Road Course "Trans Am" Dart-- does anyone recognize this car? What tires????

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MRGTX

MRGTX

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Does this awesome looking machine look familiar to anyone? I Spotted this car on a random search for Dart pictures...it is apparently running on some kind of performance oriented Mickey Thompson tire...and I have to assume these aren't drag radials on the front unless it's just for show.

So far, I haven't found these tires...

IMG_4765.jpg
 
Why not run the Mickey Thompson Sportsman or Sportsman + ? they are a soft sticky compound so putting them on the front would work just fine on a road course . What would you run ? Hard compound tires like the radial T/A which are junk on the street never mind a road course ? 15 inch tires are only available in a few compounds and 14 inch are even more limited in options .

PS your first clue might be the fact that you can actually read Mickey Thompson on the sidewall of the front tire
 
MRGTX said:
Does this awesome looking machine look familiar to anyone? I Spotted this car on a random search for Dart pictures...it is apparently running on some kind of performance oriented Mickey Thompson tire...and I have to assume these aren't drag radials on the front unless it's just for show.

So far, I haven't found these tires...

View attachment 1715044931
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I like those beauty rings, what kind are they u think? I'm running black steel wheels with chrome nuts, and those rings are interesting to me...
 
Do not think that they are rings, It looks like that part of the rim is polished
 
cannucky said:
Why not run the Mickey Thompson Sportsman or Sportsman + ? they are a soft sticky compound so putting them on the front would work just fine on a road course . What would you run ? Hard compound tires like the radial T/A which are junk on the street never mind a road course ? 15 inch tires are only available in a few compounds and 14 inch are even more limited in options .

PS your first clue might be the fact that you can actually read Mickey Thompson on the sidewall of the front tire
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Yep. I know they're MTs (as mentioned) I couldn't read the model name ;)

I'm leaning towards 17s at the moment but if There was a previously overlooked 15 inch performance tire, I would gladly stay with period correct diameters.

I've found absolutely no evidence that the MT Sportsman (all season) tires are notably better than the BFG Radial T/A...do you know otherwise?
 
really ? the T/As are junk I used to get stuck at red lights on hills in wet weather , the drag radials are far superior to that compound , I personally run the Nitto nt555r which aren't as sticky as the M/Ts but are street legal , highway rated and wet rated . The M/Ts in Sportsman S/R ant ET Street are softer but wear way too fast for my use , Guys I talk to that do run them say they only get 5,000 to 10,000 miles out of them where I get twice that form the Nitto's . Either way a sticky tire is a sticky tire whether you are launching straight or running the twisty's .
Ps I've been caught in torrential downpours at highway speeds twice with the Nitto's and can tell you from experience the wet rating is real they never missed a beat even cornering through puddles inches deep .
 
cannucky said:
Why not run the Mickey Thompson Sportsman or Sportsman + ? they are a soft sticky compound so putting them on the front would work just fine on a road course . What would you run ? Hard compound tires like the radial T/A which are junk on the street never mind a road course ? 15 inch tires are only available in a few compounds and 14 inch are even more limited in options .

PS your first clue might be the fact that you can actually read Mickey Thompson on the sidewall of the front tire
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But, do those tires have stiff enough sidewalls for hard cornering??
 
MRGTX said:
Ok...yikes. That brings the entire build of the car into question!
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Yeah those are ET-streets, looks like MT changed the tread a little recently so the website picture isn't an exact match.

As for calling the whole build into question, I dunno about that. The custom, splined sway bar up set up you can see in the front would suggest that someone at least spent some money. It could also mean they specifically tailored their sway bar diameter to get the wheel rates they wanted, or that they wanted to be able to adjust the wheel rates via sway bar selection at different tracks and have a few different splined sway bars. It may be more of the case that they know something we don't about those tires.

magnumdust said:
But, do those tires have stiff enough sidewalls for hard cornering??
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That's the real question. They definitely have a better compound than your normal street tire, and that's true whether you're using them for drag or corners. The sidewall stiffness is the issue. But, considering that those are DOT legal radial tires, I'm not sure it would be a big problem. They aren't wrinkle walls or anything. I mean, I'd rather be using a set of Toyo R888's, Dunlop Direzza's or G-force Rivals for road or autox depending on the compound needed for the class. But the sidewall stiffness may not really be an issue. Or at least not a big enough issue to outweigh running the tires. And it does depend on what organization and class they're running the car in, some have pretty specific tire compound requirements. I mean, I haven't seen one that required drag radials on autoX or road cars, but maybe those are a good option for the class restrictions. There are some pretty strange class restrictions and tire requirements out there.

