Today was the first real snow for the STI and after a little reckless driving in a snowing parking lot to get a feel for the STI on stock Dunlop’s I quickly decided that driving in any incliment weather with the OE tires wouldn’t be a safe idea.  Normally I would do a ton of research, possibly end up buying a set of dedicated snow wheels and tires however today I felt it was as good a time as ever to pull the trigger.

The wifey and I pulled into a local PepBoys out here in Winchester as we were on our way to the local SPCA to say o’hithere to some puppies and strays.  They, PepBoys, had that deal where you got the 4th tire free.  Good start?  The only tires they had in my requested size of 225/45/18 was the Cooper Zeon Sport AS.  I had a set of Cooper tires back in 2000 when I had my first car, an 85 Mustang GT, and they weren’t all that bad as I recalled.  OK, let’s take a look at ‘em.  I hadn’t heard of the tires before and a quick search on my iphone revealed next to zero real reviews(which prompted this article), however the brief ones I did find were positive.  The tread pattern looked functional as I investigated closer.  Some places won’t install tires that aren’t the same as the OE sizes.  Luckily with a little persuasion, and schooling(the salesman told me my speedo would be off), I was set to make the call.  I looked back outside at the snow coming down and thought about it a few seconds more.  Let’s do it.

Several trips around the animal shelter, a lap around the local thift shop, some snow balls, and a meal at Glory Days later, we were back to pick up the car.  I inspected the wheels for installation damage – zip.  So far, so good.  Went inside and paid the damages which didn’t set me back much.  Where can you find a set of new 18″ all-season tires installed for less than $550(after mail-in-rebate)?  Better yet, PepBoys has a 30-day guarantee on their tires.  If I don’t like them, bring them back.  And on top of that, Cooper has a 45-day trial period on all their tires.  Not too shabby.

Road test.  OK, so the first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t feel a difference in grip between the Dunlops and these new Cooper Zeon tires.  Granted it was barely 30 degrees out, but the main roads at this point were pretty much cleared of snow, all that remained was evil salt and gravel.  The second, and most noticeable difference, was that these tires were super quiet!  No more tire rumble on the highway.  Maybe I had just grown accustom to hearing the noise before and never really noticed it, but now with it gone, it was a pleasant experience.

Unfortunately this is the extent of the first part of my review of these tires.  My normal commute is 60 miles a day, mainly highway, so the miles will add up quick and I will be able to give better insight to the value of these Cooper Zeon AS tires.  In the upcoming weeks I’ll update more, and who knows, maybe I’ll include an autocross review for you spirited driving enthusiests.  You’ll get my opinion of these Cooper Zeon Sport AS’s vs the Bridgestone RE960 AS tires which I had on my 350Z, hear my opinion on their fun-factor, and overall value.  If these tires work out like I suspect, you may hear quite a bit more about Cooper in the future.

Those of you following my reviews of Sumitomo’s recently released summer tire, the HTR ZIII, may be wanting to hear more good things regarding this tire and it’s track-worthiness.  Unfortunately, you may be a bit upset with me after I’m finished writing this.  I’ll keep it somewhat short as well.

As I write this, the test car, a 99 FRC Corvette, has been sold for a few weeks now but not before I had the chance to flog it one last time.  The track of choice?  Summit Point’s Main Circuit, a 3-day long venture of fluid boiling, serpentine belt shredding, tire smoking, rotor cracking fun!  Add to that pegging off the rev-limiter at 140+ MPH in 4th gear on the front straight.  So much fun.  You know what would have made it even better?  Not having Sumitomo HTR ZIII’s wrapped around my SSR GT2 wheels.  Oh my — did I just say that out loud?

So this would have been the what, my third or fourth track day on these tires?  And they’ve been heat cycled plenty more than most people would dare.  In Sumitomo’s defense, up until this weekend they were great.  So what was my issue?  My first issue was sidewall flex.  After that first day back on track in the scorching hot Virginia heat the sidewalls on my Sumitomo HTR ZIII’s threw in the towel.  I’d make a steering input, glance down at my gauge cluster, check my side mirrors, open the visor and wipe the sweat away from my eyes, and finally the car would react.  OK, so maybe it wasn’t quite that bad.  But Josh, what about your tire pressures?  Did you even check.  Yes, newb, I checked.  They started off at 35psi all around and ended up at around 42psi after about 20 minutes.  The wear on the tires were right on the indicators on the sidewall.

