Tire for some street and some track
 

Ok, I know this has been discussed quite a bit, but I'm still debating on what to get. My Mustang is my track/weekend fun car. I tend to drive it to the track (unless its a multi day drive) occasionally on the street when its nice out, and 2-3 HPDE events a year.

I currently have Nitto NT555 tires on there, and they seem to grip well, but I don't have a ton of track time know better. I have a staggered set up, 18x9 up front and 18x10 in the back.

Right now I'm debating between the Nitto NT05, Nitto Invo, and the pilot super sports. I know there are members here who have experience with all of those so I'm open to suggestions.

I don't think my wife will let me get a different set of wheels to do a dedicated track set up (yet), so I need something that will fit my set up, give me some good grip at the track, and not kill me on the street.

Any advice would be great.

I think any "max performance" summer tire will do the trick. Those are the most aggressive street compounds that still have tread cut for water evacuation.

The Pilot is going to be the best tire period. The Nittos are a decent cheaper alternative.

True. I do well with the NT555 so I'm sure any of the ones I listed will do just as well or better.

Do you think they out perform the Nittos on the track?

I have them on my Shelby GT 350 as standard issue and they are standard issue on Corvettes. The cup tire is on the 350R and ZR1/Z06. That tells you everything you need to know. I've done track events at the Ford Racing School and Ron Fellows Corvette schools and these tires are awesome. I ran Nittos on my 2007 Shelby and they were good tires, really good for the money. They just weren't awesome.

So the NT555 is only a "ultra high performance" category tire. The NT05 is Nitto's "max performance" tire.

In terms of tire development for street/road course use, the NT555 is an ancient tire. Reasonable pricing keeps it popular.

I wasn't even all that impressed with what I saw with the NT05's when they first came out, either. Nitto's own video at the time showed the test car sliding all around on an S-bend like it was really intended for the drift crowd. I suspect that Terry Fair (Vorshlag) agrees with that assessment.

The MPSS is capable of putting up pretty serious cornering g's for a true street tire - in excess of 1.3 in the big square fitment I have for my '08 GT (285/35's on 18x11's all around). The MPSS is perhaps the "go-to" choice if your track day turns rainy (screen shot picked from a ~12 minute session in the rain).

http://www.mustang6g.com/forums/pict...ictureid=10685



For your forced induction setup, you probably want a small amount of stagger, and ideally I'd steal an idea or two from the 5th gen Camaro ZL1 (285/35's on 10's up front, 305/35's on 11's out back). You might not be hitting 1.3+ because of the extra weight up front, but I would expect 1.2's.

One benefit of having a dedicated track set is that if you manage to cord a track tire at an event, you can throw a pair of your 'street' tires on that axle for a much safer and uneventful drive home.

MPSS is a pretty durable tire provided you put several hundred or more wasy to moderately hard street miles on them first. The tires in this picture had ten track days (intermediate level) and somewhere over 4000 street miles at the time the picture was taken. They've lost a little grip, but they're less than half worn in terms of tread depth.


http://www.mustang6g.com/forums/pict...pictureid=8674



Norm

Thanks for all the info everyone. I think I'm going with the Pilot Super Sports. I have the shop near me working up a quote for the everything.

You will love them.

I went with the Mickey Thompson Street Comp Performance tires for cost reasons and they are pretty good for the price. Much better than my old NT555's ever were.

In our local track the best tire so far is the Bridgestone Potenza RE71R. Shaves 3 seconds off a lap time, tried on two different cars. A Nissan 370Z and a Honda S2000, but they wear FAST. We call them cheater tires, because they claim a TW of 200 but they feel just as sticky as the Toyo R888's which have a TW of 80. I know TW is different for each manufacturer, but that Bridgestone is definitely not a daily driver tire. I touched one just as it came off the track and it felt like one of those glue mousetraps., pebbles were actually stuck to them.

The best compromise are definitely the Michelins and finances permitting will be my next tires.