Hankook RS4 vs the competition?
 

Hello everyone,

I've been running the new hankook RS4 tires on my 86 for the past months with so far 1 track day and another track day coming within the month. Since I've already been on the tires for awhile, approximately 7 months with almost 2 track days, I am starting to look into my next set of tires. Before my RS4's I ran the MPSS for 1 track day and I would have to say the RS4's perform leaps and bounds better than the MPSS did. With the RS4 I had great confidence on the track, where as the MPSS I felt would give away too easily. Anyways, I know a lot of people run the RE71R's I wonder if anyone has compared them to the RS4's yet for the 86 platform. There's a comparison blog here; http://www.goham-ind.com/blog.html/h...gestone-re71r/ but the problem with this one is that they used two different sized tires.. Bridgestone - 205/50/15 vs Hankook- 225/45/15 and the test vehicle was a civic. It's worth the read but I feel it wasn't the greatest comparison due to there being 2 different sized tires. Here is another comparison where someone is comparing R888R to the BFG Rivals and then the RS4's to the Rivals; http://www.tracktuned.com/feed/2017/...nd-hankook-rs4

Just wanted to hear the community's feedback on tires and helping out a fellow 86 owner improve his lap times :thumbsup:

Thanks!

The RE71R and Rivals S 1.5 will be faster than the RS4. They'll be faster over one lap, but will overheat quickly. They will not last very long compared to the RS4s. The RE71R and Rivals S 1.5 are basically autox/time attack tires.

There's always GT Radials SX2 since you're doing 86 cup :D

Like FirstWinter said, if you're running 86 Cup, mind as well run GT Radial... but Rival S are good tires. RE71 are excellent, just only issue w RE71 are they wear out too damn fast! Even in autox, they barely last a season (+-15 events).

We have tested a bunch of tires from 40TW to 340TW on the ZC6 / ZN6, and have provided the data to the 86CUP board to use for comparisons against their data. If you're planning to run 86CUP, you may want to consider going with the GT Radial SX2 for contingency reasons and a better comparison against other competitors on the same tires.

I haven't driven RS4 myself yet but I've done plenty of reading. The compound is unchanged from the RS3 so they will wear similar and have similar heat tolerance but they updated the tread pattern and sidewall construction to provide better wet performance, improved feel and improved turn-in and transitional response.

Based on regional and national level autocross results last year, they're about half a second faster per minute than the RS3 and about half a second slower than the RE71r or Rival-S.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests...y.jsp?ttid=226

No experience with the RS4, but several different sets of RE71R's for autox, I wouldn't want to put them on track, I think I'd be managing the heat of the tires more than having fun driving. For an HPDE give me a tire I can pound on all session and focus on my driving, that's what I'm there for, whether there's a timer going or not. I did 3x track days on Z2SS which the RS4 and Maxxis VR1 aimed to beat, I enjoyed that tire and would go for a similar tire again, longevity and tolerant to heat during a normal HPDE session.

imho an amateur will benefit more from a consistent tire that allows them to focus on driving well than a tire that has to managed and kept in a narrower window for peak performance. Yeah you might turn out a better lap on an RE71R or Rival S, but if you can't run the last session because the tire is dead or because you're dead from the effort of managing them, I'd call that a losing proposition.

HPDE and amateur motorsports come down to mindset more than equipment imo. I'm on MPSS now as a tire to put some DD miles on that will survive a surprise HPDE or two, idgaf about setting a good laptime so my next DD/ occasional HPDE tire will be a 300+ TW tire, either Firestone Indy's or Continental's.

I run RE71r's on track and have run the older RS3 as well as the ZII* and Kumho Ecsta V720. When I run my autox sized 255 or 245 RE71's here in Texas they hold up pretty well, I only manage to overheat them on the last lap or two of a 20min sessions in the afternoons when temperatures are in the triple digits.

I run an STX prepped 2014 BRZ and have loved the RE71's on track. I think the extra wide tires help me keep from overheating them, they held up to the heat as well or better than all the other tires I've tried.

Here's how 71R looks after their 6th heat cycle. These tires were donated to me after their first 5 heat cycles. I'd say they're pretty cooked. They were driven for 12 minutes.

https://i.imgur.com/xatOrJN.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hFGBAqT.jpg

I'd disagree. I think it's just under inflation causing graining and/or tires that weren't properly heat cycled prior to bolting on and going to the track.

RE-71Rs are good pretty much to cord.

<--This

Plus, heat cycled RE71's are about as fast as good RS3's or star specs.

My local track isn't too tough on tires (the rear passenger side takes a beating, but that's about it).

As an aside, I can only see those pictures on mobile and not on the webpage, there isn't even like an error box or anything.

A serious question: why are you looking for the next set of tires? Are your current ones shot already?

If you haven't even maxed out your current tires, what makes you think better tires in the future will be an improvement?

"Better" tires only mask your individual driving flaws more.

I had RS3s for a while before and I basically drove them almost bald on an axle before considering changing. This was over 12 months and approx. 20 drift/track/autocross events.

I've had both RE71R and RS3 on track. My RE71R never came of looking anything like Mike's but they always started giving up about 10 minutes in without hard braking. I'm going back to Hankooks for my next track tire.

Pyrometer says otherwise. How do you draw an underinflated conclusion from even graining across the entire surface of all 4 tires?

These tires have exactly 0 street miles, and rested after the first heat cycles.