Autocross Tires

[ONRAILS]

Just went yesterday to the scca solo2 event. Wow... what a blast. I did like 8 runs... each run I improved. But, since I am somewhat conservative, I was thinking about my tires, and how they were getting chewed up. lol

My question... what do you guys recommend for a wheel/tire package for Autocross. And tire/wheel size?

 

[dolphin]

d_stickney,
First it depends on what you want to do. If you do a search you can find a ton of advice on autocrossing in general as well as tires to use. On my Mazdaspeed Protege, I have been running the stock wheels and tires. This is not the ideal set up but it is cheap. Since I would have finished 3rd in STX in my stock car, I can't complain.

If you really want to spend the money and get into aitocrossing, I would get another set of wheels and tires. Which wheels and tires depends on which class you decide to run.

 

[ONRAILS]

d_stickney,
First it depends on what you want to do. If you do a search you can find a ton of advice on autocrossing in general as well as tires to use. On my Mazdaspeed Protege, I have been running the stock wheels and tires. This is not the ideal set up but it is cheap. Since I would have finished 3rd in STX in my stock car, I can't complain.

If you really want to spend the money and get into aitocrossing, I would get another set of wheels and tires. Which wheels and tires depends on which class you decide to run.

I just want to stay in the stock class. Basically, just a set of wheels/tires that I can swap out instead of beating up my RH and street tires. Where can you get racing tires for that? Should I stay with the same size tire/wheel?

 

[subaruwrx]

Yoko A032R
Its still a street tire, but it shoudl be good enough. Hoosier makes some awesome Auto x tires.
--A

 

[dolphin]

d_stickney,
If you want to be competitive keep the same size wheels. If you don't, you will end up getting bumped to another class. Right now, you just need to get seat time, get a rule book and observe the more experienced autocrossers. This will help your driving and give you a chance to observe what is working and what is not working.

If you watch the "for sale" part of this forum, you will see a set of wheels that appeals to you. Sometimes they will have tires as well. If fact I think someone is selling a set of MSP wheels there now. If you get something other than the stock wheels, make sure that the wheel's offset is close to that of the stock wheels or you will be running in a different class.

As for tires, in the Open stock classes you can use any DOT tire that you can get on the car. In the DOT "R" tires, usually, there are two sizes to pick from for the MSP, 205/40-17 or 225/45-17. Despite all the standardized sizes, not all tire of the same size have the same dimensions. This is important since some of the 225/45-17 will fit on our wheels and not rub while others will rub. If you do a search, you can see which are which at least for those that people have tried. The Yokohama A032 is considered a DOT "R" tire.

Another thing you might want to check on is a street tire class. Our region has a street tire class requiring street tires whose wear rating is 140 or above. This is like the rule for STS except it is applied to all classes. These entrants then have their best time mulitiplied by the car's class' PAX factor to determine the order of finish. In my case, I run a DS MSP on street tires. So my times are multiplied by 0.794 to get my time. At the last event it went like this, 56.666 x 0.794 = 44.993.

This is the way I have been running since I have gotten lazy in my old age.

Other sources for wheels and tires include:
http://www.tirerack.com/

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct/home.jsp

I hope this helps.

 

[[syko.xero]]

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Bridgestone&tireModel=Potenza+S-03+Pole+Position&vehicleSearch=true&partnum=145YR7S03PP&fromCompare1=yes

my next tire

 

[mazdaowner123]

If you want to run in DS, you can get R-compound tires, but many people recommend against new autocrossers jumping into R comps. R-Compounds hide mistakes that you make, and while they make you faster, you'd be better off learning on street tires then going to r-comps such as Kuhmo V700 Victoracers. My next street tire/autox tire is going to be the Bridgestone Potenza S-03 Pole Positions, like syko. My friend with a wrx had the s-03s and loved them. The azenis, which are the hot tire in STS/STX at the moment, don't come in the size we need for the MSP. The 225s will rub, as Scapamouche found out. Apparently the Azenis used on the 3s in the Rev It Up were with 215/45-17, which is what we need. Unfortunately, they don't make DOT legal azenis in that size, so we can only pray that they will someday. Good luck! The Racing/Motorsports section is a great resource. And speaking of which, this thread should probably be there or in the Rims/Tires/Suspension Forum.

~brian