The pilot sport 3s are a good tyre in all conditions, not really cut out proper track work, but good enough for autosolos.
They are also actually not all that wide a tread compared to some designs.I use the car for autosolos, which is a weird discipline in terms of what you are looking for from tyres.
We has some pretty hostile surfaces to run on so I tend to keep an eye on ebay for good quality part worns (no more than a few years old). Its mostly first gear with a bit of second, so balance required is quite different to that require for faster track/sprint/hillclimbs. I find the mr2 hard work compared to an mx5 but a lot of fun!I only have 8" 17s for rears so 235 is really the maximum
(wider is too bulgy and the outer edge gets even more chewed).I did some autosolos on 15s at 205/225 split but i found i had more understeer.
The were only nexen 641s on the front which are not too great.With the 215 45 16 fronts, i have had more bite to the point where the front will rotate basically as fast as i can turn the wheel on tighter corners at low speed.
I have gone from 225 45 to 235 40 17 on the rear and haven't had a chance to test, but really just hoping for a little more traction.
I do have a set or Nankang NS2rs for trackdays
(set came from ebay as a pair of mitsubishi evo 4 16s with 205 45 16 and evo5 17s with 235 40 17). I have only done one trackday, but the impression i got was that it was a understeery car on the limit at steady throttle. That said, i have nothing to really compare with.To be honest the 215 45 16 tyre selection is a bit limited if you wish to stay in 1A tyres.
Theres a lot of touring tyres, but not many high perfomance summers that aren't in list 1B. to me it seemed like a good compromise of a tyre that wasn't too skinny (and vunerable to rocks and potholes), used lighter 16" wheels yet had a reasonable width to it.