Sticky Tires?

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BoredandStroked

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Hey I was wondering what is the most stickey street tire you can get on a 15x6 and 15x8 or 10 wheel? I want something that will handle through the turns yet be pretty good at taking off. Also... is 295 or 275 the max fit under a 73 Dart? Thanks!
 
I just bought a pair of M/T ET street radial for the Demon and they're 255-60x15 on a 7 inch rim. 1/2" clearance on inside to leafs and 1/2" on outside to wheel well. Caution, park it if it rains.

Terry :burnout:

Hold it, is your Dart a Swinger or Dart Sport?
 
I dont know about cornering car mainly only sees the 1/4,but m/t street e.t. radials are the BEST tire i've used on the back of my duster as a matter of fact they hook soooo good my slicks are collecting dust in the basement...
 
Dart Swinger, sorry for not saying that though. You didnt do any modifications to the leafs did you Demon seed? What if I used the offset shackles? Heard they would be me 1 more inch in clearance to run a bigger tire, is it ture?
 
Sorry can't say since it's a Swinger you got, the wheel wells on the Demon are a little wider than on your swinger. Someone should be able to answer that tho. Have a look in the Tires ane Rims forum as there's a lot of different combos in there and no my leafs are in their stock position.
 
As the Highlander said, "there can be only one!"

Nitto NT555R

Try the 275/50r15 for a good handling but sticky street tire, the Mustang and the Camaro guys swear by them. I plan on getting a set of 275/50r15 for my car.

img_555r_1.jpg
 
I used to work for a tire company so I was fortunate enough to have experienced alot of these tires either firsthand or through customers.The nitto is a harder compound and doesnt hook quite as well (requires a better burnout) as the the mickey thompson at the track but lasts longer on the street and handles better-a little more of a ultra performance street tire of sorts.The mickeys hook the best at the strip and you will still get around 3 to 5k out of them depending on how you drive them but they dont handle the weather as well-although I do drive mine in the rain you just have to be cautious.I dont know anything about bias tires or the new goodyear drag radials and from my personal experience I dont even consider the bfgs at all-they just didnt hook or hold up for me or any of my customers compared to the others.Hopefully this helps a little but its still subject to debate lol!.
 
As you can plainly see, I have a 73 Dart Swinger, I have it set-up to handle, I run 245/60 15's on all four corners, I have had 255/60 15's on the back but that would have been it, no way to squeeze 265's in there without moving springs and any bigger would have required mini tubbing, 245/60 15's is defianitly the max on the front. I am using Yokohama Avid S/T's, and they are OUTSTANDING, I WILL be buying another set, if and when I wear these out.
 
I have 255/60/15s on 7 1/2"B-B rims with 4 1/2" offset on my Dart. Bigger I believe would rub on cornering - even without wheelwell lip.
A good sized hammer will provide a lot more clearance up in the wheel well.
For straightline running I will be squeezing ET Radials 275/60/15s on the same rims - no cornering.
 
How does your Dart Swinger handle through the turns krabysniper?

flyboy01, does the nitto tire come in a 205 or 215? Perhaps a smaller 255 or 265 than the 275 you said.

Thanks everyone and here is what I am looking for in my tires. Good get off the line on the street, handles through the turns like a rail car, wider in the rear then the front, and sidewalls are sticking out.
 
Like it is on rails, but I have bigger (.89) torsion bars and a 1 1/8" sway bar up front and newer HD leaf springs in back, also put in my own subframe connectors. If you want cornering ability stay with equal sized tires on all four corners, differing tires sizes front to rear are not condusive to good handling, not to mention it makes it impossible to rotate the tires after you wear the rear tread down from spinning the rear tires on launches (of course thats if you have a car capable of spinning the rears).
 
Which leafs do you have? I am needing some new ones, but I don't want super stock springs.
 
krabysniper said:
If you want cornering ability stay with equal sized tires on all four corners, differing tires sizes front to rear are not condusive to good handling.
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I'm curious why staggered size tires on street MOPARS hurt the handling. All the top handling street cars in the world have larger tires in the back than in the front; Porche's, Vette's, Viper's, Lambogini's, Radical's, Lotus, Ferrari's etc. All the road racing cars that I've seen at Willow Springs and Laguna Seca including MOPAR's that were racing or testing all ran larger tires in the rear. Being involved in different types of racing all my life its a mystery to me why staggered tire sizes on a-bodies would make the handling worse.
 
It all has to do with suspension setup, spring rates, shock damping, weight distribution, etc...

