RedCelica

With the threat of rain Sunday I was a bit concerned my old RS3s were simply and plainly a bad idea to take as "rain backups." While not at the wearbars in the center of the tread, both the inner and outter edges were worn nearly slick. After kicking the idea around in another thread here, I found a great closeout deal on TR for 2013 production RA1s @ $180 a tire. Thankfully NASA has Phil's Tire Service on site, so I called them for an unsuccessful price match, and then ordered through TR. TR was more than willing to ship directly to the track, and the TMI shop was willing to receive at least my small order of 4 tires.

Day 1 I went out on RC1s with only a weekend on them. Running about 36 psi hot was the right spot for these, although after dismounting them they might do better around 33 hot. Max G I was able to snag was 1.69 on my fastest lap.

Day 2: Phil's finally got around to mounting my tires and had them set to 34 psi cold. I put them on the car and went out to give them a good scrubbing before running them too hard. Coming back into the paddock I could see why I was squirming so much...they were at 50 psi hot I bumped them down to 38 hot, but then I just felt like they were having to work too hard. 3 session I went out at 36 psi hot and they seemed better. I was able to 1.39G out of them.


Summary: RC1s, based on the data I collected do produce more mechanical grip than RA1, they are cheaper than RA1s, but on the downside are less predictable than RA1s. Empirically speaking, I think the RC1s are about .5 a second faster than the RA1s, but they should be...they aint got no tread!




10/2017: Bump. So after a rainy morning at VIR, and me being too lazy to swap tires back, I really got to see how different the RA1s were from the RC1s. At glance after glance at the speedo, I noticed I about about 3-5 mph slower on the RAs than the Maxxis tires. Since the Maxxis' are way cheaper as well, on a dry day, I'll take them 100% of the time. Even after over 16 heat cycles, the RC1s feel better than brand new and have a lot of meat left on them.

Kenny_Stang

Thanks for the review, so did the rain end up holding off? Only bad I've heard about the RC1's is that they don't like the heat, they get really greasy in summer heat here in Texas. What were ambient and track temps?

RedCelica

Yeah it did. Barely even rained on the way home. Ambient temps back in feb were in the 50s, and 70s this weekend. I've got CMP scheduled in May so I'll post results if they dont hold up. I never felt like they got greasy on me so far.

Buru_S2k

Hey RedC, what wheels are you running / offsets?

RedCelica

TR C3s 17x9 +62

https://www.tirerack.com/wheels/WheelCloseUpServlet?target=wheelCloseUp&wheelMake= TRMotorsport&wheelModel=C3&wheelFinish=Light+Grey+ Painted&tab=wheels

s2000Junky

For the dry, I wonder how much improvement the RA1 would be if you did the optional shave down on them. May still not be as good as the RC1, don't know. Obviously the RA1 would be a better wet tire off the shelf.

insanedohc

I've run the RC1 on both my S2000 and my old Evo X. I haven't experienced the RC1 getting greasy much with the S2k, but with the heavy Evo the tires would only be fast for 2-3 laps. That thing was also 3500lbs with me in it, so it was a good 650 lbs heavier than my S2k, along with the AWD system cooking the front tires.

The RC1 is pretty fast on the first day, but I usually lose 1-1.5 seconds after the first day on them. I've noticed they get very unpredictable after a couple months. I had about 30 heat cycles on a set, they weren't even at half tread wear yet, but they would understeer bad on entry, then the rear end would kick out on corner exit. Full countersteer wasn't enough to save it lol.

King Tut

RA1s absolutely have to be shaved to have anywhere near their maximum performance.

RedCelica

I assume that I need not shave them as they are my dedicated wet tire?

s2000Junky

No, you want full tread for wet.