chadronvette

I put the poly in my 72 over ten years ago. Made the road noise and engine noise much less. I also installed a complete suspension package from vettebrakes so I cannot comment on the body mounts improving handling.

PainfullySlow

Poly absolutely compresses, just nowhere near as much as rubber. In terms of hardness it is basically an intermediate option between aluminum (very hard) and rubber (very soft).

PainfullySlow

Thanks for your response. I will also be installing a complete suspension package at the same time...

loup68

Radial tires came to dominate tires for one reason, you could corner faster with them than the bias ply tires. However there is one major factor about radial ply tires being different than the bias ply's. A bias ply tire at it's limit in a corner would slowly skip sideways and you may have a chance to recover. Radials let you corner a lot faster, but once you reach their limit, they just let go of the road, with no warning, and you wipe out! Lou.

The13Bats

But radials won out and according to coker tire radials have less harsh ride than bias....

PainfullySlow

The fact that radials do not skip the way bias tires do is what allows us motorcycle racers to corner faster. We rely on the slide to get us pointed where we want to go =)

Some call it drifting, others call it pushing the tire. Really it is basically controlled crashing :-p

Anyway, I would take a radial tire hands down any day of the week.

loup68

I just remembered one other thing that bias ply tires did. They would nibble at imperfections in the road and unexpectedly dart sideways a little. Radials do not do that. Radials have less rolling resistance, I think, so also give you better gas mileage. Lou.