Miata Mailing List: September 1992, Message #10
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   From: (none)
Subject: Re: A008RS II wisdom needed
   Date: (none)

Eng.Sun.COM!Brad.Martinson (Brad Martinson) writes:
>Hmm... I seem to recall you were going to summarize the differences between
>the 185/60s and 205/55 RS tires.  Those of us with Miatas want to know.  I
>recall there was someone local to your area that had the size yours didn't.
There is one local person running 195/50 BFGs and a whole passel of
occasional Miata autocrossers with 185/60s, but none of them are very
close to Joe and I.

The 205/55 seems to me to be the hot ticket for the Miata.  Since I've
started running them my PAXed times have improved a lot.  Unfortunately
so have Bill Buetow's times in his 944.  Bill beat me Sunday by 1.0 sec, 
but he was less than 1 sec off the winning SS time of Stacey Molliker
so Bill was really flying.  Bill (and Joe who's abandoned his Miata to co-drive
the 944) should be real threats at Nationals.  I told them they're going
to have to finish in the top 5 if they want to beat me ;-).

One thing we've discovered is that you get a lot of tire flex with the
205/55.  We discovered this when Joe put his "GoekeCam" (a 1"x1"x5" camera
mounted on a suction cup) on the side of his car facing rearward.  The
sidewall moved back and fourth about 4" total.  Scarey!  We raised the
tire pressure to 33/35 and it calmed down to about 2" (1" either way).

As for wear I've got about 64 runs on the tires and they are just down to
the wear bars (2/32s).  Two of them are a bit worn on the outside so I'm
just running them on the back now.  I expect they have about 20 more runs
left in them.  I have bought new shaved tires for Nationals, but I will keep
these for practice next year.

>Also, 195/60s don't seem to be the hot ticket.  Too tall, too high a gearing.
>Although that may be an advantage at Crows Landing -- I'll find out Sunday :-)
Well, they are better than 185/60s (in BFG at least), but you're right
about the gearing.

>Best of luck at Salina.
Thanks, I hope things go well.

- Alan