Gentlemen: Start your odometers

[Boxologist]

The tires that Box ID's are wonderful, as long as it doesn't rain. They are basically slicks with 2 token grooves posing as tread.

 

If you want a grippy street tire with tread, look at the Toyo RA1 or R888. Both are excellent track tires and rain tires and street tires. They are about 2 seconds a lap slower than the Hoosiers or Kumos, but will last 10x longer (maybe 10K miles) and offer decent driveability should it rain.

 

I think the Toyos' wear rating is 40-most street tires start at 140 and go up. I have run all the above on my Miata and liked the Toyos best as an all around tire. I have them on my Seven now and they are great. If I were towing my Seven to a track, and using it mostly for track days, I'd go for Hoosiers

 

teh ra1 and r888 are still Rcomps, and so track orientated. beacause our cars are so light and used seldomly in the wet, those tyres are frequently used as daily drivers. in teh rain, and real rain, not just wet pavement, i would chose not to be on those tyres driing around town.

 

for a daliy driver tyre that can handle rain, and pass the DOT's 140 treadwear rating, 15" Bridgestone Potenza RE01R (i have), Toto R1R, or the new Dunlop Direzza z1 star spec would be fine choices.

[slngsht]

RA1's are fine in rain

 

Had them for about a year / 5000 miles and still looked new when I sold them with the wheels. excellent tire. they made nice rooster tails in the rain with no fender

[BobDrye]

I'm going to buy a set of tires for the back of my seven this spring. The A6 dot legal tire seems to be a good candidate on dry days, but it doesn't sound like a tire that I could get home on if it rains. Has anyone used Hoosier dot rains on the street? If so, how long did they last? Do they overheat on our very light cars?

 

 

[tnttim]

My donor had 128,000 on it. Does that count???

 

Other than that I have gotten lots of miles on it carrying parts back and forth to garage. My garage is not heated, car taking shape in basement, and yes it fits up the stairs.

 

[Kitcat]

Well, the contest starts with miles accumulated starting from now til 11/1. So, unlike G Bush I, being born on 3rd base doesn't mean you hit a triple.

 

I have to say tho, I am very impressed that a Seven had 128K. Maybe we could name the "prize" after your car:)? Or maybe its previous owner? I think Seven miles are like dog years. So it's really like driving almost 1M miles in a normal car!

 

If we count miles walked up and down stairs, logically we would have to count miles driven for parts, or even miles the purchased parts traveled, in all, to get to our Seven. That would give us Caterham and Birken owners a huge advantage over locally brewed LISS's, given how far our parts travel.

 

So it's just miles driven (forwards or backwards), in the next 8 months. And who cares who wins? As long as it gets you in your car:"Honey, I HAVE to go for a 3 day blat, I am competing for the grand prize!"

 

 

[slngsht]

My donor had 128,000 on it. Does that count???

 

Um, no :skep:

 

[eVox]

my donor's odometer stopped working at 287k.

 

 

I guess Ill have to get that figured out.

[sporqster]

Bought Odie last July with just under 5k on the odo, now just over 6k.

 

Driving her to work at least twice a week right through the 'winter' here- in fact drove her to work today!

 

I was driving around town on Hoosier A3S04's as an experiment (40 tread wear) - put several hundred miles on them with almost no measurable wear! Those tires might be a little too sticky- until I put wider front fenders on they would routinely pelt me in the head with rocks. (ow!) Oh - and the Hoosiers are worthless in the wet, not so good in the cold, and (as I must imbarassingly admit) give you very little warning before they give up on grip and send you into a ditch (which has to have been the most spectacular wreck in a 7 to have ever been repaired for a grand total of $6. But that's another story)

 

I now cruise around town on Yokohama Advans, 90 treadwear, I think. Good tire - and were the orignal for the build, so they've got 5k+ miles on them still perform and look pretty good.

[Keith]

Hoosier will tell you not to run their DOT race tires on the street. The DOT legality has nothing to do with actual streetability. Even if the tread manages to last for a while, you'll heat-cycle them out early.

 

Go Toyo. We have Miata customers who run the RA-1 on the street, and I've driven them in fairly good rainstorms. Great tire.

[BobDrye]

Bought Odie last July with just under 5k on the odo, now just over 6k.

 

Driving her to work at least twice a week right through the 'winter' here- in fact drove her to work today!

