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Is it recommended to break in brand new falken 615s with normal street driving for X amount of miles before taking them to HPDE?
Looking to get the most life out of the tire and not damage them. Not looking for best time at the first lap.
Thanks for the advice!
I just bought some for autocrossing and several of the locals who used the RT-615s suggested that I put a couple hundred miles on them to break them in.
When they arrived, they were smooth and slick. New tires have a release agent on them to assist in un-molding them at the factory. It's a little greasy so you want to wear it off before you start expecting them to have maximum grip. After a few hundred miles and three autocrosses, mine have a nice rough surface, not unlike what you'd see on a R-compound tire.
I just talked to a miata spec racer and he told me that they once tried to take out new RA1s and they had better times than when they heat cycle them 1-2 times. Basically he was saying that it is not always true that to reach peak performance you need 1-2 heat cycles.
Maybe they are not concerned about life of tires or it's different for RA1s.
Probably he was talking about shaved RA1s, I think that's what they run for dry conditions.
Hmm... I guess I should better not risk anything and take the tires out on the highway before going to the track, thanks for the advice.
The heat cycle/break-in of RA1 tires is more for durability than actual performance. They will last longer if properly done, but won’t grip more.
In your case with the Azenis, follow Dave’s advice and drive them enough to get rid of the demolding agent. Since you’re autocrossing them, you won’t have any warm up period prior to each sessions. So just drive them hard!
If you were lapping, then the first lap’s warm-up curve is very important as it can screw your whole session if done incorrectly.
i found the azenis were quite 'greasy' before they were broken in. i spun my first session out with them but during my 2nd and 3rd sessions, i could really feel the tires doing its job. i even drove on them for about 300 miles before track day but none of those were hard enough miles. i needed a session to break them in.
So, is the first warm-up lap supposed to be nice and easy, just to bring up the temps slowly?
I wondered how long it would take for someone to bit at that one! :-)
You know most of what I’m about to say. But I had to discuss the subject to “connect the dots” on tire warm-up.
Yes, the first lap should be nice and easy. But still at near race speed. The idea is to warm the tire “from the inside out”. You have to flex it by just working it within its slip angle and slip ratio threshold. Be gradual with how much force you generate with them until they reach operating temperature. The tires limits while rise with temperature, so just follow them.
Do not, slide or break traction; don’t get silly wheels spin either. You’ll just “melt” the outer layer of thread, the tire will get greasy and you won’t be able to generate enough grip to warm the tire much. You’d have to slow down to cool the tires and basically restart the warm-up.
On a typical 25 minutes track session where the actual full speed time is closer to 20 minutes, you could easily waste half of it because of that. Add the traffic you had to let pass while cooling down for rewarm-up that you now have to pass, it makes for a messy and frustrating session.
Also, swinging the car left and right doesn’t generate much heat. It’s better than nothing I guess, but you’re better off leaving room ahead to accelerate hard and maintain speed in a corner.
breaking in azensis 615s prior to track use?
