360 best track tires, factory and custom sizes. What worked best on your car?

I am planning to track my 360 stick, which currently has street tires.
Tire technology has changed significantly in the last 20 years, but I don’t see any comparisons for a retro car showing track times on different tires.
I have seen much wider tires used front and back, and am curious what the best size is. The 215&275 seems quite narrow by todays standards.
Does the car throw codes when you change the diameter of the wheels?
An example is a youtube video of 255/30-19, 345/30-19, I can post screenshots, but no explanation why that size or if it performs better.
Another retro video with 235/40-18, 295/30-18 on advan ad08, but those are retro tires. Any help from actual track users would be great, as I cant seem to find what the best tire for the 360 is in ‘22.

 

Biggest bang for your $ is alignment. Hands down I experienced a much bigger change going to a track setup than using differing tires. Lots of camber front and rear and zero toe on front. Car handles sooooo much better and still easily driven on street.

That said I think the bigger you can go on the fronts the better. Min 235 and yes the 255 makes the front very solid (no understeer). Selection on 18's is limited. I've run Hoosiers, Toyo R888R, and Pzero's. Regardless, but especially on the Hoosiers, the race alignment yields much longer life. I like the Toyo's but hard to get proper sizes (235/40-18 front and 305/30-18 rear) and they were LOUD on med/high speed corners. These ended up being heat cycle limited. Hoosiers will spoil you, but there is a price in cost and wear (cord out before heat cycle out). Pzero's are not bad, and what I have on the car now, although I think the alignment and just more experience has made for more enjoyment.

 

Be careful not to go too wide. Tracking will compress the suspension and you don’t want the tires to hit the fender lips. I run 225 and 285 MPS4S on OEM 18” wheels and think that’s about optimum. But there are more track-focused tires than MPS4S.


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I noticed the OEM front wheel is the limiting factor on the width of the tire that will work, 7.5” is quite narrow. What size of MPS4S are you using. The rears I am assuming are the 285/45-18, but the front could be either the 225/40 or the 225/45, both should be within tolerance, and why did you go with the size you went with. Does it transform the car handling?

@jcurry I know you mentioned the pirelli trofeo’s, do you have them on the OEM wheels in the 235/45/18? Their website said 235mm tire is recommended with 8” -9” rim. When I say OEM I am referring to the starfish wheels or the modular bbs wheels, I have both and both are 7.5” fronts, rears can take any size tire that would normally be fitted to a 360 as its a 10” rim.

 

The Trofeo R’s I have are 245/40-18 and 295/30-18, but they are on the Challenge rims which are wider than the stock.

The idea is to run same, or nearly same, circumference (diameter). Tire Rack website has good spec sheets to help compare sizes.

 

225/40 and 285/35. A top tire in 215/45 is impossible to find. It’s important to keep diameter ratios close to OEM to keep ASR happy.


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I’ve been manually crunching diameters for about 20 years now. i love the weird mixing of imperial and metric.
OEM is 275 x 0.4 =110mm. So in Toyo’s they have 305/35-18, which is 106.75mm, thats very close to OEM diameter. They also have a 225/40-18 (toyo r888r) Any concern with that big of a spread front to back? Factory is 215 and 275, which is 60mm width difference. 225 and 305 is 80mm width difference. If I have to swap out wheels it’s not a problem, I would prefer to use OEM since I have a spare set of the starfish wheels in storage with no tires. I will play with allignment for sure as well, I just want to set it up to get max out of car.

 

Typo in my message, I assumed you had the 285/40-18 in the rear, which is very close to OEM, but glad Inasked as that is not the case. I know a new set of the MPS4S was just launched so it’s possible that size wasn’t available when you installed them. 285/35 is 10.25mm smaller per side, and 285/40 is 4mm bigger per side.
225/40 is 6.75mm smaller per side
While 225/45 is 4.5mm bigger per side.

no codes being thrown by car due to variance in diameter of wheel?

 

One manufacturers 225/40-18 may not be the same as a different manufacturer. Tread width/overall width/diameter can all be different. These specs are all listed in the Tire Rack spec shts.

 

Thats where I’ve been looking up specs. 225 in r888r is good with 7.5”, the 235 is 8” min. I have yet to find a 235 that works with 7.5”, but I’ll keep looking and post here if I find it. Anything up to 305 for the rear is OK with the 10” in the back.

