It's time to change my tyres, I am thinking about semi slick tyres for road use for my 2wd Sapphire.

I am between the following:
1. Toyo R888R
2. Nankang NS2R
3. Feferal 595RSR
I want to have minimal warmup time, great dry grip, very fast steering response,fair wet handling and longevity.

What is your advice?

 

I would of thought Michelin pilot sport cup 2’s would be better than the tyres on your list

 

This guy tests most brands

 

Have the RSR 595, great tyres, good on road and track.
Only been caught out in heavy rain which is to be expected

 

Same tyres as I have on my 2wdSaff Dan. Very good grip in the dry but as with nearly all road legal track day tyres you have to be careful in the wet. yours being 4wheel drive is probably a bit better than mine.

 

Any of the tyres above are going to be very good but as I have said before do not think you will be able to push on hard on wet roads.

 

road/track tyres ps4s
dunlop direzza for track but now not road legal
kumho ecsta are pretty good too

 

The R888 are not comparable with the NS2R. The Nankang AR1s are what you should be comparing.

 

R888r for me, enough grip to pull a 3.1 100 - 200 kph time on unprepped tarmac I rate them highly, and a 1.85 60ft at pod all on old very worn tyres
I am hopeful both those times will come down aswell now on new tyres

 

Can't understand why they didn't also test r888r

 

R888r , I recommend I did 8k of driving in them , fantastic in the dry but also found them OK in the wet as long as they had temp anything below 12c and they was like plastic

 

I ran the Federal tyres on my old track Nissan 180sx. Very capable tyre but lethal whilst still cold! (caught me out a couple of times at roundabouts)

I think with all of these tyres, you really need to get a bit of heat in them before safely relying on grip.

When I eventually get the Escos mapped properly, i'll be looking at a new set of track wheels. I am currently eyeing up Zestino Gredge tyres. Similar to Federal RSR but apparently better track day grip (Soft compound)

 

he doesn’t rate them atall

 

With a soft compound they will grip better but they will also wear out pretty quickly. Nearly all track day tyres are medium compound.

 

You are right about getting some heat into the RSR tyres, there is a roundabout just a couple of minutes away from where I live and one morning I was a bit to enthusiastic going around it and did get into a bit of bother!!! Luckily there was no other traffic about!!!

 

TBH, neither do I.

Having recently tried some PS4 from Michelin, they are definitely better.

However, everyones application may be different, the driving environment, road temps, tyre temps

But if it's for a road car, wet etc etc....track orientated tyres pretty much make zero sense. As all of them need a few laps to get some heat into them to work. Which is not real life on a road car, on roads.

 

And different brands medium will all be different. So there is no generic soft, medium etc etc Some soft tyres might grip worse than others medium. Some can be too soft, they get tore up and end up useless.

The Tyre Reviews site does have some great tests, and results. And it really does seem that for road use, the UHP tyres make far more sense than any track tyre. And in some cases, might even be better depending on the actual usage and conditions.

Likewise some are utterly dangerous on the road like some Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2's that it would be almost impossible to get enough heat in them on the road to get any grip.

 

Never personally had an issue on the feds being cold but Iam 4x4

 

Very true, i'll have a look in to the medium compounds also They will be on a 2nd set of wheels though. Michelin PS4 for the road for me, cracking tyre! Will upgrade to the PS4S once they have worn through

 

I have tried all three (for road use) and I found the AR1’s to have the best traction.
that was my main area to improve on.
This was on a 520hp 2wd saff.

for me they were better than the r888’s even in their softest compound.
I thought the Federals were awful.

To everyone saying he would be better off with a Michelin etc, the op was asking about semi slick tyres not regular tyres.
And also who is gonna be pushing their 2wd saff hard in the rain anyway? No one.

Cheers Paul

 

From my experience when mine was 500bhp asking about wet performance is absolutely pointless as it was plain dangerous in any gear even at motorway speed in 5th. So wouldn’t even be a consideration it just wouldn’t get used in the wet. But in the dry with good suspension and diff I found r888’s when nice a warm held 2nd gear
__________________

 

And he was also asking about for road use and the wet.

Not dry sunny track use. There is a massive conflict there.

 

Right from when this thread started I have been saying to the guy who asked the question in the first place, 2wd Saff, lots of power, forget trying to drive it on wet roads at anything other than a very careful slow pace. If you still want to use the power in the wet you have to go for proper road tyres that are designed to pump out plenty of water!

 

it's not even a case of trying to put power down on wet roads. It's just simply normal driving.

Most track tyres are utterly abysmal bordering on dangerous for standing water, puddles etc etc...which can be very common during normal road use, and even more so the likes of motorways in heavy rain.
Risk of aquaplaning with the wrong tyres will be very high.

I've had a plethora of tyres on the road, and TBH the best so far have been the PS4. I have not driven them in the wet though, only a few dry days in the summer, but they impressed me more than any tyre I've used.
I had always thought the likes of them are too expensive, they won't be as good as 888's etc etc...I was very wrong. And when 888's only last around 1500 miles even on the road they really are poor. The last set of R888R's I had on the rear were done after a little over 1000 miles. They were extremely disappointing.

No doubt there are some environments when the 888 does work...I've yet to find them on my car.