Nitto NT01 Tires in R35 GT-R Specific Sizes

The Nitto NT01 Tire has been one of our long-time favorites as an all-around value, race or track day, extreme street car tire. Now the NT01 has come out in Nissan R35 GT-R specific sizes, 255/40-20, 285/35-20 and 315/30-20.  With these sizes, you can run the same stagger as stock with the 255/40-20 in the front and a 285/35-20 in the rear or do any number of popular GT-R combinations from a 285/35-20 square setup, a 285/35-20 front and 315/30-20 in the rear or run wide front fenders and rock a 315/30-20 square setup.

To run a staggered size setup on the AWD GT-R you must pay close attention to the overall diameter and keep the difference within a few tenths of an inch to keep the cars AWD system from burning up and Nitto has done just that with these new sizes.

Of course, these new sizes have all the traditional NT01 attributes that we have learned to love over the years which are long life on both the street (for a drive to the track race tire) and track with consistent performance through many heat cycles.

The tread is 6.2/32’s deep and can be shaved to 3/32’s for cooler running.  At this point, the tire turns into a slick with two shallow circumferential grooves. However, we have never had an issue with heat build-up and chunking or we have not felt noticeable tread squirm with the NT01. Because of this, we feel that shaving is not needed or even recommended for the NT01 as it will reduce the service life which we feel is one of the tires best features!

The tread compound is one of the things that contributes to the NT01’s on track staying power. Sure there are faster tires out there for sure but none can beat the NT01’s abilty to give consistent grip all the way until the tread wears completely off and few can last as long.  We have stretched the NT01 to easily last 3 complete racing weekends which is two races with qualifying and practice sessions in the weekend.

Although Nitto rates these tires poorly for wet traction, we have found them to work surprisingly well at full tread depth on a wet track only feeling bad when hitting standing water.  The outwardly sweeping tread pattern does a better than expected job of getting water out from under the contact patch.  Of course, don’t drive these in the rain on the street but since we don’t have the cash to afford dedicated rain tires when pressed, we have podiumed in the rain on the NT01 before.