Racing has been a bit slow (both literally and figuratively) at Madison Mini RC lately, so I’ve been taking the time to try out some new tire combos. I recently picked up a few sets of Marka’s new v15 front tires from Silverhorse. Aside from a report from my buddy Clint, there’s been very little info on these. Even Marka themselves have not said how the v15 tires compare to their other compounds.
I read on Facebook that the V15F15 was the sweet spot with these so I picked up a couple sets of those as well as some F10s and F20s.
First impressions were quite good. All of the tires were very well manufactured. There were no noticeable flaws, nor was there a lot of mold flash that needed to be cleaned up.
I mounted up all three compounds on 0 offset Reflex wheels. I normally glue my tires so that’s what I did here.
With them mounted, the tires measured 23.5mm. This is a bit bigger than I’d like so I tossed them on the truer and trued them down to a more manageable 22.9mm. As with most Marka tires, you have to take your time with the v15s. Otherwise you will end up with a mess. Be especially careful with the super-soft F10s as they will melt and chunk up if they get too hot.
To test Marka’s v15 tires, I used my Atomic MRX Ultra which is setup for our club’s 2500kv lexan spec class. The car is dialed and I haven’t felt the need to change the setup for the last month or so. For tires, I’ve been running Marka 10’s in the rear and either KSK 35s or 40s in the front.
Our current track layout is shown below. As you can see, it has a good mix of fast straights and tight corners. The temperature in the room usually ranges between 68-70°F with humidity between 50-60% during the summer months.
With most 1/28 scale tires, the harder the compound, the more “grip” you tend to have. As with Marka’s v14 tires, it is the opposite with the v15s. The softer compound tires have the most grip and it decreases as the rubber gets harder.
I started out with the V15F10s and was shocked by the amount of grip they had. I spent the first pack dialing out steering until I could reach a point where the car was drivable. By the second pack, the tires were broken in and I had things dialed in the way I wanted. The F10s had great grip during turn in and were able to hold the corners through the turns. My lap times soon dropped down to the 7.3s and was able to hit 7.2 a few times. This was pretty impressive considering the lowest I got with KSK tires was a 7.4.
After a few hundred laps with the V15F10s, I switched over to the V15F15s. These too started out great but, as they broke in, the grip dropped. Initial turn in was still very good but, coming out of the turns, it did not have the same level of grip as the F10s. Most of my lap times were in the 7.4 range with a few 7.3s sprinkled in. Of the three, the F15s felt the most like PN’s KSK 35 tires.
Lastly, I tried the V15F20s and I can honestly say that I did not like these at all. For the first two packs, I ran 2.8mm disks and the car pushed through all of the turns. Eventually I switched to 2.6mm disks and that helped its initial turn in considerably. However, steering out of the corner was still lacking. The fastest lap time I got with these tires was a 7.6.
As someone who puts hundreds, if not thousands, of laps in each week, wear is also a consideration when choosing tires. In the case of Marka’s v15 tires, the wear on all three compounds was pretty good. By far, the F20s had the best wear. After a couple of hundred laps, they came off the track measuring about 2.8mm. As far as the F15 and F10s go, they measured about 2.7mm and 2.66mm, respectively. No surprises here though as they are softer compounds.
In the end, I will definitely be buying more of Marka’s V15F10 tires. They worked great on my spec car and will be testing them on my AWD cars in the near future. I will also be picking up a few more sets of the F15s and keep them in my pit bag for when I run out of KSK 35 tires. I will not be picking up any more of the F20s or, the even harder F25s, though as they do not offer enough grip on our track.
Please keep in mind that tire testing is pretty subjective and it varies a lot depending on the track layout, conditions, car setup and driving style. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.