simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Hey guys I need some help choosing tires for my FB.
I have the GSL-SE all original suspension, axles, drive shaft etc. The problem is I have no grip, the reason being is I have a modified TII swap. The car was recently tuned and I have it running @ 9 PSI, 320 to the wheels (I have to learn to drive the car). Any suggestions as what brand of tire to use? I also have the stock GSL-SE wheels. Keep in mind I will eventually want to turn up the boost.

80's old school

iTrader: (7)

Wow thats a lot of power!! Guess it depends on what your goal is. I have had all kinds of performance cars from all out drag cars to sports cars to sport sedans. All have different tire needs depending on what you are doing.

My Grand National I had, all I cared about what all out drag performance on the street. I used BFG drag radials for light duty, Mickey Thompson ET Street or drag if I needed serious action. Thing is these tires were good for one thing.....hooking up and hauloing *** FORWARD.

My Corvette and my XJR Jaguar are different animals. I want a blend of hooking up and handling well.

I use Michelin Pilots or Nitto 555 radials on the Corvette. These tires did well with the 400+ HP of the Corvette. They also still handle very well.

On my Jag XJR, I was having a problem with hooking up on the original Michelin Pilots. The Jag is now pushing 450+ HP, but with that rig I still wanted a cushy ride, great handling and hook up when I unleash the supercharged power.

I recently put Dunlop Direzza tires 275/35/20 on the Jag and at $128 each are suprisingly great.

At the end of the day, it boils down to what you are going to use the car for!

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

With a car this light, you're going to have trouble getting "enough" traction with that kind of power and the tire size limits imposed by stock rims.

Regardless of brand. Traction is a function of tire composition, weight on the driven axle, and contact patch area. (And road surface conditions)

You've got about 1100 lbs on the rear axle at rest; acceleration transfer can get that to almost double (wheelie!) but you have to get traction first before transfer occurs.

84stock

iTrader: (5)

I suggest BFG traction t/a's..I cheaped out replacing them on mine with some daytons and hate them! Get the bfg, they were great!

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

Just as an example:

My -Z puts out right about 300 horses; it weighs nearly half again (3300 lbs) what the 1st-gen weighs. It's currently running 225-50ZR17 Eagle F1 GS-D3's on the rear, which have an excellent traction rating (AA).

With the traction-control off, if I dump the throttle it can spin them pretty much until you get tired of wasting rubber.

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.
So what I get so far is to use the BFG drag radials. I was told by a friend that if I use the BFG radials my axles would get screwed, is this correct or wrong?.
If they will cause no harm to my drive line I will get those.
LMK

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

Tires by themselves won't hurt your driveline... putting too much horsepower thru it without it being strong enough, can.

Remember, the stock drivelines in these cars were designed for an engine that made about 100hp.

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

So, chances are I am going to break something regrardless of which tire I use.
I guess I will have to upgrade the driveline eventually.

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

I'm not sure what the upper power limit on the stock driveline is; someone else here may have a good number for that.

Any time you triple horsepower going into a mechanical system, you run a good chance of something else not being up to the job of controlling it, that will need to be upgraded.

80's old school

iTrader: (7)

If you run an 84-85 GSL-SE rear end, you have a better chance of not breaking it. Plenty of acticles of people doing the swap.

BFG Drag radials did fairly well on my Grand National. I could run 10.90's with the BFG's. Mickey Thompson Slicks netted me 10.40's due to better 60' times.

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Yeah I have the GSL-SE rear end, so i'll be cool then?

slow5oh

just thought id throw a few things out to stir the pot. firstly, traction is your worst enemy if you dont want to break anything. if all you do is spin its only straining your drivetrain so much. as soon as you start hooking is when stuff will break. with that much power, if you get it to hook your probably looking at potential tranny AND rear end failure at some time or another. now onto hooking. People put way to much faith in tires. tires are a bandaid, nothing more. big sticky wide tires are not NEEDED for traction unless you have an EXTREMELY fast car. with proper suspension setup, youd be pleasantly surprised at how well that car would hook on stock tires. make sure your suspension is up to par. my suggestion would be good shocks and springs on all four corners (what kind depends on what you wanna do), eurethane bushings throughout the front end, rubber or spherical busings throughout the rear. at that point you need to adjust the suspension (caster, camber, and stiffness) for the type of driving/racing you wanna do. I have new bushings throughout the whole suspension, tokico blue struts and shocks, eibach lowering springs with half a coil cut, and a performance alignment, and when i go to the mountains i have sportbikes and corvettes and **** pulling over to let me by. im running el cheapo 50 dollar tires on stock rims.

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Well I am looking for tires that I can use on the street during the summer and once in while take it to the 1/4. I am planning on doing a full suspension upgrade during winter. I may even do a Grannyspeed swap, depending on the funds.

80's old school

iTrader: (7)

You probably will be happy with the BFG drag radials. They drive pretty much like regular street tires, but they sure hook up better.

Driving habits can really make a stock drivetrain go far.

We have a guy around here running 10 second quarter miles with a stroked, ported, turbocharged Miata. He is running the stock tranny and rear end.....he has not blown it up yet!!!

