Tire Rack carries RA1's now

#21

I don’t know what others experience, but in my opinion the current production RA1 tires are good for six, maybe eight, heat cycles. It is hard for me to quantify how much slower they get as they heat cycle. But what I see is a difference in handling with the car pushing more and being more loose when I have the practice tires on (6-12 heat cycles) as compared to how the car behaves when I change to race rubber.

#22

[quote=“barkerdm” post=65381]I will have to agree that the new RA1 is not the same as the old. At Mid-Ohio this April, I ran a BMW event with my old, 10+ heat cycle '09’s and 2 weeks later at a NASA event ran 2 seconds slower on brand new 50th week of 11, 4/32 shaved RA1’s from with 2-3 heat cycles. The 09’s are between 3-4/32 tread.

09’s are wearing beautifully. 11’s grained terribly and wearing unevenly.

Same driver, same car/setup, same track, different tires.[/quote]

I don’t have any '09’s but I do have some 11’s. Mine are grained across the whole tire, except for the outside where I would normally expect to see it more than the center/inside.

Mine were shaved to 4/32. I did 2 heat cycles at Gingerman at my test day and then let them sit for a week before mid-ohio. Then we ran a bunch of rain stuff with a couple medium dry sessions in there, so by the race on Sunday they had a total of 7 heat cycles (really 5 if you count the two rain sessions as one cycle). The last cycle was the dry race.

They look terrible with the outer tread block pushing rubber up on the outside. I will keep trying lower pressures until the grainig goes away, or I start sliding all over the place.

#23

I just ran a set with about 10 cycles on them at Watkins Glen this past weekend and they were getting faster as I added more time to them. Did my personal best the 2nd day on about cycle 14. Paid really close attention to pressures and when coming hot around 38 they were in their sweet spot. Will use these for practice/fun race etc. I’ve started having Phils leave them “full shoulder” when shaving to 4/32". I think that’s going to get me some extra time out of them. I have a set of “stickers” for the race this weekend. Will be interesting to see how fast they are compared with the more seasoned set.

#24

What pressures are you starting with in the morning?

I was going 32 cold all around.

#25

Here’s a good tip - Watkins Glen likes old tires…:slight_smile:

#26

[quote=“Foglght” post=65403][quote=“barkerdm” post=65381]I will have to agree that the new RA1 is not the same as the old. At Mid-Ohio this April, I ran a BMW event with my old, 10+ heat cycle '09’s and 2 weeks later at a NASA event ran 2 seconds slower on brand new 50th week of 11, 4/32 shaved RA1’s from with 2-3 heat cycles. The 09’s are between 3-4/32 tread.

09’s are wearing beautifully. 11’s grained terribly and wearing unevenly.

Same driver, same car/setup, same track, different tires.[/quote]

I don’t have any '09’s but I do have some 11’s. Mine are grained across the whole tire, except for the outside where I would normally expect to see it more than the center/inside.

Mine were shaved to 4/32. I did 2 heat cycles at Gingerman at my test day and then let them sit for a week before mid-ohio. Then we ran a bunch of rain stuff with a couple medium dry sessions in there, so by the race on Sunday they had a total of 7 heat cycles (really 5 if you count the two rain sessions as one cycle). The last cycle was the dry race.

They look terrible with the outer tread block pushing rubber up on the outside. I will keep trying lower pressures until the grainig goes away, or I start sliding all over the place.[/quote]

Graining usually happens for 1 of 2 reasons.

  1. Too much grip in the track for the tire

  2. Not bringing the tire up to temp gradually enough. <----- this is the most common reason

Graining is the tread actually being ripped from the casing. This happens a lot when it the track and the ambient temps are cool.

#27

What pressures are you starting with in the morning?

I was going 32 cold all around.[/quote]

I went out at 31 all around. Air temp was around 40 degrees. Track was warm, it was at 10:30 AM and sunny conditions. I did about 30 minutes and came in. LF 38, LR 38, RF 37.5, RR 38. I had no other notes on that session other than there was moderate traffic on the track for about 30 mins before I went out.

#28

Here’s a good tip - Watkins Glen likes old tires…:)[/quote]

Thanks Phil!B)

#29

Elaborate pls. I don’t understand why the rate of temp increase matters.

#30

[quote=“Ranger” post=65440][quote=“philstireservice” post=65429]

  1. Not bringing the tire up to temp gradually enough. <----- this is the most common reason
    [/quote]
    Elaborate pls. I don’t understand why the rate of temp increase matters.[/quote]

Think of it as not warming up before you exercise - a race tire needs the same gradual warm up.

#31

As I understand it, graining is when the tread gets super heated compared to the carcass temp of the tire due to sliding. Bigger the difference the more the graining. What I don’t get is the conditions when I ran the 09 and two weeks later the 11 were pretty much the same. Why the wear difference? Yes, my 09 tires have aged, but why back in 09 were guys not complaining about New tires being slow and gaining badly?
I am not the only one experiencing these problems. A fellow se30 running the same weekend I ran the 09 was on brand new 11 shaved to 3/32. His grained just as bad.

