BadSS

I’ve always had a second set of rear wheels and tires for the car. This was when it was my daily driver, running a relatively hard compound for back and forth to work and for long trips, and a set of slicks for racing. All six were 15” rims back then. I liked it because you couldn’t really tell if the car had the street tires or the slicks from a distance.

I’m going with 18s this time around and I’m wondering now if I can get away with just running a set of 18” MT ET Street S/S since I have no plans to drive it a lot. If not, I’m thinking about getting a set of the 15” Weld wheels and running one of the sticker drag radials for racing.

I see people running 17s and 18s on the front with 15s on the rear, but I’m not sure I can get past the looks of it. I asked a younger friend of mine and he said that was the thing to do now. I know the 15” would more than likely, or should, hook better than the 18s.

Anyone have any experience in the ET difference between a 17 or 18 drag radials compared to a 15” drag radial assuming comparable height and tread width?

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

I can say the mickey et street ss stuff is fairly decent. I had 305/35/19’s on my sbc turbo car and went 9.1’s at 152 on them. 60 was soft but i was sneaking up on it. But ran out of time that day to really push them. I was getting near a 1.3x with them and believe they could have done it. With 295/55/15 in same compound it was drastically better as expected. It would get down in the 1.30’s 60 easily but i was trying harder.

the biggest difference was noticed on the street. The 19’s i could only hook from higher speed rolls up to about 800 whp. Even with leaving it in third gear th400 with the 3.42 rear. To be fair they had some mileage on them and lost some grip. They get hard. The 295’s would handle almost 1100 whp then, and now with the big block car, a fresh set of 295’s would hook almost 1400 whp but after awhile they get hard and dont seem to like over 1100. Never tried the 19’s again

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

0 tread wear race rubber gets murdered on the street, I don't care if it's a drag radial or road race tire or what it is, the rubber simply isn't suited for street driving. Grip is good for a few hundred miles and then it starts to go downhill. If you spin tires on the street it'll kill 'em even faster. As soon as the rubber ***** up that's it, the tire loses a lot of grip. With low profile drag radials the grip is mostly about the rubber compound and the sidewall construction matters a whole lot less, so you're kind of forced to get the race compounds or else it wasn't even worth the purchase. But those are the compounds that get murdered on the street. Bottom line a real drag radial is a track tire and very hard to live with on the street. Expect to be amazed at first and disappointed soon after. I also have a manual trans and drag radials hate manual transmissions, so that's part of my disappointment.

A 200 tread wear autocross tire actually does pretty good in acceleration and will perform consistently for thousands of miles. That class of tire has had tons and tons of engineering development into rubber and some those tires punch way above their weight. Plus, you get the fun of being able to corner really hard too. And the sidewalls are tougher to road debris and cuts, and the tire just flat out drives and rides better. And they don't overheat the way a drag radial does. My Falken RT660 tires work just as good "cold" on the street as an M&H drag radial. The Mickey Thompson ET S/S was better when new but the RT660 kicks both their asses for consistency over time.

I'll never buy another low-profile drag radial again. That 200 tread wear class of tire strikes a much better balance for my street car.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

i always heard you were suppose to do a burnout every once in a while to clean them up after the rubber gets crackly or balled up. I think there is something to that cuz i took my 295/55 to track because it was all i had and they had lost grip on the street. After three longer burnouts the third pass seemed to start working better than the first two hits. The surface was smoothed out so it peeled that layer off.

for some reason the 15’s always wore fast for me while the 19’s lasted a long time for me. More than any other drag radial i ever ran, on par with 315/17’s nitto nt05r i had on my trans am daily. They were suppose to be same compound as the 15’s

BadSS

Thanks Qwk. It's been years since I've had the car on the road and tires have come a long way. I've watch a lot of videos on 200 utqg vs drag radials on the street and it seems like it's about 50/50. Some say the 200 tires hook on the street better than the ET Streets and I get that - I used to run bias ply slicks on the street and on some surfaces they hooked pretty good and on some you could tell by looking at the tire afterwards that the rubber was "rolling" off the tire.

What size Falken RT660s are you running. Have you ever tried the Yoko ADVAN A052's? I've heard the A055 sidewalls are a little softer than most and the straight-line traction is better than most.


