Dunlop zii Star Spec... who's trying them?
 

After a dismal season on the zii's I was hell bent on going with RS3's next season.
The new Dunlops's have me curious though....

I will be trying them probably early 2015 barring a new Rivals compound. Based on a credible, high-quality review I've found it is definitely better than the Z2 (needs a little more slip angle and grip doesn't fall off as fast if you overdrive, so it will be easier to drive and easier to recover from mistakes).

My own interpretation of this review is that, given the parity between the Hankook and the Dunlop this year and the improvements in this tire, it could very well be king of the hill next year. Too bad they don't pay contingency.

As always YMMV, so test and test some more...

We'll be trying them eventually

That's my intent now. I'll wait until some reviews come out before I buy.

Yeah, that's the question I am waiting on. From what I know the tires that are going to be around this year at the standard 200 TW rating are going to be mainly new. Toyo, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Federal(?) I think all have something in the works. Interesting to see how they compare with the V2 RS3. I will probably stick to what I know works with my setup until I see an outliner to reconsider. They are all so close its really what you prefer to drive on in some cases.

I'm debating between the ZII Star Specs and RS3s for my first dedicated track tire to run next season. Very interested to hear what people think of the Dunlops.

I want to try them as well, but I am waiting til after our season is over in november.

Ima try them after my rs3 is done.

Rs3s v2 is where it's at. I'm almost on 300 Autocross runs on these v2s they are about done but I'll get another 50 runs easy on them.

I am planning on going with them. I've done two seasons on ZII's and planning on sticking with the Dunlops and excited for the new compound. Around here it is coldish half of our season so having the all-around tire is nice.

The review I found is the quoted section towards the bottom: http://www.autocross.us/forums/topic...zii-star-spec/

Based on that, it suggests that weather-wise there will be fewer situations where the RS3 is the obvious choice. The sidewall stiffness is quite different though, and that's down to driver preference.

I hated my Dunlops. Terrible in the heat imo

Loved mine!
 

Ran Direzza Star Specs for 2 years, and just finished wearing out my Direzza II's after 1 year, and am definately getting Direzza 2 Star Specs.

When in rated ambient temps they warm up quickly. I never flat spotted them and I track and brake hard.

Only had warm up problems when it was below 50, they took too long!

http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/u...pse32f62bc.jpg

CERBERUS

I really wanted to try the ZIISS, but local pricing makes it a dumb plan. $810 cdn taxes in for RS3 v2's vs $1150 taxes for ZIISS. Same size (225/45/17), just couldn't justify the almost 50% increase for the Dunlops.

The original ZII's definitely had better steering feel than the RS3's, but the RS3's are a definitely a bit quicker.

i bought them about a month ago, did one small autox day, then first run of the next one blew out my front cat and missed 3 events with the car till the issue was pinpointed.

probably wont have any real time with them till next year now.

I had the original ZII's, switched over to RS3 v2's after they wore out. I won't go back. I've driven a Fiat 500 Abarth and an STi with the newer ZII Star Specs, and they are an improvement, but the RS3's have so much more grip, especially out in the SoCal heat.

I did feel like the RS3's were missing that "precision" that I've seen people talk about with the ZII's. I don't know if that's the stiffer sidewall or what, but hey! That's the only downside to the RS3's I've seen.

plus one on the rs3 vII. cant compare to the ZII, but this tire is amazing.

I had run the ZII for two years, switched to the RS3 for nationals and a couple of local runs recently and will be going back to the ZII. The RS3 has grip, but just doesn't seem to work well with my driving style.

Tirerack has dome some comparison tests and will be publishing some data in the next couple weeks. They tested the ZII Star Spec, Yoko AD08R, BFG Rival and RS3V2.

One of the Tirerack guys (Chris Harvey) autocrosses a MX5 (which took 2nd at Nationals this year on ZIIs) and his feedback on the ZII* is they do not overheat as bad as the ZIIs and they maintain more grip when pushed hard. So overall easier to drive since they don't penalize you as much when exceeding their limits. The old Star Specs and ZIIs typically require more precise driving than the RS3 and the Rival. HOWEVER, he shaved them to 6/32 so they had comparable depth to his ZIIs. Some early feedback from people with new tires is they may need to be broken in a bit. On that car they liked the ZII over the RS3v2.

