S.A.S.C.
Solo => Technical Talk => Topic started by: Reijo on March 31, 2017, 08:57:35 PM
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FYI:
http://www.racernexencontingency.com/
Jason Isley and Brian Heitkotter were testing these tires recently (SU4 which just came out) which are about to compete in the Street class wars. There is someone running them at Fontana this weekend ... have to check out who. Rumour is they are competitive ... and also much cheaper ... might be a consideration for tires ...
R
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It would be really, really nice if we had more than one (or two) competitive tires to chose from.
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Yes. I got the impression that Nexen took direct aim at the RE71. Jason and Brian (and I think someone else) spent considerable time testing tires for them in east LA a little while ago. They used RE71's to compare to at the test (so they also tested the RE-71's at the same time) and then following the testing, they released this tire (which by the way is probably 30-40% cheaper ... e.g. one size (255-35-17 I think?... STR size) was $17x for RE71 vs. $130 for Nexen.
So, we have good price and I think it may well be very competitive against the RE71 .... Might be a winner.
Anyway, Jason hinted that "someone" was running the Nexens this weekend ... maybe Brian Heitkotter? He is there with Teddie as far as I know ...
Will have to search the entries and who is running them. ....
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Heitkotter's car has Nexen decals on it this weekend.
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Heitkotter's car has Nexen decals on it this weekend.
haha....thanks again, Stephen! I suspected he might be the one ... of course he is really fast anyway so this may not prove a whole lot. :)
R
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It's good to have choice. I'm all for having 3-4 different competitive street tires.
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Heitkotter's car has Nexen decals on it this weekend.
haha....thanks again, Stephen! I suspected he might be the one ... of course he is really fast anyway so this may not prove a whole lot. :)
He's by far the fastest driver in STU this weekend, so the intra-class comparison isn't very useful. I think the comparison with STR's leader, Ken Motonishi (who's also superhuman), is informative though. Heitkotter (STU, Nexens) is beating Motonishi (STR, BFG) by a half second on raw time. That puts Heitkotter about two PAX tenths behind Motonishi.
It's very dangerous to draw firm conclusions from a single day of competition, but today's result suggests that the Nexens are at least in the same ballpark as the BFGs (and thus the Bridgestones).
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Heitkotter's car has Nexen decals on it this weekend.
haha....thanks again, Stephen! I suspected he might be the one ... of course he is really fast anyway so this may not prove a whole lot. :)
He's by far the fastest driver in STU this weekend, so the intra-class comparison isn't very useful. I think the comparison with STR's leader, Ken Motonishi (who's also superhuman), is informative though. Heitkotter (STU, Nexens) is beating Motonishi (STR, BFG) by a half second on raw time. That puts Heitkotter about two PAX tenths behind Motonishi.
It's very dangerous to draw firm conclusions from a single day of competition, but today's result suggests that the Nexens are at least in the same ballpark as the BFGs (and thus the Bridgestones).
Comparing Bryan to Ken is a good idea ... both really, really good drivers (looks like Ken is on his game today today). My thoughts were the same ... The Nexens appear to be competitive but, as you say, one day may not give us the whole picture. Tomorrow may tell us more. And then there is weather: +22C was the forecast for Fontana today on a sunny day. I wonder how the Nexens are in the cold?
R
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What have you all seen for the best pricing on the new Nexens? PMC has them, but they aren't all that well priced.
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Just looking at Tire Rack: 225-50-16 for my S2000: N Fera SUR 4G's
- see attached file ...
Same size RE71's are about $24/tire more ... hmmm....not much difference for that size.
I thought they would be substantially cheaper based on info I saw from California ... But still about $100 less for a set then.
R
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Check out the cost of the 275/35ZR18 vs. the 275/40ZR18
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Check out the cost of the 275/35ZR18 vs. the 275/40ZR18
Wow! 275-35-18's .... only $5 difference on a set of 4 .... essentially same price. Hmmmm.....
R
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Co-driver and I will be in Calgary for the WCMA event in a few weeks on these new SURG4's since the RE-71's will not be available in time, I would be happy to share my impressions. Hopefully you Calgary guys like to talk tires over beers after events. :D
Chris M. from Winnipeg
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Co-driver and I will be in Calgary for the WCMA event in a few weeks on these new SURG4's since the RE-71's will not be available in time, I would be happy to share my impressions. Hopefully you Calgary guys like to talk tires over beers after events. :D
Chris M. from Winnipeg
I'll be there in any case. I am interested in those tires ... may be looking into some for my S2000.
