Its an amazing tyre, in all conditions, except the wet!

EXCELLENT TYRE IN ALL CONDITIONS

These are my first semislick tires. Not new. Slightly used , two years old. Results were shocking ! I read some reviews they last long on track. I guess these are just legends made by retired people driving to mall and back or slow posers. Front right was destroyed in 15 minutes ! Even faster than high performance street tires i used before. The track i use to have fun is very tight and technical and has 3 consecutive right hand corners . Total of 9 right corners and 3 left corners . Front right was boiling and ripped. 5 laps and pause. 4 times and good bye right front R888R. Pressure 2.2Bar hot. Cornering speed feels amazing compared with Turanza Er300 but overall Toyo are just one second faster/lap. But even on Turanza i can beat most street cars on semislick on this track Times i did on Toyo were super good for car's specs but just not so impressive as it feels . They feel 3-4 seconds faster compared with street Bridgestone but overall it was just one second. Braking is poor compared with cornering capabilities. Sidewall very rough. Driving to the track 100mp/h on public road they were good. No noise or other issues. In wet i can't tell. Still my S2000 on Potenza S02 is faster than my Prelude on R888R. Somehow i am disappointed with them and even more impressed with GranTurismo cover tire, S02..

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After running four sets of these tires, at High Plains Raceway, Sonoma Raceway, and Laguna Seca, I can't say I am quite impressed of the tires. They seem to melt too easily and the grip drops like a rock once you get a degree too hot. It also didn't help when I had poor suspension, but even with a whole new suspension system (talking about coilovers, control arms, drop spindles, the whole pizza), the tires feel a bit dated. This is by no means a diss or a bash towards Toyo, as they do make good tires, this review may not seem the best either, from my experience however, I have posted consistently slow lap times because of these tires. I do hope Toyo will make a new compound as well as design in the near future.

TLDR: Not recommended for use of track.

On a dry sunny day once heated up there unbeatable, unfortunately the only place you can get triple 8s warm is on a track. If you live in a built up area and do the odd blast then the tires will fail to perform the way they’re meant too.
I drive a performance rear wheel drive car and in the wet there useless. Stick to a good all round road tire.

I’ve struggled with this tyre, I simply don’t trust them, on one hand the tyre turns in so fast and inspires confidence but almost instantly seems to be unable to hold its own turn in line and drifts and moves, I completed a fast session recently and was really disappointed with the way the tyre moves around even in straight lines, and was surprised to find they were barely warm at the end of the session? I played around with tyre pressure and did feel some improvement dropping the pressure to 20psi from 26psi but not enough to warrant using them again. In the dry fitted to a 950kg race prepped 220bhp MX5 NA I didn’t think this tyre was good enough, I’ve never once been nervous in a race or track session but genuinely was, the car moved around, was nervous and under braking was fun but nose was everywhere, I honestly thought there was an issue with the car, so for the safety of myself and others abandoned the session to ensure car was OK, switched back to my Michelin set up and set my fastest lap of the day two laps in and then continually lapped 8 seconds a lap faster with Michelins than I did with the Toyo’s. Track. Conditions were dry 23c ambient but cloudy and track was dry for at least a week. Excelled at ion was strong with this tyre, initial turn in very very good, but won’t hold the line, moves about mid corner, and under heavy braking whilst strong, the car moved around a lot making it difficult for me to balance the car before turn in. Ive used Toyo road tyres with great results but feel the compound of these tyres do not suit UK tracks and definitely required tyre warmers.

Have very good traction in the dry, and a good wet traction, for a semi slick

I use this tire for mostly track. Great tire for running hard, it likes a little heat. Very predictable! Good wear for a track use tire. Not really made for the wet. Limited channels to run off water but for dry, great tire.

