I'm considering buying a set of Hoosier A6s to run on my 914/6 AX car this season. They are pricey, but I have been left in the dust by cars running A6s on cold days when my Goodyear slicks just don't stick.

The 15 inch wheels are available in 205, 225, and 275 widths. I run 7x15 rims in front and 8x15 in the rear. I could either run 225 front and rear, or 225 front and 275 rear. The 275 is a bit wide for the 8 inch rim, but will probably fit.

What do people think? Which way would you go?

What kind of flares do you have? (In your avatar pic the body looks stock, if that's the car you are talking about). On a stock body you would be limited to 205's or 225's max, especially since Hoosiers are noticeably wider than other tires of the same stated size. I am currently using 205/45x16 R6's on mine all around, on 16x7's.

On my white 914/6 (not the blue 914/4 in the photo) I have 7" flares in front and 9" flares in the rear. The rear flares are cutout so that the tires should fit. I'm more worried about handling, not fitting under the flares.

I ran the 225/45/15 A6s on my 914-4 and they were excellent but if I had more power (I figure my 2056cc was ~140hp) I would have wanted the 275s at least on the back. I don't think that you want to put the 275 on an 8" rim. I have seen pictures of people running the 275 on the front of stock class Hondas with 7" wheels but I do not think that it is beneficial or a good idea. The 225 fits very nicely on an 8". If you go to the 275 I would consider 9.5" the minimum width to make use of there added width over the 225. The top SCCA guys use 10.5" with the 275.

I just think its cool Bill posts here..

Bill,

The A/R Hoosiers need camber.. big time.. your Goodyears do not.. I know Andrew runs the Hoosiers when it is cold. Is he changing the camber or just running the Hoosiers "straight up" like he runs the Goodyears?



B

Good question. I'd like to know that too. Maybe Chris will chime in since we don't hear from Andrew much.

I believe Bill could run a 255 in all four corners with his 3.0? power. I forget what engine is in the car.



B

5-6 years ago, Andrew would change the alignment on his street car at AutoX site



B

I have ran a STRONG 3.0 car on 205's.. not fun. Bill, 245's or 255's depending on what you want to do wheel wise.

sorry.. re-read what wheels you have. I personally wouldn't hesitate to put 16's on it.



B

Yep. He would need more tire in the rear than 225 but a 275 Hoosier is pretty darn big. I think car would push a little with 225 in front but you need the wider tire in the rear for your car. I ran 710's with 265 in rear with 225 on my car and it did turn OK most of the time.

275 on 8 inch rim would be do-able but it might offer strange handling. Also wonder what that would do to tire hieght? Suspect you would get bigger diameter.

We haven't tried changing the car settings for the Hoosiers yet. We've only used them as sort of a last resort so far, whenever the course was too short, too cold, or too marina for us to run the goodyears.

Grant, the 275 has an aspect of 35, so I don't think the height will be much different.

Chris, do you run 225s all around when you are on Hoosiers?

Yeah 225s with 7s front and 8s rear. I just bought a set of 15x8s and 15x11s to experiment with so we'll see if those work on the car in a few weeks.

As far as I can tell you need to pick where you are going to run. Santa Rosa and Alameda the goodyears are a second faster. Marina the hoosiers are a second faster.

Where did you find the 15x11s?

Of course the way GGR does points bumping the wheel width from 8 to 11 will probably bump me up at least one class.

Depends on when you run and if you have a co driver. Not as cut and dry as faster at marina etc. A6 is faster at Marina if temps are below 75 as a single driver. I think I have found a tire that is better than both A6 and Goodyear Canti however

I would run 9 or 10 rear and 8 front. Have custom set of Spinwerks wheels made http://www.racerpartswholesale.c
om/categor...in_Werks_Wheels

Previous owner bought the 15x11s directly from centerline I think. If I were buying them now I'd probably check diamond racing wheels and compomotive wheels as well as centerline. I have no idea how it'll perform with the 15x11s, it's just what I have on hand :D

Sorry guys! Don't have broadband at home so don't do much casual hanging out on web sites. But I do lurk a bit. Don't hesitate to send me a message directly to get my attention. Always happy to contribute to the conversation.

Regarding alignment for the Hoosier A6's, if I remember right we're running 1.75 deg at the front and 1.25 deg at the rear for the Goodyears, which is about the max. we can get. So while the Hoosiers might want more camber, we're already giving them as much as we can get. Haven't taken the step to start cutting out the chassis to get more camber. As Chris said, we've mostly run the Hoosiers as a cold weather resort, so haven't bothered to put any effort into optimizing the alignment for them. But might go there this year as we're going to run the Hoosiers full time this year.

Andrew

That is not right. Several people told me to run 0 camber when I started running slicks. Like an idiot I listened to them and got very poor results. I'm now running about -1.5 front and -1.2 rear and getting much better results.

I suspect with A6s the car will want something more like -3 front and -2 rear, with the rear being a compromise between cornering grip and straight acceleration.

On a related topic, I'm likely to be doing some experimenting with wheels and tires and don't want to be paying $20 a tire to have them changed.

Does anyone have any experience with the Harbor Freight manual tire changer? Does it work well enough to use to mount AX tires on 15x7 and 15x8 rims?

Years ago I tried changing my own tires with some cheap equipment. What a hassle. Not worth it. America's Tire charges me $10/tire to change a tire. I don't have them balanced for AX. FWIW

I run negative camber with my bias ply slicks. Honestly I thought Andrews car had far more than 1.25 in rear based on visible slant that can be seen. Pretty sure thats why the A6's worked so well on his car.

Bill there is a tire place on old middlefield road that does mounting and balancing for $15 a wheel. I forget the name but Randal knows them. Thats where I had my canti tires mounted. I have Wheel works down to $20 in Santa Cruz. I got free mount and balance on race tires up at RK when I bought tires from them last time!

Canti's are insane. The guy at the tire shop just about broke his face installing mine.
A friend has a tire machine that he is offering me. I declined.
I'd much rather drop off my tires and wheel and let these guy handle it.

Let the pros work the power tools.

I have a cool deal with my tire shop. They mount and balance for me ( free ).
I bring them cold drinks for the staff and refer business.
I am also a loyal customer for the last 10 years~


KT