DUNLOP-RTS

Q2, yes 32 cold front and rear for the racetrack. Street pressure, run what the owners manual recommends. D211GP or D211GPA, the 190/55 is designed for a 5.5 rim and is what all the AMA and club guys use when racing on your bike (848). don't be concerned, its the right size for your bike when using the D211GP or D211GPA. Dunlop does not make a 180/55 in the D211GP or D211GPA, there is no need to when all the development is directed at the 190/55 and it works better.

Max, Take a look at this thread, it will answer you question: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20724 The internet has got up at night for no reason. Read the thread and sleep well at night. Steve

I would go with the 190/55x17 Q2 on the 6.0" rim. But I must ask; With a special rim that is wider than stock, why would you not step up to a higher performance tire like the D211GPA? You have upgraded the rims, why not the tires? If you paid for special rim, why not get better tires. Consider it. Steve

Brad, Go here to see the list of Dunlop tires suitable for track day use: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20491 Go here to find a distributor in your area: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=21098 Go here to find data on using warmers: http://www.dunloprac...com/Warmers.pdf Note: I noticed you mentioned "I was planning on getting Q2's.... mainly because they have good rep, don't require tire warmers", I don't know where you got the idea that Q2 does not need warmers and other tires do. All the warmers do is give you the opportunity to go fast on the fist 2 laps, instead of taking 2 warm-up laps. All the warmer does is put heat in the tire so you don't have to on the first 2 warm-up laps. You can run a racing tire on a track day without warmers with no problems, as long as you take 2 laps to warm it up before you get going fast. Steve

I admit would be pretty cool to have the Dunlop labeled ones, although Sportbiketrackgear also has a CHR single temp model with their not-quite-as-cool logo for only $275. The STG warmer is not the exact same warmer and is made with a different cover/material. You will get what you pay for.

Stability on the track: In the front, less stability would feel like: Not steering as quick. Sluggish steering. Hard to change line when leaned or straight line. Front pushes and wants to stand up and not stay leaned over. In the Rear, Less stability would feel like: wallowing when leaned over. Feeling loose in the rear. When accelerating the rear end wags back and forth. WARNING: Don't go making big drops in pressure to get more traction for the sake of more traction alone. If you are not sliding, then you don't need more traction. If you are on the track, always take the advice of your tire guy on pressures. Don't go more than 2 psi +/- from that recommendation. Slower riders might not feel a loss of stability, so in that case don't keep lowering the pressure thinking all is well and there is no stability problem. There is, you just can't feel it. So take all this inline with your lap times and speed. If you are slow, you do not need to be adjusting pressure from the recommended. Only start playing with pressure when the real need exists and you are going very fast. A rookie would read #3 and start lowing his pressure, eventually ending up with 5 psi and thinking he has more grip than a MotoGP rider. He would shortly after find himself on his head (same head he did not use while adjusting tire pressure) and wonder where he went wrong. The problem being he took #3 too literally and was not going fast enough to even make proper judgment of his riding.

Bluing on rubber surface. The oils in the compound of the tire are simply flowing out of the tire. This action will happen regardless if it turns blue or not. It is always happening to some degree. Heat accelerates this process. The blue is not good or bad. Bluing is not a requirement, or unwanted. It just is. If the tire is made with more carbon and less oil, there might be less bluing possible. On the other hand if there is more oil and less carbon in the tire, you may see more bluing. Tires made with more oils have a higher potential for grip. Another Myth bites the dust! Thanks for the assist Kai. If you had someone at tech turn you away, I would have to say that was not correct if the blue on the tire was the ONLY reason given. Congrats Glenn! You made it on the pinned sticky: http://forums.superbikeschool.com/index.php?showtopic=2587&view=findpost&p=21033

For Track Day use. 32 front, 32 rear cold. +/- 3 psi would be the workable window. That is a good baseline to go with. If you are trying to get better performance, consider going to the next step up in tires (D211GPA). There is only about 5% to be gained with pressure on the Q2 within that window (nothing to be gained outside that window). You will get much more than a 5% gain if you go to the next higher performance tire in the lineup.

