Meaty Tires Thread

These have my curiosity up!

225/50/15, 60AAA wear rating, street legal...7.7" tread width might work well on an 8" wide wheel though I would put them on my 9's and most often recommend a 205 on an 8" wheel.

Among street tires, it's the "one that feels the most like a racing tire" according to Motor Trend Head 2 Head's Randy Pobst.
(In case not familiar with Randy Pobst is an exceptionally fast racer with decades of winning under his belt in autocross and road racing)



Not sure if posted before, if so I simply missed the post and I seldom miss tires in sizes I can use!

These Trofeo R's are what all of the big guns use for the fastest times around tracks (P1, LaFerrari, Z28, 675LT ect.) so you know they are going to be one sticky tire. I know people also comapire these to Michilen's Sport Cup 2's which have also had their fair share of applications on very high performance vehicals.

But the Pirellis are ONE THIRD the tread wear rating of the Michelins, IF that has ANY bearing at all on their comparative 'stickiness'.

Yeah the treadwear ratings have some value, but they are assigned by a manufacturer and don?t necessarily dictate overall "stickiness" of tires.

For instance, the stock FiST tire, a Bridgestone Potenza RE050A has a tread wear rating of 140 were as all of the ultrahigh performance summer tires deemed the "stickiest" (Pontenza RE71R, Dunlop Durezza ect.) have a tread wear rating of 200. So treadwear ratings need to be taken into context of the tires life span, not necessarily the overall stickiness of said tire.

I just never saw them in a size I could use before and the price is very reasonable in that size at $168 each.

One reviewer said he got 6-7 track days and 750 miles to and from the track so that is pretty darn good for such a low tread wear rating.

These might fit without any rubbing. Compared to the Toyo R888, or the new R888R's, the tread width is 0.5" narrower. Section width and diameter are identical at 9.2" and 23.9". Treadwear is less at 60 vs 100 for the Toyo's. Price is higher too - $168 vs $140.

On my car with TD 1.2 15x8 et 35's and R888's in 225/50, I get rubbing both front and rear at the edge of the tread. If I had 0.5" more clearance, I wouldn't have any rub. I was going to make another appointment with my fender puller, but these tires might be the answer.

These (the Trofeo Rs) would be for track use ONLY, correct?

You don't plan to daily drive on the street with these, do you?

I wish they had more streetworthy tires in 225/50 that were stiff sidewalled id be all over them I would love to run that size. There's no way I could use those on my daily with the mileage I do consistently I'd be forking out 600+ for tires every 3-4 weeks no thanks lol

I have driven to events on R888, RA1, V700 and a few others but always concerned with picking up nails, wear the out to fast, etc....I would only drive to events on the Trofeo R's as well for the same reasons.
It looks like they would not be so great in the rain, maybe straight line, not hitting standing water but turning could be "interesting".
I just looked at the R888R, I would not want to be out in much rain on that tire, full tread RA1 would be my choice though I always ran shaved RA1 on track and got great service out of them all the way to the cords, never heat cycled out.
The RA1 has a wider tread than all the above and barely fits my car with the rear camber change and maximum pulled and rolled fenders, sealer stripped off the liner to fender, on 9" wide wheels, the current topic is about 8" wide wheels of course, just mentioning some of this due to the great differences in actual specs versus manf size listings.
Likely mentioned before, the Hoosier R6 I had some old ones for test fitting, would be considered a 240 or wider though labeled 225, simple would not fit but the Tirerack specs which are normally very accurate show the newer R7 to be 8.6 wide in the 45 series and 8.8 in the 50 series where the RA1 shows 8.7 in 45 series and 8.5 in 50 series. I think the new R series is narrower now, likely caused by issues like being outlawed in some classes as overly wide, that has happened before so may of happened again.

It would make matters much easier to figure out if they only published real specs and quite using the current sidewall markings that are significantly misleading on so many tires even within the same model from same manf just different size markings.

I was planning to run the A7 for TT and any autocross events, I could of squeezed on the current 245/45/15, only 18lbs, 9.3 tread so might work well on 9's though optimal would be 10's...they would be FAST but damn expensive at $261 each, ouch!

Luckily I have had great service from JBtires buying fresh barely used take offs from race teams, been doing so for years, even in 285/335/18 for the race Vette the were around $400 shipped, now likely $500 but would cost close to $2k for brand new. Some of the tires were only scuffed, not even raced on, some a few laps, I always picked the best he had because shipping, mounting and balancing always cost the same and I would order enough to be on a pallet when I could to save on shipping per tire.

Savings are not so great on the 15's, my last batch of 8, 225/45/15 shaved, heat cycled, barely used and some not raced on a bit, $800 shipped, $100 each still a damn good deal but not like the big tire size deals. It must be great having a big race budget where you can have fresh tires for every event whether you even ran the tires from the last race or not and have many sets of them!

Street. I don't know why people think you can't drive DOT R's on the street. They're wonderful - way better than 200 treadwear tires. Every summer, I go on 3,000 mile road trips with them. I doubt Chevy would have put these on the Z28 if they had any concern for people's safety driving them on the street.

But, you should have another set of tires for winter. I left them on the car all this winter in Washington State and they were Ok even in the rain. I just left the car in the garage if the temp was below 40.

Based upon how my R888's are wearing, I'd probably get 10k miles out of them.

It is NOT any 'safety factor' I was addressing (they do NOT have the paper thin carcasses/belting systems of the pure track, 00-50 tread wear rated slicks, so flatting, or blowouts because of that is not a concern, but flatting because of picking up EVERY little piece of 'road shrapnel' IS still a concern), it was the CO$T of replacing tires that expensive so regularly.

But IF you can afford this, all the more power to ya, and I would as well if I could afford to 'play'.

I seriously doubt that anyone able to afford an $80K Z28 will complain much about having to spend $2K every couple of months to replace tires, IF they even drive it every day, let alone the $150K-$2MILLlON+ super/hypercar owners who would have to pay even more yet to replace theirs.

So since we are on the subject of track tires what about for a straight line? Drag radials? Brand? Slicks? I have never purchased a tire simply for the track before so it's all new to me and I'm soaking up as much info as possible.


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Loving this setup for a daily driver/ripper! -15x8 205/55/15 ecsta 4xii


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Looks Good ^

Also some thoughts from a recently X37 turbo install: Get the 225's. 205 Star Specs can't hook in second with Direzza Star specs. 93 octane, absolutely no tune revisions done yet.

I did not think that the bright silver 1.2s would look good on a magnetic, but they DO!!

Now I'm wondering if my gloss black 1.2s will appear to be 'lost' on my magnetic (even though they will show 1% of the crud that those will)?

Thanks! I love the pop of the high power silver. I originally wanted black too. I don't think they will appear lost , especially with the gloss if kept clean. They will give the car a sinister look for sure.


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I'm now a proud member of the club thanks to Plainrt. They're TD Prorace 1.2 with 205 50 15 Falken RT615k. I love the ride compared to the stock 17" rims.

[MENTION=4516]Ceecab705[/MENTION] those look good. I miss 15s.

YES, they DO!!

Thanks for the compliments, guys!