Barbara_S

I will need to tune new racing shocks, and am thinking of buying a set of Nitto 555R drag radials and just use them up figuring out the shock settings. I could do it with the RII's but the 555Rs are another 20 less each and I'm guessing I will go through a set of Hoosiers trying to narrow in the right shock settings and this would cost a lot less to do.

tia,
Barbara

Davinss

The sidewalls on drag radials are really soft, so the usually don't work well for autocross. However an autocross or track tires works ok for drag racing.

drivinhard

Just my .02...If you race on Hoosiers, then that's your constant, and I'd tune my springs/shocks/camber with Hoosiers.

To directly answer your question, I've run the Hoosier DR at the drags, and I've run the R2 on the road course (and both on the street). The DR's are less stable on transient side to side loading, because of the softer sidewall. I for sure wouldn't use these as any kind of suspension tuning tire. At least run the R2 (I would tune on the tires you compete with).

Jim_Harrison

If want to save a little money you might think of buying a set of Kumhos

gkmccready

Tune on what you run on. Otherwise you're just wasting time and money. What works on one tire won't work on another. Heck, if you plan to run fresh tires (or scrubs) you need to tune on tires of the same age you're tuning for.

BTW, tire sidewalls are effectively springs, so anything as soft as drag radial sidewalls will definitely affect your results.

Barbara_S

Good things to consider.

Thank you all.

Gary2KC5

Actually, they don't work very well for autoX or road racing for the same reason (actually opposite)...track tires have very still sidewalls to increase lateral grip...thus the linear grip sucks. street tires would be better on the strip than road race tires.

Gary2KC5

Why don't you check out some used tires? After Daytona there should be a lot availible. I know Todd Z has some for sale.

Bimota Guy

I know you have your answer now, but for a real world example...I used to beat a guy running drag radials on his supercharged, Griggs suspended SVT Cobra in my F Stock SVT Cobra on Kumho V700s (back in 2002 or so.) I went for a ride with him and could tell he had some good driving skills, but the cornering was miserable. I took him for a ride in my car and he could not believe the cornering grip improvement. He stopped using DRs.

We both eventually got a lot smarter and bought C5 Z06s.

L98Terror

Answer, yes I have and they worked OK.

If I were you I'd at least by a set of scrubs off someone, way cheaper.

PushinTheLimit

Funny story about this... there is a guy locally that ran his WS6 with DR's in the back and street tires up front. He finally some old R6's and wanted to try them out. He ended up putting the DR's in the front and the R6's in rear

He didn't do that bad actually. I'm sure if he would've been on A6's all the way around he would've been much faster, but all in all, it worked for him. They were Nitto DR's by the way.

KBRVETTE93

Nitto 555R is the only drag radial with a side wall that is strong enough. Pretty much the same as the 555RII. Don't try it on other brands.

Mojave

What he said. The 555R is more like a sticky street tire than a real drag radial. While the sidewall isn't A6 stiff, it will certainly work. The tires are cheap, last a long time, and are very consistent start to finish.

**Warning-Don't try this with any other drag radial, like a BFG, as those are really soft**

The 555RII or NT01 are slightly better choices, but I know plenty of people who have gotten a lot of laps out of the 555R.

The Highlander

What should be the pressure in order not to eat them up on the track?

Fastguy

DOH! Barb, I have a set you can try, they are Nittos. Chris Y and I have autocrossed them plenty of times. This will kill ya, they were in the bed of my truck this morning!
I wish I had known, you could have just thrown them in your car. I live about 45 mins away if you want to swing by and try them out. They are 17" Nitto 555 DR's.

BrianCunningham

I've drag raced on my Hoosier autox tires,

they were anything BUT consistent