Reijo
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Co-driver and I will be in Calgary for the WCMA event in a few weeks on these new SURG4's since the RE-71's will not be available in time, I would be happy to share my impressions. Hopefully you Calgary guys like to talk tires over beers after events. :D
Chris M. from Winnipeg
I'm running the SUR4's as they didn't have the G's yet. Interested to see the changes forsure.
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Well after this weekend event in red deer time to retire the fronts. lol
I am not looking for sympathy as every mile that has been put on these and been smiles and giggles and I'm sure many miles of over driving them lol.
Maybe I cut them on a bad bump in RD? I was able to peel them back..
I think pressures are right but who knows.
I sent an email off to Nexen to ask a few questions,
I guess not cooling them down proper, 2 drivers and short cool down times, and pushing to the limit for what we drive I'm sure is the culprits but hey its not exactly F1 prepped track we drive on lol
I am curious to the G's and if they will stand up a little better.
For the money I put into this sport and the laughs, fun, smiles and watching greg on my heels I dont mind the price!!
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I don't think you cut them on anything - my R-S3s and Rivals both started ripping off the same way when they reached the end of their life. I think that's usually caused when you massively overcook a corner and go skidding sideways on them (as I often do) trying to drag the car back to the line you want.
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I don't think you cut them on anything - my R-S3s and Rivals both started ripping off the same way when they reached the end of their life. I think that's usually caused when you massively overcook a corner and go skidding sideways on them (as I often do) trying to drag the car back to the line you want.
Well that sure sounds like me!!!! Too fast and trying to drag it back in.
Thanks!
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I sent an email off to Nexen to ask a few questions,
I guess not cooling them down proper, 2 drivers and short cool down times, and pushing to the limit for what we drive I'm sure is the culprits but hey its not exactly F1 prepped track we drive on lol
I am curious to the G's and if they will stand up a little better.
For the money I put into this sport and the laughs, fun, smiles and watching greg on my heels I dont mind the price!!
Wow. This was on the burgundy coloured hatchback? Three autox events in? Doesn't seem acceptable to me.
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I sent an email off to Nexen to ask a few questions,
I guess not cooling them down proper, 2 drivers and short cool down times, and pushing to the limit for what we drive I'm sure is the culprits but hey its not exactly F1 prepped track we drive on lol
I am curious to the G's and if they will stand up a little better.
For the money I put into this sport and the laughs, fun, smiles and watching greg on my heels I dont mind the price!!
Wow. This was on the burgundy coloured hatchback? Three autox events in? Doesn't seem acceptable to me.
Well 4 events, always dual drivers, plus 5000 km of daily driving too as I couldn't get my other wheels for a few weeks and I drive a lot and my driving is pretty much foot near floor most places and dont slow for corners if dont need too lol
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Might also be a sign of over-driving ... e.g. too much skidding .... which uses up rubber, heats it up too much, and is also slower ... It is a bit of fine balance of how much slidding/slithering is just right for speed ... and not losing speed.
If your wheels are the same front/rear, then you could swap them also in the future.
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Might also be a sign of over-driving ... e.g. too much skidding .... which uses up rubber, heats it up too much, and is also slower ... It is a bit of fine balance of how much slidding/slithering is just right for speed ... and not losing speed.
If your wheels are the same front/rear, then you could swap them also in the future.
Yup I'm gonna go with over driving for sure the first few events as i learnt quick that skidding is slower. I am chalking them up to just an over aggressive nut behind the wheel 8) 8) 8) 8)
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Well 4 events, always dual drivers, plus 5000 km of daily driving too as I couldn't get my other wheels for a few weeks and I drive a lot and my driving is pretty much foot near floor most places and dont slow for corners if dont need too lol
4 events x 2 drivers x 7(?) runs per event = 56 runs total.
That's a short life for a tire. I try to get 100-125 runs plus about 4000-5000km of street driving per set on my focus. I manage tire wear by flipping the tires so I can eat up the other shoulder and rotating them to the back once both shoulders are gone. That gives me 2 ways to use each tire on the front, so 4 shoulders to chew up. If I can keep my greedy corner entry under control that has previously yielded me as many as 150 runs on a set of tires but last year I delayed flipping the tires and shredded the outside shoulder down to the creamy nougat filling in only 40 runs on a pair of brand new R-S3s.
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At the SoloPro school Dan and Nick corded a pair of 560 TW (or something like that?) tires on the Focus ST- both days Extreme School. The tires from what I understand were basically new.
They slid around and heated up so much that the rubber almost vaporized! All four fenders had black powder coating on them (which showed up really well on a bright yellow/orange car).
Moral of the story: Sometimes higher performance (and softer) tires will outlast hard rubber because they stand up to heat and abuse much better.
