tires

[camry3sfe]

So after two autocrosses, my crummy uniroyal tigerpaw AWPs are showing a lot of wear... and being that I'm a poor college student, I don't want to be buying a new set of tires anytime too soon. since I got these all back in april!

Of course the tigerpaw sure isn't an autocross tire! But it's really only the two fronts that are showing bad things, the rears look just fine. So here's what I'm thinkin of doing. I'm going to get two junkyard stock rims for my camry, and fit them with sumitomo HTR 200's and run them on the front. And use them for just autocross, that way my regular all season tires will last me till I have more money comin in. Anyways, I have a question, they say they're summer only, meaning not to drive through ice with them. But does that mean you shouldnt drive them when its cold out either? like if I was going to the autocross in late november when it's colder?

at anyrate this is only going to be temporary solution i guess... do it as cheap as possible. but i'd like to eventually get a set of different rims because the stock rims are designed for 185/70-14 tires, and there aren't very many higher performance tires made in this size... any suggestions on rim/tire combination for my ride? the camry's bolt pattern is 5x100...

i guess most people would suggest a different car than the camry :? but i like the car all the same...

[MountaineerSTi]

Summer only tires, will have no grip below certain temperatures and will certainly kill you if you try to drive in the least bit of snow or ice with them. For autox purposes, there is no safety issue...just no grip in the cold.

[SeanB]

I have a set of 195/60/14 Azenis RT-615s that I can sell you.

They are the tire to have for STS, but... they are to the point where they aren't great for street use. (There is still a lot of competition use left in them.)

If you are interested PM me or email me at sean@swvrscca.org

(The tires have 9k street miles and 114 autox runs, rotated every 30 autox runs.)

[SentraWV]

I'm going to get two junkyard stock rims for my camry, and fit them with sumitomo HTR 200's and run them on the front.

Given the body roll and such that your car has when you push it hard, I wouldn't think that more grip just on the front would be a hot setup.

How many miles on that Camry? Looks like a lot of play in the suspension to me. I'd be a little concerned about putting sticky tires on it unless you can tighten things up a bit.

NP: 3rDegree, Human Interest Story

[camry3sfe]

the camry has 199K miles on it. so its really old of course. I don't know what i can do really to the suspension to stop it from rolling too much. There isn't very much in the way of aftermarket stuff like sway bars for it. From what I know about suspension things I can do to my camry is KYB gr2s for the struts, and intrax lowering springs if I can find them. I think they recently stopped making the gen 2 camry lowering springs. I was thinkin perhaps finding a performance shop to get custom made sway bars and strut tower brace, but i think they'd laugh at me with the old camry :oops: I'm not really sure what I should do, I just know that after the p-burg auto-x i should stop autocrossing on my current tires if I want them to last me through the rest of the school year.

[SeanB]

My 6 cents... adjusted for inflation.

Get some stock shocks, they will be better than what you have. Konis are great, adjustability is great but its a dark art that very few can master. (I have double adjustables on the CRX, and frankly they are hard to figure out given the surface changes and all else.)

Get a smaller front sway bar, your car is big and has a tendency to plow heavily. Also, I believe you can use springs from other cars on yours. You would need to look up the part number for your stock springs and find a car that uses the same one and buy a set of lowering springs for that car. Again, just any plain old lowering spring can be counter productive. Given that its your street car I would personally keep it stock, you would ideally want a very stiff spring set but that would be a nightmare for daily driving.

Tires, get some Azenis and call it a day as they are pretty much all you will need for STS. The wider the better, if you want to stick with 14s then 195 is the widest or if you go 15s then 205 is the widest that Azenis come in.

[sts 50]

I have those Sumitomo HTR 200's on my 944. Bought them 'cause I needed something round, black, and cheap that would hold air to replace the dry-rotted Pirellis that were on the car when I got it. They are perfectly fine street tires, but they SUCK as auto-x tires. They're already coming apart after only a handful of events and 2500 street miles. The Hankook, Falken, and Kuhmo "hot" street tires cost only a little more, but will hold up much better to abuse.

[ShortysTRM]

edgeracing.com is usually about the cheapest place for the Hankook RS2 Z212 and Falken RT-615 street tires.

Like was mentioned above, your suspension makes me a bit weary of installing sticky tires. A car can easily roll over when the suspension isn't ready for stickier tires. There's a video of an older MINI nearly flipping at one of our autox's.

[SeanB]

Super grippy tires + super stiff suspension + super grippy surface = 2 wheeling wonder.

I recommend Edgeracing for tires too, but they don't shave the Falkens. Redshiftmotorsports does them but charges a bit more, shaved Falkens > new goopy Falkens. :lol:

[camry3sfe]

yes, i'm concerned about flipping! would be bad! I'm wondering if I replaced the struts with KYB gr2s and got some new springs, will it shape up my amount of rolling? When i had my car inspected in august the guys at the shop said that I had bad struts... but my dad thought they just wanted to make money from installing new ones, but i've always been a bit annoyed with how mushy the suspension felt ever since i bought the car. Anyhow I didn't have the money to do new struts at the time, nor do I really have that much money for them now... I'm thinking of selling all my DJ equipment since I don't really spin records anymore... thinkin I can get 1000 dollars from that all at least 8) From my understanding the 2nd gen camry's with the v6's came with stiffer springs as well, but they can be used in the 4cyl version. would putting the v6 spring in when i do my struts be a good idea for improving handling? or would it just make me car ride high/awkward?

beyond that... anyone here have experience with replacing struts? I don't have the tool for compressing the spring, and I don't really have an ideal work space at college to do a project like that either. but i'd rather not have a shop charge me labor for something that would be an interesting project to do myself.

by the way... thanks for everyone's input and recomendations on this! it's really fun to be involved somewhere, where everyone is nice---


anyone know someone who might be interested in buy my DJ set up? I dont have it up here at school right now cause I dont have space for it. but I've got Technics MK-2s (turntables) and an SK-1 scratch mixer along with the coffin to keep it all in and slip matts...
MK-2s (original 700 dollars, I'm planning on selling for 400 each)
SK-1 (original 400 dollars, I'm planning on selling for 75 dollars)
coffin (I got it for 100, and since it's in perfect condition it'll be 100 dollars)

[ShortysTRM]

I doubt that he's concerned with having them shaved. Could be wrong, though.

[Jason V]

New shocks IMHO are a MUST before putting any-kind of performance tire on the car... it rolls enough as it is.... stiffer springs are not needed but would not hurt... find the biggest front sway-bar you can (sorry sean smaller is not always the way to go)....

Shocks.. kybs, stock, K-mart... anything will be better than what is on the car!!

Your car is soft enough to be hard to roll... UNTILL!! you get into a back and fourth tank slaper situation that can cause the amount of roll in the car to increase each time the car is "caught" untill it ultimately rolls... Not Good... good Shocks keep the motion in check... and a big bar up front will help keep the front flat without resorting to stiff springs....