Great write up Bullet. Hats off to you. The D211GP Race and the SportSmart are manufactured in France ( that is my understanding) The D211GP N-Tec is manufactured in UK The Q2 is manufactured in the USA. The Qualifier II is Manufactured in Japan. SportSmart and Q2 are designed for the street sport market. Q2 for USA and SportSmart for EU. They are on a par for performance. Get the one that is available in your area. Qualifier II is for OEM and OEM replacement. Not as good as Q2 but still good. D211GP racer. I have no experience with this tire D211GP N-Tec. The very best racing tire! Hands down, no argument. (that's across all brands too!!!) Take my statement as basic facts. But, Bullet has give a great first hand experience write up. I would consider his observations as a swaying factor when buying your next set.

Again this is one of those issues that you can't nicely put in the YES or NO column. There are to many variables in play to give a concrete answer. A good example of this is the question of wear with high tire pressures . One would think that the wear would be less with higher pressure and theory would support this. but consider that when the pressure goes up, the contact patch gets smaller, and thus more dynamic forces are placed on a smaller contact patch creating more wear on that smaller spot. So which is it? You must take into account: The bike Tire construction Tire compound Tread pattern Pavement surface Rider/passenger weight Speed Speed variation (stopping/starting or constant speed) Temperature of pavement Ambient Temperature There is no formula that will give the exact answer. The only way to determine the answer it to run back to back comparisons. and then all you will have is the outcome for that specific test. The moment you change a variable the outcome may be different. The statements you mention above may very well be true, for their specific situation. But variables change and so do the results. That is why they seem in conflict, when in fact the variables are what is changing, resulting in different outcomes. The magnitude of this is so small in comparison to other issues, nothing is to be gained researching further. IMO Sometimes its best to take your calculator and slide rule and put them in the bottom drawer of your tool box, and just go and ride.

you can find road racing product available in the USA here: http://dunlopracing....tires-products/ and here: http://dunlopracing....technical-info/ Keep in mind that not every tire that Dunlop makes is available at every location on the planet. Some tires are specifically made for certain markets. Just because you see it someplace does not mean you can get it in your location.

Note this posting: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20465 With special attention to #3. The recommended pressures in the owners manual is what the manufacture will stick to when asked what is the correct pressure. (remember the Ford Explorer tire issue with tires overheating, tread separation and then it would crash or rollover? Firestone claimed 34 PSI was better and Ford claiming 32 psi.) If they vary from that recommendation, it opens a can of worms (lawyers) and we hate worms. You are not going to get a "RECOMMENDATION" from anyone official, differing from the owners manual. I wish it were different, but we live in a litigious world. Just use your head. Check the above post, with attention to #3. Consider your weight, and you make a judgment call. IF you want to be 110% safe, always ride the speed limit and have no issues, then do what the manual tells you to do. But if you want to push the envelope, maybe break a speed law by 1-2 MPH, then you can try to vary your settings to fit your riding style. I am tap dancing here, so can you read between the line? If you have a race track pressure recommendation I would be glad to answer that official, but I must stay away from the street pressure variations.

Moving into OVER TIME! Bones sets up, shoots.... and scores!!! You are so right. That confidence is worth every penny! $$$$

You are so right about the Urban Myths. They start with some truth, but get out of hand real quick. OK, time for a shameless plug. http://cgi.ebay.com/...me=STRK:MESE:IT These are good Chickenhawk warmers. I sell them too. You can call me to order, shoot me a PM or get them from this guy on eBay. He has 1 set I have more and can get them in the single temp, 3 temp and digital. If this is not shameless enough, please let me know and I will pump it up a bit to be really cheesy.

Well done fosselfuel !!! You read my mind and beat me to the punch. Yes Cobie, I'm off to Daytona for the AMA Pro tire test. Then I spend a couple of day in Los Angeles attending a memorial service for John Olguin of San Pedro. I will be checking in from time to time for questions.

Welcome to the TIRE Forum. This is where you can ask your questions and find answers regarding your tires. Below are some links to answers on some of the more basic questions that have already been asked/answered. Check them out and get a feel for things. If you find what you need, then use the data and have a great ride. If you need more information, feel free to start a new thread or ask on an existing thread. Who knows, maybe your question will be part of this sticky post. If you ask a very specific question pertaining to your specific situation, I ask that you try to provide sufficient support data to help me answer your question (bike, track, weather, what tire, track day or racing, street, and other data that pertain.) Help me help you. Lets keep it simple and in the area of tire question for track day riding and racing. The target of this forum is to educate and thus have riders spend less attention their tires and more on having fun on the track. Links: Track Day Tires: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20491 Correct Pressures: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20465 Heat Cycles: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20724 Picking Compounds: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20439 Choosing the Right Tire Size: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20730 Does Tire Temperature Count?: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20782 Where to get racing tires: http://forums.superbikeschool.com/index.php?showtopic=2607&view=findpost&p=21098 Flipping Tires: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20916 Bluing on rubber surface. http://forums.superb...indpost&p=21092 Tire Gauges: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=20984

