200TW Tires As Only Tire On My Foxbody?

Since I will only be driving my Mustang a couple of thousand miles a year I plan to go with 200TW tires.

It will be a sometime autocross car, occasionally track day car and fun Saturday car.

Anyone doing this?

I would love to here thoughts on this.

Yep I'm running Contiental ECFs for that, I put them on early last year. Good cold performance for autocross, great for track days and they don't wear out too fast on the street. At this rate they'll probably be worn out at the end of this year or early next year.

I have done this in Florida.  My big problem was standing water at 1/2 tread depth.  Afternoon storms were pretty tricky.

I also run 200TW tires or sometimes even racing slicks full time on my AE92 since it never sees cold weather and driving distances are pretty low. For the Toyobaru, I run the ECFs from late spring to late fall and have a set of winter tires that I use more like storage tires just to keep the ECFs out of the cold. I've been thinking about burning off the winter/storage tires at a drift event since they'll age out before they wear out otherwise...

Why not? Slap some period correct NT01s on there :-)

Just don't drive on them below about 30 degrees F. You'll have very little traction and might damage the tire. I have them in my mr2 and just park it inside for the winter. Might not be an issue in NV. 
 

Other than that I love it. Great grip on the road and lots of fun. 

For your climate, I wouldn't hesitate to run 200TW year 'round on a 'fun' car.

Back when our NA Miata was still a street car, I ran Direzza ZIIs year 'round and never had any issues.  Northern AZ at the time, so mostly dry with big temp swings.  Didn't drive it much in the rain, but I did start out one morning headed to AutoX in a light dusting of snow.  No problem.

WRT to temps and high performance tires... I've dealt with this a lot... in the mountains, even a nice 50-60 deg day in winter could start out in the high 20s to low 30s in the mornings.  As long as the car is garaged, normal driving will be fine.  If the tire sits long enough in 20-30 degrees to fully assume those temps, it can crack if not carefully warmed up.  Obviously, you won't have as much grip when they're cold, and big throttle application at temps under 60 deg aren't going to end well.  My experience is that allowing a race tire to fully freeze will permanently affect it's performance even if it is carefully brought back to temps.

I DD'd my '15 BRZ on Star Specs. Even got caught in the slush in once, I died, and this is my ghost typing. 

Also drove my '90 Miata to a track day on my R888s. when I left my house it was 25°, first session of the day started at 30°. That was the first time I died. 

In reply to z31maniac :

"I got better!"

For that kind of use, go for it. For my "fun" car that sees like 5k a year, I've run Direzzas, Fed RS-RR, etc. I probably wouldn't do a super 200 like an A052, but an endurance 200 should be fine. 

No problem, most of the time--colder temps (meaning 50 or less) will quickly disagree with this logic, though.  I am close to getting rid of some long-in-the-tooth NT05s that have seen better days.  They don't seem to warm up at all anymore . . .

There are lots of multi-use Miatas running around on 200TW tires. We ran our LS ND on RE71R tires, but of course journalists burned them off long before they actually wore out. Still, it got driven through lots of inclement weather.

The only thing that would worry me on a Fox body would be the weight. I'd expect the tires to burn off a little faster. But hey, that's life with a big car :)

Two recommendations: RE71RS if your wet use is limited to damp or fewer puddles.  Conti ECS02 is you have to deal with more standing water, especially at higher speeds.  The former is quicker in the dry and similar in damp, but once the water gets deeper, the ECS02 jumps way ahead.  The latter is also super quiet on the highway compared to pretty much any Super 200.

dculberson said:

In reply to z31maniac :

"I got better!"

Excellent reference!

I wouldn't hesitate to run 200TW tires on a lightly driven car. My personal suggestion would be for the Nankang CR-S V2 if you can get them in your size. They probably aren't quite as fast at AutoX but they are pretty fast, durable and consistent at the track. 

CAinCA said:

I wouldn't hesitate to run 200TW tires on a lightly driven car. My personal suggestion would be for the Nankang CR-S V2 if you can get them in your size. They probably aren't quite as fast at AutoX but they are pretty fast, durable and consistent at the track. 

Disagree.

CRS V2 need some heat to stick.  Before that they are a bit tricky.  I experience this when driving to and from the track...hooning unintentionally in my 'hood.  :)

They are also not good in the wet

I DDed my Civic on star specs. It was awesome. I don't think I could tolerate re71r. So much noise.Back when we got real winter around Chicago I would swap to winter tires.

I did that all the time with my fiesta on 660s, never had an issue.

Much of the time, our entire fleet wears 200s, including my wife’s Civic Si. (It’s currently on all-season Falkens, though, just to try something different.) Granted we live in Florida. YMMV and all that. 

I love the 615's on the Rio. Have driven them in the chilly weather before. The downside is their noise. Never had an issue with water, puddles, rain or what not but the noise....

In reply to Rodan :

Just adding my $0.02 worth of "yup" because that's exactly the tire I ran on my Miata and same experience (central Texas, 30-degree winter mornings are not terribly unusual).

in the midwest i run my corvette on GY SC3s as my only tire on the car.  I got 1.5 years out of a set /w 40-50 track sessions on the set and a few thousand miles.  The tires are not corded yet but will get replaced this season.  

A friend ran a set of 225? Rivals on a zero horsepower E30 for years.  They eventually got really hard, and if he didn't get them off before the first half inch of snow, I had to drag him to the shop.

dculberson said:

Just don't drive on them below about 30 degrees F. You'll have very little traction and might damage the tire. I have them in my mr2 and just park it inside for the winter. Might not be an issue in NV. 
 

Other than that I love it. Great grip on the road and lots of fun. 

+1 as this is what I do with my R53.  However, I do have snow tires/wheels to install during the winter and I keep the TW200 tires in my basement so they don't freeze.  Hopefully the weather will stay warm enough here to swap them back on in a couple of weeks.

Andy Hollis said:

Two recommendations: RE71RS if your wet use is limited to damp or fewer puddles.  Conti ECS02 is you have to deal with more standing water, especially at higher speeds.  The former is quicker in the dry and similar in damp, but once the water gets deeper, the ECS02 jumps way ahead.  The latter is also super quiet on the highway compared to pretty much any Super 200.

I have a set of the Continental ECS02 on my daily driven civic. I am really happy with them. Being in Florida, I picked them for their capability in the rain. I haven't used them for track or autocross, I have wheels with RE71rs for that, but I'm hoping for a wet autocross event to try them where they excel.