I now have INVO's - I am looking for more traction w/o sacrificing (too much) road noise and smoothness. You will love your INVO's.

 

That is what I am thinking. I had 600 rwhp BEFORE my current upgrade and I could spin through third - I guess - but it is pretty damm hard on INVO's. I am not changing my rim's so "I think" my best choice is the NT05's unless someone out there has a better "street and rain friendly" choice w/o feeling or sounding like, well, I am driving on runcraps. What DR's are available in Z06 stock sizes? I have looked at MT's and nothing? The NT05 looks VERY interesting as their data indicates the sound and ride will NOT suffer too much, wet traction - about the same as INVO's and acceptable - but Dry Traction is Excellent! Like I have said - I avoid rain - but living in S. Fla downpours pop up quick and out of nowhere.

Changing the gearing, as hard as it is to beleive, should improve the problem. I have a friend whom races cars, as a matter of fact, about 4-5 cars in ALL different classes. He is betting that their will NOT be a problem but a major improvement and a hell of alot funner on top of that.

If you look at it this way.............

1st Gear: I am going to spin. No question about it. No matter what I do.
However, I can moderate with a high 4.10 ratio and a good clutch, ie., RPS Street Twin. The 1st reaction is to slam "the pedal to the metal". With 4.1 I will NOT have to do that.

2nd: The mometum is well underway at 45-50mph. Moderate the clutch, grab, and evenly/slowly push down the pedal. Now I have traction and the extra 16.6% is helping me move along at a quicker velocity w/o spinning my tires.

3rd: Forget it. I am now over the speed limit or applying pedal pressure at will on the track.

The key is getting the momentum underway, having a very good tire, and not SLAMMING the gas pedal. If you can do this then the car is accellerating at a 16% higher rate of velocity.

 

^^^^^^^^^^
I can't agree with the rear end!! I've had the exact opposite experience each and everytime.

Went from a 3.08 to a 3.73in a Mustang tons more wheelspin.
Went from a 4.11 to a 4.44 more wheelsping and faster turbo spool.
Went from a 3.55to a 4.56 in a Cobra tons more wheelspin.

I've seen Vipers lower there final drive to help decrease wheelspin and EVO's put in longer first gears to help aid in wheelspin.


In the end someone show me a video of a Street tired vette 18" 19" rim from a stop getting traction with 700whp and a manual. I will bet you won't find such a video.

I would be interested to see how NT-05's hold up in your situation, but I can't believe they are as good as people are saying they are either.

 

Did all these happen on Drag Radials or Street tires???
So you made a gear change, knowing you had traction issues and did not put soft compound tires on??

 

It is a perplexing and very controversial subject. I will make a few phone calls on Monday but I am siding towards changing the tires and appraising the outcome.

If the tire change improves traction 10% I would be very pleased. Based on what I've read it seems they may do just that but you know how that goes - it may be BS. The NT05 compound seems it is as close to an "R" compound as one could get w/o going to a track tire. I am willing to make the investment and take that chance.

Logic (and many opinions) tells me leave the 3.42 or even a drop to 3.15 (if its available in the Z06 differential). I do wish there was a ratio in between the two at ~ 3.28

I will take it one step at a time and hope for the best.

 

 

I should have clarified some more. The changes were made for the benefit at the track and it was beneficial in all the cars at the track, especially the Rx-7.

On the street with my "BFG or Nitto DR's" my traction was worse then before the rear gear change.

For everyone saying it's all in the tire etc.........I agree I don't think you can get traction in a manual shifted 700whp Vette with a 18"-19" wheel in 1st gear PERIOD

I'm interested to see how these guys do with 700whp and NT-05's on a stock wheel. We'll see!!

The point about "you didn't put on a softer tire" would just substantiate a numerically higher gear decreases traction and that is my own experience too.

 

If you have the tire for hooking in 3.42's then you will hook with 4.10's and the same power level. If youre spinning so bad with 3.42's that the car isnt accelerating then 4.10's wont work either. The concept is that the car has to catch up to the rotation speed of the tire and then hook.....with 4.10's in 1st gear as I said thats less than 43mph, with 3.42's it wont hook until 54 or so. 4.10's dont allow as high a mph for a given engine RPM. If you dont understand that part then you wont get the rest of this.

Whats tiring about the same guys that do the bashing for this topic is the joke of seeing what tire they tried with these power levels and gearing. No duh you dont have traction with 4.10's and 450rwhp. Your street tire is the issue. Now let us hear what tire you tried to have traction with at 450rwhp and gears? What tire was it? Get a 305/35 MT Et street and a 11" rim and see if you can break them loose. Then try a 100 shot and retry.

POWERLABs just got a set of Nitto 555r2's for his car. He had PS2 tires before that which are pretty much the best tire you can have as far as street tires go. The traction difference is night and day and its apparent that guys like you dismiss that. I had 471rwhp/435rwtq on my car from a head/cam package with 4.10's. With the runflats, it would bake the tires through any of the 1st three gears and on a roll in of the throttle at 70mph. Using Nitto 555r2's I could dead in hook in 1st and with a 75 dry shot I hooked in second making 560rwhp.

