New year, new thread. 2016 brings a 265mm tire limit to the STU boost buggies. While not the 285s that many had hoped for, it will be nice to have some more grip. Now the question for most of us is whether to stick with 255s on our 17s or to spend the money on 265s on 18s. There are mixed opinions on whether or not 10-inch wide wheels can be fitted within the STU fender rolling rules, so it will be interesting to see which wheels people end up running. Not that interesting, though, because we're still just talking about 0.5" of tire width.


Previous threads:
2015 STU discussion
2014 STU discussion
2013 STU discussion
2012 STU discussion
2011 STU Discussion
2010 STU
2009 STU
2008 STU
Pre-2008 STU thread

 

Tire rack was kind enough to re-measure the relevant RE-71R sizes after BriK inquired. Their current specs:

Upgrading to 255s is only a tiny jump in tread width. The 265s are about an inch wider at the tread, though.


I'm leaning toward the 265 setup this year, but I'm not looking forward to spending all of that extra money on tires and wheels.

 

Just to stir the pot (while the RS is still up for sale.....) Wouldn't the PROPER measurements for our wacky usage be more meaningful if done on the proper wheel widths? 245s were commonly ran on a 9.5" in STU, not 8.5"... so measure that vs. the 255/265 on the wheel widths likely to be used for the class.


Anyway, wishing all my boost-brothers a GREAT showing in 2016, still up in the air what will be the next axe to play with here, though I am certain it will scream track-day/time-attack as much as anything.

 

Those dates have to be wrong for the Pros and NT, unless all the races are on Monday and Tuesday now....:-)

 

Pertaining to the "tire width" conversation, I'll just leave this here again:

RE71Rs, both on 9" wheels

 

Agreed, those dates (from SOLOMATTERS) are horribly wrong

 

Yeah those dates are way off. Crows is:

SCCA National Tour - April 23-24, Crows Landing
SCCA Pro Solo - April 30-May 1, Crows Landing

 

I pulled the copy-and-pasted SOLOMATTERS schedule from the first post for now.

Does anyone have a link to a better schedul? I'm coming up empty on the SCCA website.

 

Disappointing that the 255 is nearly identical to the 245 here, but I'm still jealous that you have that gigantic empty building for working on your Evo.

 

That's packwood, come to tour/pro and you'll see how we roll.

 

I think I'll probably be there in FS

 

I have the West Coast dates, fwiw


San Diego Match Tour - March 19th and 20th
El Toro Pro - April 9-10
Crow's Landing National Tour - April 23-24
Crow's Landing Pro Solo - April 30th-May 1st
Packwood National Tour - July 9-10
Packwood Pro Solo - July 16-17

 

2016 Schedule

Championship Tours
https://www.scca.com/pages/championship-tour

Match Tours
https://www.scca.com/pages/match-tour

ProSolos
https://www.scca.com/pages/prosolo

 

Since I have an Evo X, I am definitely going 265. Debating about getting 10” wheels or keep the 9.5” finding the perfect offset wheels could be an issue… thoughts?

Options 1) 265/35R18 & loose ~1 MPH in 2nd gear; fitment should be ok
Options 2) Rumors of 265/45R18 RE-71 R coming this year??? That size should make the 2nd gear better for me…but this tire may be around 1.7” taller than the stock size 245/40/18 so clearance up front could be an issue.

 

The X has more room for wheels than the VIII/IX does. I'd spend some time in the wheel forum finding a wheel setup that someone else has already done the homework on. The key is to make sure that it actually fits within STU-legal fenders. A lot of the posts you find in the wheels forum here don't actually fit under compression.

I'm not familiar with the X, but 265/45R18 seems way too tall. If you're not already spending a lot of time on the rev limiter on your courses, then you're not going to miss 1MPH of top speed.

A 1.7" taller tire is really, really tall. Keep in mind that your ride height will also go up by half that amount, and you don't really want another 0.85" of ride height increase if you can avoid it. You'd also be reducing your acceleration everywhere due to the taller gearing. And the tires are going to be a lot heavier, and so on.

The only scenario where you'd benefit from a tire that much taller is a course where you spend a lot of time on the rev limiter.