Hi!
I am starting the karting hobby, no races, just trackdays
And i am wondering what are some good tyre brands and compounds for this?
Some brands i can order here:
MG / Komet / Mojo
What compound do you advice? Medium or Hard?
If you’re just starting out and not worrying about matching a spec tire for a series then seat time is what you need the most. For my money getting used tires (either from a local source or ebay) is the best value for racking up track hours, but if you don’t like buying used then get some new medium compound tires (MG reds or similar) and just start driving - they’ll last a while for your purposes.
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Usually you’ll be able to find used sets for free or for little money. In which case you might as well go that route so that you’re learning on a tire that’s similar to what’s being raced, if you decide to go that route.
MG Red, Mojo D2s either of those are great for lapping. Med-Hardish tires great for 100 plus laps without falling off a cliff.
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We use vega greens , now . We get them used and after 5 sessions of 7 or 8 laps each session , they seem to have rubber on them for one more practice day . Their handling is great.
Yes they are very light used when we get our hands one those
Yeah a guy here on a facebook karting group says the MG red are the best for constant laptimes. He tells that you can do 200 laps with it , but i think that is not realism
Reds will last that long but any tire will have drop-off running them for 200 laps.
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Another question I have. My neighbor who raced in the Eighties, told me that they had a trick to extend the tire life without drop-off.
He told that they poured some oil over the tires to extend the drop-off.
Does anyone know about this trick? For me it is hobby racing, so there are no rules to follow 
And what kind of oil could be used?
Tire treatments are common here in the US for dirt racing. There are hundreds of products to do different things to the tire like increase durability or generate more heat.
If you’re really concerned about tire life I would recommend just buying harder tires if you’re just doing track days and not racing.
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Yeah we have MG Hards underway. But i was just wondering if the already long live can be streched with pooring some liquid on it
I read some brake cleaner could work? Do you have experiance with that?
Brake cleaner and most chemicals you spray on the tire will make it softer. And generally just coating the outside layer of rubber is going to burn off on track with a lap or so.
Lots of tire treatments involve baking the tire or adding chemical to the interior of the tire as well to fully penetrate the whole tire carcass.
Are take offs not an option for you? Quite often these are free. You can use a combination of eyeballing and a durometer to asses which tires are likely to be the best if that’s a concern.
As TJ said, tire doping/prepping an art and science all to itself. I do wonder if using two stroke oil would make it smell nice when you get them nice and hot though. Often the drop off in a tire is due to the oils evaporating so there’s efficacy behind adding oil to the compound. But figuring out which oil(s) to use and getting penetration is the fun part. In dirt racing a process called needling is popular for this.
I’d say brake cleaner is too volatile to make much of a difference other than dissolving the tread closest to the surface.
I already found a competition driver closeby who will supply me with short used tyres . Only used for qualifing
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