By increasing rear tire size, you are increasing grip. If you are driving a car with equal size tires on all four and the car is oversteering (front sticking, rear sliding out), you can change that condition by increasing rear grip (stickier tire or bigger size), you will stiick better and getter better handling. Itis NOT true that every car will react as Kraby's. Every car is different and you probably would not notice much of a difference unless you were really pushing your car to the limits, like autocross or road racing. But the real reason they use bigger rears is the same as Mopar street cars do, traction! In reality, exotics dont use bigger tires to tune the handling,they use them to keep the rear end of the car from coming around while accelerating. They then tune the spring rates, roll stiffness, and damping to match the tires. Nowa days, they don't do it by trial and error, they have programs that decide tire size before a single part is ever made.

Kraby's car may just handle better with his particular spring rates, shocks, and weight distribution, etc. Like I said EVERY car will be different.
 
flyboy01

Thanks for the comments/info!

When I put on frame connectors, the car started tracking a lot straighter during accelertion but still had mega tire spin. I then put on M/T ET streets and still get tire spin, but much less than before. So now I'm going to Calvert Racings mono spring and caltrac's to hopefully get my car hooked.

When I had all the same size tires, the car had a lot of oversteer during hard cornering that could be controlled by "feathering" the gas (just like flattrack dirt). Using wider tires on the back helped tame the oversteer a little. And then I added a locker rearend which made the rear end a LOT looser when cornering under power (duh), now I'm wondering what the caltrac's will do to the cornering ability of the car.
 
Basicly what Flyboy said, with one exception, in reality the wider the tire the less actual pressure (traction) the tire is applying to the road surface. When you widen a tire contact patch you are increasing the amount of tire in contact with the road surface, but you ARE NOT increasing the weight. (These numbers are arbitrary) If your car rear wheels are applying 1000 pounds of force on two contact patches that are say 10 square inches of actual contact (5 inches long by 1 inch wide each tire), thats 100 lbs of force per square inch. If you double the width of the tire, to 10 inches each for a total of 20 square inches but do not increase the weight, you now have tires that are applying 50 lbs of downforce per square inch. Put your hands together LIGHTLY and rub them back and forth (as if your hands were cold and you were warming them) now do it again but really press them together hard. Can you tell the difference? Greater pressure means greater friction (READ: TRACTION).

This is also why you see big, fat, wide tires on mud trucks, because wide tires give better floatation.

In drag racing, they go to a wider rear wheel because the race is a race of acceleration, and upon launching most of the weight of the car is transfered to the rear wheels, so a wider tire gives you better traction in that circumstance, but only if the weight transfers to the rear wheels. If the car dosn't transfer the weight to the rear and stays relativly flat, say because of huge solo cross torsion bars, sway bars or shocks that wont let the front rise or the front wheels to drop in relation to the front end, the car will actually have less traction. For a car that is going to see everyday use, road course, slalom, etc, going with a wider tire on the rear will actually reduce the traction provided, for the reason I have stated above, unless you make other changes to the car like adding weight in the back, shaving a lot of weight off the front, suspension mods, etc. Realize that the average mopar has about a 60/40 to 70/30 weight bias front to rear. The average exotic like you wished to compare to has a neutral or 50/50 weight bias or even 40/60 in some of the mid engine vehicles.

As Flyboy stated, all vehicles are different and each responds differently to different performance mods.

Also, comparing a Porsche, or Corvette or Lambroghini or any other exotic to a late 60's early 70's Mopar is like comparing the Space Shuttle to my model rockets, whole different world. For one thing, they don't look at practicality when building $100,000 cars, the people who can afford them can usually afford not to worry about rotating tires to make them last (A point I made) they also spend a fortune making sure the the vehicle suspension and weight distribution will work with the tire wheel combo they wish to try to use, again as pointed out by Flyboy.

One other thing, GT340. If you had oversteer, you did not dirt track it by using the throtle. Oversteer means that the front end turns easily into a corner and the rear end tends to swing out easily (slot cars on a slot car track are a great representation of this if you run too hard into the corner), most cars manufactured for the street have understeer (car tends to want to go straight when you turn the front wheels to corner) designed into them intentionaly, which is most likely what you were trying to say, and in this instance you could have hamered the gas to cause the rear to slide out thus giving you the feeling of "controlling" the cornering or "dirt tracking it" as you said.

