Has anyone run them on an MCS?
How wide are they (fitment issues) in real life (all R tires are winder than marked)?

I'm tempted to give them a try for a summer tire.

Use to run them ~10 years ago (can't believe they are still around) on a bimmer when I lived down south. Last a full season of DD duty and autoX/DE's. Never had to swap wheels/tires between events

a

 

Yes, I have seen RA1 tires on a street driven MCS but only because the owner did not want to bother with wheel changes and he did SuperLap track events and relatively low street miles per year.

If you don't have much street driving to do you can use the RA1 but I would expect the following:
Tires don't grip well in the rain (except when new at full tread depth)
Tires can be noisy compared to other street tires (depends which street tire)
Ride is firmer
Tread life will not be very long and tread wear may be accelerated in some places when street driven.

How much suspension drop do you have? More than 1"?
What is your alignment? Do you have -2.5 to -3 degrees in front. If so then good but, that much negative camber will wear the inner treads of the front tires with street driving.

If your suspension drop is not too bad you can run the 225/50-16 on a 16x7 rim. But if you use a 16x8" rim then you might have clearance only with minimal offset and with some wheel arch trimming and increased rear negative camber.

 

Just so you are aware:

They are still DOT approved but "Recommended for competition events only" is now molded into the sidewall.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/BigPic...del=Proxes+RA1

 

Thanks guys, I'm fully aware what RA1's are (SCCA rain R tires) and what the trade-offs are for using them. I actually ran a summer season on them on my E36M3 a dozen years ago when I lived down south. They work great. A bit too well, actually, with me learning not to apply breaks fully else I would catch drivers behind me off-guard

To correct a few misperceptioms:
- Toyo RA1's are fantastic in the rain at full thread. When the thread wears off (or if you shave them), the same thing happens as you would expect on street tires.
- They are not significantly noisier than max grip summer tires, but they do pickup a lot of rocks that bounce off the wheel well. You either grow to love debris bounce noises, your hate it.
- Tread wear is way quicker than any of the street tires (as should be expected), but RA1's last way longer than any other R tire (Hoosier A7's been on the extreme opposite end of (faster) wear and (better) grip).

So, has anyone run a set of 225/50ZR16 RA1's on a MINI before ?

TIA,
a

 

Would also like to know how well these tires work on a daily driver. I have been using my track wheels around town for the last few weeks and really enjoy everything about them except the noise - which is considerable. I can hear them over the monster truck mudder tires driving along side me, they are obscenely loud. My tires are Toyo Proxes R888 205/50ZR15, so if the RA1's are a bit quieter, I would like to try them out. It doesn't rain where I live, and in the summer the road surface temps always exceed 145 degrees during the day. Treadwear number is 86 vs 100, not a lot of difference, so neither are going to last too long.

 

Toyo R888 are known to be loud for street use. Likely RA1 is a bit better but don't expect much.

Race tires are made for grip not for comfort or low noise.

I have seen RA1 in 225/45-15 run on a 15x7" wheel with an MCS for street use. It was OK.