83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

It used to be that you could get some really decent tires in larger, 15” rim sizes… then with the popularity of 16’s, 17’s and 18’s lately they disappeared. If you wanted good 15’s you had to wait till someone like BFG made a run of R1’s for the pantara/cobra/classic Ferrari guys and snagging a few of those.

Lately there have been a bunch of new offerings available in larger sizes (as large as 295/50/15), like the firehawk indy 500, the Goodyear Eagle #1 and GT II, the Yokohamas….

Are any of these tires good enough to be considered a real performance tire? Maybe not like an all out R compound, but something close, a tire that a well setup car could run well at an autox or road course?

Are there any decent R compound tires still available in larger 15” wheel sizes?

RTFC

I have had this trouble on a truck of mine for a few years now. Its a full time work truck that I have fairly radically built but like to retain 15" rims with larger sidewalls for load carrying purposes. I used to run BFG Comp T/A's on it for years and they discontinued them about 4 years ago (275/60-15 on all 4 corners) so I have been stuck with mostly crap choices and a few limited "H" rateed tires that I have not been happy with. Just three weeks ago I put a new set of Hankook Ventus tires on it that came out recently that are finally a "V" rated tire again and am very pleased with the performance and handling of them. Check out Hankook for other more car oriented sizes.

Night rider327

iTrader: (13)

I'm very happy with my Yokohama avid S/T's. I don't know if I would call it a good auto X tire, but sure has alot of grip for very hard street driving in a country town with lots and lots of sharp turns, rattle snake curves (S turns), etc

Also has the best straight line traction of any real street tire that I have tried in the past. I'm running a 255/60-15...235/60-15 combo on my 88 camaro on 78 trans am 8" wide wheels.

IMO these tires beats the norm. BFG t/a's in handle and straight line traction by a long ways.

Hooks and hadles better than some goodyears I tried in the past, and a few other brands too

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Even though they’re an older design and slightly hokey/all season looking, the Avid S/T’s are on my short list. I’ve never run across someone that was unhappy with them and everyone seems to prefer them to the TA’s (FWIW, I had a set of radial TA’s that I was fine with… not the best handling tire in the world, but not awful either, much better then the old TA’s or older, softer performance tires that were available at the time).

On my 83 TA I always rand either 235/60 and 255/60 R1s (which as far as I know are no longer available), or some old Hoosier G60 (roughly 245/60) road race/autox tires and was always happy with them, I loved the look, and the sidewall and height was tall enough that I wasn’t prone to destroying them on the streets (DC metro area, where the state flower is the orange construction barrel)

I’ve heard a couple of people say nice things about the hankook ventus, but when I checked into them I found a lot of “they’re super hard crap” reviews of them… Sounds like I should add them to my short list also.

Based on what I’m seeing from the cobra guys (that tend to run big 15’s also, especially the 235/60 and 295/50 combination that I think I want to run on my car), the goodyears are the tire of choice for appearance (apparently way more treat per section width then any of the others), but from a handling perspective they seem to really like the Firestone Indy 500’s, so they are the 3rd tire on my short list…

Any more input? Basically, I’m looking for the 70’s Trans Am racer/Iroc racer/Muscle car look (probably 8 and 10” rims) that won’t embarrass me at the few autox’s that I run a year and possibly out on the road course every once in a while.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

I do like that the top 2 or so finishers in the autox part of all the last few “real street eliminators” (probably more of where my car would fit in rather then a serious autox car) were all on 15” rims and tires (one on my favorite, 235/255 R1 combination).

Really, I’m just looking for something that will behave better then the 18y/o, 245/50/16 eagle ZR’s (yes, the original tires) did at the autox last weekend, and if I could find something that works as well as the R1’s did in something resembling a real street tire I’d be thrilled.