RUF87

Just thought I'd let you guys know that I'm still alive . . .

but barely . . . work is a real pain . . I hope to see daylight come spring time. :whatbish: . .

so behave yourselves

Ruf

RUF87

I'm looking at Federal SS-595 90V or FEDERAL SS-595 91W

or Bridgestone Potenza RE750 or Kumho ECSTA KU19

and possibly the Pirelli PZero Nero M&S 225/45WR17 SL

All the tires are 225/45/17 except the SS-595 90V which is a 215/50/17.

The RE750 is the most expensive at $146 and the Federals are the cheapest coming in under $100.

I'm leaning toward the KU19s or Pirellis. Both had good traction reviews and did well in wet weather. The Pirellis are M&S so will do okay in the snow . . those 5 days that we get it, except maybe not this year.

Ruf

CasperTL

Boo Pirellis... they just aren't what they used to be... i forgot who bought the company, but their quality has just gone down the drain as far as performance is concerned. I'd say the Kumho's or the Potenza's

Bluesman

I have been happy with my Kumho's. One they were not cheap $101 each and B they still stick after 18K miles.

Bluesman

Ruf whats your take on a harder tire for the 1/4 drag track on a 4 wheel drive car?

mantis23

Inferno, I am debating between the T1Ss and the RA-1s for track use. I hear so many good things about the RA-1s, and since they are a pure competition tire, it might not be a bad idea. Only problem, they are VERY expensive.

mantis23

Hey man, I just bought a set of tires at Kaufmann Tire. Great bunch of guys. I got to talking with Melo, and he asked me if I knew you. I said yup! I kick his bootay all the time at the track. :P

Just thought I'd throw out that he remembered you, and the rims you had.

DeezNutz

Are the Nuggets in town?

Chopsie

Hey Civic, I was at firestone the other day having my cooling system flushed, treated, and filled (coupon in the mail ) and I asked what a set of S03 PP would cost me, > $1,000 , I was like, "Holy shit" guess I said it out loud, the whole waiting room just kind of turned and looked at me.:P

Chopsie

What have you tried so far, if anything ? How bad are they ?

I actually have done some "miracle work", I have owned two black cars, and have MANY customers with dark colored vehicles.

InfernoTLS

I like the RA-1 idea--r compound tires are outstanding at the (road) track so they should be better than standard street performance tires at the (1/4) track.

Oh, and these would be for Mantis, not for Inferno!!!

Bluesman, I would never by a true slick drag radial for the STi--too much stick. Of course, we have all seen Stang GT's explode their diffs/snap their shafts with too sticky of tires! With FWD, it should NEVER be an issue...

RUF87

The general rule is soft = sticky. Unless you are really spinning your tires I wouldn't worry. The downside is, soft = quicker wear.

The secondary factors are rubber compounds and contact patch. This is what's started me questioning the Toyo T1-S at the drag strip. Great grip . . for twisties, but I think the contact patch is smaller and why I'm spinning so easily. Note, not as easy as the OEM piggies we had.

Now take that Mantis character . . . he needs some drag radials or some cheater slicks if he wants to launch hard with the NOS. Other wise he'll just spin 1/4 of the track like last time. :P

Note: Drag teams spends lots of buck playing with tires and will keep different ones for different track surfaces and temps.

Ruf

RUF87

Shoot, I'm surprised they'd talk to you once you admitted knowing me. :buah:

Seriously, they've been great to deal with. They even owned up to messing up one of my rims. The guy didn't pay attention to the reverse mount rim instructions. Oh well.

Ruf

CasperTL

I had a buddy with an 02 GT with 3.73 gears and exhaust and we raced so many different cars with that thing and he had some drag radials on the rear and he'd barely chirp first and he'd be gone. Of course, once out at ennis I ran into a SHO group and their bad boy with a supercharged SHO snapped his axle at the line. Apparently he had picked up some ET Streets THAT day. The axle looked like playdo that had been just twisted. It was pretty crazy. Point is, I think they aren't such a bad idea. Maxima guys get them all the time. I really think your axles will be fine on the Acura AND the STI. You'd hook up better than any of these guys.

Bluesman

I'm not sure you guys are getting what I'm asking. With Inferno's STI, since it gets so much grip off the line, would a tire that lets him spin a little, help him keep his RPM up and put less strain on his drive train?

The worst feeling in the world, at the track, has got to be when the light goes green you dump the cluch and it goes BLAM and you just sit there.

danny25

that makes sense to me. If you wanna take off without bogging down and having to rev to 6K then you need tires that will let you get some spin.

CasperTL

Spin is bad... period...

if you're axles snap because your tires grip too well, then upgrade the axles... never EVER downgrade tires... no matter what

danny25

screw that, I'd rather have tires that spun a little than have to waste money on upgrading my axle on my daily driver cause I wanna play at the track every now and then.

CasperTL

stronger axles are a good investment no matter what... of course, it is in racing where you'll see the most benefit.

keep the weaker axles and cheaper tires that spin a little and you're still putting a lot of pressure on those weaker axles. get strong axles and you can slap slicks on your car! And considering the cost, they're cheaper than yalls headers.

Bluesman

Wheel spin is not always bad. If it is eccesive yes but if you are just turning over the tires a couple of times and get the car moving and then hook up this can make for a great launch. Your engine is getting into the powerband and starting to realy pull. In addition there is less strain on the drive train even if you have stronger axiles. Also if you beef up the axiles now the stain is on the tranny. Beef up the tranny and the strain is on the clutch. The torque will find the weekest link.

