I think manufactures are giving us better tires now a day. An affordable car would be the Neon SRT-4 with Pilot Sports on a under $20K car which is pretty good :) Again the Neon SRT-4 comes up here and there :D

It's not a new thing by MMC/Ralliart, per se - the RS Evo's in Japan have always been equipped with S rubber - slicks with grooves cut into them. (I'm using always liberally here - I only personally have paid attention to Evo 5's on) That's one of the reasons that the back-to-back comparo's of Evo's vs. STi's in Japan tended to favor the Evo at the track. STi's always came equipped with good, but not great, summer tyres - such as RE 040's. They do ok in the dry, and most importantly for Subaru's overall image/self perception, did great in the wet. They however don't keep up that well on the track with semi-race rubber... Recently, Subaru/STi just gave up and started shipping the Type C STi's with 070's. Consequently, the track times have mysteriously gotten much closer to the Evo's, if not sometimes surpassing them.

I expect that the Evo 8 still does quite a good job of handling overall. But the rather high skidpad numbers and slalom are indeed partially attributable to the rubber that they ship with in stock form. And the Pilot's MX and such that Corvette's and M3's ship with do not compare. I participated in a long-term rubber test with those, S03's and Pirelli P-Zero's. All good, but the Pilots are designed to last a long-ish time, and have compromises towards ultimate performance because of this. And neither the S03's, S02's, P-Zero's or Pilot's compare to the erasor rubber coming on the Evo and the STi, at least on a track. If I had the same rubber compound as the Evo or STi on Tsukuba Circuit, I would knock a minimum of 2 secs off my time with RE040's. Probably more. And that's a 1min:15sec course. Twin Ring Motegi, I could go wheezle by M3's if I had that good of a rubber.

Cheers,

Paul Hansen

So Paul, your saying these tires are that great? Both the 070 and advans never made it here or not common. My question is that are the new 070's comparable to the 046's? Is it going to be a fair test between the STi and the Evo this time around?

can someone please scan the R&T article? I can't find it in any store in town. My dad has a subscription to it, but I won't be able to get over to my parents house till this weekend, and I really want to read their review!

For pure track racing, the only way they would get much better is to remove the already miniscule grooves that they have. Forget about traction in the rain, or long life - they generally only last some 7000km, about 5000miles -or less. They really are track tyres only. As somebody else said, put something laster longing on for street driving, and save the rubber they come with for the track!

Cheers,

Paul Hansen

The stock P235/45R-17 Yokohama ADVAN A046s are nothing special. While they are a lot better than the Bridgestone RE92s used on the WRX, so is every other tire in the world.

The A046s are not as good as S02s or AVS sports.

Definitely not race compound tires. Claudius recommends Pirelli PZero Assimetrico yellows, I don’t know if these are the same the U.S. PZero Asymmetricals. I will try Falken Azenis also.

Erik

Paul makes it sound like miracle tires on the evo to handle very well and the STi runs par suspention wise :rolleyes:. I'm glad to hear that the evo can pull that kind of g's from 235's! Not many cars could achieve this with narrow tries "compared to vettes, 911's, and vipers" except for RX-7's and supra's on the skid. When i hear eraser rubber i was thinking street legal race compound of some sort with treadwear at 100-140 range.

OH yeah, i've hear Falkins are one of the most heaviest tires and that'll really have a hit in performance.

Yes the Falkens are heavy. That’s why I'm still looking around. Evo's really work their tires so you need something with a stiff sidewall.

Through all the recommendations for tires I noticed that pattern stiff tires were generally liked. Softly constructed tires were universally bad. No real agreement on what works exist but several tires seem to have a following

Yoko AVS sports
Yoko A539
Goodyear F1 GS-D3
Pirelli F1 Assimetrico Yellows
Toyo Proxies
Bridgestone S-02 (but not the S-03 or S-01s, I don’t know if you can get the 2’s anymore anyway)
Several street legal slicks are well liked but I’m looking at street tires.

I would like to try BFG g-force KDs but that is an expensive fast wearing tire.
Kumho Ecsta MXs may be worth shot too.

Erik

Azenis are nice cause they are cheap. And on my WRX 17''s were not killed by a couple of track days so they should last at least a year if you use winters on snow. It's probably better to get something like Azenis or S-03s (if you care about wet traction and willing to pay some more) and just get a set of R rubber for track days. I doubt it's worth to use very expensive, highest performance and fast wearing off street tires if you would rarely try to shave 2 seconds on your drive to work. :lol:

My Evo will be getting a set of Azenis as soon as the stock tires wear out. The Azenis were amazing summer tires. Grip was great and so was wear. They were only so-so in the wet, but that was the trade-off for the great dry traction. And they are cheap too!

For those who are not familiar with the Azenis, they have a tread that is vaguely similar to Yokohama A032-R's. ie....very large contact patchs

They are fairly heavy. But only a little heavier than other performance tires with hard sidewalls. And they are lighter than Kumho V700's.

SC

I recall that themothership has mentioned about yokohama designing the 046's especially for the evo. Maybe these tires are excellent tires for our cars for that reason. I would wait to see if these yok would be worth getting?

Am i the only one who picked up that they said it's not as good without ACD :confused: Doent' seem like anybody cares. I have the feeling the JDM with ACD and LSD will destroy our car on the track. Now i just want to know how much faster. Are we talkign about hundredth, tenth, or seconds?

I would put money on that one as well!! :)

Fedja

I with you on the azenis. The only problem is that they don't make 235s only 245 and 225 widths. I've talked to Falken and the line up of Azenis will not be expanded. I really want to preserve the stiff sidewall of that tire. The reccomended rim widths seem to point to 245s on the stock 8" wheel.

The are pretty cheap and the Evo will eat tires. So I will try them out.

Erik

the A046 just are not excellent tires just very good OEM performance tires.

Erik

It says:
I am not sure if it's ACD or front LSD (or both).