Considering my topic description, hardly anyone will probably read this. But for those of you that are.......

I'm running my first ever set of Hoosier A3S03 Competition Autocross tires. I ran them about 2/3 of a season last year. They appear to still have a little life left in them. Maybe half a AX season or so.

My car has -1.25 F & -2.0 R degree camber. So there is that uneven wear to consider. The outside shoulder of the tire is rounded.....more uneven wear to consider.

To wrench all the mileage possible from these tires, would it be worth flipping the tires on their wheels for the 2nd half of their life?

They're supposed to be non-directional, so it should be safe to do so?

Flip 'em over and play the B-side!!

(I don't know if it's okay to do that - I just wanted to say that :-) LOL)

I like your attitude.

I swap the tires side to side all the time...

At Watkins Glen, your turning right mostly.. so the left tires see most of the wear...I swap the tires side to side for the second day, then again for the third day..etc.

According to Hoosier, after you initially scrub off the surface of the tire they are no longer directional and can be flipped on the rim or side to side on the car. I plan to rotate my newest set from side to side every event just to see if it helps with longevity.

Note that you have to pull the tire off the rim and mount it the other way to deal with the camber issue, since rotating the wheel by 180 degrees (i.e. putting it on the other side) means you are still wearing the inside first.

Moving the tires and wheels side to side is easy and works pretty well to balance wear. It is even easier when all four wheels are the same size like on my 914.

Once I went thru the trouble of dismounting a set of hoosiers on my 993. I really don't think it was worth the time for the mounting and balancing etc.

Got maybe 20% more wear out of the tires but probably not very good miles. Its the heat cycles that kills tires.

I would say just to manage your tires well and don't bother with the flip.

dr

Thanks Tim, Drew & Fiid!

I've been wondering about this all weekend....shoulda asked you guys days ago!

Now I'm gonna sit back and toast ya'll

DR

What exactly defines a heat cycle?

Is a particular temperature required to be reach to be defined a heat cycle?

Do tires necessarily have a heat cycle in autocross (considering typical lower temps in AX)?

I used an IR temp gage last summer and my tire temps usually measure 120 to 140 max (yeah, I know, my tires are too big for my car.....but that's another story).

I did opt for Tire Rack's initial heat cycling option which supposedly extends the tire's life and they look real good to date.

Oh yeah. I'm running 7"F and 8"R.

Joseph,

do you have any more pictures of the car.
Is that Rolands old car.... He was such a great guy may he rest in peace!...

I thought his car sold to nebraska along with a -6, but your car looks so similar... whats the history on #11

thanks for your time.
brant

I believe 180 degrees is the operating temp for road course tires. So every time I take the car out on the track and bring the tires up to temp is one heat cycle regardless of how many laps I run.
The AX tire should have a lower operating temp but I don't know what it is. I couldn't tell you what bringing a tire up to near operating temp, but not full temp, does for wear.

Yeah, just kinda one of those "science" questions.

My guess would be the lower the temperature reached, the less "cycling" (damage) to the tire.

At the other end of the heat spectrum, I would guess that if a tire reached 400-500 degrees, it would probably only be good for about ONE heat cycle

LOL i fell off the wagon this weekend

I believe each time the tire goes from ambient temperature, up to full race temp, and then back to ambient would be one heat cycle.

Each cycle tends to make the compound a bit less sticky.

Hoosier has a couple FAQ's on the subject as does carroll smith in his famous series of books on racing.

er

Brant,

I don't know that gentleman. Was his last name Price? I mountain biked with two sons whose father was autocrossing a 914 with great success in this region a few years ago.

#11 was built up by Rusty Persun who owned it about ten years. He did a lot of great improvements to it: 911 front susp with "S" brakes, turbo tie-rods, koni adjustables, 5-lug, weltmiester bushings, euro P/C kit, iskendarien valve train, balanced/blueprinted, battery to front trunk, 911 rear fender wells and much more. I feel very lucky to have found this car. With the guidence of this board, I have done many more modifications, but that's another story.

His dad, Ralph Persun, has worked, built and played with Porsches forever and operated a Porsche only garage for 20+ years. He's an ex-fighter pilot, airplane mech and has been nortorious in this area for decades as a maverick Porche guy. He's getting up in years, but still has a building full of cars (from a 356 spyder on), and has all the work he cares to have. Once they know you love Porsches, they're really nice guys.

Here's a pretty recent photo.....

I only opened this cause there was the word bob in the title.

Now I am glad I did because there is actually sme thought process going on here. Sound logical to me to flip tires. Now go race and tell us how it went.

I mean BOOB

If boob made you think of Bob, you got the wrong BBS.

Joseph,

your car looks great.
must have been a different car.
Roland's last name was bessler.. he was a long time 914 nut in my area. Used to have 5 or 6 of them. I raced in the same class against him for about 5 years and he was just a great guy. When he passed away, his wife sold the last 2 cars (both white #11's) as a pair... one was a 2.0/6 and the other a 2.0/4 race car with similar rear flares to yours..

thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Your car really looks nice.

brant