When I added the ECS blower (12.5psi) to my car, it was able to bake the Nitto's so having 1500 miles on the second set, so I sold them to POWERLABs who reports his 600rwhp car is hooking just fine. I got Mickey Thompson ET steers in the same size and dead hook in 2nd with these tires. If you need to be told about the differences between the MT ET streets and the nitto 555r2, then I'm already done here. I can lean into 1st gear really hard. Comparing whats on my car with a runflat or even a big PS2 is a silly endeavor.

If you didnt have traction with 3.42's you wont have traction with 4.10's but if you were getting say spinning for 15 feet then hooking with 3.42's then people notice that 4.10's sipns for a shorter distance such as 10 feet. Thats a measurable gain. You cant say the traction was less in your situation since it wasnt measurable how bad you were spinning.

The math behind it is simple, the tires rotate at a slower speed vs the same engine rpm. I think it was nightstalker in this thread that said the tires are spinning faster.....100% false, they are physically spinning slower at the same RPM's.

As always my car is here for anyone to take a ride in and see for themselves but dont be bashing things when you selectively leave things out of the formula....the tire has everything to do with it. Get an r-compound, then bash if it doesnt hook. If you dismiss the r-compounds as mandatory then you lost the point long before I ever spoke.

 

Spin summed it up, so here are my 2 cents worth:

The Nitto NT05 tire you are looking at is a 200 Treadwear Street tire. I would imagine it will hook up worse than my Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s, which are a much more expensive, higher quality 200 treadwear street tire designed for and run on most exotic cars (Ferraris, Porshe GTs, the McLaren SLR).
So, no, you won't get the kind of traction you are hoping for. If you have run flats on right now, it will be MUCH better, but at 700WHP you won't hook up untill 3rd.
And if you can't hook up what you have now, don't bother wasting your money on gears... Traction first, THEN gears... Does your car get any better traction in 2nd than it does in 3rd? No? Then why would you want to regear it so that 3rd has almost the same effective torque multiplication as 2nd?

 

With >700 RWHP and traction issues, then you don't want to go with a more aggressive gear.

Buy some Hoosier R Compound tires from Roger Kraus Racing, have grooves cut and be done with it.

P.S. I know a thing or two about INSANE HP and traction.

 

The Nitto 555R2 is a100 compound and my Mickey Thompson tire is a 000 compound. A 200 compound tire isnt going to do much better than a runflat. The NT-05's appeal is the stiff sidewall for handling.

Gearing test......do a burnout using second gear and see how long it takes to hook.....it wont because taller gears make the tires spin at a faster speed. You will see on your speedo at 4000 or 5000 rpm that they will be spinning at 70mph and wont ever hook because the car will never hit that speed. Why does it not break the tires loose as easy? Because it doenst let the engine reach a higher rpm as fast where it makes more power thus in effect taller gears effectively reduce HP to the tires since the rpm's are always less for a given rotation speed. Gears make you faster for exactly the same reason, 4.10's are making the engine produce more HP when the rpms are higher. When 3.42's are at 4000 rpms 4.10's are at 4800....does your car make more HP at 4000rpm or at 4800rpm?

Most people get a power level and then think you handicap gears to retain use of a street tire.....lots of slow cars use this formula. Thats why street tire FI cars get left at the light by r-compound tire H/C cars.

If you run big power with less gear as you propose (due to this tire that has no traction), you will have a great roll-on racer with a crappy 60' and will lose everytime the tires break loose because like the 2nd gear launch, it wont rehook.

Gear for trap speed, add only enough power for the tire choice you have.

 

Mine was 471rwhp/435rwtq with 4.10's on a Z51 and dead hooked in first gear with the tires POWERlabs is now running. I had a ram 900 clutch at the time and would just drop it from 3000rpm and it would just spin 3 rotations and hook. Aintqik, Craigster05, and Welcome2try were all in my car and drove it too to verify this. Craigster05 was also in the car to see it hook in 2nd WOT with a 75 shot making 560rwhp. Aintqik ran the 345 nitto INVO's on his stroker only 403 with 500hp and it was sliding around in 3 gears. What tires did you use with 450rwhp?

I think you need to experience some r-compounds.

The 18x11 rim with a sticky r-compound tire is the single best mod you can do over 450rwhp. Adding 250HP wont beat this mod and no, you cant modulate the gas pedal to beat it either. 0-60 in 3 seconds doesnt come from power level, it comes from the tire and your right foot cant make a street tire stick.

 

i am no expert but i feel very safe in saying that lowering your gear is the last thing you want to do right now.. a good set of tires will give you the best results and best bang for the buck. also remember if you get your car to hook with that much power something else will have to give. the car will start to find the next so called weak spot and parts will start to wear out and break..

 

So do You experts think that I can drive My Vette on the freeway and streets{in dry weather of course} with My recently purchase M&H street/drag radials or is it "unsafe"?

Thanks,,George

 

I run on the hiway with them. The only downside is wear. This assumes full pressure in them. You will be all over the road with 23psi.

 

I put mine on to drive to the track but like spin said you gotta air em up or they will feel pretty wobbly when you change lanes.

 

Thank You!

 

And thank You also!!