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- RC45
- RC45
just mentioning that because if the 350z has N1 tires and S would be illegal for street, then what do those R tires mean?
In the real world, there are essentially 3 types of tyres. (as I see it, and perhaps htis is what PD was going for)
First "normal street tyres" - what ever normal might be as the car ships from the factory, some cheap rubbish Dunlop Superslip Nogrip tyres for a Corolla or some expensive street Michelin Pilot Sport tyres for a Viper or Porsche GT3 RS. Remember they dont even make a cheap rubbish Dunlop Superslip Nogrip in the Viper size - so having an option to select such a tyre makes no sense.
Second "sports/track tyres" - this might range (S1) from the much more expenisve Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tyres that would last about 2000 miles on the Viper or GT3 driven on the street, or maybe (S3) DOT semi slick Hoosier R/A or Kuhmo V7xx "DOT street" but not what youwould drive on the street.
Third "race slicks" - this is probably hard compound (R1) true race slicks ranging to (R3) soft compound true rac slicks. Tyres youwould be foolish to try use on the street as you could not heat them up enough and have very poor water displacement properties.
Anyway, thats the way I like to view it
For a comparison, I use Goodyear Supercar F1 Fiorana tyres for my street driving (Ferrari F50 OEM rear tyre on my rear wheels, C5 Z06 OEM rear tyre on my front wheels) and in cooler weather or when the tyre have no heat in them they have very little traction to offer - and the 660bhp my car produces will blow the tyres away at the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th gear shifts.
Using these tyres on a race track is a nightmare excercise in balancing the car between extreme snap oversteer coming out of sharp corners and extreme understeer if I go into a sharp bend too hot - and trying to get the power down accelerting through 100mph sweepers is a single throttle feather away from an oversteer slide into the outfield.
But for normal, level headed street driving they are ok - so I would consider these tyres to be N2 Normal Street tyres - the Michelin Pilots I tried for a short while seemed a little better, I might rate them maybe N3.
For serious track work I currently use Kuhmo V700's or V710's (depending on what TireRack has available for quick delivery) - These tyres are like driving on velcro drums - you have to seriously over drive them to get them to break loose - or be very violent with your inputs - I would rate these as S2 and S3 respectively. They are super sticky, but not good enough to push to the insane limits real racecars and drivers need and can use.
This is what I would consider Rx tyres to be - I would not bother running Goodyear Racing Slicks on my street car at the track, because the extreme loads these tyres put on the suspension components (bearings, ball joints shock mounts etc) does not seem worth the minimal gains someone of my limited skill could get using these tyres on track.
Anyway, enough rambling - time for someone to call me out as poseur, liar and fraud (j/k)