 

No ASR issues with me. The key is diameter ratios close to OEM ratios. I don’t recall if 285/40 was available, but going up in rear diameter while going smaller in front would likely have thrown things off. Compare.
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I noticed limited tire selection in 18” front and rear as @jcurry mentioned above when I look for wide tires.
I see tire selection significantly increase if I use 18” in the front, with 19” in the rear. Considering the factory wheels are 1.04” larger in diameter in the rear compared to the front, has anyone tried doing this? Would it be better/worse or same when compared with 18” on all 4 corners?

For general info:
18” factory tire sidewall front 3.81”, rear 4.33”
Aftermarket 255/35-18 front 3.51”, 315/30-19 rear 3.72” (this is an example, many similar tire sizes can be used)

This would be with aftermarket forget track wheels.

 

I have posed this question directly to @jcurry, but I will update here as well to keep everyone looking at this thread up to date.

I have 2 sets of the starfish wheels.
I have found some information (xls file) on ferrarichat stating the rears are 18 x 10.5, but that is not correct, they are 18 x 10 (confirmed today as the extra set I have is in storage with no tires).

10" can accommodate tires from 255mm - 305mm.
So I will throw on the spare rear starfish wheels on the front, and go with a square 18 x 10 setup all around. If this clears the front without interference, I will keep the stock look of the starfish with likely 255/35-18 & 305 /35-18 in Toyo R888R.
I will hopefully confirm this works for anyone else that wants to do something similar in the future.

 

Apologies for not responding to the PM, got caught up in work ...................

1/ I am not the person to be giving any advice on this question.
2/ I have not seen, nor heard, of anyone running square on a 360/430
3/ I know of people running square on Mustang GT350's/500's. I run square on my 951 (275 Hoosier R7)

 

No worries @jucurry, sounds good, I will test it out and let everyone know if this works.
My shop is 85% confident it should, but you just never know until you try it.

The other 2 tire options here are Yoko A052 & Bridgestone RE-71RS both in 255/35-18 & 295/35-18.

 

Update:
I just picked up a set of 18” bbs wheels from a local ferrari dealership. I am looking at what the best set of tires for this is, considering these are 8&10.5, lots of wider tire options become available.

@Need4Spd I will run my stock wheels with the 225/40 & 285/35 as per your suggestion, most likely the PS4S.

 

A set of PS4S will be more capable than you are as a driver. Set it and forget it.

 

No better track tire than Nitto NT01

 

@David993s is this a general comment, or are you running NY01’s on a 360? If so, what size front and back?

 

Thanks for the very informative info on tire selection for the 360[emoji106]


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To give an update on the thread, I will not be tracking this car, but will still use the fast street setup as per above with the 18” challenge bbs wheels.
I decided to keep the original recommended size on these wheels, stepping up the width both in the front and rear +20mm from stock.
I finally made a decision on the more street friendly tires and size.
Continental extremecontact sport 2
235/40-18
295/35/18

 

I track my F430. I have 2 sets of wheels with different sizes to try and I’ve ran multiple different combo with no ill affects.

Fronts 18x10.5 and 19x9.5
Rear 18x12 and 19x12.5

I’ve ran 265/35/18, 275/35/18, and 255/35/19

For the rear I’ve ran 305/35/18, 315/30/18, 315/30/19, 305/30/19, 325/30/19

I’ve ran yoko a052 which is one of my favorite street tires at 265/35/18 and 315/30/18

I’ve ran nankang AR1 275/35/18 and 305/30/19 and 325/30/19

I’ve ran falken rt660 275/35/18 and 315/30/19

I’ve ran Nitto NT01 275/35/18 and 305/35/18.

none has any issues. The yoko is really close in diameter front to rear. But I didn’t experienced any issues. In fact the car handled the best out of all the tires mentioned. But they don’t last long.
The nitto nt01 is probably the most consistent tire throughout its life. Perfect track day tires. Still one of my favorite track day tires after more than a decade. Keep in mind I’m not chasing time in term if getting the best tire. I’m just having fun on this car. But I was able to do 1:44.x at Sonoma raceway.

 

This is my car at Nürburgring on the carousel

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Yokohama A052 on the stock wheels. I ran 225/40/18 on the front and 275/40/18 on the rear.

The car was extremely quick - was the quickest car at a track day with lots of high end exotics (granted, not a power track and most of the guys with McLarens and GT3 RS were newer drivers).

 

At Sonoma last weekend

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