roofis
06-13-2005, 01:33 AM
Just had an autox event today and it was one of those cold, windy, rainy days that seem purposefully crafted to spoil good racing conditions. Since many of us RS2 owners are essentially guinea pigs who are testing out Hankook's new tire, I thought I'd lend some info.
To start, these are brand new 225/45/16 (~$350 shipped) mounted onto OEM six spoke 2.5RS wheels. The car is a 98 Impreza L. Negating a head unit & stereo speakers, and gutted interior other than front seats and the dashboard, the car is 100% stock -as in NOTHING else done to it at all. Had a fresh 10w30 oil change as of about 60 miles ago, and I ran the course with the gas needle about 1/3 the way down between the 1/4 tank marking and the E. I’m not certain on how many gallons that'd be, maybe 3-4 or so. The course was set up in a high school parking lot so the pavement was far from anything Nurburg-esque. There was some loose debris (small rocks, dead grass,etc) here and there, plus this wasn't the smoooth sort of asphalt like on a race track. It was...well…a parking lot. But things went smoothly and there was no real risk of hitting and oak leaf and careening out of control.
Ok, reason for telling you all that is because I'm not comparing these to any other tires but my Falken Ziex ZE502 (195/60/15) which I drove the last event on through sunny, warm, perfect conditions. They still sucked ass. No grip, very squishy feeling, and bulimically thin compared to the Hankooks. I was a bit nervous running the 225 width, but be it slaloms, pivot cones or hairpin turns, there was no rubbing whatsoever. Pressures for the day started cold as (PSI) 42F and 38R. The differences between the Ziex and the RS2's were immediately apparent. Turning into a corner was soooo much more controlled. It was a matter of pointing the steering wheel in the right direction, and I'd hold a solid line all the way through. With the Ziex's, the steering wheel would turn, but the tires wouldn't stick me to the ground so I'd skid off on a tangent opposing where I wanted to be, all while the tires are screeching like hell. The grip from the Hankooks was simply amazing. The steering was noticeably more responsive too. Nothing miraculous, these tires aren’t an alternative to any expensive coilovers or a roll cage, but the smaller, stiffer sidewalls helped me a great deal.
Rain came for my 2nd and 4th runs and the Impreza’s understeer came back to haunt me. There were not torrential downpours, but it was enough to make some small puddles and get the pavement thoroughly wet. By then I’d lowered the tire pressures to 42/36, and then the rears some more down to 35psi. In wet, I couldn’t plow into the turns like I was when it was dry out. My front kinda wanted to do that tangent thing again. At the end of my second run I went up to the gas station and played around with some on ramps and straightaways. These tires are pretty quiet, which is still kinda loud when all that’s between you and the road surface is a piece of sheet metal (the floor). Still, it was a lot more audibly comfortable than having snow tires on with a full interior. I didn’t try to test any limits in the rain (again, it was only drizzling, but enough to get everything wet), but I felt much more confident with them than the Ziex’s. Supposedly the roads are slipperiest when rain just starts falling and all the water, oils and grime mix together. For daily driving, these tires are great in the wet as going to work isn’t an HPDE, but for the track, I don’t want to say they’re magnificent or otherwise. I’ll need to play around with them more, but for my 2 wet runs, they did surprisingly well and I’d have no hesitancy with pushing them further.
Damn, this is getting long so I’ll hurry up. The RS2’s helped my braking out A LOT. I had a nice solid feeling deceleration, of course my braking distances were shorter and the brake/turn in transition was so much smoother than with the Ziex’s. Coming to a pivot cone didn’t mean “drifting” around it and loosing 3 seconds while doing it. It was a perfect brake, turn, accelerate out. No tires squealing either = no wheel sliding across the pavement. Good.
The 42/34 pressures gave me my best time of the day (about a second less than my competing lowest time) but this was after 5 consecutive “buck runs” so the tires were heated up pretty well. I placed tenth out of about fourty cars and first in the novice class. This was my second driving event ever.
Here’s my point though, I’ve not tried a lot of the tires out in this price range and I’ve never been on R compounds either but I chose the RS2’s after a week of lurking on the Subaru forms and a few other places. If I’d not gone with these, (the Azenis 215 is out of production, and the 615 is more $$ than I wanted to spend) I’d have looked more into the Kumho 712 or Dunlop FM901 and maybe the Nitto 450. The Hankooks were instantly appealing because of the 225mm width and 45mm sidewall fitted onto a 16 inch wheel. I didn’t notice much in the way of a quicker acceleration, but granted I was concentrating on the course, not how fast I’d get to 30mph.
I’m still amazed at how confidence-inducing the Hankooks are. You might say, “Yeah well you don’t know what it’s like to be on any other tires…biatch!.” True, but will the small differences between the tires of this class really be so severely recognizable to someone like me, who's not previously been on ES100, Azenis, FM901, or whichever tires? I ‘m also still just getting acquainted with the limits of the car without any modifications to it. I placed higher than a lot of well tuned cars with drivers that have obviously been coming to events for a while (which doesn’t really make sense if you think about it but oh well).
All you seasoned track veterans, none of this may be of much use to you but to someone in my position and experience level, I think there’s some meaningful stuff here. Buying these was half researching and half hoping the ratings and everyone’s opinions matched what I expected from the performance of the tire. I use the Hankooks on the 16” Subaru wheels as track only, and the Ziex’s on 15” steelies for daily driving. When I wear out the Hankooks, I plan on moving on to R compounds. If you’re looking for an inexpensive tire that gives you excellent performance, I’d very much suggest the RS2’s. For my knowledge level, the tires will be perfect for what I ask the car to do in autocross. BMW drivers school coming up so we’ll see how that goes. Some harder bushings, adjusted camber and a thick rear sway bar would be heaven with these tires. But yeah…this is all just what I think.
