255 vs 245 NT01 on 9.5" wheel
Aug 13, 2018, 07:35 AM
#17
I ran a Chin event at Summit Point this weekend on the NT01s and wasn’t too impressed with them. I was a few tenths slower than last time out on Star Specs of the same size, despite having more HP. I lost time mostly in the carousel due to less lateral grip, especially in turns 5-9. The tires were wider for sure because I got some rubbing on the fender lips up front. I tried 38-42 hot pressures and they were just pushy at the limit compared to my old 200tw street tires. Maybe comparing full tread depth to 2/32nds isn’t a fair comparison though.
I've found 34 hot or so is the sweet spot on my heavy *** 10. Which means I usually go out with 25psi or so.
Aug 13, 2018, 12:13 PM
#18
I ran a Chin event at Summit Point this weekend on the NT01s and wasn’t too impressed with them. I was a few tenths slower than last time out on Star Specs of the same size, despite having more HP. I lost time mostly in the carousel due to less lateral grip, especially in turns 5-9. The tires were wider for sure because I got some rubbing on the fender lips up front. I tried 38-42 hot pressures and they were just pushy at the limit compared to my old 200tw street tires. Maybe comparing full tread depth to 2/32nds isn’t a fair comparison though.
I agree that is a lot of pressure.
Aug 13, 2018, 12:32 PM
#19
EvoM Guru
iTrader: (1)
If you just slapped some NT01's on, I could see a handling issue. The NT01's need more camber at a minimum. Pressure are a bit high, mine seem to see best temp across the tire at around 38 hot with good alignment.
Aug 13, 2018, 03:34 PM
#21
EvoM Guru
iTrader: (1)
Also, the NT01's like to carry some slip angle for fastest times. So, if you're trying to run the car nice and tidy through the corner, you may not be extracting the most out of the tire.
Aug 13, 2018, 03:39 PM
#22
I do like to drive with a decent slip angle, if I can induce it. With the Star Specs, once the car broke loose it was easy to adjust its attitude with the throttle. But with the Nittos, it went from glued down to just terminal understeer. I tried to find a neutral ground between the two, but it seemed non-existent for me. I may have been slower overall because it seemed like I needed to back off just to not overdrive the tires. I’m thinking that the pressures must have been just way too high.
Aug 13, 2018, 04:23 PM
#23
Originally Posted by EVO8LTW
I do like to drive with a decent slip angle, if I can induce it. With the Star Specs, once the car broke loose it was easy to adjust its attitude with the throttle. But with the Nittos, it went from glued down to just terminal understeer. I tried to find a neutral ground between the two, but it seemed non-existent for me. I may have been slower overall because it seemed like I needed to back off just to not overdrive the tires. I’m thinking that the pressures must have been just way too high.
Aug 13, 2018, 04:26 PM
#24
I personally don't have exp with the star specs but gawd damn I love the grip of the NT01's. Are they brand new? I know the more they wear down the gripper they get however still pretty damn grippy imo with the stickers still on. My camber specs are 3 degrees in the front and 1.5 in the rear. I have almost perfect wear from inside to outside of the tire and cold pressures are high 20's but may drop them after reading that pst few posts
Aug 14, 2018, 08:10 AM
#25
I do like to drive with a decent slip angle, if I can induce it. With the Star Specs, once the car broke loose it was easy to adjust its attitude with the throttle. But with the Nittos, it went from glued down to just terminal understeer. I tried to find a neutral ground between the two, but it seemed non-existent for me. I may have been slower overall because it seemed like I needed to back off just to not overdrive the tires. I’m thinking that the pressures must have been just way too high.
Your understeer problem with stickier tires sounds a lot like some problems I had in the past. For a while, most of my local AutoX events were on low-grip, sealed asphalt lots. I tuned my setup to work well in those conditions, but it would just understeer whenever we raced on a high-grip surface. Turns out I had learned to compensate for an understeering setup with on-throttle oversteer. It was a lot of fun to drive when it worked, but when grip levels increased the on-throttle oversteer became less effective and the understeer became the dominant handling characteristic. I had to revisit my whole setup to fix the understeer issue at the suspension level rather than relying on power to compensate for inherent problems.
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jedibow (Aug 27, 2018)