Drag Radials vs Slicks

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I ran BF Goodrich comp T/A drag radials. They hooked great once you turned the dust off of them. Smooth on the highway, and they lasted way longer than advertised. I was truly impressed. I should mention, however, that I never sat in the water box and smoked them for 15 seconds. I just started turning them in 1st, hit 2nd gear and let off the brake. Came out of the water box with my speedometer showing about 45 mph and soon as they bit, I let off. The whole process was about 4-5 seconds.
 
Just my experience but I had zero luck with anything other than the mickey thompson drag radials on my lead sled 4k lb Pontiac with a 455/t400 and 3.42s, it would shred the bfg drag radials like vw tires. With slicks I had to air them down so much the dam thing wobbled like crazy at the big end- the joys of a torque monster heavy car. Once I put on mt et street radials the car went 1.6 60s with stock suspension and front and rear sway bars and made me a believer. The problem with a four speed and drag radials is not the initial launch but the shock of second gear etc. that they cant handle, they wont recover fast enough and just go up in smoke. A slick will deform and eat up the shock but that is what makes them a touch slower on a well setup radial car since the radial with a stiffer sidewall will transfer the power right to the ground.
 
Unless you plan to run it in a street tire class, I'd buy slicks since you said you will have two sets of rims. I consider drag radials to be an all purpose tire for when you only have one set of rims; they will somewhat meet both needs, but don't really dominate in either category.

I used to love driving to the track on my BFG TA radials, pull out my breaker bar with short extension and socket, jack and jack stands, swap on my slicks and laugh at the guys that trailered in slower cars.
 
I have 275-60-15 MT street et's on my GTX. I have about 1000 street miles and about 50 passes at the track. Some of this has already been said. They work great on the street. Very sticky which will constantly kick up rocks and dirt. I run them at the track normally with 16.5 lbs. in them. Depending on the track condition, for the most part they hook well. When they don't, they spinn all day no matter what. For the record, my car weighs 3690 with me in it and I'm at about 400 HP to the wheels. I have a 3800 stall converter and automatic with 4;10 rear gears. My best 60 ft. is 1.57 and et is 11.36. I'm going to try slicks this coming season. Also have stock leaf springs in back and subframe connectors.
 
rod7515 said:
Many have said that drag radials dont work with a 4 spd trans. Im going to be running an automatic but it will have a 3200 dynamic stall convertor. I get the feeling that drag radials dont hook well from a higher RPM launch. Has anyone run drag radials then slicks on the same vehicle to see if the car would run faster or slower? Stroked340 how fast are you running. did you get faster or slower with the radials?

Thanks Rod
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Car runs 11.70's was sorting it out at the track slicks didn't seem to work very well,put drag radials on and haven't used anything else for 6 years now..plus I have to run drag radials in the classes I run..
 
Whatever you do DON'T buy the b.f. Goodrich drag radials totally useless,i use to spin them half way down the track..ended up using them in a burnout contest,about all they were good for:D:D:D
 
I went to check out the Hoosier Slicks I had mentioned in my earlier post. They are a D06 material where I misquoted saying D05. They have 6/32 of rubber left on them and are in very good shape. I gave him $80 for the pair. The only thing I am not sure of is the age as they didnt have a marking like a standard tire to tell the manufacturing date. Is there a code that would tell me that? Two things lead me to go this direction, 1st was the price was to good to pass up and the second is that I already have the BFG TA's for the street. I just need to buy 2 rims now.
Rod
 
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