Work at 6am sucks. I’m out.
Hope this was of some help to you guys.
-Chris
To start, these are brand new 225/45/16 (~$350 shipped) mounted onto OEM six spoke 2.5RS wheels. The car is a 98 Impreza L. Negating a head unit & stereo speakers, and gutted interior other than front seats and the dashboard, the car is 100% stock -as in NOTHING else done to it at all. Had a fresh 10w30 oil change as of about 60 miles ago, and I ran the course with the gas needle about 1/3 the way down between the 1/4 tank marking and the E. I’m not certain on how many gallons that'd be, maybe 3-4 or so. The course was set up in a high school parking lot so the pavement was far from anything Nurburg-esque. There was some loose debris (small rocks, dead grass,etc) here and there, plus this wasn't the smoooth sort of asphalt like on a race track. It was...well…a parking lot. But things went smoothly and there was no real risk of hitting and oak leaf and careening out of control.
Ok, reason for telling you all that is because I'm not comparing these to any other tires but my Falken Ziex ZE502 (195/60/15) which I drove the last event on through sunny, warm, perfect conditions. They still sucked ass. No grip, very squishy feeling, and bulimically thin compared to the Hankooks. I was a bit nervous running the 225 width, but be it slaloms, pivot cones or hairpin turns, there was no rubbing whatsoever. Pressures for the day started cold as (PSI) 42F and 38R. The differences between the Ziex and the RS2's were immediately apparent. Turning into a corner was soooo much more controlled. It was a matter of pointing the steering wheel in the right direction, and I'd hold a solid line all the way through. With the Ziex's, the steering wheel would turn, but the tires wouldn't stick me to the ground so I'd skid off on a tangent opposing where I wanted to be, all while the tires are screeching like hell. The grip from the Hankooks was simply amazing. The steering was noticeably more responsive too. Nothing miraculous, these tires aren’t an alternative to any expensive coilovers or a roll cage, but the smaller, stiffer sidewalls helped me a great deal.
Rain came for my 2nd and 4th runs and the Impreza’s understeer came back to haunt me. There were not torrential downpours, but it was enough to make some small puddles and get the pavement thoroughly wet. By then I’d lowered the tire pressures to 42/36, and then the rears some more down to 35psi. In wet, I couldn’t plow into the turns like I was when it was dry out. My front kinda wanted to do that tangent thing again. At the end of my second run I went up to the gas station and played around with some on ramps and straightaways. These tires are pretty quiet, which is still kinda loud when all that’s between you and the road surface is a piece of sheet metal (the floor). Still, it was a lot more audibly comfortable than having snow tires on with a full interior. I didn’t try to test any limits in the rain (again, it was only drizzling, but enough to get everything wet), but I felt much more confident with them than the Ziex’s. Supposedly the roads are slipperiest when rain just starts falling and all the water, oils and grime mix together. For daily driving, these tires are great in the wet as going to work isn’t an HPDE, but for the track, I don’t want to say they’re magnificent or otherwise. I’ll need to play around with them more, but for my 2 wet runs, they did surprisingly well and I’d have no hesitancy with pushing them further.
Damn, this is getting long so I’ll hurry up. The RS2’s helped my braking out A LOT. I had a nice solid feeling deceleration, of course my braking distances were shorter and the brake/turn in transition was so much smoother than with the Ziex’s. Coming to a pivot cone didn’t mean “drifting” around it and loosing 3 seconds while doing it. It was a perfect brake, turn, accelerate out. No tires squealing either = no wheel sliding across the pavement. Good.
The 42/34 pressures gave me my best time of the day (about a second less than my competing lowest time) but this was after 5 consecutive “buck runs” so the tires were heated up pretty well. I placed tenth out of about fourty cars and first in the novice class. This was my second driving event ever.
Here’s my point though, I’ve not tried a lot of the tires out in this price range and I’ve never been on R compounds either but I chose the RS2’s after a week of lurking on the Subaru forms and a few other places. If I’d not gone with these, (the Azenis 215 is out of production, and the 615 is more $$ than I wanted to spend) I’d have looked more into the Kumho 712 or Dunlop FM901 and maybe the Nitto 450. The Hankooks were instantly appealing because of the 225mm width and 45mm sidewall fitted onto a 16 inch wheel. I didn’t notice much in the way of a quicker acceleration, but granted I was concentrating on the course, not how fast I’d get to 30mph.
I’m still amazed at how confidence-inducing the Hankooks are. You might say, “Yeah well you don’t know what it’s like to be on any other tires…biatch!.” True, but will the small differences between the tires of this class really be so severely recognizable to someone like me, who's not previously been on ES100, Azenis, FM901, or whichever tires? I ‘m also still just getting acquainted with the limits of the car without any modifications to it. I placed higher than a lot of well tuned cars with drivers that have obviously been coming to events for a while (which doesn’t really make sense if you think about it but oh well).
All you seasoned track veterans, none of this may be of much use to you but to someone in my position and experience level, I think there’s some meaningful stuff here. Buying these was half researching and half hoping the ratings and everyone’s opinions matched what I expected from the performance of the tire. I use the Hankooks on the 16” Subaru wheels as track only, and the Ziex’s on 15” steelies for daily driving. When I wear out the Hankooks, I plan on moving on to R compounds. If you’re looking for an inexpensive tire that gives you excellent performance, I’d very much suggest the RS2’s. For my knowledge level, the tires will be perfect for what I ask the car to do in autocross. BMW drivers school coming up so we’ll see how that goes. Some harder bushings, adjusted camber and a thick rear sway bar would be heaven with these tires. But yeah…this is all just what I think.
Work at 6am sucks. I’m out.
Hope this was of some help to you guys.
-Chris