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Avon Replacement


CarlB

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Here is a chart you all might find useful. I think I am going to try the Hooser DOT tires in 185/60/13 and 205/60/13. The front tire is about 1 inch taller, and the rear is about 3/4 of an inch taller. 

 

 

Tires.xlsx

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On 6/6/2024 at 1:20 PM, CarlB said:

Here is a chart you all might find useful. I think I am going to try the Hooser DOT tires in 185/60/13 and 205/60/13. The front tire is about 1 inch taller, and the rear is about 3/4 of an inch taller. 

 

 

Tires.xlsx 11.14 kB · 9 downloads

Let us know how that goes. I went with the 225/45/13 on the rears on 8" width wheels. I've put them on the car, but even visually without dropping the car down the lower rear height is going to require a big change to the suspension. I'm assuming your using 6" rear wheels for the 205s? 

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Posted (edited)

re: 225s - yeah I'd rather go up in width than down (car is plenty "assy" as is). However, with the lower profile not only would I have to adjust geometry, but I'm getting shorter gearing. At my two home tracks (Laguna and Sonoma), I'm right at the top of 4th gear (124mph per GPS) on the fastest sections on both tracks, bouncing into the limiter if conditions are good and I got a good exit. Any shorter gearing will be an issue for me. Slighter taller would be preferred actually. 

Edited by KnifeySpoony
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The Hooser Dot 205/60-13 tire is very slightly wider than the 215/50-13 Avon. The Hooser is 8.0 and the Avon is 7.87 wide. The front is about 3/4 of an inch wider. The tires from brand to brand are not consistently the same width.  Hooser does not specify the wheel size use to check the width and a wider wheel generally makes the tire tread flatter and put more rubber in the ground. Yes, I intend to use 8 inch rear wheels. I suspect I will need to put a little less rake because the front might have more grip than the Avons. It is going to be a while before I try them. I have half worn Avons and a new set of Hooser slicks to use first. 

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On 6/7/2024 at 4:21 PM, KnifeySpoony said:

re: 225s - yeah I'd rather go up in width than down (car is plenty "assy" as is). However, with the lower profile not only would I have to adjust geometry, but I'm getting shorter gearing. At my two home tracks (Laguna and Sonoma), I'm right at the top of 4th gear (124mph per GPS) on the fastest sections on bother tracks, bouncing into the limiter if conditions are good and I got a good exit. Any shorter gearing will be an issue for me. Slighter taller would be preferred actually. 

Well crap I may have made a mistake on the rears. Has anyone gone 13/6 front 15/8 rears on the Hoosier R7?

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1 hour ago, sf4018 said:

Well crap I may have made a mistake on the rears. Has anyone gone 13/6 front 15/8 rears on the Hoosier R7?

 

No but I am interested to know what happened?

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On 6/10/2024 at 9:14 AM, Croc said:

 

No but I am interested to know what happened?

Wheel Size Use Type Manufacturer Part # Comp. Diam (in) Diam (mm) Width Width (mm) Notes
13x6 Track DOT Avon 185/55R13 EXT ZZR EXT 21.0 533 7.3 185 No longer available
13x8 Track DOT Avon 215/55R13 EXT ZZR EXT 22.3 566 8.5 215 No longer available
13x6 Track DOT Hoosier P185/60ZR13 R7 21.9 555 7.3 185  
13x8 Track DOT Hoosier P225/45ZR13 R7 20.9 529 8.9 225  
15x8 Track DOT Hoosier P225/45ZR15 R7 22.8 578 8.9 225

 

 

Avon ZZR  rears have a diameter of 566mm; the Hoosier P225/45ZR13 is 37mm smaller but the P225/45ZR15 is only 12mm bigger despite being on 15" wheels. The problem for the P225/45ZR13 is the limited top speed (usually run >125mph on straights) and the massive suspension adjustment. The P225/45ZR15 may be problematic too with needing more torque to get to top speed, but at least the suspension adjustment isn't huge. I need to think about it more.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I recently saw some tires on Jack Webb Motorsports web site. These tires are not available in the US, but they look interesting. I do not know much about them except I can say Kumho is a brand of track day tire a lot of people use. I have updated my spreadsheet to include them. Maybe some of our UK friends can comment.

 

  Tires.xlsx

 

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  • 2 months later...