Has anyone tried the supposed new and improve 100 utqg Nitto NT555RII drag radials. I do know a few people that tried the original 555Rs and none were impressed with them.

BadSS

Thanks Orr, that was what I was looking for - while 0.8" shorter, the 305/35/19s has almost an inch more tread width and harder to hook than the 295/55/15s. I figured as much. I think I'm leaning towards two sets of rear wheels/tires. Possibly a 200 treadwear 18" tire for cruising around and a set of 15" drag radials for racing. I know there would be times I would want to "cruise" around on the drag radial, but I'm a little hung up on having 18s on the front and 15s on the back.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Yes, that's right. But if you do a big burnout on dry pavement it'll eat the tires alive and work for about 2 days and then the tires will go to hell again. Problem is it won't get rid of the feathering unless you flip the tires the other direction.

I never went to the track so I had to figure out how to maintain them on the street. What worked best for me was flipping the tires backwards and then quickly spin tires for one or two seconds max. Just enough to remove feathering, but not too much of a burnout or the pavement will wreck them again. I had to repeat this process about every two weeks. My tires actually feathered badly, not so much balled up. I think you gotta spin them really bad and make a lot of heat before they'll ball up. But feathering will occur if you spin them on the go, like when scratching for traction through 1st and 2nd gear.

If you can find a patch of concrete on a rainy day you could do a big ol' burnout. But most the time all you got available is a parking lot somewhere.

IROCZman15

iTrader: (25)

I have had a Mickey Thompson ET Street S/S drag radial on both my 16" irocz wheels, and also on my 15" Jegs SSR wheels. However my tire heighs were different, at 26" and 28" respectively. So my comparison wouldn't really be helpful for you I believe?

When my drag radials are not on, I have a set of 18" wheels that all have the Falken RT660 tires at 200 treadwear and I street drive, autocross, and do burnouts with these tires. They are indeed great, and not just for straight line throttle action, they perform in every category. But the MT ET Street SS drag radial (275/60/15) still outperforms the falken 660 in straight line performance even while street driving and from a stoplight..and of course on the dragstrip.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

thats how i roll now, 18’s up front and 15’s in the rear lol. I had street tires on the 19’s and they did good when car was a nitrous 383 around 500whp. Turbo made me go drag radial and i dont regret it as those mickeys did exceptionally well. But expensive! Now i got two sets of 15’s. I want to try the 555r2’s in 275/60 or 325 if i can fit it

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

I have 275/40-17, it's about half the cost of 18's.... When you get into these softer tire compounds you'll be buying tires frequently whether worn or not because the rubber will harden and lose traction. You're on a time clock to replacement, not just miles driven.

The A052 and RT660 are comparable tires. They are both "short course" tires that require very little time to heat up. The RT660 works a little better cold and tends to deliver a little quicker first lap at the autocross. That's what makes it so good on the street too, requires very little heat to work. In summer all I do is drive a couple blocks and tires are ready to play. Make sure you get a short-course tire. If you get a road course tire then it won't get hot enough on the street to get sticky (it'll wear like iron though).

The old NT555R is a drag radial for people that don't need a drag radial, they just needed something better than their all-weather shoes. Not even remotely in the same league as a track oriented drag radial like the Mickey Thompson. I had the more aggressive Nitto NT05R drag radial and those were a joke, spun those at 80 mph. So if the improved NT555R is basically the replacement for the obsolete NT05R.... then it's nowhere near as good as Mickey Thompson. In my experience, Japanese drag radials aren't worth buying, you could just use a good autocross tire instead and enjoy the ability to corner at more than 1g.

As far as drag radials, Hoosier is out of consideration, it is not street worthy, sidewall is too thin. So it's pretty much down to Mickey Thompson or M&H. The M&H is a harder rubber (lot longer lasting) with softer sidewall. The MT is a softer rubber with stiffer sidewall. Pick your poison. The MT stick better when new, and work a whole lot better in colder weather. The M&H are more consistent with age, but don't work worth a hoot below about 75F. I installed new tires every spring because time is not your friend with R compound rubber, no matter how much tread you have left.

BadSS

Thanks Qwk, I needed that info as long as it’s been since I needed a tire that would hook with any kind of power.

