Nitto tires: NT05s or NT01s?

Hey dudes... Just fishing for a little input: I've been running Nitto NT555s on my '06 GT, and I'm thinking of upgrading tires to either the NT05s, or the NT01s. My car is not a daily driver, and is primarily used for open-track days. Rain performance is not really a concern.

My question: Is the price difference between the NT05s and the NT01s worth it? The NT05s are listed as a 200 treadwear rating, and the NT01s are listed as a 100 treadwear rating. Of course, the NT01s are about $70 more per tire.

Yes, I know I am asking a very open-ended question. I am interested in hearing input from guys who run their cars hard on a road course, but do not trailer it there. I live only 35 miles from my local track (Putnam Park).

As always, any and all feedback is appreciated. I truly enjoy learning more from the guys who have experience in this field.

-Nick

Ask Terry Fair about NT05's, ha. You don't want NT01's if you're driving to the event. They'll heat cycle and wear out.

I would go with a Hankook RS3, Bridgestone RE11, BFG Rival, Michelin Pilot Super Sport, Yokohama AD08 way before Nitto anything.

If it's "primarily" for open track days, the NT01s would be the ones to choose out of the two you listed.

Fwiw, I daily drive on NT05s and I think they're good street tires. I get a little more than 15k miles out of them.

There is no such thing as a good track tire that is also a good street tire. It’s impossible on a chemical level. So if you want one tire that does both things you have to find what you are willing to sacrifice. It sounds like you are willing to sacrifice the “street” part in favor of the track part.

So, you do not want NT05’s. They work pretty good as a street tire (except they suck in the rain) but they flop all over when pushed even moderately hard on the track. If you want to push the front into every corner and exit with the tail hanging out get em, they are great for that. I doubt that is what you are looking for though. Putnum is not a place to practice your drifting, its got some pretty fast/long corners.

So out of your two choices the NT01’s sound like the way to go.

IMO I don’t think you will hurt a 100 treadwear rated tire by street driving it (heat cycling). I just don’t see you ever getting the tire warm enough on the street to constitute a “heat cycle”. Of course I don’t know this for sure because I can’t find any published temperature ratings on car tires. I’m used to motorcycle roadrace tires (even the DOT stuff) and they always have data on at what temp they start to heat cycle, optimum temp range for traction and at what point they are “overheated”.

I’m running 100 treadwear rated tires on the street (R888’s) and I have not had any heat cycling issues as far as I can tell. I don’t get a chance to push the front tires at all on the street, you just can’t drive that fast. But the car has a LOT of power and I love smoking the rears off. I do it at least 2-3 times every time I drive it. And every time I smoke them off they get warm/hot and start gripping like crazy. They get “pick shit up off the road” sticky. I’ve probably heat cycled them 100 times like this and they still have tons of traction when warm. Antidotal evidence at best, but something.

Your best bet would be two sets of rims. One with slicks and one with street tires. But that means a lot more $$ and a little trailer. If I were you I would run 100 treadwear tires and just drive the car to the track. If I ended up heat cycling or using up the 100 treadwear rated tires too fast I would then go to plan B.

The NT-01 is the best all-around track tire there is. They don't heat cycle in a significant way, they just wear out. They're not a rain tire, but they're remarkably good in the rain, provided there's still tread on them. The only downside is that they're noisy - they drone endlessly.

I'm running NT-01's on my 88' GT track car, 315/35-17 square. All I can say is that the grip like hell and wear nicely. I can't claim that it's the ultimate track tire, but I have nothing negative to say about the tires so far.

I've used both NT-05's and NT-01's, and I like both tires.

I think NT-05's are a good value as long as you're just lapping and not trying to win anything. I thought they were fine in the rain, especially compared to the OEM Pirelli all-season tires. They lasted me 6 weekends before the tread started coming apart.