I should clarify- our track pits out at the beginning of a long straight, and most people in the B group don't use warmers, so I'm not trying to outrun people with warmers as far as I can tell. But everyone goes very slowly down the straight to the first corner as part of the warm up. What I like to do is get down there more quickly, then take it easier once the turns start for the few 2 laps. I don't see so much risk on a straight section if the tires aren't warmed up; I'm not pushing it with braking or cornering for 2 laps. I am going have you rethink your question. Just ask it again, and make the question simple. Lets not make this complicated. Your question does not make sense to me yet. Re-reading my first post is a little confusing to me too Question: does a cold tire, when pushed only as far as is reasonably safe during warm up laps, get more wear on the tire because it's cold, compared to having it warmed up? Maybe not but we wanted to be sure. I'm not a tire expert, so when us fairly inexperienced guys read things like "cold tearing" we think maybe we shouldn't be riding the tires cold at all and warm them up. (And we all remember in science class the rubber ball dipped in liquid nitrogen then dropped on the floor and watch it shatter- I know cold on a track isn't that cold, but there's a lot of tire things we're learning here that are surprising and seemlingly counter-intuitive at first, like 23 psi on a rear tire.) Stevo, OK, thanks for the rewording. I accomplished my goal, which was to have you re-look at your question and rethink what the exacting scenario was. I will answer your question at the bottom, But I want to make a point first: The question being asked must have the proper context in order to be useful. There were many unknown pieces of data, like how long you sat in the pits before going out, how cold the day was, did you take slow laps, there was a long straightaway, these and others were not included in the original question. I tend to be a bit shy at firing off a direct answer when there are a lot of undefined variable. My big point being that there are many variables with tires. Some things matter and some things don't. Certainly if you sat for 20 minutes on a cold windy day at the pit out your tire would cool off considerable, and if it was a hot 90 deg day the tire would stay warmer. You can see its hard to just answer "Yes" or "No". To answer your question: Yes the tire will wear faster when cold. But take into account the lap times for the warm up will be much slower and thus less wear. so you must consider both factors. But in the big picture this is a very small factor in considering a tire warmer or not. The important factor in tire warmer choice is if you want the first 2 laps to be "Warm up" or "Go fast". This choice depends on your personal situation. Are you racing or track days. Cold or hot days. Your cash on hand for warmers and other considerations. You pointed out that 20% of your day taken up with warming your tires. Assess your situation and do the math. It may be that you will save $ by getting warmers and thus getting more track time for your hard earned dollar. But if you find you are tired by the end of the day and miss the last session, that 2 lap saving is lost in the unused session. Summation: YES the cold tire will wear faster. The tire will wear less on a slower lap. Neither of these are important factors for deciding to use a warmer or not. Warmer choice is determined by your need to go fast on the first 2 laps or not. Thanks for the question. Thanks ozfireblade for the jump in assist.

Yes mostly true, But this thread is about the accuracy of the GAUGE itself. Your point is well taken, but for another thread.

I should clarify- our track pits out at the beginning of a long straight, and most people in the B group don't use warmers, so I'm not trying to outrun people with warmers as far as I can tell. But everyone goes very slowly down the straight to the first corner as part of the warm up. What I like to do is get down there more quickly, then take it easier once the turns start for the few 2 laps. I don't see so much risk on a straight section if the tires aren't warmed up; I'm not pushing it with braking or cornering for 2 laps. I am going have you rethink your question. Just ask it again, and make the question simple. Lets not make this complicated. Your question does not make sense to me yet.

Roy, I don't work with the Michelins so I can't give you advice on those. I am Dunlop guy exclusively. Ask you local Michelin guy for those pressures. Question: IF you used Q2 in the past with success, why would you switch and then further switch to a street only tire? Reconsider and put a set of Q2 or even better some full race Dunlop DOT's on that SV650. You have lots of track time under your belt, why cut corners now. If you were a rookie and it was you first or second track day I could see starting with the bottom of the list, but not with your track experience.

