I know a larger sidewall and larger diameter will help maintain traction under acceleration because they can flex a bit, but are tires supposed to flex THIS much?

 

wrinkle wall slicks do! They are designed to do just that flex and hold traction. I love these types of slow motion captured shots. Way cool, even though i am not a drag racing fan

 

Oh so that's a special type of tire designed to do that? I figured it was a regular drag radial...

 

I take it you don't watch NHRA drag racing Ramy

 

probably a Mickey Thompson slick. Most common around. but it is a drag only tire. Only around 3-6 psi air pressure in the top fueler wrinkle walls. Don't know what you would run in a FD tire. I would imagine close to that.

My Trials Motorcycle uses 4 psi in the tires. They wraap around everything for traction Freakin gumballs!

 

Nope. In fact, minus my scheduled "Third Watch" and "The Shield" times, I don't watch TV at all. Ahh, the life (or more accurately the lack thereof) of a med student...

 

THere are two types of tires out there, that i know of, bias ply and radial. What you see up above is what you call bias ply. There are older technology in general, there where what came factory on everything up to about the 70s or so i would guess. They are designed to have a long contact patch on the road front to back and arnt very stiff. They dont have steel belts or the like that makes them stiff or anything. They are very soft tires and make for great traction in a straight line but have almost no sidewall stability whatsoever to them. Riding on tires like that feel like riding on two flat tires cause the rear of the car( if you only have two rear as bias ply) will sorta sway back and for once you get up to speed.

Radial tires are what you see on everything nowadays. they have all the steel, polyester, nylon, and other types of belts in them to keep them stiff. radial tires have a long patch form one side to another but not fornt to back. Radials are better for cornering but not as good at straight line drag.

 

Crusader_9x, that's some good info. Thanks for the explanation!

 

Lol thanx, i guess working in tire shops for the past few years has started to pay off.

 

yes

 

that looks coooool teehee

 

Yea def. looks hot. If I'm not mistaken, that's how it looks when you're beginning a 10.0 second 1/4 mile

 

Wrinkle walls don't flex like that because they are bias ply, they flex like that because they are designed to. The tire effectively becomes a spring that gets wound up on the wheel when the car launches. This allows the tire to absorb more force into its footprint without immediately breaking loose. Great for drag racing, terrible if you need them to stand up around corners or deliver any real braking forces.

 

Sorry for digging this one out but does any one know what front and rear tires this black 3rd gen is running?

 

LOL im trying to look for myself in the stands, i was there!! haha

Damn that car was fast, i believe the car ran a 10.1 on that pass.

 

From the photo I would say it is most likely a MT ET Street 26x10.5x16 or a 27x10.5x16.

Andrew