A3S04 for road racing?

[Jake]

Last year I ran the 205/55VR14 R3S04’s on my ITA MR2. My car is REALLY easy on tires (balanced, light, lots of camber), and after a full year of road racing, I probably have half the tread left on them. The tires never really overheat, and I only get about 5-8psi growth in them. I can fit 225’s, but I haven’t because I’ve been afraid I wouldn’t get them hot enough. My thought is this year to run the A3S04 in 225/50VR14’s this year. Is this a good idea? Will I melt them? Thoughts?

BTW, from tirerack’s site:

“The availability of both compounds also allows drivers to match their tread compound’s capabilities to the weight and horsepower of their vehicle, as well as to the track and temperature conditions in which they will be running. Heavy vehicles, high horsepower, demanding tracks and warm ambient temperatures will probably require the use of R3S04 tires while light vehicles, low horsepower, less stressful tracks and cooler ambient temperatures may allow the use of the A3S04 tires.”

[jlucas]

I know people with much heavier cars than yours that run AS compound all the time.

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Jeremy Lucas
Team Honda Research
Kumho - Cobalt - Comptech

[Jake]

Really? What kind of luck do they have with them?

[jlucas]

These are SCCA Nationa guys in T1 & T2. If you can use them without them getting overheated it will be faster for you.

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Jeremy Lucas
Team Honda Research
Kumho - Cobalt - Comptech

[emwavey]

I have a set of older compound, A3SO3s that I ran at a school in March. Other then picking up lots of other people's rubber and stones, they seemed to be in good shape after 4-5 track sessions. I'm a newbie in road racing so take my results with a big grain of salt.

I was considering selling these and going with Toyos on both sets of wheels, but after reading this, and thinking about the cost to actually have new tires mounted along with the cost of tires, I may just experiment with these puppies.

-dave
#29 ITA CRX

[garrmark]

Hoosier's selling the discontinued 04's on their website at a "discount".