Honestly? Are you asking if the tire starts without warmers and you then warm it up to temp, does it wear faster than a tire that on a warmer and you then ride on it? Really? Are you concerned with the wear difference of the first 2 slow laps as the tire comes up to temp? On the second part of your question. Its simple, if you want to go fast right out of the gate, use warmers. its that simple. there is nothing magical in play here. IF you want to stay in front of the pack on the out lap and you don't have warmers, you are taking a great risk pushing it against all the guys that do have warmers. Why would you do that?

Tire Gauges. The measuring device in your hand is only as good as it can be CALIBRATED. I have observed very expensive tire gauges be 5 lbs off, and give away cheap ones being spot on. There is no sure fire bet on gauges. 2 factors that are important: 1) will the tire gauge repeat and give the same pressure over and over. 2) getting that gauge calibrated? How do you get your tire gauge calibrated? We have calibrator that is available for use at all the AMA National road races at our service truck. This gauge is calibrated to a master gauge from the Dunlop Factory in Buffalo NY. All our tire machine and gauges we use get calibrated by this standard several times throughout each season. If we have a gauge that is always changing, we get rid of it. It must constantly repeat every time we calibrate it. How would someone get their gauge calibrated when they do not have access to our standard? I honestly don't have an answer to that. Lets see who chimes in and give a good way to calibrate a gauge in the field. Ideas? Keep in mind, if a gauge is 2lbs off, it not bad. It's just 2 lbs off. If your gauge reads 30 when its really 32, just note "+2" on the face and keep using it. As long as its always 2lbs off you still have a very usable tool, as long as you know the offset. Some gauges have the ability to adjust the calibration, if so do it, otherwise just note with a marker on the face the offset. (-1, +3, -2)

I wasn't aware that I was asking a riding technique question ... But the soft tire question brings back an observation I had this summer with a Supercorsa SC0 rear (they don't come softer than that): I noticed that if I did not soften up the compression damping on the rear, I would be chewing up the soft tire pretty quickly. Sure enough, when reducing the compression damping, the tire started to heal up pretty quickly - although the rear would oscillate quite a bit when accelerating hard out of corners (with elevation/camber changes thrown in). I guess the reason is that the "hardness" of the tire must be followed by a similar suspension setup (ie soft-soft or hard-hard), in order to avoid forcing the tire or suspension, to be overloaded because the other part is too "hard". Steve - any comments here? Kai I would not say that it's a solid fact "soft compound= softer suspension". Sometimes this can be the case, and I wish it was this easy. Its more on a tire by tire basis and track by track. one rider may like it another rider may not. Keeping in mind this only becomes an issue when you are aproching track record times. slower trackday riders need not be concerned at this level. Honestly these super technical issues should be discussed with your tire guy at the track directly. Addressing your exact bike, tire, setup situation. The faster you go, the more you may have to fine tune your bike, tires and setup. The changes you make may not work for another rider because their situation is different. Thus, on this forum, I try to give more general information that should work in all cases, and move away from the specific issues. I don't want some trackday rider to read a post and take drastic action that is unnecessary. You seem to be a faster rider. I would discuss any specific issues with your local track-side tire rep, as he is better equipped with the local track info and his product's specifications to help your specific issues.

Sometimes COMEDY is the only answer.

Flipping Tires: I want riders to think for moment about what it is they are trying to do. I hear of riders wanting to flip their tires to get more life out of the tire. Their thinking being, they have some life left on one side and should use it. The flaw in this thinking is that there is another side of the tire that is worn out, and must be used in at least a couple of corners. So do you go slow in those corners in order to use the other side of the tire? That would be silly and counter productive to your goals of having a good time going fast at the racetrack. I always say, if one side is no good to use, why would it now be good on the other side? Also you must consider the rule on thickness of the tread. The side that is the thinnest (with the least grip and heat), will now be used with the least corners and have the least chance to get heat in it. Less heat, less grip = higher potential for problems. It does not make sense to try to milk it to the very end. Use good judgment. There is an arrow on the side of the tire for a reason. I would recommend using it. Even if you flipped a tire every session to get perfectly even wear, you would spend a lot of time and $ on tire mounts. Better to spend that $ on a new tire.