Once I upgraded to NT-01's, the first thing I noticed was that the tires communicate much better through the steering wheel. I also noticed that they are a lot more sensitive to pressure than NT-05's. I have about 4 weekends on them right now, and I haven't noticed any real change in grip. I think I can squeeze one more weekend out of them before they'll need to be replaced. I've been able to lower my lap times by ~3 seconds with them compared to my NT-05's. It would probably be more, but I have a stock suspension and only 1 deg of front camber, so I'm not using the tire to its full potential.

ddd4114 said:

I've used both NT-05's and NT-01's, and I like both tires.

I think NT-05's are a good value as long as you're just lapping and not trying to win anything. I thought they were fine in the rain, especially compared to the OEM Pirelli all-season tires. They lasted me 6 weekends before the tread started coming apart.

Once I upgraded to NT-01's, the first thing I noticed was that the tires communicate much better through the steering wheel. I also noticed that they are a lot more sensitive to pressure than NT-05's. I have about 4 weekends on them right now, and I haven't noticed any real change in grip. I think I can squeeze one more weekend out of them before they'll need to be replaced. I've been able to lower my lap times by ~3 seconds with them compared to my NT-05's. It would probably be more, but I have a stock suspension and only 1 deg of front camber, so I'm not using the tire to its full potential.

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Are you cording the shoulder of the fronts?

I flip them once to prolong their life. If I didn't, they would be toast.

My NT-05's actually had a pretty significant failure of the tread separating from the plies...



They didn't even look that worn. It happened at Nelson Ledges, so I wasn't that surprised.

My NT-01's haven't corded yet, but I've pretty much converted them into slicks. Hopefully they gradually cord instead of separating like my NT-05's.

wowzer you need some camber!

Is there any way to tell from the treadwear how much additional camber is needed?

kcbrown said:

Is there any way to tell from the treadwear how much additional camber is needed?

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Nope, only good way to adjust camber is by using a temp probe across the surface of the tire.

ddd4114 said:

They didn't even look that worn. It happened at Nelson Ledges, so I wasn't that surprised.

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Sounds like Nelsons to me. When I was racing motorcycles knee pucks would last me 6-7 race weekends. I didn't dig my knees in much and used really hard pucks. At Nelsons RH knee pucks would only last me about 30min. If I was running an endurance race (60-90min stints) I would have to have spare pucks velcro'd to the side of the bike and swap them out on the back straight while still at race pace.

LOVE THAT TRACK! It's soooooo fast!

csamsh said:

wowzer you need some camber!

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Yeah... and that was after flipping them once. I need to ditch the factory suspension next year, so I'll address the camber at the same time.

gmitch said:

Sounds like Nelsons to me. When I was racing motorcycles knee pucks would last me 6-7 race weekends. I didn't dig my knees in much and used really hard pucks. At Nelsons RH knee pucks would only last me about 30min. If I was running an endurance race (60-90min stints) I would have to have spare pucks velcro'd to the side of the bike and swap them out on the back straight while still at race pace.

LOVE THAT TRACK! It's soooooo fast!

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I don't know if I can do Nelson anymore. It's just so violent on cars, and I always seem to find new rattles on the drive home. I'm surprised my wheel bearings haven't died yet. It is cheap, but of course you get what you pay for. If you want fast, drive Road America.

ddd4114 said:

I don't know if I can do Nelson anymore. It's just so violent on cars, and I always seem to find new rattles on the drive home. I'm surprised my wheel bearings haven't died yet. It is cheap, but of course you get what you pay for. If you want fast, drive Road America.

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Well the nice thing about bikes is that you only need a smooth line about 6in wide.

Road America is fun to race at, but dead boring for practice/track days IMO. All you do is go fast in a straight line, slow way down, turn, go fast in a straight line, rinse, repeat. I like Nelsons because the corners are long and fast and you hardly slow down much. Plus Nelsons is just plain scary.

I can't believe the OP was tracking NT555s. I mean, they're GREAT street tires (that's what I run on my Mustang for daily-driving purposes), but they do NOT like being pushed at autocrosses or track days.

