After a pretty successful track day with
Bumblestook last week on the new Yokohama Advan A052 tires, I knew I had to get a set for Kay. While the Bridgestone RE-71R is no slouch of a tire and these Advans still have to prove themselves to be better, they have a few traits I was interested in. The most important of those traits is that they likes heat. I often leave the car idling in grid in between runs to keep the engine cool and doing so keeps all four corners really warm. If the temps get even close to 70F I struggle keeping the RE-71Rs cool unless I shut the engine off. I thin on concrete at Nationals, in hot temperatures and long courses, these tires will be phenomal on a Cayman.
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| Advan A052 265/35/18 Rear Tires - 5-18-2019 |
At last week's track day testing them on Bumblestook they also proved to be quite amazing in cooler temps and even in the damp. They were very predictable and even when I got into some four wheel slides the tire feedback and response was there. I've driven on RE-71Rs on the track on the same car and I'd say both had similar grip but somehow I liked the feel of the Advans better. They felt more "supple" without losing feel, feedback, and responsiveness.
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| Advan A052 245/40/18 Front Tires - 5-18-2019 |
I was hoping they'd release a 255 width 18" tire but they stopped at 245. However, when I started to look at the specs I noticed something interesting, these tires run quite a bit wider than the RE-71R so much so that on Bumblestook I have a tiny bit of rubbing in the rear where I didn't before on the same size tire. I decided to go with the 245s in the front and the maximum STU allows, 265, in the rear. The 245s are actually about as wide an RE71R 255 and the 265 is almost half an inch wider when mounted. I didn't quite believe the spec sheet at first but comparing the two mounted tires side by side you can see it even if I don't bring out a ruler. The 245s are taller than 255 REs and also taller than the 265s but the different is about as much as when I ran 265/285 18s when Kay was in B-Street and I had no issues with speed sensors or other traction control sensors on the car going crazy.
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| 265 RE-71R (left) vs 265 A052 (right) both on 18x10 wheels |
SJF Performance, as always, carefully mounted these tires and we also put a durometer on them just to test. You can see that the A052 is a hair harder but the RE71Rs just came off the car after me spiritedly driving on them for about an hour so they were still pretty warm. What was more telling is that the durometer left a mark on the tire where it didn't on REs. These are definitely soft tires but the sidewall is surprisingly still stiff.
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| SJF mounting tires - 5-18-2019 |
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| Durometer on RE-71R |
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| Durometer on Advan A052 |
When I was driving around on Bumblestook, even on the street I noticed quite a difference but I wasn't sure if it was just because of her suspension setup. Now that I have the same tires on Kay, I can definitely confirm that despite these having similarly stiff side walls, they are incredible good on the street. They have minimal to no road noise and amazingly absorb a lot of unevenness in the road surface. It was quite a noticeable difference driving home on these tires. I'm holding my full judgement on them until I've had a chance to race them in the dry but so far I will say that for both street and damp conditions hot or cold, these are on par with the REs in terms of grip while feeling quite a bit better.
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| Advan A052 on Advan GT Premium Wheels |
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| Advan A052 on Advan GT Premium Wheels |
One thing I will note though is that unlike the RE-71Rs these tires don't have an extra "lip" around the edge to protect the rim so if you street park and suck at it, you could curb your lip. It also makes it look a little "weird" in that the wheel sticks out a bit from the tire but I don't care as long as these tires perform and so far I'm one happy customer.
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| No "rim protector lip" on the tire |
If weather holds I'm hoping to test these out next weekend and will report back some thoughts along with some suspension changes during the June lull in racing.