The other thing is that those tires don't have a really tall sidewall. They look a little smaller than sidewalls for a 15" unless those are short tires. I wonder if those are 16" rims and tire selection is an issue.
 
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cannucky said:
Why not run the Mickey Thompson Sportsman or Sportsman + ? they are a soft sticky compound so putting them on the front would work just fine on a road course . What would you run ? Hard compound tires like the radial T/A which are junk on the street never mind a road course ? 15 inch tires are only available in a few compounds and 14 inch are even more limited in options .

PS your first clue might be the fact that you can actually read Mickey Thompson on the sidewall of the front tire
Click to expand...

Good in theory, but the reality is the stiffness of the carcass has a lot to do with performance as wwll as rubber compound.
 
67Dart273 said:
Thanks. I didn't realize it was right hand drive.
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I didn't realize they'd chopped the top 2" either. Did a good job with that.

Still not sure why it has those tires, per the the Australian Trans-Am series rules "A Hoosier cross-ply tyre is used on all cars to keep them sliding through the corners, and are wrapped around maximum 15” x 8.5” wheels" Regulations - Australian Trans-Am
 
Well I was wandering through through the garage a few minutes ago.... they are for sure Mickey ET streets.... maybe even as big as 275 60 15

IMG_0904.JPG
 
MRGTX said:
Thanks for finding that link! I was looking for Abodies with Minilite style wheels and this car came up in an image search with no details.

That's quite a car.
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Look for pics of the Smithfield Petty Satellite tribute car they gave away last year.
If you study the pics I think you'll see 275/50-15 drag tires all around, and the car looks awesome!
 
sccachallenger said:
Look for pics of the Smithfield Petty Satellite tribute car they gave away last year.
If you study the pics I think you'll see 275/50-15 drag tires all around, and the car looks awesome!
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That sounds about right ...a 275 50 should be around 26 inches tall. Car does look good!
 
sccachallenger said:
Look for pics of the Smithfield Petty Satellite tribute car they gave away last year.
If you study the pics I think you'll see 275/50-15 drag tires all around, and the car looks awesome!
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No need to study the pictures, the specs at the end say they're 275/50/15 MT et streets

Richard Petty’s Street-Legal, 650hp 1967 Plymouth Belvedere Tribute - Hot Rod Network

And it does look cool. But it doesn't really answer if it's actually a good tire choice for a handling car. After all, it's a tribute car for a giveaway, not an actual racer. I mean, maybe they are a good choice, but just being on that car doesn't prove anything.
 
Yep, would be great to here from the winner of the Smithfield car!
I mean it's clearly a street car, note the overdrive transmission and the power steering.
Mickey Thompson might sell more tires if they'd publish some handling tests of their 15" rubber!
 
sccachallenger said:
...
Mickey Thompson might sell more tires if they'd publish some handling tests of their 15" rubber!
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I spoke with a rep at Mickey Thompson who insisted that these tires wouldn't be suitable for handling and that they're not recommended for use on the front axle.

I don't know if this guy was an authority but he sure didn't leave any ambiguity.

He then pointed me toward the darn Sportsman all season rubber :(
 
MRGTX said:
I spoke with a rep at Mickey Thompson who insisted that these tires wouldn't be suitable for handling and that they're not recommended for use on the front axle.

I don't know if this guy was an authority but he sure didn't leave any ambiguity.

He then pointed me toward the darn Sportsman all season rubber :(
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I'm sure that's the lawyer answer, not the engineering answer. It's pretty hard to get the engineering answer out of a company of any reasonable size these days though.

I'm also pretty sure that they wouldn't be anywhere near as good as a tire designed for road race or autoX use. But, how much worse they'd be than those, and how they would compare to just plain old street tires is the real question. But I'm not sure you'd even get that from the owners of the Dart, because if that car is truly intended for the Australian Trans-Am series those aren't the tires they'll be competing on. That's just what they're driving it around on. Which is the same situation as the Petty Belvedere tribute, they're using them because they're the right size and the look the part, not because of their actual capabilities.
 
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