Beginner Drifter - Did terrible after changing rear tires during the break
 

Hey everyone, so over the weekend I attended my 4th drift event of the summer. Its my first year and I'm looking for advice on picking rear tire stickiness. I was on some sport Continental tires (Y grade, hard not very sticky, 245 width) for the past three and a half events and I was doing really well, connecting everything, I was really confident. Last event I went through them and switched to my spares, Achilles ATR Sport 2 in a 235 width, they were a recommended tire, W rating and fairly sticky. I couldn't believe how much stickier they were! It totally threw me off and I did pretty bad for the rest of the event. Do I go back to the not so sticky tire because I'm better that way? I drive an s14 making 400whp.. Feel like I should be "re-learning" on the stickier stuff. Thanks all!

135 and 145 width? Do you mean 235 and 245?

pretty sure you meant 235 and 245, but anyways

a sticky tire is going to mean more forward bite, and you'll have to overpower it to keep it broken loose. the way you drive and the way you WANT to drive is going to be the deciding factor. if your goal is to be a FD driver or competition driver, you for sure want to be getting used to a grippy setup. Personally my style is way more "cruise through this course and have fun". Imagine a longboarder on a wave vs a downhill slalom skier.

Oops, yes that's what I meant. I understand what you mean, when I was on the not so sticky tires I definitely felt like i was cruising, not going hard or producing much tire smoke. But with these stickier tires I'm forced to drive hard to keep them loose. Its difficult, but I'll work at it. Thanks

seat time is by far the best tool you could have. fortunately for you, ClubFR is in your area and many of those dudes have over a decade of experience and are more than willing to give pointers. I know simba and his staff are always willing to help.

The tread wear number will be what you want to pay attention to. Try a few different compounds and see what feels good. If you want to be consistent then obviously try and run the same tires over and over, but if you are doing a lot of tandem and trying to catch up to people mid drift, then wider and stickier is better.

Either way just get out there and huck your car around on all kinds of tires. That way you slowly get used to different rubber compounds and are ready for anything. :2f2f:

Yeah they're an awesome group of guys! I've made it out to most of their events this season.

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I agree, thanks. I'll have to pay more attention to the tread wear number. And yes my goal is to run the same tire

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Stick with the 245's that are somewhat grippy and play with the tire pressure.
Personally I always start at 32 psi. Depending on track conditions/temps. I will adjust up or down. Up to 10 psi either way.
You can also adjust your coilover dampening to dial in grip levels.

I'm glad you said something, I haven't played around with psi like I should be. I started at 36psi and didn't touch it after that. Guess I was too wrapped up in the learning process when I could've been making it easier for myself.

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ATR Sport 2's are nuts grippy. They treadware number doesn't really apply as those tires specifically melt and turn to crazy glue. You can see how they burn after taking them off, it's completely different to other tires. I was a huge fan of them but they aren't really available anymore.

Number 1 is tire pressure. Power to grip ratio is everything. Don't be afraid to hit all the way up to the 80s.

Thanks for that tip man, I knew about tire pressure, just didn't think we could take it up that high and be efficient

Efficient is making it through the course without any errors, so whatever your car can handle. I know some corolla guys with negative horse power numbers run triple digit PSI numbers in the rear on full track fast stuff. Grip to power ratio, then once you have infinite power like FD cars it's grip to wheel speed (and now tire longevity, making them last 2 runs).

I'm glad someone else experienced how grippy they are! Also, great info, that's good to know.

What exactly am I looking for in tread ware? Do you recommend a certain grade/number or tire?

300's are good. Not hard and not too soft.
I've had a few ATR's. Great tires. Awesome grip, good smoke. Been running cheepo ns20's lately. But I bought 4 255 40 17 ATR's a couple weeks ago. I'm really looking forward to using them!

Ya, like A DOGG said, pay attention to the treadwear number. I personally like Federal 595 in the rear and something sticky up front. kinda sucks when you have high grips on the rear, unless your putting down tons of power and have something with more grip up front, otherwise you might end up with some understeer from pushing the fronts around the track with all that grip in the rear.

OP's got 400 whp. So I'd say 200-300TW would be ideal, depending on the width. Stickier tire will need less width and vice versa.

I was at 320 whp and ran a 235/40R17 300TW in the rear, and 200TW up front in the same size.

I ran Federal 595SS in 215/45/17 front and back of my car this weekend, dyno'd at 327hp/345tq.
32psi front, 27 psi rear, dampers at 1/4 stiffness. It felt surprisingly sticky considering the tarmac wasn't much warmer than 65*F or so.


Last time I was in an s-chassis, I ran a 225/45/17 ATR2 at 28psi on hot tarmac (same track as last weekend). I'd say the ATR2's felt more loose than the Federals I was running on the new car.