Siddvette

96 C4 with 315/335 Rivals's for dry, but they suck for rain. Thinking Conti-DW's because I can get 275/285 on 17's on the cheap. But I'm hearing the RE71R's are better (would need to pick up another set of 18" wheels though, very pricey for rain tires). How much better are the RE71R's in the rain than the Conti DWs ... Any other tires better than the DWs?

conemark

Among us R-compound autocrossers, for quite a while it was said that a sticker set of the Continental DW was a good choice for a poor man's rain tire if you didn't want to go for Hoosier Wets. What's not to like about them being widely available and being relatively inexpensive?

With that said, I would look at this years One Lap tire choices considering how relatively wet things were. It seems that the Michelin Pilot Super Sport took wet honors but many of us know that the DW is the better wet tire but not as good in the dry. Quoting Andy Hollis: "... If you look at the results of the wet skid pad, the RE71R posse was all tightly grouped and solidly mid-pack. The PSS ZP folks were the caboose on the train, with PSS ruling the day. Note that there was more water than normal, as it was actively raining in addition to the sprinkler flow. And it was cold...like high 40's cold. But the issue was less about hydoplaning and more about compound activation...as in nothing gripped worth a damn except the regular PSS. I turned the wheel and nobody was home. It was like forever driving around the pad.

The morning session at Pittrace and both sessions at Palmer were similar...with similar results...though mixed up by experience on the layouts. I had been to Palmer the week prior in even colder wet conditions driving Peter's Cayman GTS on the PSS ZP's. No grip. Not hydroplane, just no compound turn-on.

Later in the week, at NCM, we had warmer wet...and both the RE71R and PSS ZP worked better. So the issue is temperature. In cold and dry, you can generate heat during the warm-up lap, so not a big problem. In cold wet, you cannot. The break seems to be somewhere around mid-50's depending on how much water. "

twistedwankel

I tried a set of PSS autocrossing and they were good wet and dry in FL for the first 1/2 tread on my C5. The last 1/2 tread stuck well but wore out in record time and at wear bars the fronts delaminated in 3" sections on out sides. Used only as rain tires you wouldn't see that.

I am trying a set of Conti DW's on stock RX8 but noticed although great in dry or rain they are stiff and wear angled to the -2* negative camber in the front of my car which is okay but I'll have to rotate them more often. Can't flip them on rims. Mounted a set of NOS Rivals on 17" rims and they are killer!!

I more recently put on a set of Toyo Proxie T1 Sports on my C5 which are equal to the PSS in the dry and wet available from a local Toyo dealer for $650/set installed. These are really good tires cheaper than most. Tire Rack only has a few sizes but thru a local tire dealer they are available an almost all sizes. I am only 1 second off the pace of a normal competitor who switched to Bridgestone RE11 200 rubber in the dry and I beat him by 1.5 seconds in the wet. I leave these tires on my car all the time. Now they are worn to 6/32" and wearing evenly. The Toyo's are rated at 240wear. Pretty sticky but no RE71!! 2 seconds slower than RE71's in the dry.

**Personally, I used to have a set of shaved tires for dry and a set of full depth mounted for wet of the same type/manufacturer and did well at National events. Too old/slow to go there anymore. You cannot save money or cut corners and win there.

63Corvette

Hoosier H2O

conemark

Except R-compounds are now banned in anything but SSR (guessing the original poster was asking in reference to SCCA autocrossing).

Besides, everyone knows that the Kumho W710 is the Lord Almighty's Rain Tire