, I've been on track with them, lots of fast road work with the MLR runs and they're fine. They even coped with our localised motorway flooding on the M4 this week.
HTH,
John.
Found them again, and they've gone up about a tenner here
They were a sort of hidden gem when I got them, the US loved them, but there was not much info about them in the UK.
I found good reviews at the Lexus owners club amongst others, so I went for four.
Over a year later, I've been on track with them, lots of fast road work with the MLR runs and they're fine. They even coped with our localised motorway flooding on the M4 this week.
HTH,
John.
I went from the cheapest, slidiest, unwearable tyres to the most expensive, grippiest, undurable tyres and I wish I still had the cheap ones on!
I used to have Nangkang (one of their sportier lines, but still not 'sporty!) that after 30k hard miles (including a trackday) still look brand new and were fun to drive hard on. I now run Yokohama Advan a048's which are so grippy that it's boring and each mile I drive that is not on the track, it seems like I am needlessly wasting them. I kept a pair of the old Nankangs and plan to fit them to a spare set of wheels and use them for daily driving and keep the current setup for the track.
I used to have Nangkang (one of their sportier lines, but still not 'sporty!) that after 30k hard miles (including a trackday) still look brand new and were fun to drive hard on. I now run Yokohama Advan a048's which are so grippy that it's boring and each mile I drive that is not on the track, it seems like I am needlessly wasting them. I kept a pair of the old Nankangs and plan to fit them to a spare set of wheels and use them for daily driving and keep the current setup for the track.
Odd - I have F1 GSD3s all round on my '5 and can get the back to slide around nicely. It needs provoking, but that is fine as far as I'm concerned!
It's all very well wanting something that will let you slide it around, but when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
Stick to the F1s IMHO. If you want to unstick the back put your boot in!
It's all very well wanting something that will let you slide it around, but when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
Stick to the F1s IMHO. If you want to unstick the back put your boot in!
NiceCupOfTea said:
Odd - I have F1 GSD3s all round on my '5 and can get the back to slide around nicely. It needs provoking, but that is fine as far as I'm concerned!
It's all very well wanting something that will let you slide it around, but when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
Stick to the F1s IMHO. If you want to unstick the back put your boot in!
That would be my advice too. If you can't slide an MX-5 on F1s then you aren't doing it right.It's all very well wanting something that will let you slide it around, but when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
Stick to the F1s IMHO. If you want to unstick the back put your boot in!
sgibson808 said:
I went from the cheapest, slidiest, unwearable tyres to the most expensive, grippiest, undurable tyres and I wish I still had the cheap ones on!
I used to have Nangkang (one of their sportier lines, but still not 'sporty!) that after 30k hard miles (including a trackday) still look brand new and were fun to drive hard on. I now run Yokohama Advan a048's which are so grippy that it's boring and each mile I drive that is not on the track, it seems like I am needlessly wasting them. I kept a pair of the old Nankangs and plan to fit them to a spare set of wheels and use them for daily driving and keep the current setup for the track.
You've gone from cheap Nankings to AO48??? From Hyundai Accent tyres to those used in Elise Cup racing? They are way over the top for MX-5s on dry roads! They are about the best road legal track tyres you can get!!! Except when it rains... then you will have to be very alert...I used to have Nangkang (one of their sportier lines, but still not 'sporty!) that after 30k hard miles (including a trackday) still look brand new and were fun to drive hard on. I now run Yokohama Advan a048's which are so grippy that it's boring and each mile I drive that is not on the track, it seems like I am needlessly wasting them. I kept a pair of the old Nankangs and plan to fit them to a spare set of wheels and use them for daily driving and keep the current setup for the track.
I'm looking to do something similar, but for the track, not the road. The intention being to have a set of very cheap tyres on an old set of wheels and do more airfield days and improve my limit handling skills for when I'm on proper tracks where armco is beckoning. The Nankangs at £25 a corner (195/50/15) from Camskill seem like a good bet at the moment.
That's the thing - proper performance tyres in modestly wide 15" sizes are cheap enough not to want to bother with 'house brands' or no-name tyres. I mean, what's the max you could save compared to the Toyos - 10 quid a corner? For what arguably constitute the most important parts on a car? Hm, let me think about that one...
The trouble with cheapie tyres is that they may offer less outright grip (which may be a plus in some applications,especially the ones that are overtyred for the weight and available power), they also wobble like blancmanges when you put lateral loads on them which is never good if you want to know what's happening underneath you. One reason why The Shed (now sold) never hit the track although I had lashed out on a Safety Devices cage is that I couldn't find any reasonable tyres for it (I had a line on a set of T1-Rs that had not even been mounted at some point, for 80 quid the four but unsurprisingly they went within hours from being listed) and it didn't inspire any confidence at all on its mix of Pirelli P2000s (front) and one P4000/ one Michelin somethingorother at the rear. I could happily live with the lack of grip, but not with the steering response, lack of stability and lack of any meaningful feedback from them.
The trouble with cheapie tyres is that they may offer less outright grip (which may be a plus in some applications,especially the ones that are overtyred for the weight and available power), they also wobble like blancmanges when you put lateral loads on them which is never good if you want to know what's happening underneath you. One reason why The Shed (now sold) never hit the track although I had lashed out on a Safety Devices cage is that I couldn't find any reasonable tyres for it (I had a line on a set of T1-Rs that had not even been mounted at some point, for 80 quid the four but unsurprisingly they went within hours from being listed) and it didn't inspire any confidence at all on its mix of Pirelli P2000s (front) and one P4000/ one Michelin somethingorother at the rear. I could happily live with the lack of grip, but not with the steering response, lack of stability and lack of any meaningful feedback from them.
I agree on the road and I'll be going back to F1s (from Paradas). But on an airfield, I *want* hard wearing, low grip tyres so that they don't melt as quickly as the F1s and I'm on the limit more often and get used to detecting under/oversteer sooner and correcting it earlier so that when I put proper tyres on and approach the limits through Miss Hit Miss I don't test the strength of the armco at stopping me landing in the gardens of the houses in Adenau a few hundred metres down the hill.
NiceCupOfTea said:
Odd - I have F1 GSD3s all round on my '5 and can get the back to slide around nicely. It needs provoking, but that is fine as far as I'm concerned!
It's all very well wanting something that will let you slide it around, but when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
Stick to the F1s IMHO. If you want to unstick the back put your boot in!
In the wet it will slide just fine, but in the dry I can barely get a squeek from it with out seriously loading it up, and putting massive loads on the clutch/diff etc. I only use the car very infrequently, 90% of the time in the dry and at the moment it grips like a frigging barnacle. The only way I can provoke any sort of sideways is by kicking the clutch or doing a scandinavian flick. I just want a bit looser when I'm making progress, not dangerous mind just more willing to let go. It's all very well wanting something that will let you slide it around, but when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
Stick to the F1s IMHO. If you want to unstick the back put your boot in!
'when you have a long drive back home and it's wet and dark and you're tired you just want grip, you don't want opposite lock on every corner
'As I said, I only use it for fun, so am unlikely to find myself in this situation. My old E30 325i Sport was a nightmare for this, you'd be settled driving home from work late at night thinking about what you are having for dinner then BLAM - all of a sudden you are feeding in loads of opposite lock and gripping the wheel till your knuckles go white.....
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