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I delayed flipping the tires and shredded the outside shoulder down to the creamy nougat filling in only 40 runs on a pair of brand new R-S3s.
great now i'm hungry...
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I have been following the progression of the Nexen N Fera SUR4G tire for a while now.
This includes following the initial testing that Jason Isley, Brian Heitkotter and one other person I can't remember right now whom I know from living in SoCal and competing at Packwood, SCCA Nats, etc.
After that I was checking on results from Bryan and Jason at Tours/Pros and even some of their local events in California on the Nexens.
From the beginning I was suspecting that this tire is roughly the equivalent the BFG Rival and RE71 but I had not driven on them myself.
This past weekend Tim R. of Winnipeg let me run a couple of runs on the afternoon course during the fun runs (sorry for butting in on the line folks, Tim had to get going and hit the road so they could make Medicine Hat for the night - about a 3 hr. drive).
Tim was not able to get the 275's he wanted so he was running on 265's on his '04 Z06 - identical car to Cam's I believe? Cam, do you know if there was much difference in the setup between your cars other than tires? Alignment - who knows but sway bars, shocks etc may be a bit of a factor if they were different. I was told Cam was running on sticker 275 wide BFG's - correct me if I'm wrong Cam.
In any case I made one major error on the first run with a twitch just before the first big left sweeper after the first 3 cone slalom out of the start which put me into the marbles on the outside of the "line" so I blew a bunch of time there. I basically matched Tim's best time with that run. He then said to take another run if I could cut into line so they didn't lose much time (initially I was going to do only one run ... and hence why I butted into line).
This 2nd run had no major errors in it and the tires were warmer, of course. My run was 0.025 seconds behind Cam's best time. 40.147 vs.40.116 if I got those numbers right (see fun run/set 3 times).
So as I suspected, they are competitive with the BFG (and RE71) in my opinion.
What do they feel like? I think I could have used another run or two in order to focus in on the "feel" a bit more but I'll try to remember exactly what I was "feeling":
The tires felt "gummy" or sort of R-compound-like which also confirmed the grip level for me - that grip was very, very good for sure. The temp was somewhere around 22C/72F (so not overly hot per se). The 4G's felt quite grippy and composed/forgiving right off the bat (the error was mine ... just got on the gas a bit too much which changed my line into the marbles ... a bit of an adjustment from a base '99 Corvette on Bridgestone 760's, taller gearing and significantly less jam).
On the 2nd run I noticed around the far SW off-camber right corner, especially part 2 of the corner where you turn east toward the tight left-hander, that when the tires began to slide (with no initial squealing), I was able to easily control the amount of slide with changes in the throttle input and also keep a tight line around the cones (see Murray's video as an example of the line around there). The car handling was quite neutral with oversteer on the throttle, of course ... Z06, right? :) Then into the big right corner into the finish chute, I was hard on the throttle but had to hold back a tiny bit to prevent the slide from getting too much sideways but, again, it was quite controllable.
Tim mentioned that he found them easy and forgiving to drive and fast. At the last Winnipeg event he said he coned away the top PAX time so he was quite happy with the tires and feel of them as well (we had a FB discussion going for a while which was also good information btw).
In summary we ran a 265 4G against a 275 Rival and came out within 0.025 sec.
Are they a competitive tire?
I would say so. They appear to be an equivalent.
Therefore, if you are looking for a high perf. tire that is competitive and you can't get anything else, the 4G is a viable alternative in my opinion.
BTW, I have heard they are not available in Canada yet but you can get them through Tire Rack or other suppliers from the USA. That is where Tim got his set within the last month or so.
Cheers,
Reijo
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Here's a link the Nexen USA web site with the full selection of sizes (I seem to remember they are adding sizes as the year moves on). Tire Rack does not have all of these sizes listed on their web site so that is why I'm posting this link.
For example, the 265's that Tim was running were not listed on the Tire Rack web site (needs updating obviously) but he got the 265's from Tire Rack.
https://www.nexentireusa.com/tires/high-performance/n-fera-sur4g
So, size availability is something to keep checking on since they are apparently in a state of flux (new tire and all ... the tire testing was just a few months ago).
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Will be interesting to see what kind of pricing we can get when available in Canada. As it stands now, getting a set of 265/35ZR18 for my sti would cost about 40% more than getting RE71Rs from Costco.
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Actually I was in Costco (picked up the flour for lining the course) a couple of days ago and they have $70 off on a set of Bridgestones ... killer price now for RE-71's! :)
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Thanks for this review Reijo.
It helped alot!
