Friends have convinced me to turn my 1uzfe powered Celica into a rally car. A forum member has 27x8.5-14's on his rally Celica and they work but he has massive lift. I won't be lifting beyond a little over stock height and those tires won't clear the front suspension (and are stupid expensive) So, I have these 14x7" rims. And am finding it tough to get a variety of sizes in 14". So far I can find 195/60r14. What say you guys? Winter tires for rallying?
You'll wish you had stiffer sidewalls
In a nutshell:
You can't run studs.
Winter tires work decent. Ice tires will wear much too fast.
Probably your best option is truck tires/all terrains if you can find a good size.
EDIT: This is assuming you speak of rallycross. If its stage rally, I know nothing.
For proper stage rally or rallycross?
It's more like 75% weekend fun hooning. 20% drive SWMBO around. 5% show up to an Oregon rally and have fun.
But I do plan on using it for a rough road and rough weather car. (Plenty of that where I live!)
Trackmouse wrote: It's more like 75% weekend fun hooning. 20% drive SWMBO around. 5% show up to an Oregon rally and have fun.
Yes, but stage rally or rallycross?
Stage Rally
You want the harder compound "studdable snow" tires. Firestone is the popular one, but Goodyear came out with one a while back (Ultra Grip Winter) that looked better to me, but I've never run either or put a durometer on them. Might also look at the maypop brands, sometimes they'll have 2 ply sidewalls.
Is a LT street tire a better choice?
If you can fit one, an LT all terrain tire (even a P-metric size) will definitely have stiffer sidewalls than a snow tire, so it'll be more responsive and less prone to de-beading (and may not need as much pressure to avoid de-beads). Depending on the terrain and outside temp, it may or may not be faster.
I've run the Jeep at rallycrosses on studless snow/ice tires and they've worked well, although they chunk easily on gravel and will wear very fast if it's hot out. A lot of the other local rallycross guys run studdable snows without studs in them year-round.
If you can find some suitable 15s, you might be able to snag some used but not trashed yet rally tires for it.
AT tires would be better. A friend just started running the new Goodyear snow tires in RX and they're way better durability wise than the old winter force tires. If I had to stay on the ultra cheap I'd find the biggest lug high tread wear all season's and a tire groover and I'd open up the lugs by about 30% and give 'er hell.
Having said all that, if you're going to put the actual $$ into building a proper caged log booked car and pay the $$$ for entry fees, it's worth it to rustle up an extra set of wheels and some proper rally tires, just for durability and not having to destroy tires/wheels on stage.
If you want to run stage rally then you need rally tires. You will kill snows with rocks.
Mike Hurst, who is the current Rally America Technical Director used AT on his Mustang when he was running rallies.
WM Winter Rally last weekend had almost everyone on street snow tires (like Alimax Arctic). With not much actual snow but lots of ice, and no studs allowed, that was the prudent choice for traction. And pretty much everyone destroyed one or two of them since that rally is full of rocks and got really rough as the ice melted during the day. We killed two of them - both sidewall punctures from big jagged rocks.
There are winter rally tires out there, but they are pricey for sure. For full snow coverage, seems that most privateer teams just run Altimaxes or something similar. It just gets tricky when there is some ice but some exposed rocky surface like last weekend. The perfect storm of tire indecision for everyone there.
I would not suggest snow tires at all for non-snowy stage rally though...
Noted. All seasons it is. And as of right now, I'm not "hardcore" I'm keeping the car in a state so that I can swap between off-road and track car within an hour. It's my cheapo Exocet.
Following with interest.
So, generally speaking, an AT tire works better for rally cross (no stage rally) than a snow tire?
paranoid_android74 wrote: Following with interest. So, generally speaking, an AT tire works better for rally cross (no stage rally) than a snow tire?
It all depends on the conditions where you run and how you drive.
Rocky or ruts and you like to slide the car? No snows, they will de-bead or rip the sidewalls.
Grassy or just dirt and you tend to keep the car straight? Snows may be a good option.
AT's are not always easy to find in car sizes.
I've been fortunate that because I do a lot of volunteering at performance rallies, I have had 3 sets of rally tires given to me by teams for use at Rally-x.
AT's will also tend to kill gearing which has a greater effect on performance in rallycross.
Run 195/75r14 BFG A/Ts. I did exactly the same with my Celica GTS for rallcycross- they're tough, have about the same dirt traction as a snow tire, and wear like iron.
EDIT: Tire Rack is out of these, but you should hopefully still be able to find some elsewhere- get them quick, I believe the size has been discontinued!
paranoid_android74 wrote: Following with interest. So, generally speaking, an AT tire works better for rally cross (no stage rally) than a snow tire?
At this point, since I got the new tires mounted for the Jeep, my plan is to run my snows at rallyx events where there's ice on the course or significant non-melting snow (easy, as I'll likely have driven there on them in weather where that's likely), while I'll swap to the mud tires if the course isn't snowy / icy and for warm weather events. And in the warm weather, if it's dry, packed and grippy, I'll have the option of running my street tires that I drove there on. In my case, running actual rally tires isn't an option as they're all way too small. If you can get your hands on a used set of gravels, they seem to be a pretty good general purpose rallycross tire (and they're durable and hard to de-bead).
Basically, there's no hard rule of what kind of tires work well for everything, as course conditions can vary too much. But I've seen A/Ts be pretty competitive all around, even in the snow, so they might be a good choice for just having 1 set of tires.
Man, I spent all night looking at real rally tires. Spendy. But not impossible. Anyone have an account with Michelin? I want the tl80 or 90!
Trackmouse wrote: Man, I spent all night looking at real rally tires. Spendy. But not impossible. Anyone have an account with Michelin? I want the tl80 or 90!
If you think real rally tires are expensive have you priced out the rest of the stuff you need to prep the car for stage rally?
With your location there should be a number of people selling used tires.
I just had a random thought. Would runflat snow tires be harder to de-bead or puncture the sidewall over regular snows?
Nick (LUCAS) Comstock wrote: I just had a random thought. Would runflat snow tires be harder to de-bead or puncture the sidewall over regular snows?
Almost definitely. They'll have thicker, stiffer sidewalls and carcasses in general. And along with that, they'll be heavy.
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