On a track I still don't think they'll be able to take heat like the RS3, but I expect the ZII* to still be better in the wet than the RS3.

I was going to order a set for STX next year but will probably just go with the RS3v2 for price alone.

RS3 v2's don't like heat like the old compound did. They still do ok, but they're definitely easier to overheat than the old ones were. That said, they're grippier with less heat than the old ones were too.

I am on the fence about what to try next year...

I only check them for reference on sizing and availability, but the Tirerack prices for the ZII* are strange. Is this normal?

235/45R17 = $168/ea
235/40R17 = $199/ea

What gives?

Construction differences in the sidewall? Could be that at 235/40 the sidewall is a little small and it takes some extra reinforcement. The price difference between the 245/40 and the 245/45 is only $7, and both are cheaper than that 235/40.

Could also be that there's not much demand for that tire size and so supply is limited.

If Dunlop pulled a Toyo and put some special sauce in a specific size tire, testing is going to get very expensive...

It's probably all just driven off of what sizes are popular. I find 225/45/17 runs very close in pricing to 245/40/17, but other sizes are way off.

Our autox/DE season has already begun so I need to order some tires ASAP for stock rims. I am running in CS for the time being.

Since the RS3 V2 tires 225/45/17 are back-ordered I am tempted to order the Dunlop ZII SS. The ZII SS 235/40/17 is also available and not too much more expensive.

Would there be a significant improvement in handling with the larger tire running on stock suspension? My car is completely stock but I do have a set of oem crash bolts to install.

Thanks,

Barring any new news from BFG on new Rivals, I'll be trying ZII Star Specs for sure.

Rumor has it that news is coming in February...

Not significant, and beyond some size there are diminishing (or even negative) returns from going larger. That size is different for each tire model.

There is some data at least that supports oversizing the tire on RS3s, and the ZII SS with its stiffer sidewall should tolerate oversizing even better. I am personally targeting the Dunlop 235 for my next set, unless I end up getting some cheap slightly used Rivals from a local.

Speculation on the RS3 v2 has been they changed the compound to warm up quicker for autoX guys ... maybe at the expense of being quicker to overheat for the time attack guys.

Speculation for the ZII Star Spec is it will hold heat better but maybe lose it's cold surface advantage over the RS3.

Ultimately these tires may end up being pretty similar to each other instead of having very different characteristics from their previous generations. Price alone would dictate I'd probably still choose the RS3 v2 but Hankook better get their shyt together as far as production capacity.

TireRack recently tested these 2 tires:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnfw7t3Fgzg"]Tire Rack - How Well Do Extreme Performance Tires Handle the Extreme? - YouTube[/ame]

Bottom Line for AutoX: Z2 SS is the fastest tire in the dry, RS3v2 was significantly faster (~1 second on a 30 second course) in warm (80+F), wet conditions than the Z2 but in cold (50F) wet conditions was about .5s slower than the Z2 SS who's time wasn't really effected by the temperature change.

Stock car related commentary:
I think we will find that the RS3 is better for the BRZ and the ZII* is better for the FRS. The Z2 seems to create a general understeer. Combine that with a car that generally understeers, and it'll be slower (like the sportscar tire test result). Combine it with a car that generally oversteers, and bingo :) (like the tire rack test result)

Great. We put ZII SS on our ChumpCar (1984 Corolla AE82, which has NO swaybars). I shall prepare for the push of a lifetime.

I've tried the Z2's on my STU STI and on my BRZ - they both had really annoying understeer. The STI had great balance on Z1*, but was still slightly faster on the Z2 even with the push. Those tires really got me started on my way to getting rid of my STI. If only Dunlop would combine the Z1 tread pattern with the Z2* rubber compound :)

I have the Dunlop Direzza II SS on my BRZ now and they are much much better than the Rivals I had before. I autox and track my car and the grip is great. We also ran the Direzza II SS on our road race civics and they are much faster than the Kumho, Advan, BFG. They also are more consistent and don't fall off a cliff towards the end of the race. In auto x they hook right from the get go as well though tire pressure has to be higher. I run around 25psi on road track and 30psi on auto x.

And now to make things more difficult, Toyo is changing the R1R to a 200 tw.
Decisions... decisions.