EDIT: Also, temperature probes are really the only way to check your camber:

If the outside of the tire is significantly hotter than the inside, then you don't have enough camber.

If the inside of the tire is significantly hotter, then you have too MUCH camber.

If the outside and inside are hotter than the center, you don't have enough tire pressure.

If the center is hotter than the inside and outside, you have too much tire pressure.

Note that if you're really driving at a high level, those can very from side to side and from track to track.

Yep, I've been tracking NT555s for a full season now. I'm a "budget" guy, and simply don't have cubic-dollars to spend, so I make some compromises. NT555s are pretty inexpensive. I do realize that they are a street tire, and weren't designed for heavy track use.
Now that my driving skill has improved, I'd like to step-up my tire choice. I ran yesterday at Putnam Park (with the 10/10ths group), and I was able to get into the 1:22s with my heavy, underpowered, NT555-shod car. Now I want more, thus the debate on tire choice.
Gmitch: I always enjoy reading your posts, and have learned a bunch from them. Thank you. I do fully understand that there is no tire that is good at both "street" driving and "track" driving. It's all a matter of priorities. I really don't care much about street performance. Only enough to have a safe and legal tire to/from the track. And no, I'm not quite ready to tow a trailer with the Mustang (well, not YET anyway).
I may also consider a set of BFG Rival tires in size 295/35-18. I hear lots of good feedback from guys running those.
Again, thanks for all of the input.

-Nick

Please post back with your experience after you've decided. Same as you, I am running NT555s, but they start to feel greasy after being pushed for 15+ minutes and I feel like they are holding me back. I was looking into the NT-05 since I want something that won't be affected by my 100 mile commute to/from the track, but I may be leaning toward the R-S3 since I have heard nothing but good things about them.

I am not a fan of Nitto or Toyo tires. I've have terrible luck with both brands over the years.

The two options the OP suggested (NT-05 and NT-01) are very different tires, with one being a 200 treadwear street tire (05) and one being a 100 treadwear "2nd tier" R-compound race tire (01). Unless you are getting free tires from or work for Nitto, you might want to look elsewhere.

D.O.T.-Compliant Competition Road Course Radial

The NT01 is a D.O.T.-compliant dry competition radial designed with the weekend road racer in mind. The compound was developed to provide the best balance of traction, consistency, heat cycle performance and longevity. The NT01 delivers fast and consistent lap times for both the professional road-racer and the track-day enthusiast.

The NT01 is recommended for dry competition use.

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The NT-05 is a terrible tire on track. I have first hand experience trying to compete in "200 treadwear" competitions with this tire (295/35/18) on track and in an autocross, on multiple occasions. They overheat quickly yet never really make that much grip, and end up looking like the pictures above (that was with the rear NT-05s badly overheated, after 1 lap). They drive poorly in the rain compared to most other tires we've tested. I would never recommend them to anyone for track use - because there are much better tires in the same price range. Leave NT-05s to the "drift crowd", which doesn't want grip.



For a tire that you can drive to and from a track on safely, and still get decent lap times from, I'd look at this list, in this order of preference:

• BFG Rival
• Bridgestone RE-11A
• Yokohama AD08
• Hankook RS-3
• Dunlop Direzza ZII

I've purchased and/or competed on all of the above tires, plus many more. The RS-3 is the lowest priced option but they top out at 285/35/18 in 18" diameters. The Rival goes to 315/30/18 and 335/30/18, which these fat heavy Mustangs work well on. Go bigger than you think you need!




http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8209 - This is my BFG Rival review, where we tested Mustangs and other cars on track, on two autocross courses, and on a skidpad against Toyo R1R (junk!), Hankook RS-3, and Falken RT-615K (nope!).






And whoever was trashing the outer shoulders on your front tires, get some camber plates and run at least -2.5° of front camber on track days. Dial it back for the street, which you can do quickly on good camber plates.


Cheers,

what about Dunlop direzza star specs