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Great, so I will get some of those and see what happens.

twinkletoes

iTrader: (17)

Get some good tires, but not extremely sticky. The stock drivetrain can take a beating, but most people say around 300whp is the limit. People have broke rearends with a lot less power, it's just how you put the power down. Say goodbye to your rear end if you get too much traction though.

80's old school

iTrader: (7)

True true, good thing is GSL-SE rear ends are a dime a dozen. I Just picked up one off craigslist. I have seen them on Craigslist for $75-$150.

thunkrd

iTrader: (1)

well i launched at 6k in my car and all it did was spin the tires, but at 5k it really launches. i'm sure the rear end is great for a stock car like mine, but at 300 hp that's probably way too much

slow5oh

dont forget, hes not gonna be making anywhere near 300 hp when he launches. my guess is he will be below 200 hp off the line. thats the beauty of turbo cars, they make big power but are a bit easier on the drivetrain off the line because the turbo isnt spooled.

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for all the great info guys, thats what I love about this forum.

jinxed4dub

iTrader: (7)

Ok I dont know alot about turbos but wouldn't reving to 5 grand put out some boost. or does it just bleed off because the clutch is in?

+1 one on suspention. Tires are great. but if you want to put the power down. you need some suspention upgrades. I bought some coilovers for my last car, wasn't use to the added traction they made, and shatterd my cv axles on fairly worn tires. the stock suspention isn't made for launching, or keeping that much power from breaking loose.

On another thought, your gsl-se has 4.09 gear ratio in the rearend. if you swap to a gsl lsd pumpkin you will have a 3.90, and that will help some. You might even want to change to an ever longer gear ratio if its possable. I don't know.

tasty danish

iTrader: (5)

Just keep this in mind: my car runs 250whp and recently destroyed the -se rear end. I got the car with 170k on the chassis, so it may have just been old, or maybe the PO beat the snot out of it, I don't know. I do not beat on/launch it but do give it at least a red-line a day.

I have a GSL center section as a replacement, but will soon be doing some extensive work to make it last as I'm gunning for 400whp. Alot of guys do the 8.8 swap, but I'm keeping it stock.
This summer the rear-end is my main focus. It's getting an OS Giken LSD from a miata, re speed axles, WPC treated gearset, and probably some reinforcement braces welded to the housing.

320whp is nothing to sneeze at and is plenty to trash stock stuff. You may look into getting wider rims/tires if you want to hook. Suspension set up is nice and all, but more rubber is always better too. The way I see it, I can run wider, cheaper tires and still daily drive the car with some degree of stick.

I love the look of flares so for me on the list after the LSD is a set of 5zigen 17x10's under zg flares. That traction would break a stocker easy, but hopefully with my work it'll last.

just thought i'd bounce my own ideas incase you find any to be viable options.

simgabe

iTrader: (8)

Well I think for now, I will get the BGF's and run them on the stock drive line. I hope it will last the summer and do upgrades in the winter. I will hold back on the track for now, learn to drive the car and beat the S--- out of it around Sept, Oct @ the track at the engines full power. This way if it breaks, I would at least have gotten to enjoy the car for the summer.

80's old school

iTrader: (7)

Not really, just revving the pee out of a motor will not build boost. It takes heat to spin the turbo. The engine in not under load when revving....hence no heat.

Some folks have a two step which limits the RPM's....hold the throttle wide open before launch and they also retard the hell out of the timing (which sends the EGT up).....this adds boost to an engine with the car sitting still. This is all drag race stuff that you would probably not use in a street car.

orion84gsl

iTrader: (5)

[QUOTE=slow5oh;9117581] tires are a bandaid, nothing more. big sticky wide tires are not NEEDED for traction unless you have an EXTREMELY fast car. [QUOTE]


Tires are a bandaid? Tires aren't needed unless the car is REALLY fast?

Ok small rant time

TIRES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT UPGRADE YOU COULD EVER MAKE TO YOUR CAR!!!
The four palm sized contact patches of a tire are the ONLY thing keeping your 2400lbs of steel attached to the road. Brakes, suspension, power adders are all secondary. If your tires suck, they won't have the grip necessary to hold onto the road when you hammer the brakes. They will just slide when the brakes reach their maximum grip, which means full lock up. Sliding isn't stopping. They also won't have the grip necessary to take that long sweeper at twice the posted speed limit. You slide sideways off the road, into a ditch, most likely roll over and too bad, there's your car in a crumpled pile on the side of the road. Aren't you glad you spent so much money on the engine and figured tires weren't important enough. In straightline acceleration, if you have to take it easy on the car, then you are losing time better put towards speeding up by being gentle. Spinning the tires isn't speeding up. On top of that, the PO is making 320rwhp. That's fast. Well ok it will be when he gets some decent tires on there. My car has 150 flywheel horsepower on a cold night, if I'm lucky, and the cheap Sumitomo HTR 200's I have on there make cornering a blast, and I wouldn't dream of reaching the speeds I hit in town or at Deals Gap on a set of shitty all seasons. Your car and all it's mods are only as good as the tires you put on it.

To the PO, your best bet is to follow in the footsteps of Tasty Danish. Upgraded axles and differential will be very good insurance against tearing your driveline apart with super sticky tires.