Fantastic Tyre in Dry - there Even good in the Wet (On an Evo) no tyre squeal, lasted 9 Month approx. 8000miles Only downside, there noisy on motorway drives, a slight drowning sound

Good for high horsepower applications they definitely have their limits around 700whp and wore quite fast mast 4000 miles but oh were they nice while they lasted

A very good track tyre for a reasonable budget. I replaced it as a cheaper variant of the Yokohama AD048 (LTS- medium compound and special stiff sidewall), which is no longer produced. It simply has all the pros and cons of the semislick tyres- it must warm up for a good function, it's noisy, limited function on water and in the cold. In the dry they are (for 1 tone car) excelent. Very stiff sidewall. When balancing, it was necessary to use often over 100 g weights for almost all pieces, in all dimensions. On my car and with this dimension (Lotus Exige S240, rear axle 225/235x45 R17) a very bad longevity. Around 2000 miles and they were pretty over the limit. I'm not drifting at all. This has never happened to me before or after with other tires. On the front axle (195x50 R16) over 10 000 miles.

Really impressed with the amount of grip with hard rain

After trying some cheap chinese trackay tires (goodride sport rs), I decided to step up the size and the quality of the tires. Searched the same size as skoda says form factory, and then went for the r888r. Same course, same car, instantly more feedback, more sharp response, grip levels that made a compact car briskier than ever. Managed to shave 2 seconds of the previous time, less flex on the sidewall, more speed on the curves. Be carefull, first few laps in a underpowered car, can be tricky by the lack of temp of the tires. 2 warming laps, problem solved. Decided only rotating from side, not from axle to see the wear on them, and lets say grip demands wear for sure. 5 trackdays and a 800 km trip back from a course and the fronts are now in the wear marks. The rears, only 2mm wear. Please consider that the average weather here is 30 celsius avg in summer. Those in the uk or europe can see less wear difinitely because of the colder climate conditions. Now hoping that covid eases the life to get back on the track, still got some decent grip in the fronts so lets push it to the limits. 30 psi cold 38 psi hot rear 30 psi cold in 35 psi hot If you like to send more tail happiness, 34 cold , so you can reach 38 psi. Toyo says 32 38 is the optimal psi. Definitely gonna purchase some more...

he car I had came fitted with a set of Yokohama A539 tyres. Designed for normal passenger car use they needed significantly more than 500kg on top of them and they were hopeless. Zero grip, got hot, became squirmy and unpredictable and were hopeless on track. Id driven on the ZZS quite a lot but wasn't sure if Avon merited the price premium, and the tyre size wasn't ideal for my model so I opted for the R888R in GG compound.

Shortly after I had a chance at Croft to compare three Caterham's with ZZR, ZZS and the R888R.

Initial impressions are that in the bone dry with all other considerations gone, the ZZR is king. Genuinely a superb stable high performance tyre that stays on the boil for a significant amount of time. I'd suggest a window of at least 10 laps where the tyre was on perfect form. Then a slow transition into being slightly more slippery and excess tyre wear as the temperature increases.

The ZZS is a superb road tyre for a Caterham. Remarkably useful in the wet and even down to quite low temperatures, and works very well on a track as long as you limit your sessions to say 6-8 laps. After this again the transition into slightly less predictable begins and the car just becomes very slidey!

The R888R was somewhere in between the two extremes. I felt that the Toyos offered ALMOST ZZR performance but at a fairly significant discount. They were definitely better from cold than the ZZS and lasted a little longer before going off. They also worked almost as well on the road as a ZZS, dealing with water pretty well. The R888R stayed on my car.

Downsides: the R888R is a heavier tyre with a stiffer sidewall, so this makes them a little less comfortable and adds a touch of unsprung weight to a light car, but their benefits generally outweighed these issues.

Ultimately I feel budget and requirement would dictate which you'd have. On a modern Caterham where ride height and sump layouts allow the smaller ratios, I'd suggest pick either a ZZR/S. But for older academy cars based on 175/70/13 tyres, going down to a 185/55/13 was just too much. The toyo in 185/60/13 was a better bet, with a small tweak to ride height.

This is a slow tire. I'm not sure how this tire is getting so many positive reviews. Maybe it's good for a lightweight vehicle or in smaller sizes. But I think it's no good for modern heavy cars which typically weighs more than 1400kg, or in bigger sizes. Grip is low and your laptime will suffer. This stand no chance against the track-focused tires, such as A050 GS, 03G, because it's quite a bit slower than some road tires, like RE-71R. Also, this tire is pretty heavier than other tires in same size which may contributes its slowness.