I know from expierence what works with all the vehicles I have owned. Spend the money to learn for yourself if you wish not to believe what I have written, I'm just sharing a small portion of what I have learned in the last 40 years, I have been around many types of racing for a good portion of that time. :love4:

Flyboy, I got my rear springs from the Paddock about 10 years ago, had them on a 71 Dart for about 3 months, wrecked that car (learned you should never drive a car you wish to keep, in the winter on icy roads), took the springs off and had them in the garage until I put them on my 73 last winter. They are 5 leaf and are the same for either side, they are not super stock springs and you can switch them side to side with no problem at all.
 
krabysniper said:
One other thing, GT340. If you had oversteer, you did not dirt track it by using the throtle. Oversteer means that the front end turns easily into a corner and the rear end tends to swing out easily (slot cars on a slot car track are a great representation of this if you run too hard into the corner), most cars manufactured for the street have understeer (car tends to want to go straight when you turn the front wheels to corner) designed into them intentionaly, which is most likely what you were trying to say, and in this instance you could have hamered the gas to cause the rear to slide out thus giving you the feeling of "controlling" the cornering or "dirt tracking it" as you said.
I stand corrected, I use(d) power to bring the car out of understeer into an oversteer condition.
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OK so you should only have wider tires in the rear if you have alot of weigh or do a 180 going around the turn? That does make sense. Would say, a 1 or 2 inch wider difference be bad or hardly a change at all? Lets say 15 x 6 up front and 15 x 8 in the rear.

Does anyone know if Caltracs helps in cornering ablity?
 
krabysniper said:
Basicly what Flyboy said, with one exception, in reality the wider the tire the less actual pressure (traction) the tire is applying to the road surface. When you widen a tire contact patch you are increasing the amount of tire in contact with the road surface, but you ARE NOT increasing the weight. (These numbers are arbitrary) If your car rear wheels are applying 1000 pounds of force on two contact patches that are say 10 square inches of actual contact (5 inches long by 1 inch wide each tire), thats 100 lbs of force per square inch. If you double the width of the tire, to 10 inches each for a total of 20 square inches but do not increase the weight, you now have tires that are applying 50 lbs of downforce per square inch. Put your hands together LIGHTLY and rub them back and forth (as if your hands were cold and you were warming them) now do it again but really press them together hard. Can you tell the difference? Greater pressure means greater friction (READ: TRACTION).

This is also why you see big, fat, wide tires on mud trucks, because wide tires give better floatation.

In drag racing, they go to a wider rear wheel because the race is a race of acceleration, and upon launching most of the weight of the car is transfered to the rear wheels, so a wider tire gives you better traction in that circumstance, but only if the weight transfers to the rear wheels. If the car dosn't transfer the weight to the rear and stays relativly flat, say because of huge solo cross torsion bars, sway bars or shocks that wont let the front rise or the front wheels to drop in relation to the front end, the car will actually have less traction. For a car that is going to see everyday use, road course, slalom, etc, going with a wider tire on the rear will actually reduce the traction provided, for the reason I have stated above, unless you make other changes to the car like adding weight in the back, shaving a lot of weight off the front, suspension mods, etc. Realize that the average mopar has about a 60/40 to 70/30 weight bias front to rear.
Click to expand...

You statement is really only partially true, because wider tires do provide better traction. Ask anyone out there with a big block Dart whether they prefer 295 rear tires or 235's. By your statement, the amount of traction you gain is offset by the reduced pressure of a wider tire, this is not true. The larger width is more of an advantage that increased pressure on the ground. We are not talking about mud or dirt, we are talking about concrete. On my old truck, 295's with the same exact tire diameter and compund as the 235, should have not increased traction at all, but it did.

So in summary there is no reason by your logic to equip a dodge viper with a 335 rear tire, when a 285 front tire would provide more pressure, is this correct? NO. A larger tire, since it does provide more traction by increased width versus contact pressure, also allows more weight transfer to that tire, as well as better load handling, so again it allows more weight to be put on that tire during a turn due to the fact that there is increased surface area (contact patch) as well as being able to lower pressure to hold the same amount of weight transfer, which also allows the contact patch to grow front to back.

Theory and practice are different. We are talking about all around driving which means much more acceleration than turning. Unless you are on a road course, your vehicle will be doing 90% of it's driving in a straight line acceleration or decellerating, not hanging your tail out at 70 mph on a street corner, unless you are one of the Duke boys. If your theory was true, then you would never see larger tires on the rear of cars. But all throughout racing and performance car history, you see many cars with bigger rear tires because of the advantage in traction it provides. Go drive a Viper around a road course with 285 tire on the front and back, you will piss your pants and beg for those 335's back.
 
