I need to replace my tires and I've heard a lot of good things about the BF Goodrich Radial T/As. My current tires are 225/60/15. It seems that a lot of people are running 255/60/15s on their vettes - will those fit my wheeels? BTW, I have a '79 L-82 with the original aluminum wheels.

 

I am running 255/60/15 TA radials on my stock aluminum rims.


[Modified by The_Dude, 4:43 PM 10/19/2001]

 

Thanks! I just finished a lot of searching in the archives and found a large following of the BFG 255/60/15 T/As - I think that's what I'm going to go with. Now to find a local place to buy them from and the $$ to buy them with.

 

Not so fast! Do some more research. Let me ask some questions first:

1. Can you spend $120 to $150 per tire or are you limited to under $100?
2. Do you want performance or just something that looks fast?
3. Do you want road race performance cornering or just 1/4 mile drag tires?

If you say yes to the first part of all three questions then you don't want the radials for these reasons:

BFG T/A RADIALS are:

1. Temperature B rated which means that the the tire will loose significant traction when it heats up due to spinning.

2. S rated...well actually it's not even S rated, but they use that just to have some kind of rating. These tires are "balloon" tires with soft sidewall so when cornering there will be a huge amount of traction loss as the tires roll onto their sidewall to contact the road. Look at the specs:

measured rim width=7.5"
section width=10.2"
tread width=8.2"

The sidewall starts out at 7.5" at the rim, expands to 10.2" at the bulge, then shrinks down to 8.2" at the tread.

3. Treadwear of 400 which means it's a hard rubber tire and won't stick to the road no matter how many burnouts you do.

My suggestions:

1. Try to find a BFG Comp T/A R1 which has specs of 60 A A. It's a Z-rated tire with a stiff sidewall for cornering (it's actually banned from classification as a street tire in SCCA SOLO 2 Autocross competitions). It starts with only 6/32 of tread (about half the tread of a normal tire) under the assumption that you want performance because after heating and cooling a normal tire with 11/32 of tread it has lost significant traction half way through the life of it's tread. It's a trac A temp A which means when you get them spinning they won't loose a significant amount of traction. The problem with these are that they cost $120/tire and are no longer manufactured in a 255/60-15...I got some at discount tires last year...there may be more around.

2. Take a look at the Comp T/A VR4's. They are rated V340 A A and come close to the disired size in a 235/60-15. It's a smaller tire and V rated, but it's still a "balloon" looking tire like the Radial T/A with a .8" smaller tread. It will also lower your car about .25". The only real benefit is the V rating so the tire won't "roll" as bad during cornering and the softer rubber compound along with the A temp rating.

3. Look at the Yokohama AVS Intermediate in a 235/VR60-15 rated V160 A A which is much less of a balloon tire and with treadwear of 160 for a full 10/32 of tread will have some "stickiness" to the tire. It's also just $82/tire at tirerack.

4. Oddly enough Michelin makes a Pilot XGT HR4 in a 225/HR70-15 (the original size mounted on the vette's in the 70's) rated at 240 A A...it may be worth looking at, but they want $106 for them.

5. Pirelli makes a P600 in a 235/WR60-15 rated at 180 A A which may do the trick, but they want $136/tire.

That looks like the selection right now. You may want to look at some hoosiers if you can afford the nearly $200 price tag:

Hoosier DOT radial road racing tires in a P275/50ZR-15...the problem with these is the 11.2" section width which means you may need to relocate the parking brake bracket, or at least will need to grind it down so it doesn't tear a grove in the tire. Hoosier also has a P245/50ZR-15 which will fit, but also will lower your car by about 1"...but talk about performance...woo hoo!

Or, Hoosier DOT bias road racing tires in a P275/60ZR-15 with an 11" section width which is not quite as bad as the P275/50ZR-15's, but will require grinding the bracket, possibly relocating it, or optionally using a 1/2" spacer so the wheel mounts out farther...which causes another problem when the tire hits the fender skirt from bumps and wrinkles your fiberglass fender, so don't use a tire which sticks out past the fender unless you do some serious restrictions on suspension travel. This tire has a 9.5" tread width (compared to the typical 7" or 8" of other street tires) so it will be peaking out of the stock fender...but, maybe that's what you want?

Final word from all tire stores is you will need to buy new rims in the 17" or 18" or at some point in time there will be exactly zero, zip, nada, null, 0 tires to fit a 8" wide 15" radius rim.

Hope this helps.