My tyre mix has become dreadful thanks to my own negligance. A couple of elderly Michelins on the front, and on the rear, Toyo T1-R and PX4 (a newish PX4 blew out, Toyo only could supply a T1-R), which has proved to be a lunatic mixture (I’ve only just noticed the two Toyos have a very different load rating, which isn’t going to help). So I need a full set of 4 to get me back on track.
Tyres have increased a lot in recent years, and are set to apparently jump in price this winter, apparently due to a rubbish Malaysian rubber season. Two years ago, I could find something like a Yoko A539 for £25 a corner, plus fitting, in 195/50 15 size. that tyre has more than doubled.
Tall order, whats the best tyre choice for ~£200, 4 tyres, fitted etc? National Tyres are pricing the Yoko Cs, S’s and Advans at about the same price (£42 each plus fitting).
I find National Tyres to be good on service. Local branch seem to know what they are doing rather than some of the back street boys. However try www.tyre-shopper.co.uk. Choose your tyres and pay online. You pick a convenient local fitting centre and book the appointment when you buy and just turn up and have them fitted. Best part is that the fitting centres are all National Tyres! Prices can be anything up to 20% cheaper than buying direct.
Current price for 4 x Yoko at National £206.86, Tyre Shopper £184.40. Both prices all inclusive.
So V-rated Parada, V-rated AS01, H-rated A-Drive. Mk1 so technically I only need H-rated. All of them have the same 82 Load Index. I know the Parada has mixed reports in the wet; what about the AS01s?
I’ve had enough of Toyos from over the years. Tried Kumho years ago, managed to flat-spot them in a single track session…
Ok so you obviously are a clever man (presumably) how about this one, when I used to run a car in the Legends championship one dark-art I could never really get my tiny brain around was this business of altering the nose angle of the diff to alter the bite of the rear wheels.
One of my mechanics was ex-stock car racing and he seemed to understand what it meant but im still clue-less as to how it works, what does your considerable shelf-ful of text books say about that particular aspect of dynamic chassis set-up?
Just as yourself I have run cars in many different aspects of motor-sport gaining a pole position at Thruxton in a BTTC support race Renault Clio which our driver managed to convert into second place in the race, and many class titles in many classes of the British Rallycross Championship including the overall title in 2007, as well as the lunatic Legends.
Sounds like its more of a mis-matched tyre problem than a car set-up problem for the chap who started this thead in any case.
Hi it’s me, ‘the chap who started this’! Well it really has opened a can of worms. Lot’s of really interesting and very technical stuff coming out. I was happy with the handling of the 1.6 on the Avons and the mis-matched Avons and Barums. It’s the matched set of Pirellis on the 1.8 that just don’t quite feel right in the wet that made me start the thread. To be honest I don’t really feel the need to start looking into altering any geometry settings. There’s nothing in the way that it handles in the dry that would make me think there was anything inherently wrong with the settings. My thoughts were more along the lines of which way to go the next time I need tyres. Seems like nobody really has anything good to say about Pirellis particularly on the 5. Yoko and Toyo seem pretty popular so think I might give them a go. Nice that we can get a decent set of four tyres for our motors for the price that a friend of mine pays for one tyre for his 17" rims on his Vectra.
Toyo T1R from Camskill, £29.10 just checked again, bargain! There is no other tyre that comes close to the wet weather performace in an MX5, no-brainer, end of?
checks shelf< nope, nothing on chassis set up, and I’ve no idea what the back axle of a Legends race car looks like. But if it’s a live axle, and depending on the suspension linkages used, you could change the squat charateristics of the rear suspension by adjusting the nose angle of the diff. More squat gives you more traction. I’ve seen adjustments for squat on rear subframes of cars with IRS multi-link rear ends where they rotate the entire subframe - something similar could be applied to MX5s.
So no more actual data from you then? I was hoping to get confirmation that you had increased the front axle ride height by 3mm and got a 15kg increase in weight over the rear axle, and that your figures weren’t just from adjusting one corner. Theories and models are worthless unless they match real life, so I’m more than happy to bin a model if it doesn’t match real data. I’m happy to share results too, in case they can help someone.
Yes, I suggested it was dreadful tyres in my first post, having tried P6000s on my MX5 and found them to be dreadful.
Please confirm your data one way or another. If something really bonkers happens with ride heights on MX5s then it’d be nice to be able to predict it for all those people with coil-overs.
And if nothing bonkers happens with ride heights on MX5s it’d be nice for all those people with coil-overs not to have to worry.
Hi, theres a lot more to life than data, sounds like you need to get out more often Mr Muppet, at the end of the day a lot of set-up has to do with how the driver prefers the car to feel to him.
Of course did anyone mention that 1.8s have more torque than 1.6s and will probably break traction earlier in the rev range than a 1.6 even on the same tyres? Also the front to rear weight bias of a Mk1 is repudedly 52% Front / 48% rear, the 1.8 is some 35kg heavier than a 1.6, most of which must be engine but also the 1.8 runs a heavier (larger) diff at the rear. Add to that the extra weight of the aircon compressor/ evaporator and the power steering and we will find the 1.8 may have a slightly higher front/rear weight bias, which will also have a bearing on feel when comparing the two.
That’s right - there are more important things than data. Honesty, decency, manners, integrity are all way more important. You know what else is important? Being able to tell whether what someone says can be trusted, or whether they are willing to make unsubstantiated claims then become evasive when asked to clarify them.
I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, Doc, so just answer the question one way or the other. Did you actually measure a 15kg increase in rear axle weight from simultaneously raising both front corners 3mm, or was it just added to one rear wheel when you adjusted one front damper?