Theory and practice aren't really different in this case. It's just that the theory is not being applied correctly. In theory krabysniper is almost right, no larger width tires will not provide better traction provided they have not been heated to the point of becoming adhesive. They will provide equal traction. Friction is equal to a coefficient times the weight of an object on a flat surface. The area of the objects do not play into this equation. This is because large pressure in a concentrated area is going to be equal to smaller pressure over a larger area. So in this equation no larger tires are not going to give you anymore traction. This same equation does not, however, work with adhesives. When a tire gets hot, the tire becomes sticky. This is why dragsters burn the tires before a pass. In this instance wider tires do give you better traction. Area does play into adhesion. A wider piece of tape is harder to rip off no? So yes the theory is still applicable here.

In your example krabysniper, the important number is the 1000 pounds of downforce and not the pounds per square inch. Because when you get a wider tire the downforce remains the same, the friction also remains the same. More downforce or weight does equal more traction, but it doesn't matter how its spread out. When you press your hands together and then press them harder together, you are simple adding more force to the same area not spreading the same force out over a larger area.
 
My point with rubbing your hands together was to demonstrate the equivalent of adding more weight to the rear tires. It does make a difference. Pounds per square inch of surface area is important, albeit to a certain extent. I am not saying that a wider tire cannot provide greater grip, and yes this is why the Nascar, Cart series, or any other racing series you wish to refrence, use wide slicks on all four corners. If you want a more fair comparison to what the whole point of this discussion was though (making a 73 Dodge Dart handle on road course and/or everyday use) then you need to use a comparison that applies, the technology that works with a drag car does not work for a handling car, nor does the technology used in a high $ exotic, they are not the same thing. To use your example flyboy, (I know quite a few guys with BB A bodies btw) the BB Dart may perform better with fatter tires on the back, IN A STRAIGHT line, but put same car out there on a skid pad and tell me what happens. Like I said, there are other factors to take into account. To make an A body perform in cornering a more balanced tire size all the way around works better than trying to stuff the fattest tire you can squeeze under the back, which seems to be the mentality of a large number of people. Also, once again, it's a practicality thing also. Much easier to extend the life of the tires if you can rotate them. Also simplifies carrying a spare tire for long trips if you only need to carry one as opposed to 2 spares to fit odd sized tires. I wont argue it, I have the car that proves it. I drive it all summer long and take serious joy in finding corners that test the limits of the handling of it. I have played around with the tire sizes, suspension, and weight to get it to hang corners so hard that you literaly have to hang on (I seriously need bucket seats to really enjoy this thing, bench seat just is not cutting it).

here is an outstanding PDF on the subject, but might be over most of your heads Tire modeling PDF

In this article in HotRod if you scroll down to where it says "Q: For us non-physics guys, please explain F=uN." and read from there, he delves into it slightly.

This link tire width vs traction thread has a pretty good discussion on the subject.


A few wikipedia links for more info (I have physics books up the yang but these should suffice, and I will not infringe upon copyrights to argue my points) Tire
Friction traction

There is much much more out there on the web, but I am to tired to search out the good stuff to add the links.
Chow ya'll.
 
You points are valid as well. We can simply agree to disagree. And I am of the "bigger in the rear is better" mentality. Horsepower under the hood and fat tires in back is my motto. Although I enjoy road racing, drag racing and street driving is my thing. And I will maintaing that on the street, traction is more imoportant in a straight line, not in the curves at high speed. I guess if you live in the Georgia mountains or on the Northwest coast, you might want to setup your car for neutral handling, just don't punch the gas too hard on corner exit.
 
Krabysniper you are right that more weight will equal more traction, but its more weight thats important not pounds per square inch. I definetly agree with you that wider tires will not improve cornering grip more, but they certainly won't hurt it. N in the equation F=uN is not equal to pounds per square inch. If it was then area would play in. It stands for the normal force which is the force that is perpendicular to the contact area. On a flat surface this is just going to be equal to weight. Somebody on the other forum, you provided a link to, seems to be confused and thinks that N is equal to the pounds per square inch applied by the tire. I'm not sure why wider tires would DECREASE handling ability in the corners (although yes from a practicallity standpoint it is nice to be able to rotate the tires).
 
flyboy01 said:
As the Highlander said, "there can be only one!"

Nitto NT555R

Try the 275/50r15 for a good handling but sticky street tire, the Mustang and the Camaro guys swear by them. I plan on getting a set of 275/50r15 for my car.

img_555r_1.jpg
Click to expand...


Waste of money comming from a "Mustang guy". If you have any amount of power good luck sticking those. I had a set of 325/60R15 ET Street Radials and they are by far light years better.
 
Also, in the argument of traction, 1" taller will gain you more traction vs 1" wider tread every time, simply due to the roll out of the tire.
 
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