Hi Paul, long time no speak! Others know much more about tires and will have suggestions but I am glad the mystery water issue was benign.
From what I have understood, the design is old but the structure and rubber of the newly produced P5's are modern. This K is on 235/60 R15 (I don't remember where it was posted) , so it seems to work: Image Unavailable, Please Login That K is on 255/50 R16, so even wider tyres, though with a slightly reduced rolling perimeter, and apparently no rubbing issues: Image Unavailable, Please Login Again as for the P5's, are you sure that the freshly produced XWX's and CN12's are that awful?
Whilst the tyres use modern rubber compounds, i believe the way they are built is the same. That is the internal construction and design is the same. Tyre design has moved on massively in the past 50 years. I had XWX's on two of my cars and CN!2's on one car. All were much newer than the car so had been replaced with 'newer materials' made tyres. In the dry, they were fine. In the wet they were all scary! Moving to newer designs made a big difference. In those three cars i had driven about 25000 miles in total in all conditions. On my old 308GT4 i changed the wheels to 16' and put on modern Pirellis. The difference was literally black to white. Braking was superb and controlled; handling was much improved as was roadholding. In the wet the car felt very stable. On the K, before i changed the tyres from XWX to P4000, it was loose at the back in all conditions. Two of the tyres were a bit older, but showed no cracking etc. If the car is a show pony, it doesnt matter. If you do want to drive it and push it, then that security is better.
Paul, thank you for your reply, I stand corrected. Very useful. I thought that the whole structure had been revisited, as Dougal (Longstonetyres) let us know when posting here regularly. So the pluses of "new" XWX's, CN12's or P5's for classic cars would be their fresh rubber and the rounder cross section. But the minuses would still be their old structure... If you want to stick to the OEM 15" K wheels, as you noted yourself, there are very few or no available tires in the 225/65 R15 dimension. The alternative is to have custom (very costly) look alike K wheels in 16" or 17" as was shown earlier in post #10391, with a lot of good modern tires available, here under Primacy4 in 225/55 R17: Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hi Thanks for that. That is interesting. I will read his posts. When I read the Pirelli tech posts I had understood they had used the archive of Pirelli to make the tyres again but using the same structure and construction but with current materials in so as applicable. I will check out his posts. I just spent a lot on having the wheels refurbished. The first attempt didnt work and in fairness to the wheel guy, he re did these at his own cost. I have used him for lots of work on other cars in the past and his work is good. He redid my espada wheels which had been nearly ruined by a 'magnesium' wheel specialist
Hi Paul long time no speak. The Espada/Miura/Jarama/Islero wheels are very tough to do right. When I started mine Europspares still had aluminum replica's for about $1,500 -$2,000 a set. I wish I had done that instead. I would have saved a ton of work. Good luck Paul. Tires are a tough one. I'm not a XWX fan either. I had much better results with the XGT and Gatorback tires at the time. There are some vintage Gatorbacks being made but I don't think in the nice size those P4000s were. That was a tire made for Jaguar. They worked rather nicely on my Espada too.
Thanks for the input. There is a good selection of modern tyres available at 225/60/15. However that drops the sidewall by 1.4 inches. that is quite a drop and wonder if anyone has used these on a car and if they had issues with ground clearance? My car could have issues on the driveway with the exhaust if fully loaded up. 1.4 inches or about 30mm is quite a drop. Any views or experience?
yes, here’s what to expect and this was with 235/60/15 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now I know why I got a call about this last night from Italiancars. He was using 235/60/15 tires which drops the sidewall by about .5 inches. He also has a dented header on one side. That discussion is in this thread not that long ago. I think you're familiar with Jack Riddell who has the highest mileage 400GT Lamborghini in the world and it's always been a real driver. These are what he's using now: https://www.carid.com/ironman-tires/imove-pt-215-70r15-4419780640.html There are some others out there in the H speed rate category as well. He says he's happy with them. You used to be registered on the VLG website? You can reach out to him there. If you PM me I'll send you his phone number. I'm pretty sure he'd be happy to talk with you. He's usually up and ready to go by 7:00am California time.
Bob unless I suddenly got clairvoyant, I spoke to you yesterday. The thread I responded to was posted at 5:00 AM est.
Thanks for that. It confirms my view that loosing 30mm is too much. I went and had a look at the car on axle stands and recall scuffing the floor pan from time to time too. We don't have ironman tyres in the uk.