The next issue I had was braking distances.  Let’s face it, braking performance numbers were never the strong point of these tires.  Maybe it was my choice of brake pads, Performance Friction Z-Rated, but I doubt it.  The ABS would easily engage in the brake zone with minimal pressure on the middle pedal.  Or in any zone for that matter.  Sumitomo, regardless of the day’s performance and conditions, the braking characteristics of your summer tires fell below average as far as I’m concerned.  They were also quite vocal.  Not that vocal’s bad, but I swore I heard them squealing before I even got in the brake zone.

Alright, so I’ve covered the sidewall and the braking performance.  What else?  Well, that’s probably about it, honestly.  To recap on the sidewall, I feel if you’re just tracking your car once or twice, and it’s not a big heavy pig, then you’ll probably be fine.  Hell, you might not even notice if you track your car more than I did.  But the braking, well, if you’re used to using cheap tires, then it’s probably not much different than what you’re accustom to.  If you’re coming from say, Yokohama AD07’s, then you’re gonna be wearing a sadface around the paddock for the entire event, most likely wishing you weren’t such a Joou… err, cheap bastard, when it came to your tire selection.

After my ownership of these tires I’d definitely recommend the Sumitomo HTR ZIII to those on a budget.  They’re not bad tires at all.  I wouldn’t recommend them for much more track use than a few HPDE1-2 sessions.  The Sumitomo HTR ZIII tires may please your wallet, and if your car never sees a track, they’ll probably please you, too.

Last month I told you briefly about Sumitomo’s new HTR ZIII tire which has received great praise from Tirerack, topping the amazing Bridgestone RE050A Pole Position, Yokohama ADVAN Sport and Continental ContiSportContact 3 in their Max Performance Summer tire test. Now I will be the first to tell you that you get what you pay for when it comes to tires but Sumitomo may have just rewritten the rules a bit. Last month at the NERD Racing/CDC track day mother nature gave us heavy rain and prevented a good review of these tires. This weekend was a complete 180 – the sun was out, temperatures were in the high 60’s and things couldn’t have looked better for the Trackdaze event at Summit Point’s Shenandoah Circuit and Part 2 of Right Foot Down’s Sumitomo HTR ZIII tire review.

A little about the track straight from Summit Point’s website itself: “At 2.2 miles, the Shenandoah Circuit is a no-holds-bared technical challenge that will take years to master. Sporting a dimensional replica of Der Nurburgring at 20 deg banking, camber changes(including negative) incorporated with with decreasing radius corners positioned on vertical drops, the Shenandoah Circuit is the odds-on favorite to be the most technical track in the country.”

Just as before I’m providing information about the test car – it’s a 1999 Corvette 6-speed with ‘08 Z06 shocks, ‘04 Z06 swaybars, Carbotech AX6 pads up front and EBC Yellow’s out back. No power mods other than a modified titanium Z06 exhaust have been added. I had a fresh alignment done by PTUNING in Manassas, VA based on PFADT’s street tire recommendations of -1.2 camber up front, -.8 out back with zero toe all around. Lastly a set of 18×9.5 SSR GT2 wheels with of course, Sumitomo HTR ZIII’s in 275/35 front and 275/40’s in the rear.

Down to business. The Sumitomo HTR ZIII tires had very good grip straight out of the pits not requiring much warm up. They communicated very well, squealing like a pig through many corners but never overheated and became greasy like the Falken Azenis RT-615 tires would have. At 34psi the tires did have noticeable flex in the sidewall however their responsiveness was still great. At the limit the tires would break away very slowly and predictably, so at 80mph through Big Bend it was very nice to have the confidence of knowing what it is the ZIII’s are saying. Hard braking wasn’t nearly as bad this time around as I had previously experienced on April 28th in the wet but could be improved. The ABS seemed to help out more than I would have liked throughout the day but overall the HTR ZIII tires gripped phenomenal for a max performance rated street tire.

