Are these tires sticky enough to cause axle breakage after many hard launches? Not that my car can even move at this point.
That's a good question. I'm not sure they would since they are not drag radials or slicks. Maybe someone "car smarter" will chime in.
Tough call. As I noted, I was unable to get them to break loose on 3 or 4 tries on the street. They did break loose at the track but no where near like my RSAs would. I did NOT do any burnout and drove around the box best I could (half the times the idiot with the hose would spray the box while I was sitting right next to it waiting for the cars at the tree to go). I'm sure Hal must have warmed his up a couple of times. I wonder if it makes them even stickier? With the RSA's, anything more than about 3/4 pedal when you first mash it would break them loose. So the way I'd launch those was instant 3/4 and roll the rest of the way into it (from a dead idle). With the Nittos it's about 7/8 pedal. Pretty much anything short of just slamming the pedal to the mat. I think maybe we know of one instance where someone managed to break a half shaft stock with DRs? But that was only one or two incidents? Surely it just might have been due to a mfg defect or the likes? or something else. Tony just busted his half shaft and/or rear mainly due to hitting a pot hole. So it could have been external influence. (After my street trials I had high hopes heading to the track. No skill required, no variability. Just snap the pedal to the mat and hold on. I thought about the half shafts. I got warranty. I figured there would be plenty of friends to push the car out of the Infineon front gate onto the side of the highway and I'd have AAA pick it up there... figured there might be warranty issues if the AAA invoice had the pick up location listed as "60' mark of Infineon drag strip".)
They worked pretty good this last time at the track. I found them to be predictable, stable. Less capable than the Hoosiers but you knew that was going to be the case coming into it. I lost 3-4 seconds per lap which is comparable to the $340-each Bridgestones I was using on the track before I went to the Hoosiers. I had like 750 miles on them at Thunder Hill. Temperature, tire pressures, even track surface was about the same. No explanation as to the difference in experience but I sure as hell didn't imagine their crappiness the first time. I only ran them on the last session of the day, and I'm planning on doing that again on July 4 and 5 at Infineon. That will no doubt be a real hot day. One negative thing I did notice is that they took a beating in terms of wear. Way faster than the Bridgestones. But then again they are much cheaper tires.
Matt/Dave, I know you guy's are running the 255/45/20's all the way around. Assuming that the 275's will fit on the front (Dave's got me scared now) would you expect them to perform better than the 255's? I know my V's felt like they fit good on the stock rims and didn't feel like they rolled at all, but am not sure if the NT05's will feel as confident maybe due to sidewall stiffness. Thoughts?
