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.

 

to elaborate on my first post, my meaning of tires are a bandaid is this:

people always want to put big wide sticky tires on a car to make it grip or make it handle. yes, there are tires that are better than others, we all know this, but so many people buy big expensive tires as a bandaid to cover up their shitty suspension setup. I am not saying skimp on tires and drive an unsafe car. im saying that 99% of the people that think they need better tires for traction are wrong, because they are either ignorant to proper suspension setup, or they dont know how to drive their car.

point in case you ask? certainly. Look up FAST class drag racing. Fast stands for Factory Appearing Stock Tires. these are full sized boats of cars from the musclecar era running on oldschool stock width and sized bias ply tires. thats right OLD technology el cheapo bias ply tires. Ever seen a car on some narrow bias ply's do a wheelie off the line? its very impressive. How do they achieve this you may ask? SUSPENSION. Proper suspension is the NUMBER 1 upgrade that ANY car on the street can get. ESPECIALLY if you like taking corners hard. I guarantee you that an rx7 with proper suspension setup and the cheapest crappiest tires that pep boys has to offer will outcorner an rx7 with stock suspension and nice tires any day, and it will ride smoother to boot.

 

tyres plus suspension is what you really need. the reason i buy junkyard tyres is that i beat the **** out of them and i can't justify spending a lot of money on a tyre i'm going to destroy quicker than a lot of people. but when i do get junky tyres, i make sure they are good quality

 

I agree that I need tires and a suspension upgrade. Tires right now are cheaper for me as the suspension upgrade that I wanna do is gonna cost me an arm and a leg. I would rather break something in the drive line on good tires and replace it than wreck my car on crappy tires.
I don't mind buying junkyard or used tires, the only problem is that nearly every single tire is an all season one.

 

from what i have read, the sumitomo's are a good cheap tire for daily driving and/or corner carving, but i wouldnt know, im using the el cheapos from the local tire store. as for suspension being expensive, take a look into it before you completely rule it out. youd be surprised what new polyeurethane bushings in the front, and new rubber bushings in the rear would do. combine that with a good performance alignment, a strut tower brace (very cheap how-to in the archives that id highly recommend) and youll be cooking. Go even further and find some shocks and springs on craigslist, and its perfectly reasonable to get your suspension setup completely for 500 bucks assuming you do the work yourself.

 

Thats all well and good, I plan on doing that in the winter. In the end what it boils down to is my drive line, the expensive upgrade. I plan on buying a swap from grannyspeed or find a local shop to customize a rear end for me.

 

Something to avoid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koDUd...layer_embedded

 

OMG. I hope that never happens to me..
I guess he forgot to tighten up his rear end.