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Best street tires, in your opinion


The T-man

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Therefore, a mounting dot is useless information.

Not if you take the time to find the heavy spot on your wheel before you mount the tire. He's right about the valve stem (whole?), but wheels do have heavy spots, so the dot is useful if you do it right (the way Peter showed me :) )

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Therefore, a mounting dot is useless information.

Not if you take the time to find the heavy spot on your wheel before you mount the tire. He's right about the valve stem (whole?), but wheels do have heavy spots, so the dot is useful if you do it right (the way Peter showed me :) )

True... But it's a moot point without the dots on the tires... :???:

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What about the weight of the valve stem? I thought that is why you put the lightest point of the tire to the valve stem.

That's what i thought too!!! :shock: But I guess I'm a dummy (that can at least spell) according to Michelin. So when I mount the tires, I assume I will have to take more time with the balancing.

Edited afer a conversation with Michelin USA...

I'm not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling from them or their website. Acording to the rep I spoke with... Michelin supplies a mounting dot on OEM tires ONLY if the manufacturer requests them?!?!?! And according to the Michelin USA website... The pressure for the Blackbird are as follows...

Fr - 3.5 bar/50.7 PSI

Rr - 5.5 bar/79.8 PSI

WTF? When the rep looked it up elsewhere (ie. somewhere where the public can't access), the recommended pressure was 2.9 bar/42 PSI...

I think I'll go back to Metzeler/Pirelli after these PRs... Better customer service...

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And according to the Michelin USA website... The pressure for the Blackbird are as follows...

Fr - 3.5 bar/50.7 PSI

Rr - 5.5 bar/79.8 PSI

WTF? When the rep looked it up elsewhere (ie. somewhere where the public can't access)' date=' the recommended pressure was 2.9 bar/42 PSI...

Yes, recomended pressure is 2.9 Bar, also for Michelins. I guess the French and the Americans don't communicate very well.

I think the whole they were talking about is the hole for the valve stem..... Must be with a funny French accent....

The tires are great, the French are a lot worse......

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Just to elaborate, if you do your own mounting and ballancing, the valve stem isn't always the heaviest spot on the rim.

Remove your old tire and all old weights. Then ballance the bare rim. Mark the spot, it's permanent.

On both of my rims, it's not at the valve stem so now I need a lot less weight when I match the dot on the tire to the real heavy spot.

That is at least when there is a dot on the tire. :roll:

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Pilot Roads

I will need to replace them at approximately 12,000 miles. Currently, they have just over 11,000 miles with around 2/32nds or tread remaining on the rear.

No experience in the twisties because I live in Southeastern Michigan. I just need very long wear and good grip on dry or wet roads.

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Dunlop D208's are the best rubber I've ever had... very sticky, very predictable. I dont care if they wear out fast, I want performance. I should get 5k out of them.

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When it comes to balancing, you don't really need the dot on the tires -- in my experience it's not always right anyway.

If you're seriously anal about it, you strip the old tire off down to the bare rim (with valve stem) and balance the wheel to find the heavy spot. Next, use weights to correct this imbalance, and then install the new tire. You can now determine the heavy spot on the tire. Remove the tire and the weights, and install the heavy spot on the tire opposite the heavy spot on the rim and then rebalance.

I, myself, do not do this, having neither the skill nor the equipment, but I worked with my tire guy for my car doing this, and I needed less than 2 oz per wheel when I was done.

Oh, and finding someplace that will spin-balance to higher than 60mph is nice, too, but also harder than you'd think.

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Dunlop D208's are the best rubber I've ever had... very sticky, very predictable. I dont care if they wear out fast, I want performance. I should get 5k out of them.

I've got to agree with you about being sticky and predictable. Like I posted earlier in this thread my front finally cupped(mild) on my second set. My first set didn't. Was running the same pressures on both sets. After speaking with some of the guys at the local Honda shop and local track riders I found that I was running way too much pressure for my riding style 38f 40r summer, 34f, 36r winter. I dropped them to 28f 30r this weekend as recommended and what a difference. Definitely more stable at hard lean and instead of spinning up the rear on exit it would bite hard and the front end would rise. Now, if I can only convince the Warden of the need for an Ohlins and Racetech or Traxxion worked forks. Sorry if I've missed this in another post but has anyone done this combo and if so how big a difference to expect?

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