Shelf Life of Hoosier a7s (or similar tires)?

Here's some video I got of it: https://photos.app.goo.gl/9De8h2E1Ay6VCt4PA

I finally got the Exocet out to the autoX and I'm considering a pair of shoes that make it live up to it's potential. I had it out on ~6year old r888's and it was an absolute riot (and it tried to kill me a lot). The tires by the last run had a tad bit of heat in them and would grab some, but only on the last run for the first half of the day (it cooled off at the end). The lack of front grip meant the tires locked up when you breathed on them and even with a ton of front roll stiffness (and no rear bar) it wanted to oversteer ALL THE TIME, but I still managed a respectable (for me and the very tired 1.6) 23/68 raw and more importantly I had a blast. I haven't been able to say that about autoX in a long time. I still prefer track days, but driving a silly car made autoX make a ton more sense.

I've never purchased actual race tires, just DOT tires.

Now the questions:
1) What's the shelf like on when kept in temperature controlled environments? 1 year, 1/2 year, 300 years?
2) With a tire like a7s and a car this light, can I expect ok life? I'm limited on tires choices by my preferred wheel (13x8) - I could change it, but the tiny wheel makes the 1.6 w/ 4.3 rear gears really "lively". I'd prefer to stay with them.

Thanks!

Hey, you are in my region!

A7 life is comparable to current top end 200tw stuff.  On my Vette it's been 150ish runs before cording.  I haven't owned a set more than a year, but my current "Nationals" set was made in 2017 and was just like new for Nationals this year.

I would think 2 years of good competitive life for a one driver car, possibly more.  And likely a couple more years on top of that before cording on a car like that.  Twin Fountains and NCM(especially here!) are super easy on tires.  That being said all my old A7s did was pick up all sorts of E36 M3 and had massive understeer so I shut it down early.  I probably won't use A7s there again, but NCM loves them.

In reply to ztnedman1 :

Well hello there! Where you at the event this past weekend? There was a ton of Corvette action going on there! I think I enjoyed Twin Fountains more than any other courses I've been on, the lack of run-off and spin room made it a bit more exciting (though the red s2000 almost made it too exciting at the start/finish). 

That's actually really good to hear - I was trying to decide when to purchase tires, etc. I wasn't sure how long they stayed "good" for. I'm not the best driver by a long shot, so mainly there to have fun. Figured I'd give the purple crack a try to see if it made my goofy car more or less goofy. Even with the very tired r888s on it, it had a ton more time with a better driver - but the tires weren't talking to me very much, hard to tell how much more grip before they decided to give up. I'm hoping to make one of the NCM days in October, but I'm not sure if the schedule is going to allow it!

I run A7s on the Abomination on 13x8 wheels. As light as the car is, they age out before they wear out. I usually have two drivers and frequently do fun runs. The first season will be amazing. The second year, less so as the tire age out, but they will still have pretty good grip. 

Generally speaking, Hoosiers are at their best on their very first run (well, maybe 2nd or 3rd depending on heat level), and degrade every run after that.  The degradation is fairly gradual at first but gets steeper as they get older.  As such, life depends a great deal on how much you're willing to spend in order to keep that ultimate level of performance.  For most people that tradeoff happens well before they get to the cord (at least for a lightweight car like a Miata or Exocet, Mustangs might well be different)  I haven't used A7s personally (I mostly stopped autocrossing before the A6 -> A7 transition), but I've heard people say they put that cutoff point anywhere between 20 and 60 runs.

"shelf life" depends on the conditions in which they're stored, but even under ideal conditions going beyond a year or so is pushing it, IMHO.

I am always fascinated by life span of tires discussed on this board.  We must run on the most cheese grater like asphalt in the world... The thought of getting two seasons out of a set of Hohos is so out of my range...

Anyway, if you do keep a set over the off season, don't let them freeze.  I've seen them break in the cold.  Some people bag them, I just stack them in the corner of my heated shop.  

A7s have a far better life than the A6s did. On a super light car like that, provided your alignment is good, you may get upward of 200 runs out of them.   They work better warm so feel free to give co-drives to warm them properly.  The older they get the more you’ll have to work to warm them so co-drivers becomes more necessary.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

1500 pound car, all the camber it needs. In the 10+- years I've owned it. I've bought 3 sets of tires. Never corded a set, but they do get hard. By season 3 they have a treadwear rating of a all season tire. 

My buddy just took his car out of storage (2250Lb STU honda), its had an 8 year hibernation. he kept his hoosiers in bags in the basement. after a weekend of getting the car back up to running shape he took it to the track; it was 5 tenths off his personal best set 8 years ago. Some of that could be rusty driver (he hasn't driven in 8 years either), some could be different track conditions, some could be the tires. in a nutshell, i was completely impressed with the tires as they did not fall off, wear abnormally or anything. 

on the other side of that, if you freeze them, they go to sh!t rather quickly.

Ha! So we're all over the place here. It sounds like if I bag them and keep them inside I'll be ok for at least two years? I'll probably play for the rest of this season on my questionable r888s and invest before the season coming up to maximize their lifespan - no sense when everything is winding down. 

Are the top guys at Nationals still changing tires between runs?

