Tires with hard sidewalls

[Danio]

What tires for our stock 4-lug wheels have stiff sidewalls? The stiffer the better please. Thanks. (195-205/60/15)

[Dousan_PG]

Bridgestone re730s
Falken Azenis


are 2 from my expirience
dunlop FM901 DO NOT HAVE HARD SIDEWALLS. very soft. too soft imho. but good for cheap tires hehe.

[Jeff240sx]

If you oversize the width on your tires, and lower the profile of the sidewall by 5%, you will get stiffer sidewalls.  You will also lower your car a small ammount and throw your spedo off a couple mph.
Other than that... Bridgestone Potenzas and Michelin Pilot MXX3 have very stiff sidewalls.
-Jeff

[Danio]

I've had Bridgestone Potenzas before. I don't remember exactly what type of Potenzas, but I ripped the sides on the rear tires pretty badly to the point where I didn't feel safe driving with them anymore. :\ That happened after practicing drifting in a parking lot for about an hour. I'm guessing the hotter the tires get, the more quickly they lose tread?

Then at Buttonwillow this month, I took my car onto the skidpad only three times and the same thing happened to my Yokohama YK420 tires, which were supposed to have long wear. Well the outsides of the tires lost all their tread.

The bushings and wheel alignment look fine, btw.

I was looking for Falken Azenis but I don't think they have those tires in our stock tire size.

I guess what I need to do for my next set of tires -_-; is put more air in them. That should even out the wear a bit, right? Would some negative camber help? Any suggestions? Or do I just have to replace my rear tires everytime I go practice drifting? :\

[HippoSleek]

When you say "outside" do you mean the shoulder or the sidewall?  If you are burning up the shoulder, that is common with any driving that involves compressing the rear suspension b/c of the way a tire reaches slip angle.

Think of it this way:
- this is your tire w/o cornering load      |_|
- but when the tire is on the outside in cornering, the load shifts to the side  /_/
- that means that the contact patch on the inside will tend to stretch up, off the road and the one on the outside (including the shoulder) will stretch down to the road.  Presto, shoulder wear.

There is just a fact of hard driving.  Even Hoosiers get shoulder wear.  More air will accelarate tire wear in other places, but you still won't get away from shoulder wear b/c it is the nature of the contact patch (although it will help the car rotate better).  The only thing you can do is "flip" the tires on the rim so that you wear out both shoulders (n.b. can't do this w/ Azenis).

Now, if by "outside" you mean the sidewall, yes - add some air.  That will correct that, sort of.  When I'm at the track, I have 40-44 lbs. of air in my RE71 fronts b/c the suspension will bottom and start forcing the tire to use the sidewall.

[Dousan_PG]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Danio @ Nov. 27 2002,02:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I've had Bridgestone Potenzas before. I don't remember exactly what type of Potenzas, but I ripped the sides on the rear tires pretty badly to the point where I didn't feel safe driving with them anymore. :\ That happened after practicing drifting in a parking lot for about an hour. I'm guessing the hotter the tires get, the more quickly they lose tread?

Then at Buttonwillow this month, I took my car onto the skidpad only three times and the same thing happened to my Yokohama YK420 tires, which were supposed to have long wear. Well the outsides of the tires lost all their tread.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
front tires:
UNDERSTEER!!
that's what happens man!
i killed some FM901s with understeer (not killed, just hurt the sides A LOT). now, i've used bridgestone RE730s on 2 events and a few tiems of the occasional stupid parking lot stunts and they are fine.

i had the same thing. the reason your sides was all torn up is because you are understeering tooo much. been there done that, just takes practice.

u coming down to the dec 7th event??


rear tires:
i used the same rear tires at 2 drift events. the second one i killed them (6 hours of drifting does that). anywyas, getting new crap tires this week or next, for the 7th event...should last all day, i am not like driftheaven haah..that guy needs his own trailer of tires..hahahaha...mad skills.


front tires:
anyways, understeer kills tires.
adey and driftingpanda and itsybitsy seen my tires after 3 events..like brand new almost-they were SHOCKED (even after the 2 drift events and street fun and daily driving) also i run a good -3.5 degrees negative camber on a daily basis! heh...

[LanceS13]

Well, understeer isn't gonna cause a whole lot of rear shoulder wear.

You might want to try a little more air pressure if they're rolling over. &nbsp;What camber settings are you running? &nbsp;A little more camber probably wouldn't hurt. &nbsp;Like Hippo said, some shoulder wear will happen; but if it's excessive, more pressure and/or more camber might reduce it.

[Dousan_PG]

oh crap. i was thinking front tires..my bad heheh..
rear tires. might check your alignment.

for me at the track, i run 195/60/15 on a 15x6 on the rear at 32 PSI (cold) and on crap tires. lasted 2 events died on the second one (tore off the treads)

i run a -1.5 rear camber

btw, i run all my tires at a cold 32 PSI. too lazy to change it just for the track.

[Danio]

Thanks everyone. Hmm I guess I meant shoulder. But I know the sidewalls are also compressing a lot from watching my friend's Buttonwillow video clips. I'm pretty sure my rear camber's at 0, since I didn't do anything to them since the last alignment check. Okay, so more air, and maybe a bit of negative camber.

dousan36 - Nope I'm not going to the Dec 7 event. Too far, and I've already planned on going to Dec 28's track day. The next drift event I go to will probably be Jan 25's at Thunderhill.

Okay now I have another tire tread question, but I think I'll start another thread for it. Thanks again.