Hoosiers & Audis...

[audidudi@mindspring.com (Jeffrey J. Goggin)]

>No one locally is using Hoosier bias-ply.  Looking for more info on them.

To my knowledge, me and some guy with an S4 in Colorado are the only people
running Hoosiers on an Audi ... I believe he's also using their radial tire
and not the bias-ply, like I am.

>I'm getting a deal on a set of 225/50R15 which is too good to pass up.
These are the Street TDs.   Is
>this what you're running?

No, I'm running the "Autocrosser" bias-ply ... unfortunately, I have no
experience whatsoever with the Street TD model.

>I want to use these for autox and keep my BFG R1 for track.  I heard they
were designed 
>for vintage racing!?

I've heard this as well...

>Do they feel squirmy on the street?  Do they warm up quickly enough for autox?

I drove my Autocrossers on the street once, for 25 miles, since I was too
lazy to change them in the dark, at 2am in the morning, after a night
autocross event last summer ... they felt just fine but the compound was so
soft, they picked up grit and small stones off the road then flung them off
to bounce around the wheel wells.  It sounded like I was driving down a
freshly tarred road ... it also took me nearly an hour the following day to
dig everything out of the tread using a Stanley Surform tool while I had the
car up on jackstands with the car idling and wheels turning as though they
were on a lathe ... perhaps the TD's compound is harder and less aggressive.

Performance-wise, I rather like them ... the feel is totally different than
a radial -- the breakaway is much smoother compared to the BFG R1s, which
makes them easier to drive in a car that doesn't recover well when it is
overdriven (i.e., an AWD car with the center diff locked) -- and they
definitely produce more lateral grip than the R1s since I lift the inside
rear tire approx. 2" around a tight corner and this was never noticeable
with the R1s.  That said, the fact that they run at a larger slip angle does
take some getting used to and it might be difficult to be mentally adjust to
switching between them and the R1s at different events.  Overall, though,
I'm pretty happy with them and had finally started to come to grips with
altering my driving style to accomodate them when I blew the head gasket on
my Ur-Q ... I haven't driven on them since last November. (One other note:
Despite the fact that most people using these tires find they need
significantly LESS pressure as compared to, say, an R1, I actually found
they worked best on my car at about the same pressure: 32-34 psi in front
and 38-44 psi in back.  I personally prefer to run higher pressures in the
rear rather than lower but I also like my cars to oversteer more than most,
too!)
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   / |      _| o    | \       _| o   Jeffrey Goggin
  /__| | | / | | __ |  | | | / | |   audidudi@mindspring.com
 /   | |_| \_| |    |_/  |_| \_| |   http://people.delphi.com/audidudi
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