 

I was driving around town on Hoosier A3S04's as an experiment (40 tread wear) - put several hundred miles on them with almost no measurable wear! Those tires might be a little too sticky- until I put wider front fenders on they would routinely pelt me in the head with rocks. (ow!) Oh - and the Hoosiers are worthless in the wet, not so good in the cold, and (as I must imbarassingly admit) give you very little warning before they give up on grip and send you into a ditch (which has to have been the most spectacular wreck in a 7 to have ever been repaired for a grand total of $6. But that's another story)

 

I now cruise around town on Yokohama Advans, 90 treadwear, I think. Good tire - and were the orignal for the build, so they've got 5k+ miles on them still perform and look pretty good.

 

 

I think that the rains are actually dirt track tires. If the A6, R6 dot tires last a summer on our light cars then maybe the rains would. Our loading on the tires is so soft that they might not overheat.

 

:7head:

[sporqster]

Hoosier will tell you not to run their DOT race tires on the street. The DOT legality has nothing to do with actual streetability. Even if the tread manages to last for a while, you'll heat-cycle them out early.

 

That was mostly the point of my experiment - the A3's were several seasons old and probably heat cycled out already, but still grippier dry than a typical street tire (so I seem to think - tell me I'm wrong)... and for $25 each (from the GrassRootsMotorsports classifieds) I figured what the heck...

 

I could NEVER get any heat in the fronts - running 225 45 15's even after a 20-minute lapping session at Roebling they were not demonstrably warmer than they were just sitting in the sun. I could get some heat in the rear... but that might have been because they were rubbing the suspension a little :nonod: or the punishment I was giving the rears with my right foot using my 1.6 litres of naturally aspirated fury.

 

Having said that, I don't do much heavy braking at Roebling- car hardly has enough power to need to brake much on that track. Esp when there's a bunch of old rich guys in the way putsing around in their Porsches ;-) So the fronts weren't seeing much punishment.

[southwind25]

SW25:

 

Get the new tires now! You will never wear out tires on a 1200 lb Seven. And if they are rock hard, not only will they last even longer, you will miss about 50% of the Seven experience.

 

Tell Mary it's a critically important safety item (which it actually is).

 

i looked up the wear #'s for this falken tire that came on the car..420?

uh, does that mean it's a 100k tire on a se7en will last longer than the car?

i need to find a corperate sponsor to pay for all this stuff...

:willy:

[scannon]

My car had 562 miles on the odometer (and about 1,500 without the odomoter working) when I put it back on the road a couple of weeks ago, its up to nearly 800 so far including one track day this month.

 

I'm going for the towing award since any trip of more than 6 hours requires me to trailer it so I can bring along R2D2 (my LOX tank).

 

Skip

[Dave W]

I'll check my odometer after I finish shaveling the 5" of snow we are getting today.

 

Dave W :ack:

[southwind25]

easter run, took the family out for some frozen bunny rides this weekend..36 miles worth. The general comment was that everyone was surprised how well behaved the car was for something so small.:7fume:

Oh..heres some pics from easter run, with the latest changes-updates:

http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/494703379_Picture 003.jpghttp://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/561162009_Picture 002.jpg

[MHKflyer52]

Very nice looking with all the polished aluminum and the bright yellow hood and nose, I even think the leather trunk is very cool and the 1st one I have seen.

Makes my car look sad.

 

 

 

[gjslutz]

Southwind 25, it looks great, looking FWD to seeing it.

 

I had mine out for the first run yesterday, I need to add more camber for the R888's. 39' OAT and no road salt it would stay hooked up in 2nd.

[southwind25]

Thanks for the compliments, we are just trying to bring it up to the level we know most of you se7en'rs keep their cars. We hope it will earn it's repolished patina as time goes on.

The trunk was a result of our expectations to do a bit of touring. With the existing "trunk" full of the top and side curtians there wont be much room left, and add a tent and couple sleeping bags...We are really surprized we havnt seen this allot before. trying to keep weight and durability both in mind It's a simple Harley hard leather sissy bar bag we got inexpensivly, and we tig'd up an aluminium frame for it. we could even go larger if we wanted but this fit pretty well.

 

toyo's sound great, these falkens slip around like they are made of bakalite. http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/1192144356_Picture 001.jpg

[WestTexasS2K]

Which Falkens do you have? I have had the RT651 and loved them they were great tires.

 

[Kitcat]

I like the car much better as shown above on the existing wheels than on the faux red wheels that were photo-shopped onto your avatar. With red, the colors look too busy, with silver it looks all of a piece (IMHO, of course). You really got the aluminum to shine nicely too.