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Rover is getting a conversion to Supermiata S1 spec with a Trackspeed turbo. I had planned to run the spec 245/40 RC-1 on 9" wheels, but this gives me hope of getting the 10s under a heavily massaged set of factory fenders. I have faith
Not to start a debate psyber_0ptix and sorry for being the bearer of bad news but no, 10's and 245's won't fit on an NA even with a heavy pull. As in tuliped rears and you may still have contact with full (Xida) bump travel. We mangled the fenders on Deviate trying to it to work. I had this idea for years of cutting a circumferential slit in the inner
fender like plastic surgeon, then pulling the outer section away from the inner section. Then filling the resultant gap with metal, rivet and sealing it in. Didn't work. Still rubbed at full bump with VR1-'s. RC-1's are a whisker shorter so they might clear.
Front is easier to just run wide FRP fenders. Come to think of it, we should probably allow composite/FRP front fenders in S1 as that's easier to do than flares and looks better anyway.
We bought a set of the Arios rear over fenders thinking they were 30-40mm wider and paid handsomely for the privilege. Turned out to be barely 15mm over OEM :( Worthless, back to square one trying to fit these under Deviate with the K20.
Anyone want to make me an offer? Arios Rear Blister Fenders For Mazda Miata MX5 NA | REV9
didn't realize this was such a sensitive topic
I don't subscribe (to anything) currently, but would gladly pay the $10 for a year subscription if it helps guys like you test cool new stuff for us
Sensitive? Not really. Just simple market dynamics.
Think of it this way...if nobody bought the magazine, people like me would not test stuff for publication. We get test product for free from manufacturers in return for exposure for them. They won't do that unless we can show market share via readership. Similarly, the folks that do the mounting and balancing, especially the on-site guys, aren't going to do that w/o some exposure upside.
As it is, there are a ton of incidental costs and logistics, not to mention the personal time of the test participants, that goes uncompensated. At the end of the day, even with the pittance that the magazine pays for the story, it's basically a wash. Good thing I enjoy the process.
245's on 15x9's at Mid-Ohio with the JV6 swap in May, not sure what it is about me and that track but it ALWAYS seems to rain or snow, usually both.
Very limited time on them there and it was cold, so very very slick if you know Mid-Ohio.
No rubbing in this config with about -3.1 camber front and -2.8 rear at 4.75" pinch on budget Bilstein suspension, but also not much grip due to track conditions.
I've got 15x10 6ULs and 245 working on an NA with heavy pull and flat roll. Gen 1 Xidas, 4-1/2" static rear pinch weld height, 1.9* rear camber. Front was no problem. Rear required some patience.
Gap (hard to get a light behind there at full compression)
Fully compressed
Fenders aren't ruined, or anything. (The paint was always bad.)
Sure looks like the spring is at block height there, but maybe it's the angle of the photo. You normally remove the spring when checking for clearance fitment so you can put the shock on the bumpstop.
Have you driven it hard enough to use full travel yet?
Not on a track. As hard as I could on the back roads of Appalachia. Rough and smooth. Onto the bump stops, lateral loading until slide correction was needed. I don't see too many running much harder on the street. I'll try to get out to Carolinas Motorsports Park on the 21st.
We just returned from a winning weekend at Gingerman and ran these tires in 245 on 9's along with a set of Rival (non-S) in 225. I had hoped to make a direct comparison on overall grip, braking, wear and so on, but a 225 suffered a cording flat spot that ended that hope on Friday during practice. Car is 240hp weighing 2275lbs.
We ran the 245s for ~5 hours on Sat (2 hours of that in the rain) and a full 8 hours on Sunday, rotating them on the car overnight. The front left gets heavy outer edge wear from a fast, off camber sweeper to the right as you will see in the picture. We could have used more camber possibly, but would have started to lose braking capability. Current camber is -3.5 F / -3 R. The Maxxis 245 seemed to wear pretty fast (no direct comparison other than we get about ~30 hours from 205 Rivals on a stock powered car so likely not a fair expectation) but performed very well in the rain which was enough early in the race to cause small streams across the track. They were full tread to start the weekend in the rain and I had full confidence in them in the corners and braking. Ambient temps were in the high 70s to low 80s with no real sun until Sunday afternoon. They never seemed to get greasy, but they were also getting pretty low on tread by the time track temps rose so that may have played to their advantage when temps spiked near 86 in the final hours of the race.
Concluding thoughts, I still want to test the 245s vs 225s on 9's and will have a new set of RS3 with me when we return there in a month, maybe another set of Rival (non-S) if I dismount these 275s from my 6ULs. Key questions being, are the 245s worth the extra $$ for both lap times and longevity vs the historic Rival/RS3 225 tires?
Here you will see the heavy camber wear on the front left, but the center tread depth is on par with all 4 tires. The tires wore well, showed no chunking or anything of that nature. We did notice the center section of the tread had a slight angle to it, leaning to the outside as is common in today's faster tires.