No, the A7 is no longer best only on it's first run.  Top guys are scrubbing them in with a few runs at a previous event or TnT now.  A7 keeps it's top grip level for a few heat cycles/50ish runs then makes small drops in performance every few cycles/30ish runs from there.  Wilcox top pax'd the Toledo 2017 Champ tour on a 100+run set.

I went from RE71s to A7s and have basically had the same wear/competitive grip per runs as before.

accordionfolder said:

In reply to ztnedman1 :

Well hello there! Where you at the event this past weekend? There was a ton of Corvette action going on there! I think I enjoyed Twin Fountains more than any other courses I've been on, the lack of run-off and spin room made it a bit more exciting (though the red s2000 almost made it too exciting at the start/finish). 

That's actually really good to hear - I was trying to decide when to purchase tires, etc. I wasn't sure how long they stayed "good" for. I'm not the best driver by a long shot, so mainly there to have fun. Figured I'd give the purple crack a try to see if it made my goofy car more or less goofy. Even with the very tired r888s on it, it had a ton more time with a better driver - but the tires weren't talking to me very much, hard to tell how much more grip before they decided to give up. I'm hoping to make one of the NCM days in October, but I'm not sure if the schedule is going to allow it!

Yeah, I'm the guy at the trailer you check in for work with.  Have the overly stickerd red C5Z with green wheels* (* for this event)

And the s2k was lucky I shaved that pole down from 4ft to 1ft last year lol.

Ha! I'm very very far from competitive anywhere - I just want to try out sticky tires for once. I've only ever run DOT tires, it made sense (ha!) to make my silly car a bit more silly to see if it increased/decreased the giggle factor. I'm not sure which way it will go - it was really fun (and not fast) to be hanging out the rear everywhere. 

In reply to ztnedman1 :

Hey! Cool to see some other GRM on here. I didn't really have my act together on Sunday, a bit frazzled with shaking down the new car, but it was a ton of fun! And yeah - that pole had seen the bottoms of several cars by the looks of it. The splash of red mr s2k added looked snazy.

accordionfolder said:

Ha! I'm very very far from competitive anywhere - I just want to try out sticky tires for once. I've only ever run DOT tires, it made sense (ha!) to make my silly car a bit more silly to see if it increased/decreased the giggle factor. I'm not sure which way it will go - it was really fun (and not fast) to be hanging out the rear everywhere. 

If we do fun runs at octoberfast your welcome to try my car to get a taste of purple crack.  Like they say...the first hit is free lol

In reply to ztnedman1 :

Ha - generous offer, we can do a car swap - though the Exocet will probably feel pretty anemic! I'm just hoping I can make it up for either day that weekend - sept-oct seemingly contain ALL the birthdays in my family, so we'll see. 

I don't know much about Exocets. But if they're light and run 13" wheels, then I'm thinking you could probably go with Formula Ford tires.

https://americanraceronline.com/tires/formula-ford/

http://www.avonmotorsport.com/motorsport/formula-ford/acb10

The American Racers are less than half the price of Hoosier A7s at $109 for the fronts and $135 for the rears. Even if they're not as fast as Hoosiers, the price is low enough that it might make sense to experiment with them.

I'm about to use A7s at the challenge (they have been my challenge tires since 2015...) so I'll let you know how they are after 4 years of challenging.

In reply to Robbie :

I'll look forward to your report!
 

In reply to LanEvo :

Interesting! I wonder if the 7.5 would fit on this 8" wheel. I'm using this:

http://exomotive.com/store/traklite-13x8-launch-wheels/

I've always loved the look/weight/gearing "advantages" - Probably not the best for autoX.

accordionfolder said:

Interesting! I wonder if the 7.5 would fit on this 8" wheel. I'm using this:

Not sure. You could always go with their 20.0/8.0-13S Auto-X tire:

https://americanraceronline.com/tires/sports-car-tires-autocross/

Or one of the very many "asphalt midget" options:

https://americanraceronline.com/tires/midget-mini-stock-asphalt/

Not Hohos, but I tend to use 100TW track tires like Cups and Federals and Nittos over two seasons, with a winter's worth of storage, mounted on the wheels in trash bags, in my garage that stays in the 40-50 degree range at the worst.  Seems none the worse for the storage during the second season.

I'm looking for a set of Maxxis RC1's (wear rating of 100, comparable to Nitto NT01's), because they're the only semi-streetable track tires available in the 275/35-17 that would be a good fit on my 17 x 10.5" wheels, but the only ones available were made way back in 2014(!).  Maxxis tells me they've been kept in their warehouse, so they've never been exposed to the elements, but tires that old seem pretty sketchy to me.  Am I crazy for even considering them?  

Robbie said:

I'm about to use A7s at the challenge (they have been my challenge tires since 2015...) so I'll let you know how they are after 4 years of challenging.

So, my report is somewhat short as I was very busy on the timed competition day, but I thought the hoosiers were still good. Probably lost a second off when they were new, but they still felt like hoosiers. Still picked up a lot of OPR. I'm not a great driver but the pro's were able to post pretty respectable times in my saab chopped into a ute. 15th of about 40 cars in time at the challenge, saab was 2877 lbs as raced without driver, and the 9-3 is an already floppy chassis missing half of the roof.

In reply to Robbie :

Awesome! Thanks for the update!! I'm not too worried about FTD'ing, just about having fun on something silly sticky. I'm going to order them at the beginning of the next season me thinks and see what happens.