BFG R1 opinions

E

evanwebb

New member
Hi, does anyone have an opinion on BFG R1 tires, especially for VW A1 cars? My car is a ITC Scricco (black/yellow number 46 in MARRS). There is a guy selling old tires from the Spec Racer program in the classifieds section and they are CHEAP! $25 each (or 8 for $175) for either dry or wet tires in 185/60/13 or 205/60/13. They are new tires, unused, and supposedly have been stored "properly". He also says that they ship their newest tires first. I was thinking of getting a set of drys and wets as backup or school tires. Also, for the wet (full tread depth) tires, would you recommend the 185 width or 205? Thanks in advance.
 
Sounds like a good deal--especially for a school. I'm not sure how the "wet" tires work. Are they just a full tread R1?

You should try and pick them up if possible rather than deal with shipping. That will save you more money.

Go with the 205-60.

Cheers.
 
Last year I was going to do the smae thing so I checked with the BFG tech rep. He said there is a difference between Spec Racer tires and the IT tires. He didn't recommend using them on my Rabbit. How old are the tires? I didn't think they used BFG tires last year.

------------------
Tony
ITC #0
 
I was going to do the same thing last year so I contacted the BFG rep. He didn't recommend it because he said there was some difference between the Spec Racer tire and the IT tire. How old are the tires? I didn't think Spec Racers used BFG tires last year.

------------------
Tony
ITC #0
 
evan,
we ran bfg r1's on our itb golf last year. great tires...they do flat spot easily and must be driven "on the edge". for rains go with the 185/60.
enjoy
dave parker
wdcr itb#13
 
Keep in mind that the BFG R1 tire has neg. camber built into the tire (up to -4 deg.) I am a Honda racer, and our setup requires much less neg. camber than you VW folks. You will probably require less neg. camber using these tires as you normally would. I ran these tires for years, and I think they were great (not in the rain though). There is a number code on the wall of the tire that indicates when it was built. You will see 2 numbers at the end. One number indicates the year it was built. ie: "4" indicates that it was built in 1994, "32" indicates that it was built in the 32nd week of 1994. Also these tires work best on lower air pressures than a conventional tire.

FYI

These BFG R1 tires are no longer made. The material that was designed into this tire was built by Dupont. BFG tried to buy the pattent to this material, but to no success. Dupont decided that they could make more money putting this material in carpet. So, BFG had to develop a new conventional tire called the g-force to take its place. I ran on g-force tires for a couple of years (I had a national BFG sponsor) but could not get them to perform as good as the R1. Now, BFG has decided, after 30 years of building race tires, to get out of it. Thats too bad. They will continue their venture with Trans AM and will probably concentrate on Import drag tires and off road tires.

Bruce
ITA CRX
ITB Suzuki Swift
 
<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">Keep in mind that the BFG R1 tire has neg. camber built into the tire (up to -4 deg.) </font>
Click to expand...

I'm interested to hear how they accomplisheed this.

------------------
MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI
 
I am not sure exactly how engineering accomplished this. That is still a trade secret. According to my sourses, the R1 tire was originally designed for Autocross competition, thus they managed to develop a tire that could induse neg camber capabilities on vehicles that were not allowed any modifications to alignment. The tire would "turn in" much better than traditional tires and would operate very similar to modified vehicles using conventional tires that had adjustible camber plates. BFG was so successful with these tires, they modified the compound, but kept the original engineering design to compete in Road Racing applications. I am an ex-Michelin engineering employee. As you probably know, Michelin acquired BFG/Uniroyal back in '96.
 
Again I am really impressed with how much knowledge there is with the people on this site. I am wondering about what Spiro13 said about the BFG tech rep, what would be the problem with running the Spec Race tires on an ITC VW? Can anyone tell me who to talk to from BFG? Thanks.
 
Just remember, that the SRF folks HATED the BFG tire, and as a result, they got the Yokohama tire back for this year. Flat spotted easy, didn't last as long as the Yoks, and in general, not as good as the Yok.

I ran the "Spec Racer" Yok 205-60-13 on my A1 Scirocco and they did fine. This was in 93-94 before they went to the BFG tire.




------------------
Tim Linerud
San Francisco Region SCCA
#95 ITB GTI, GP for 2002
 
Originally posted by Bill Miller:
I'm interested to hear how they accomplisheed this.
Click to expand...

I believe, it was as simple as, the tire was constructed such that the outside edge diameter is greater than the the inside edge diameter.
A new tire, un-mounted, will not stand up straight, but rather will 'lean' due to the above mentioned construction (camber).

ron vaughn
 
Originally posted by ITB#32VWGTi:
I believe, it was as simple as, the tire was constructed such that the outside edge diameter is greater than the the inside edge diameter.
A new tire, un-mounted, will not stand up straight, but rather will 'lean' due to the above mentioned construction (camber).

ron vaughn
Click to expand...

That must have proved interesting on the balancer!



------------------
MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI
 
The tire was symmetric in overall diameter and asymmetric in design, but the compounds were completely different from side to side including the tread pattern (similar to many tread designs). The neg camber was indused from the characteristics of the outside compound.

Go to this webpage and article written by Jim Fogarty who is a BFG engineer and one of the designers of that tire.

http://www.porschenet.com/bfgtires.html
 
I have autocrossed with these tires and love them. They wear like iron and hook pretty well.I have used the 205 and 185 and they both work the same.They lasted pretty well at open track events too. A friend of mine uses Spec racer take offs on his CRX at open track events and has had good luck.
I will caution you not to combine the old
R-1 tire with the new G force.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top