#32

My first set of 11’s grained when heat cycling them, that means I ran at a reduced pace and built speed up slowly in a practice session. I still grained the fronts. This is what they looked like after actually running a race

#33

I had this ^^^^ happen with a set of NItto NT-01s I got in 2010. I spent a lot of time going back and forth with the tech guys from Nitto about it. I was pissed because the two fronts were basically useless after only one weekend at Mid Ohio. Bottom line is they told me it was a combination of overheating and pressure problems. I still don’t buy it because I am really careful about my pressures and I DO take time to warm up the tires. It was a pretty mild weekend, but never got super hot on the track. Personally I think it’s something with the formulation of the compound and for certain a flaw. Toyo will never admit it. I even went so far as to unmount the tire and sent it to Nitto. They still said it was my fault.

PS - I am under the impression that the NT-01s are a similar (or same) compound to the RA1.

#34

[quote=“JeffCal” post=65451]I had this ^^^^ happen with a set of NItto NT-01s I got in 2010. I spent a lot of time going back and forth with the tech guys from Nitto about it. I was pissed because the two fronts were basically useless after only one weekend at Mid Ohio. Bottom line is they told me it was a combination of overheating and pressure problems. I still don’t buy it because I am really careful about my pressures and I DO take time to warm up the tires. It was a pretty mild weekend, but never got super hot on the track. Personally I think it’s something with the formulation of the compound and for certain a flaw. Toyo will never admit it. I even went so far as to unmount the tire and sent it to Nitto. They still said it was my fault.

PS - I am under the impression that the NT-01s are a similar (or same) compound to the RA1.[/quote]

Track surface has a lot to do with it. Ask anyone about Mid Ohio - it grains tires, Toyo’s Hoosiers all brands

#35

Did you know that Toyo owns Nitto? They say they are completely separate companies, but technology does filter down.

#36

That was kind of my point.

#37

It’s not just a trickle down issue but also one of market saturation. Lots of outfits sell the same product at different price points. They just put it in different packaging.

#38

[quote=“philstireservice” post=65459][quote=“JeffCal” post=65451]I had this ^^^^ happen with a set of NItto NT-01s I got in 2010. I spent a lot of time going back and forth with the tech guys from Nitto about it. I was pissed because the two fronts were basically useless after only one weekend at Mid Ohio. Bottom line is they told me it was a combination of overheating and pressure problems. I still don’t buy it because I am really careful about my pressures and I DO take time to warm up the tires. It was a pretty mild weekend, but never got super hot on the track. Personally I think it’s something with the formulation of the compound and for certain a flaw. Toyo will never admit it. I even went so far as to unmount the tire and sent it to Nitto. They still said it was my fault.

PS - I am under the impression that the NT-01s are a similar (or same) compound to the RA1.[/quote]

Track surface has a lot to do with it. Ask anyone about Mid Ohio - it grains tires, Toyo’s Hoosiers all brands[/quote]

Interesting. I had never heard this about Mid Ohio.
I had James Clay and Jack Money look at the tires when I was at that event. Neither told me that MidOhio grains tires. They both were baffled by the quick and extremely severe wear. Oh well. Now I know better.

#39

I’ve been reading about a lot of tire issues and i had a few questions regarding breaking in some new tires. I have some R888’s and will be running a DE in May at CMP. I was wondering what a good starting tire pressure for them would be and what kind of tire pressures i should see after each session? Should i take it easy on them the first few times out?

Thanks,
Craig

#40

[quote=“GMotorsports” post=65496]I’ve been reading about a lot of tire issues and i had a few questions regarding breaking in some new tires. I have some R888’s and will be running a DE in May at CMP. I was wondering what a good starting tire pressure for them would be and what kind of tire pressures i should see after each session? Should i take it easy on them the first few times out?

Thanks,
Craig[/quote]
There’s 2 schools of thought on R888 tire pressures, the low P school and the high P school. Low is ~35-36psi hot and High is ~40-41psi hot. The couple of months that we had to run R888’s I was mostly repairing engines so I didn’t end up getting much experience on them. That being said, I buy into the Low P school. R888’s have stiff sidewalls so I don’t think that they need as much air as RA1s in order to create a good foot print.

If your objective is 36psi hot you’ll have to make a judgement call on how much pressure growth you’re going to get on cold tires. That is to say, what cold pressure do I want in order to get the target hot pressure. Your cold pressure setting is going to depend on ambient temps and how hard you drive your car. If you’ve never been on a track before 4psi of pressure growth, cold to hot, might be a reasonable estimate. If you are skilled and driving hard laps, 10psi. So for a novice maybe start at 32psi cold to get 36psi hot.

The next variable is your car’s set up. A DD is going to be understeer a lot so your front tires will get hotter than your rears. Therefore you might discover that you have more pressure growth in front than rear.

That should be enough info to get you started. Be methodical about tire pressures and keep good notes.