decided im gona stash the KDW2's in my garage untill they sell on e-bay.

Chatsworth tire has a good deal on these two tires.. deciding (again!)

225/45/18 - Yokohama AVS ES100 - never really heard anything bad about these
sidewall is stiffer than KDW2

225/45/18 - Azenis RT-615 - the one and only.. I am concerned about the tire
weighing 27lbs.. is that noticeable on acceleration?
I heard some people getting 15-18k miles out of
them, so I am willing to give it a shot.. I only hit
the track like two maybe three times a year.

( I actually just checked and the stock potenza 040 is 26lbs., so 1lbs should be negligible)


any opinions on these two>?

 

the last thing you should be worrying about is tire weight ...

 

Glad to see you mention a Hankook. My uncle gets very good deals on Hankook. How do you think they are for the occasional rain?

 

If you had gone to the advanced search page and typed in "KDW" along with my user name, you would have come across several posts explaining to you how much this tire blows. https://www.rx8club.com/search.php?searchid=2198268

You snooze you lose pal.

Buy S-03 Pole Positions. They handle better than stock, have a longer treadlife, and cost less.

 

i got crazy lucky.. sold off my KDW's for almost what i bought em for.

car now has rt-615 all the way around. I gota say im hooked on the azenis.. i dont care they dont last long, ill buy em everytime =). Car feels better than when it rolled off the lot, love the sidewall. and ther quiet!!... and smooth!... AZENIS 4tehwin!

thanks for the input guys.

 

They seem to work well in wet conditions too. Very little hydroplaning. Looking at the tread pattern, you wouldn't expect that.

 

Good choice . If you ever take them to the track (road race track), you see them change from an awesome street tire, to a hot, soft, sticky track tire that rocks With that size make sure to inflate to about 40psi on track, of course less on street for best feel.

 

lol, got the car aligned today, you guys have bad tires or are out in left field, I've been competing nationally for over 12 yrs on DOT-R and street tires and there's no way that the KDW2 tire is as bad as people here are saying ... I only wish you could drive ours for yourself and see

 

Ok I have a theory. I have had KDW2's on my MX-6 (215/45/17) and my next door neighbor has them on his TSX. I had no problems with sidewall flexing with my tires, and I run 30 psi on all tires. If you are up at 44 which is getting close to the tires max, then you are convexing the tire and riding on the center. What you may be experiencing is not the sidewall flexing so much as you rolling around on the center of your tires instead of a flat stance.
For those that have not sold their tires and still have them on their car, try lowering your tire pressure to something reasonable like 30-32psi.

Kind of the opposite effect you would guess from incresing the pressure, but it's worth a shot.

 

true that

 

Hey if you don't mind a slightly noisy tire then I recomend the Nitto NT555... Sidewall is stiff as hell and she sticks to the road like glue... mmmm I'm goin for a drive

 

I have a theory on the mixed reactions to this tire - stock suspensions are designed with the tire used in mind. The RE040's stiffness is accounted for in this suspension design to establish the spring rates, shocks, etc that Mazda chose.

A stock 8 has fairly soft springs with a very hard tire. So, when you put a soft side-walled tire like the KDW2 on the car, it feels more floaty and not as grippy as more compression and rebound has been added to the car (via the tires).

But, when you put the KDW2 on an 8 with firmer after market springs/shocks, it feels good as it work well with firmer suspensions because it does not make it too soft.

Tire stiffness need to be considered as part of the overall suspension setup, but most of the time we ignore this in favor of talking springs, shocks, and sways.

 

Excellent observation and one generally overlooked. It's all suspension from the tire patch to the strut tower.

 

I had the opportunity to try Falken Azenis Sport ST-115s and GR-Beta FK-451 tires, BFG KDW2s, and Toyo T1-Rs on my heavily modded Mustang. For an all-season sport tire, the ST-115s were quite good but needed air pressure to stiffen the sidewall. Lower PSI would grind the top of the lettering off the sidewall with the type of steering inputs needed to drift. The BFGs were used only once on the front for drifting, and again, after understeering like never before, I had to bump up the tire PSI to get any sort of sidewall stiffness out of them. The KDW2s were good in the wet, and seemed to last for a long while in street use. I also ran a 265/35-18 front BFG for grip, and 275/35-18 on the rear. The Toyos were better for sidewall stiffness, and I ran lower PSI in those on the street. They worked better for turn-in for drifting, and were on par with the Falken GR-Beta FK-451. Their FK-452 is an upgrade, but the RT-615 is a real winner as far as grip and sidewall stiffness is concerned.

My favorites on the Mustang? One of the freebies I received? Nope, a set of Porsche OEM Continental ContiSport 235/40-18 tires that I picked up at the local recycled tire store in my hometown. Takeoffs from somewhere, they were FANTASTIC! I also ran two Nitto NT-555s on the rear in a 265/35-18 on 18x9 and 18x10 "Bullitt" wheels and just LOVED that setup! I learned that Nitto's owned by Toyo, and uses the carcass from the T1-R with a different rubber compound and tread pattern on the NT-555s. Given my experience, for great grip the Falken RT-615 and Nitto NT-555s are both very good.

Currently, on my 19" Enkei RPF1s, I'm running Bridgestone RE-01Rs. I had the chance to attend a Bridgestone "Drive and Learn" event last April in Phoenix, and found that the RE-01Rs are so grippy (with a little wear on them) that on a TRACK, the YAW and G force you can generate with them is higher than the limiting threshhold in Porsche's traction control. I could literally turn the Porsche Boxster so hard that the traction control would prevent engine acceleration when the tires were sliding OR spinning. My "instructor" was Pierre Kleinubing and he agreed (the instructors scrubbed in the tires the day before). With just a 245/40-19 selected for the best combination of increased grip vs. weight, I think they're fantastic! Much lower sidewall though, so my experience on these doesn't directly relate to folks searching for an 18" tire.

I'll also add that I've run these Bridgestones with Enkei Pro-kit springs and stock shocks, and with K-Sport's coil-over package with 10 kg/mm front springs and 6 kg/mm rear springs (drastically different rates than stock). Grip is still great with either spring/shock package, though I prefer the feel of the K-Sport shocks by far!