On to hard evidence. Everyone likes a video and we’ve brought you just that! Our good friend David Ortiz joined us for a video session. David took 2nd place in Redline’s 2007 Time Attack here at the Shenandoah Circuit last September recording a 1:39.622 on Yokohama AD07 tires – just under two tenths slower than Brian Hair’s first place time of 1:39.435 on Michelin Pilot Sport 2’s.

View the video above for fourteen minutes of open lapping in Advanced group. Both David and I were in the 1:46 range on this very cool spring day driving about 8/10ths. Goes to show you how temperature and humidity can affect lap times. And if you’d like to view Ross Miller of Spazeracing driving, check out the video below:

Tire wear was minimal and even along the indicators on the tires. Click the image for full resolution.

Wrapping up this weekend I would still recommend the Sumitomo HTR ZIII’s hands down to anyone looking for a summer only tire that can shine both on and off the track. It’s not the stickiest, but it’s probably the best bang for the buck tire you will find on the market today. Like I said, the ZIII gave superb driver feedback, communicated well at all times and never lost their grip. Tire sizes are available for just about any application from Tirerack or your favorite tire retailer. If you ask me “would I buy them again?” the answer is a strong “Hell yes”.

The new Sumitomo HTR ZIII is the predecessor for the HTR ZII and has already received praise from TireRack, beating the Bridgestone RE050A Pole Position, Yokohama ADVAN Sport and Continental ContiSportContact 3 in their Max Performance Summer tire test. You may have seen the prices on Sumitomo tires before and thought “How good can they really be?” Well, on April 28th I took my Corvette out to Summit Point’s Shenandoah Circuit for the NERD Racing/CDC track day to find out just that.

A little information about the car. It’s 1999 Corvette 6-speed with ‘08 Z06 shocks, ‘04 Z06 swaybars, Carbotech AX6 pads up front and EBC Yellow’s out back. No power mods other than a modified titanium Z06 exhaust have been added. I had a fresh alignment done by PTUNING in Manassas, VA based on PFADT’s street tire recommendations of -1.2 camber up front, -.8 out back with zero toe all around. Lastly a set of 18×9.5 SSR GT2 wheels with of course, Sumitomo HTR ZIII’s in 275/35 front and 275/40’s in the rear.

We all wish for great weather when we head out to turn some laps but on this day mother nature wasn’t so kind. It was cool, about 55 degrees, and raining steadily with puddles of standing water all around the track. Wet is the key word here. The first session out I warmed up the tires the best I could under the conditions and began to gain confidence in Sumitomo. The HTR ZIII had a very nice responsive feeling with excellent feedback. No noticeable flexing to talk about. Getting the power to the ground on a day like this was tricky, no matter what you’re driving but the HTR ZIII’s did pretty good, full throttle out of the corners in 2nd and 3rd gear was holding well. Braking was sketchy at times and constantly resulted in traction lose in the front. Maybe the tire pressure was too high, maybe it was my line, maybe it was the bite of the Carbotech’s? Whatever it was it did seem that the the front tires lost grip under moderate braking and the ABS frequently lit up the gauge cluster to say hello. In the dry I feel this tire would be much more impressive — needless to say I felt that the ZIII’s did the job just about as good as I could expect from a street tire in these wet and rainy conditions.

All that said you’d expect a bashing review. Far from it. Much of this is difficult to report because of the lack of a comparison. I’ve owned Michelin PS2’s, Bridgestone RE050A’s, RE01-R’s, 960AS’s, BFG KD’s, KDW’s, Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3’s, Falken RT-615’s, Hankook RS2’s and many other performance tires in the past few years and if I was to rank the Sumitomo HTR ZIII tire for the street I’d give it outstanding marks and recommend it to anyone looking for a sweet summer tire. It’s quiet, has great manners in wet and dry, very predictable, gives great driver feedback and who can argue with the price?!

This tire review is far from over — I will be back at Shenandoah Circuit on May 17-18th with TrackDaze and returning for part 2!