Bluesman

Amen!

CasperTL

wheel spin is never a good thing...

example...
car 1 and car 2

car 1 has absolutely no wheel spin, takes off and every bit of his power band is getting used from start to finish

car 2 has a minor amount of wheel spin, tries to take off but is sitting there spinning or even wheel hoping cause he can't get complete traction while car 1 has been moving since the moment the lights turned green. once the tires grabs no matter how long they spun, the rpms will drop down because now there is strain on the system and the tires aren't spinning as easily, so the motor will have to catch back up with itself.

so, while car 2 was busy getting traction, car 1 has not stopped moving at all.

and yes, I agree that torque will find it's weakest point, which is usually the clutch, but that's why you get strong axles and built transmission because when it comes down to it, which is cheaper and generally easier to replace? axles, transmission, or clutch? I'd say clutch.

mantis23

Public Service Announement: The coors light twins will be at dallas market hall feb 14 from 12-5 pm for the Dallas autorama.

$12 for adults
$5 for kids

RUF87

:o um, FWIW, not always true if I recall all the hundreds of variables . . too much to debate here. But car 1 launches at 3000rpm, hooks up, and as long as everything else is perfect, you won't experience a bit of a bog (drops and or slows the speed at which rpm is produced). . which is really tough stuff to master.

Car 2 launches at 3000rpm, spins just enough to prevent the bog, rpm actually climbs faster than in car 2, and catches up to car 1.

That's kind of how I remember it.

Anyway, bottomline is it's easier to achieve/manage to a slight spin, reducing your chance of bog . . . and braking a part, than it is to bullit proof your drivetrain and avoiding the dreded bog.

IMHO
Ruf

CasperTL

Well after a very argumentative day yesterday (not here) I stand corrected. Ruf, you hit the nail right on the head. I apologize, I was merely in a huge mood to argue because of some jacka$$ on the ORG who wanted to sell his product that my buddy was the test dummy for and I was extremely determined to make sure everyone knew his product was crap.

I did.

For a good read, Stone Racing Header Review (pg 2) thread (my post is post #66). MrEous is Jeff. A few of you met him our first track night/dyno day. And if you guys are still interested, feel free to post over on NissanForums to let us know if you guys are going, or you can post here.

Bluesman

Casper, I didn't take your opinion as argumenative. The purpose of this forum is discusion. I learned from what you had to say, you had some valid points. I wanted to get feed back regarding Inferno's AWD car because, he spins the tires very little if not at all, and see if I could apply some of that knowlage to my car.

At this point I am unable to spin my MXs at all. In my opinion I am geting to the 60' marker very slowly in the 2.3 to 2.4 range. My thinking is maybe if I put a harder compound tire on my car, for the drag track, that lets me spin the tires a little I will get into V-tech sooner and start making more power getting me out of the whole faster. Its a theory.

I can say "VAFC" and its on my list near the top.

CasperTL

at what RPM are you launching? You might want to consider launching a little harder. I usually launch at 1500rpms, but I have shit tires, so I have been known to spin a bit much

danny25

I think we all know everyone here well enough to have a friendly mindset when reading posts and not get offended. So don't worry 'bout it Casper.

CasperTL

mantis23

hey casper, why are those stone racing headers crap?

The nashua_night_ha guy is over here as well, and hes been trying to sell them.

Are you saying they are crap because of bad quality? or because they aren't good for maximas because you would lose the y-pipe?

Bluesman

The last time I went to the track they were turning on the green at random so I was really concentrating on the lights and kinda just going by feel on the RPM so I don't know. I almost pulled out of the lights once and had to put some more force on the brake. I thought I had red lighted but I caught it in time.

I'll try some starts and get back to you. I am pretty sure I could spin my original Michlens if they were on the car. I know those things were hard. They had 50K miles on them when I got rid of em and still had tread.

CasperTL

According to some research that Jeff did, the Stone Racing Headers are ranted and raved about by the V6 Honda guys, but headers in general have never proven really worth much for the Maxima's. Many people have tried them and haven't really come up with much... sad really. nashua_night_ha just got on my nerves because he has failed to realize it's not worth spending $600 over $250 when the $600 product is only going to give MAYBE 1 or 2hp more than the $250 product. I think they made an obvious mistake or two on the design and the products seemed kinda cheap, but overall they aren't TOO horrible. Just not at all cost effective.

mantis23

^^^^

Gotcha... and I completly agree. I was starting to think it might be a quality issue, at which point I would've had to warn other Honda V6 owners. Cause for the HP gain/ price ratio, headers are where its at for us.

DeezNutz

Fuck that. I'm offended! I want an official ACURA-CL.COM apology from our Nissan compadre! :P

Chopsie

Casper, are you saying that the Stones are $600 for the Nissan Applications ? because we can get them for the CL/TL for $400 shipped to us. Also, Nashua has reassured us that the "fitament" issue has been resolved with the newest batch of Headers. I have the OBX's and had to have my friend that helped me install do a little work to get them to fit properly. I was going to get a set of the Stones because if the alignment and fitament is all good, then maybe my exhausts will go back to normal alignment (one lower than the other after the OBX install).

RUF87

We are talking about headers . . . right :nutkick:

Ruf

RUF87

Good Tire Info Links:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testing/UTQG/

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/tire6.htm

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/framed.../testing/UTQG/


Ruf

Chopsie

danny25

took some night shots a couple weeks ago, finally pics of my exhaust...







banner...

mantis23

damn danny, you got an eye for those pics!