trifona

After leaving the GF's and tanking up, i decided i needed to let out some aggression and angst and take her out on the highway for a few miles of high speed cruising...I had 920+ miles on the odometer, and i stopped being a good boy after about ~700 miles.<p>My trail started on I-95 South off of Prospect Park, onto the Blue Route (I-476) North, off at Exit 3 Lima, and looped back (southbound) to my home base at Exit 1 MacDade Blvd. For those not in the Philly area, the stretch of 476 is about 5-6 miles (Andy correct me if i am wrong), with a couple of nice strait away's along with about 2-3 sharply "engineered" curves.<p>On my Loop homeward bound, i was right behind a Maxima coming up off of the Exit 3 ramp, he was pushing his car, and so was i in order to pass the car beside me, as well as to probably egg on Mr. Maxima.<p>It worked.<p>From the beginning of the Ramp down until i exited it was an all out race!<p>I started out no more than 2 lengths behind him from the outset with the intention of maintaing that gap without letting him gain on me. All the way upto and through 5th gear, i had NO problem doing so. I was NOT under WOT during 5th, but close to it.<p>Once we hit an appropriately long strait away, i turned over to the right lane with the intentions of passing him, at this point we were doing 100 mph. Accelerated to 115 and passed him by 2 or 3 lengths, but was uneasy about turning in front of him for obvious reasons. Seems like he couldn't do much more than 100-105+ mph. Speed<br>Limiter or just chicken****?<p>In any case i was REALLY impressed by the fact that i was able to outpull him at that speed, i thought his 3.0 liter would be able to compensate against the turbo, but i guess in this case, having 20 valves helped the little 1.8 breathe. Of course, if he hit a speed limiter, my previous comment is kinda irrelevant.<p>After a few seconds of leading, i had to slam the brakes due to an 18 wheeler in the right hand lane up ahead in front of me (1/4+ mile), he passed me and continued onto Southbound 95.<p>I was VERY impressed with his ability to hold his car in the turns at those speed. On the other hand, i was very disappointed with mine. Although i have the Sports package, i am saddled with the Eagle RSA's which are ****!!! The car is VERY twitchy at turns >80 mph (sheesh....doesnt Quattro truly spoil us?). Although i think i chickened out before the Quattro wouldve let me down, i was unsure of the tires, and was not willing to let it all ride on the hard turns with the RSA's. It was bad enough that by that i made my exit and neared the light, i was<br>****ting my pants, forgot to depress the clutch to put her in neutral and subsequently stalled her upon stopping.<p><br>Which leads me to my previous upgrade question. <p>Since I do NOT trust the tires to carry the load of the current power output of the car, i doubt that i will be satisfied with the chip without better rubber first. Any dissenters?<p>That being said, what tire choices do i go for? I want to continue riding the stock 5 spoke OEM wheels. Other than that i am pretty clueless when it comes to tires. I would like to maintain a quiet highway ride, and maintain wet traction. Live in Philly, where winters are mild, so not really looking forward to changing tires during the winter. But if i HAVE to, will change over back to the RSA's for the winter months.<p>Is there a tire out there possible to do the above while at the same time, UPGRADING my high speed cornering/performance needs in a MAJOR way? Buying $100+ tires really doesnt boither me (>$125 sorta does), as long as i feel that i upgrading from the RSA's in a MAJOR WAY!!!<p>What is recommended?<br>Where do guys go to learn about tires?<p>Oh BTW, do any places take your old tires for trade in's or anything like that? My Eagle RSA's have 1,000 miles on them.<p><br>"Tire Limited" trifona<p><br>PS - The Maxima was I think a pre-95. Not sure......I was.too busy ****ting on the RSA's during the 100+mph cornering. He hardly had to brake during the corners, performance rubber i assume?<p>PPS - Sorry about the length.

Rodney

First and foremost, >100mph on east coast highways is unsafe both to you and other drivers on the road.<br>That's my safety **** comment for the day. Some day I'll even listen to my own advice ;-)<p>That said, I consider it extremely unlikely that the 1.8t was able to outpull the Maxima period, he probably chickened out. That 3.0 V6 is a peice of artwork. I haven't run a Maxima at high speed (3 digits), but I can tell you that in a 300ZX na I never got near the engine's limits. Granted the Z is lighter than the Maxima, but not enough to compensate for how underpowered the 1.8t is.<p>I definitely agree with you that you need to replace the Badyears ASAP. If my car came with them, I would have driven from the dealer to a tire store the day I picked up my car. Some tire stores do accept trade in tires if they're in good shape. For all season I would recommend Dunlop SP4000's I had them on my VW Jetta GLX VR6 for 2 years including 2 Boston winters and ski trips to VT and they were decent in the snow and great the rest of the year. They are basically the SP8000's with an all season tread pattern. If you're willing to change tires for the winter...the SP8000's are excellent. I have been very satisfied with them. In fact when I ran my first autox a couple of weeks ago I was quite impressed with them. I got to experience them both wet and dry. Wet they were amazing and I never managed to push them past they're limit. Dry they performed quite well too, in fact the only reason that I will be running race compound tires from now on is that I don't want to trash the Dunlops.<p>Regards,<br>Rodney<p>'99 silver A4 1.8tqms

Vince

I recently bought a set of BFG Comp T/A ZR rated tires for my wife's Jetta GLX VR6. Theres tires not only look good, they are absolutely fantastic. The previous tires were Goodyear eagle GAs and they were junk, not to mention extremely noisy. If I were you, I would buy the Comp T/A ZR's, I know I will for my A4.<p>PS. I also live near philadelphia, Doyleston to be exact.<p>Vince

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