Have folks here tried the Bridgestone Potenza RE-71rs? It's a 200 treadwear dot approved tire so not necessary the ultimate track tires but I'd love to hear if anyone has experience with them and what they thought. Popular for autoX, on heavier cars on the big track they tend to heat soak.  Thought it may not be such a problem on our featherweight cars.  Tirerack currently has some 2 year old stock on clearance cheap.  May be a good option for me as a street/track tire.

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On 6/10/2024 at 7:25 AM, sf4018 said:

Well crap I may have made a mistake on the rears. Has anyone gone 13/6 front 15/8 rears on the Hoosier R7?

Just curious.  Folks who run big tracks in their Elise cars tell me they run Hoosier A7 because the car is so light.

 

Seven cars are lighter than Elise cars.  Why would you want to run R7 tires?

 

I'm an autocrosser, and I found out that with a good suspension on my Elise I couldn't heat Hoosier A7 tires.  I went to Yoko 052 tires on the Elise and did much better.  When I got another Caterham, the Yoko 052 was the obvious choice.

 

I am on stock size tires on the Caterham.  195-50-15 on 6.5 x 15 Prisoner wheels.

 

I have the Bridgestone RE-71RS tires for my Cayman.  That's a heavy car, and the suspension geometry is not all that great.

 

 

Edited by pethier
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6 hours ago, pethier said:

Just curious.  Folks who run big tracks in their Elise cars tell me they run Hoosier A7 because the car is so light.

 

Seven cars are lighter than Elise cars.  Why would you want to run R7 tires?

 

I'm an autocrosser, and I found out that with a good suspension on my Elise I couldn't heat Hoosier A7 tires.  I went to Yoko 052 tires on the Elise and did much better.  When I got another Caterham, the Yoko 052 was the obvious choice.

 

I am on stock size tires on the Caterham.  195-50-15 on 6.5 x 15 Prisoner wheels.

 

I have the Bridgestone RE-71RS tires for my Cayman.  That's a heavy car, and the suspension geometry is not all that great.

 

 

A7 isn't available for the sizes unfortunately or wasn't last time I checked.

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3 hours ago, sf4018 said:

A7 isn't available for the sizes unfortunately or wasn't last time I checked.

Bummer.

 

Maybe it's time to move to 15" wheels.

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3 minutes ago, pethier said:

Bummer.

 

Maybe it's time to move to 15" wheels.

Agreed, I’m looking at that for the rears. From my personal experience on the A7/R7 choice track temperature is also a big factor. I have not run on Hoosiers yet in the 7, but in another race car which weighs 2850’ if the air temp is above ~60F and sunny R7s are the way to go. I would imagine for 7s it’s a higher temperature, maybe someone with experience in Hoosiers would have some insight.

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5 hours ago, sf4018 said:

Agreed, I’m looking at that for the rears. From my personal experience on the A7/R7 choice track temperature is also a big factor. I have not run on Hoosiers yet in the 7, but in another race car which weighs 2850’ if the air temp is above ~60F and sunny R7s are the way to go. I would imagine for 7s it’s a higher temperature, maybe someone with experience in Hoosiers would have some insight.

I dunno.  These Elise guys never said there was an ambient temperature that would make them change.  Yeah, I'm in Minnesota, but they weren't.

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On 9/12/2024 at 4:35 AM, sf4018 said:

A7 isn't available for the sizes unfortunately or wasn't last time I checked.

FYI i just noticed that hoosier does make an A7 in 225/45/13. But you'd have to run a square setup I guess. 

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On 9/18/2024 at 3:41 PM, KnifeySpoony said:

FYI i just noticed that hoosier does make an A7 in 225/45/13. But you'd have to run a square setup I guess. 

I run a square setup, but then-again, I am an autocrosser with 135 HP.  My Cat was actually pushing.  I have de-frozen the slider blocks and stiffened the rear bar.  Testing tomorrow at and autocross in Neosho MO.

 

I also ran a square setup on my Europa Series 2.

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  • 1 month later...

I spoke with nova last week. They still have stock from the previous run of the 185 55 R13 zzs tires. Not so lucky with the rears 215 55 r13. Neither are part of their phase 1 production which goes thru mid 2025.  No insights when or if they will go. 

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Glad to hear that avonNOVA ( I like palindromes too) are currently concentrating on hillclimb tires, since they are the ticket for USA-stye autocrossing a Caterham.

 

The Yokohama 052 works well-enough for a dual-purpose street/autocross tire on a Caterham, but it does not not give the stick of an Avon hillclimb tire.

 

I could not heat Hoosier A7 tires autocrossing my Elise, so I can't imagine they would work any better with a Caterham.

 

 

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