Orr, that’s promising with you able to hook 1400whp with those 15” MTs. I’m looking at putting down about half that. With you able to do 1.30 60ft on the 19s, maybe I would be able to do alright on a set of the 305/35r18 ET Streets. That was the original plan.

I’m not planning on racing the car much, but do need a sticky tire to do the finally tuning (engine and suspension) at the track. I’m going to see if I have any friends that would loan me a set of slicks or drag radials to do that. If so, I’ll probably go with a set of RT660s and if I do end up wanting to race it more than I think now, then go with the 15” drag radials - that’s definitely the most functional and cost effective route. Man tire prices are insane now.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Yeah it would sometimes hold 1400 on the first week i had them lol once they start to feather and the surface gets alittle hard they seem to struggle at over 1000 ish for me, which is still alot and good enough. It just sucks when you first get them they are so nice and soft you feel bad running them on the street.

i had good data on old 555r in 315/35/17 vs the new nt05r in the same size on my 308 whp mid low 12 sec daily. The nt05r were wider even tho listed as same size. The 555 always seemed to run smaller than adverTised. The 555 could only get me 1.82 60 ft and i had to pedal it to get there, couldnt always do it. The nt05r could leave at full throttle mash to flash converter and dead hook, 1.65 60. Substantially better and you could feel the softer sidewall in the corners. 555 is a good street tire. Better in rain than other radials. Nt05r was scary, only thing worse was a slick or 275 pro radial lol

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Most competition tires are awful in rain unless they are designed for racing wet.

Orr obviously has a vast amount of experience with these kind of tires and his car performs at a high level, and he can give a lot of good advice from both street and track. I have pretty much zero track experience, I just drive on street back and forth between home and office. I don't even have a drag car, it just a fun car where I was looking for a tire to keep me between the lanes and out of the ditches.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

With all tires, reviews just seem to vary from car to car and from person to person lol. I guess it will depend on how the car is setup and the quality of the roads and perhaps other variables.

BadSS

That is so true. I watched a number of YouTube videos, but I know sometimes, OK most of the time, you have to take them with a grain of salt. That’s why I was hoping to hear from folks like you guys.

Keeping between the ditches is my main concern as well. There has been more than once when I’ve had to do an emergent evasive maneuver with the slicks on and while I enjoyed the adrenalin rush of fighting to keep it shiny side up, the passengers didn’t enjoy the experience nearly as much as I did. Lol

I keep flip flopping, but I think I’m going to stick with the original plan and do the 305/35r18 ET Streets and go from there

Thanks again all, I appreciate it.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

My recommendation is if you just toodle around town and don't drive any real distance on freeway then try the drag radials first. That way you won't regret not trying for wicked 0-60 times with the drags. I know that's what you want! If they turn out to be too hard to live with then switch to autocross tires. The drags aren't going to last long anyway so you'll be making another tire purchase either way.

If you travel miles on the freeway at speed then drag radials aren't the best choice. Yeah, people do it but the tires need to be well inflated to prevent over heating and the sidewalls aren't very tough in case of driving over something by accident (read: blowouts). Drag radials are light weight tires, and a lot of that weight loss is at sacrifice of toughness.

I don't know what you're using for front tire, but I had Nitto NT05 (17x9 rims) on the front of my car because that's the tire Nitto paired with the NT05R drag radial. Ran that same NT05 with Mickey Thompson and M&H drag radials and never had any funny handling. Those NT05 wore like iron but got hard and slippery after 4 years. I tossed them because the loss of grip was screwing up my brake bias and the front tires were locking up too easy. My car transfers less weight to front than normal (stiff springs) during braking, so high levels of front tire grip is pretty important for me. Now with all 4 tires the same my car stops a lot better than it ever did with the drag radials.

BadSS

LOL you DO know me - that was my EXACT line of thinking.

Camarored86

On this subject, is going 16's a good option? I have a narrowed rear end going in and looking at wheels and options. I was going to get 15's but started thinking that maybe 16's would look good as well but haven't looked into tire options yet. Any recomendations would be appreciated and sorry to hijack this thread!!
this will be a weekend warrior deal street/strip car.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

You can do whatever you want as long as it fits.

Try to be a little careful though that you don't buy an obscure or unpopular size that's about to become obsolete and you won't be able to buy it anymore. That does happen. It even happens to Porsche and Corvette people.