What tires do you have left ?

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John Kwong
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by John Kwong »

Rain tires are open.
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by Aleco »

Thank you John

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Fred
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by Fred »

Yes / Open

elmt1
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by elmt1 »

Hi Fred,

They had a race here in Ocala this weekend and you had to use the Levanto tires. I don't have enough experience with other tires to give a good comparison, but the general consensus was that they were a solid tire that were consistent and lasted well. In the 100cc class they gave us 6 tires, and I used them all weekend and they seemed to work as well at the end as in the first race. Others were surprised that I used the new tires for practice but I they wouldn't let you on the track without the Levanto tires and I didn't have a spare set to practice on so I had 75-80 laps on mine by the end of the weekend. Friday was a rain day so I had to buy a new set of rain tires that matched the series (I think they did well because of that). I swapped the two outside tires for the main race but I don't think it really made a difference, my times were consistent throughout the 2 days and were even pretty good when all the rubber washed off the track because of a ran day on Friday. I grabbed some decent used tires out of the trash so I will be practicing on Levanto tires for the next month or two and will have a better idea how well they last.

Thanks!

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Fred
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by Fred »

That's what we found with the tire too .. I was genuinely shocked at how long they lasted and how the consistency of grip was maintained . I don't know if you realized but they are not a directional tire so in theory (although its not normally recommended) you can swap them from side to side still on the rim. There is a lot of rubber on the tire and the carcass has multi layers of steel and Nylon belt in them and maybe rotating them every other race might make them last even longer. We have a set with nearly 200 laps on them now that still offer consistent times only slightly slower than original times (we did not rotate them).

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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by elmt1 »

Hi Fred,

I was wondering why they didn't have a clear indicator for direction on the tire. I mounted them and couldn't decide whether the printed levanto >>> was the direction or the levanto >>> raised on the other side was the direction. I went with the printed version because it looked like the most common selection but now it is making more sense :) I used the tires I scavenged from the discarded tires heap for about 150 laps this weekend and they were still very consistent and don't seem to have fallen off much.

Comparing these to the brand new set of Vega green tires that I had bought to use in Calgary last season that I used up a few weeks ago practicing, the Levantos are faster and more consistent and I haven't seen an exponential change in performance like I did with the Vega tires. The Levanto tires seem more similar to the MG red tires that I have used but for me are staying a little more consistent and lasting at least as long. I have only gone through one set of MG reds so I don't have much to compare to. I have gone through 5 sets of Bridgestone YLR tires and the Levanto is similar in grip but I think it is lasting longer, however the track in Montana was really hard on tires and when I got to Florida all I had left of Bridgestones were two used sets.

--David

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Fred
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by Fred »

Hi
What you will find is most people will designate either left or right side of their kart as the LeVanto facing out side so they always place them on the same side but as I've said they literally can be placed anywhere .. there is a lot of rubber on those tires and I wholly believe you got 150 laps out of a scrap pile tire with the same consistency.. I went into the test fully expecting to discard the LeVanto from the test immediately but that proved not to be the case.. the only thing that concerns me about them is they have good grip and to be honest we have a lot of drivers in our club that can only race on grippy tires, as soon as you place them on low grip tires its a mess... biggest difference between me and Jimmy is he likes to have tires that grip to go fast and I'm happy on low grip tires and can still go fast (sometimes grippy does not equal fast.. frames have to move around under you) and being able to set a frame up for the tire is an art that has to be learned.. most people that rocket through tires have no set up ability and coupled with an aggressive driving style you go through plenty of tires .. tires are the most important thing along with set up on the kart ... after all they make you go , they make you corner, they make you stop !!

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John Kwong
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by John Kwong »

What we learned in the past with the original Mojo D1 tire is that too little grip while long lasting was only able to be mastered by a few drivers while everyone else struggled. In my mind, the Vega Green drives similar to the old Mojo D1. By going to a higher traction tire that still has a long life we will hopefully get the best of both worlds that will make more drivers competitive while enjoying similar tire life.
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elmt1
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by elmt1 »

Good morning John and Fred,

If I am hearing you correctly, the performance penalty that many of us associate with old tires can be offset by setup and driving style. That makes sense and I would like to learn more about what you do to get the most out of old tires. I generally run my tires until cords start showing somewhere and I can almost always tell when they are just about to that point because the tires just loose all grip. I am guessing that one way to figure out how to work with tires that have started falling off is put in a lot of laps and try lots of things, which works, but it would save a lot of time I knew what some of the tricks and nuances are of making older tires work well. The set of Levanto tires I pulled from the discard heap are at about 80% and are now starting to fall off now that I have put another 125 laps on them last weekend at Bushnell and Orlando Kart Center. Bushnell in particular was hard on the tires because the asphalt is pretty abrasive with mostly fractured aggregate but I only got in about 50 laps there before having to switch to rain tires.

The Vega green tires I had were the most difficult for me and I wasn't able to make any adjustment that worked after they hit about 75%. I tried changing tire pressures, front and rear track widths, front torsion bar and caster. I also tried to be as smooth as possible without sliding but none of the adjustments seemed to help much when the tires were too far gone. Can you share any ideas on what someone should try to overcome tires that are past their prime?

Thanks!

--David

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John Kwong
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Re: What tires do you have left ?

Post by John Kwong »

Hi David,

Thanks for maintaining your contact with our club despite your cross country move to Florida. I enjoy reading your posts and adventures.
So, when the tires get older, what characteristics is the chassis experiencing when you lose grip? Understeer? Understeer then snap oversteer? or Just loose or lack of rear traction?

Once any tires near the end of their useful life but still have rubber left on the tire it is the number of heat cycles that the rubber has been through that will probably determine whether you use them anymore. I had a set of Vega Greens which still had decent tread depth holes on them that went that way on a double header a couple years ago. On the Saturday morning they were okay and by the time we ran the final there just wasn't any grip left in the rubber and I went from fighting for the lead to fighting for 7th. Put a new set on the next day and all the grip and handling came back. Even with these long lasting tires, there is a point where they fall off despite having tread depth holes that make the tire appear to have lots of life left. With the number of laps that you have put in, these new tires are performing well beyond what tires of the past were ever able to do. I was impressed with the number of good laps you were able to get out of the scrap pile tires.

With that being said, there are adjustments you can do the chassis to adjust the balance of the chassis as the tires wear before they hit there drop off point. Let me know what you are experiencing.

John K
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