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The shoulders of the tread have a semi-slick design with super large blocks to improve grip when cornering in this heavily loaded area and improve steering response by reducing tread squirm. The center of the tread is an interrupted band of grooveless rubber. This helps braking and straight line traction by putting down as much rubber as possible.
Despite having much wider wheel and tires, our new wheel tire combo is significantly lighter than stock. The stock front wheel and tire assembly weigh 60.8 lbs while the new stuff weighs 53.6 lbs. In the rear, the stock wheel/tire assembly weighs in at 64.6 lbs while the new stuff weighs only 55.8 lbs. That’s a more than 7lbs difference in the front and almost 9 lbs difference in the rear.
Considering that is all rotating and unsprung weight, that’s a big deal! That’s 32 lbs of weight and it’s all rotating and unsprung where its effect on performance is multiplied. It goes a long way toward us getting the car’s weight below 3800 lbs as well!
We haven’t had the time to really flog the car yet but we can tell you that getting rid of the run flat tires and adding the KW 3-Way shocks has really improved the cars ride comfort. GT-R’s have always been criticized for their rough and harsh ride and we have this pretty much licked now. We haven’t even attempted to adjust the shocks yet!
Stay tuned, in our next installment of Project GT-R we will attack what is perhaps the GT-R’s worst performance attribute, the brakes.
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