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Actually I was in Costco (picked up the flour for lining the course) a couple of days ago and they have $70 off on a set of Bridgestones ... killer price now for RE-71's! :)
They usually do this rebate twice a year at the same time of year. I usually get my sets way before I need them to make sure I get in on it. You can get them to refund the cost of mount and balance and get them done somewhere else whenever you are done with the old set.
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I talked to the guys at the counter at Beacon Hill Costco in Calgary and if I recall correclty, the $70 rebate on a set of 4 Bridgestone tires is until July 2.....fyi.
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Tim was not able to get the 275's he wanted so he was running on 265's on his '04 Z06 - identical car to Cam's I believe? Cam, do you know if there was much difference in the setup between your cars other than tires? Alignment - who knows but sway bars, shocks etc may be a bit of a factor if they were different. I was told Cam was running on sticker 275 wide BFG's - correct me if I'm wrong Cam.
Didn't ask what bar he was running, he has the stock shocks on his car and we switched to Konis on ours this year.
On Sunday I was running Rivals, 275 front and 315 rear.
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Recent Nexen SUR4G comments from Southern California... Max Hayter, among others:
"I know they don't like to be pinched. We were running a 225 on a 7" rim. The Nexens runs super wide, so the 225 actually looks pinched on a 7", compared to the 225 BFG which looks square.
I think results may be better for Nexen with cars with camber running enough rim width. Our fronts took a beating after 32 runs in a weekend."
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-Max H.
"My gut feeling says the Nexen is just a bit slower than the other two. I base this fact that even though I had a glorious victory in DS, I only paxed 15th. How can that be possible, given my alien like driving!"
__________________
-Max H.
"Meh. If they were quick everyone would be on them by now
<- Not going on them"
Now Bryan Heitkotter may have something to say about these comments.
It will be interesting to see what tires are on the blue STU come September.
Although I suspect sponsorship $$$ may play into it for this alien.
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Where did these discussions take place, Wayne? Note that the tire testing was going on just this spring ... so that comment about "everyone" on them is rather stupid.
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I recall the NEXEN tire test being in a mid winter SCCA SportsCar issue. Bryan Heitkotter and Jason Isley if I recall correctly. Likely means the test took place late 2016 in order to utilize results for tires availability spring 2017. Bryan commented on their usability locally but questioned National competitiveness. Then in Fontana (April) he shows up NEXEN stickered and tired. Coincidence... I think not.
Comments posted came from...
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119590
Max Hayter posts his recent DS FRS comments here.
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Hasn't there been two variations - the SUR4 and the SUR4G. I have some recollection that the "G" was the result of some changes made after the initial Heitkotter testing.
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I recall the NEXEN tire test being in a mid winter SCCA SportsCar issue. Bryan Heitkotter and Jason Isley if I recall correctly. Likely means the test took place late 2016 in order to utilize results for tires availability spring 2017. Bryan commented on their usability locally but questioned National competitiveness. Then in Fontana (April) he shows up NEXEN stickered and tired. Coincidence... I think not.
Comments posted came from...
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119590
Max Hayter posts his recent DS FRS comments here.
You're right: Jason posted on November 22, 2016 that they were through 40 tires .... also just noticed Michael Equina was one of the other testers whom I knew from CalClub ... Porsche 911 driver ...
Max from the same thread: Check out the DS thread - I posted some videos of my car on the Nexens. I think they are right there with the BFG and Bridgestone, or at least within sniffing distance. They require more pressure up front to avoid rollover, but tolerate heat very well. Quiet on the street if you want to daily drive them.
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-Max H.
That sounds very much like my opinion that they are right there with the BFG and Bridgestone .... BTW, Tim was also riding along on those runs I took.....so another 190ish lbs along.
I am sure they are competitive. Driver error will likely be a bigger factor except perhaps at the Nats ... when we'll really find out for sure ... maybe. LOL
Reijo
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Hasn't there been two variations - the SUR4 and the SUR4G. I have some recollection that the "G" was the result of some changes made after the initial Heitkotter testing.
Yes, the SUR4 was out last summer (2016) and the SUR4-G came out this spring (the week of March 28 according to Jason's Facebook page) ... a new tire.
I believe they made the changes after the testing with Heitkotter, Isley, Equina and 2 other people (the three I named are ALL autoxers so that should tell you something .... obviously they were aiming directly at the RE71 ... which I believe they also tested that weekend in Nov. 2016 at Buttonwillow.
Copied from Jason's FB page:
"Jason Isley
November 22, 2016 ยท
Hundreds of runs. 40 tires. Two cars. And one exhausted crew. Closing time at Buttonwillow. Thanks to all that made it happen. Molly Binks Allen Vaught Bryan Heitkotter Michael Eguina #nexen #toyotaUSA #racer "
Reijo