I decided to go for the 225/65/15 P5's. About 10mm drop which i reckon i can live with. I will post a report on these in due course. I checked with Pirelli and Longstone. Apparently new up to date materials used in the construction but true to the original designs. On the P4000's I found that the K: 1. Had good breakaway at the back and was quite easily controllable in a slide, even for a person of limited skills like me 2. The very high speed cruising 100mph + was stable, but difficult to differentiate from any limitations the car had; My longest drive was about 135moph for about 40 plus miles. 3. The Braking was ok, but did seem to lock up, which could have been down to my incompetence. 4. the ride was always a bit 'firm'. My days of 100mph cruising in older cars are now long gone. However i do push them from time to time, when roads permit.
Here your antics a few years ago, actually ten years to the month! Am enjoying watching them while having...a Scottish beverage before dinner;-) Greetings from Aix en Provence
Hi Marc We were down your area a few weeks ago but in an SL500. Such a beautiful part of France. I recall that race. It was fun. I was meant to do it in the Countach QV hence why he thought it was a 86 and not a 78! He didnt have many notes on the car and I think was making some stuff up as he went along. That GT40 was quick! It is a lovely drive back from up there, with long wide open country roads which really suit GT cars such as the K. I had done the 'race' the year before in the QV. they put me up against a professional racing driver in a new Porsche GT3. I took an old Lambo mechanic out for the race with me,. He and I were so busy chatting we didnt notice it had started till i saw the GT3 in my rear mirrors and the marshals waving furiously at me! lol. I did the whole race in 2nd, so was only up at 90mph on the straights.
Hi Paul, Yes Burgundy has fabulous roads, started driving on them at night at 14 but don't tell anyone;-) That event looks like it is cheerful but they face mismatched cars and that course is like racing GP motorcycles in a apartment!
Well all these tires come from either Korea of China so I expect you could get them if you worked at it. There are others as well. But I only see references for the P5 as a vintage tire and ironically not over here? We're not required to have the proper speed rated tires on cars here so some guys are putting H rated tires on their cars that really never even see 130 mph any more anyway. You might not be allowed to do that?
In legal theory in the UK , you re meant to have cars which are appopriate or ''unsuitable'' to your cars alleged top speed and original specification. I think in Germany it is more strict as tyres and wheels are marked not the car official documents. It would be quite a challenge for the police to suggest that say an H rated tyre of 130mph is 'unsuitable'. However it is legally possible.
I had a nice email exchange with Mel Nichols who was a leading automotive journalist in the seventies, wrote for CAR magazine among many others and appreciated the Khamsin a lot: he shared this nice anecdote: Re the Khamsin at Silverstone: In May 1974, at the annual Michelin International Test Day, where the UK’s car importers brought their models to Silverstone for journalists to try on the F1 circuit and nearby roads, Citroen [UK then the Maserati importer based in Slough] had a Maserati Bora and Khamsin on hand. They had hired Vern Schuppan, then racing in Formula 1 and F5000, to give journalists rides. I jumped into the Khamsin with fellow Australian Vern, who was then 31. He said it was a car he liked and started pushing as soon as we left the pitlane. He was smooth and drove it with small, precise movements. I remember the nose lifting as he accelerated and how cleanly the Khamsin stayed on line through Silverstone’s bends. It didn’t feel to be rolling that much. What has stuck most in my memory is his going flat out down Hangar Straight and staying right out on the left edge as we approached Stowe Corner. But where I’d expected him to turn onto a gentle line towards the apex, he kept going straight on along the outside edge, braking way beyond anywhere I’d have considered, and then, at exactly the right point, just turning the wheel hard right. With such abrupt steering input, I’d wondered if the Khamsin would push into understeer, as well it might. But no: it just obeyed instantly and obediently and pointed straight at the apex as he’d intended. It rocked a bit as it went through but he didn’t need to adjust his line, nor did he need to catch oversteer. The Khamsin just went where he pointed it and maintained perfect attitude. He said it was how he liked to drive: brake deep in a straight line, and then turn directly for the apex. A lot of road cars wouldn’t have liked that. The Khamsin did. I thought it was a very impressive display. I hope that’s of interest! Very best, Mel End of quote. Interesting to see how an F1 driver drove a brand new Euro spec K. Bear in mind they were sprung harder than US cars.
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